Growing 32

I have begun my 32nd year. 

There are 32 teeth in an adult's mouth naturally...should his wisdom teeth grow in straight and strong. I am here standing beginning my 32nd year and watching my baby get his first two teeth at exactly the same time. I feel like I've cut quite a few ivories myself this year in the development of my character and personal growth.

This last year has been a year of big spiritual understanding for me, a year of dreams, a year of finally feeling like I grasped some shred of motherhood, a year for cracking open myself and understanding pieces of humanity and myself that have puzzled me for ages. It has been my maiden voyage into the role of educator, a year of discovering nutritional health and healing and a confirmation of my household as a place where multiple men will be born and come of age. I feel wiser this year, more hopeful, rooted, and more pleased with who I am becoming than ever before. I am letting go of fears I never knew were poisoning me, opening my inner door to hope and love and freedom of a richer kind and learning  the beginnings of what it means to say no from a place of deep health and warmth and positive energy.

He has two teeth!

Newtown happened on my birthday this year and I've had more than one person tell me that they are "so sorry" this happened on "my" day. While I understand the sentiment I feel in some ways like it is also appropriately emblematic. Life and growth don't happen when things are simple and peaceful. Those are time for reflection and soaking in warmth. True strength is made perfect in weakness and true beauty is only shown in contrast to broken ugliness. I'm not asking life to hand me trouble or sadness or calamity but I am expecting that what God gives is my intended spiritual exercise and I am slowly learning to unclench my fists, look for love and resist nothing...even the things that need to change.

Roses...which came to the door for me from my parents and sisters. Love with petals on. 

As my state heals I am praying for growth in the healing.... for love to abound and out of it for people to find hope and peace and great vigor. Life is a miracle, however speckled with pain and darkness....the bright glimpses in between are shot through with incredible stuff that I lately can't even express because it is so beautiful and I increasingly feel so lucky to be a part of it all. 

Stairs? Check.

Somebody climbs. 

This week he made it to the top  of the stairs that connects the downstairs with the second floor for the first time. All self propelling....zip, zip, zip, right up  there. No pauses, no refunds.

Its official. He's a climber. Let the Olympics begin!

Still working on teaching him how to back down them again. Might want to get serious about those lessons right about now, eh? 

He's a wild one. Fits right in.

Intergenerational Parenting

You know that old saying about how it "takes a village to raise a child?" I have always had mixed feelings. I mean, really...people use it to say that somehow parenting their child is everyone's business and for real, how reasonable is that in some ways. It feels lightly invasive (everyone should be all up in my parental business) and also a bit helpless  (I can't parent my own anyhow...nobody can!). And although I really like people and I'm super borderline, on the Myers-Briggs scale I am an introvert. For folks like me, the idea of parenting posing as the ultimate group project (Man, did I hate those in school!) is a little headache producing. Blech. Can I just go off in my own little corner now?

A's Mom with my neice

Yes, except that there's something to it! Of course we all are responsible for our own families and sometimes its really great to be able to make your own choices about your children's upbringing, there is great comfort and sometimes even brilliant wisdom in the input of other people. Today, I'm vouching especially for the wisdom of the older crowd.

When I was growing up I lived most of my young childhood a ways away from my grandparents but, I was raised by a mom who really cared deeply about inter-generational interaction. My parents weren't perfect but they were spot on about some things. This is one of those things that I so appreciate.

A's uncle with Ru and my other neice

Even though my grandparents were far away, I had a fair amount of time with them (my parents made visits, phone calls from a very early age, letter writing and lots and lots of photo viewing a big priority) and also lots of great time with psuedo-grandparent types who went to our church, lived in our neighborhood or were friends of the family in some other way.

I am saddened by how much I see current society segregated by age and I am cheered by the fact that although its weird to mix the generations in a social setting, when I initiate on behalf of my children or myself, people are almost always very receptive. Yes, and I have three sets of incredibly caring, and involved grandparents, despite the fact that my children are also far away. That's a pretty lucky break to begin with. Having living grandparents is in no way a given.

A's dad, wedged in our armchair with three of his grandkids

My painting group ladies are half young moms in my own stage of life and half older generation mentor types who spend precious minutes every week talking earnestly to my children about whatever crosses their little minds and tickling my baby under his chin to watch him smile. We also rub shoulders with a couple of neighbors and there are of course several warm grandparent types at our church that wink at our boys and ruffle their hair every time we see them. Our babysitters are also both women who have raised their own little ones and are now pouring a bit of themselves into my babies.

When older folks love on my kids and "help me raise them" I am amazed at how much more I trust their opinions, enjoy their company and am warmed and encouraged by their very non-judgmental attitudes. They have done it all, come up with brilliant plans for keeping pacifiers in and lost their minds during the teething phase and told kids things no mother should ever speak out loud. Such is life. And their children have all grown up, they have a little distance on the all consuming brain-sucking child rearing bit and are able to chuckle about many of the catastrophes they survived. Oh how I love that!

Our wonderful neighbor, reading with Ru after we had her over to dinner

I love the old fashioned tips older folks have, the way they help my little ones learn to speak quietly, move gently and listen more carefully, I love that they think my no-t.v. way of life is fabulous, I love the way the very positive and strengthening attitude they have about even the childhood conundrums they haven't got any solutions for, I love how they encourage my children to be respectful and mannerly, I love that they really appreciate a kid just being a kid, I love that they don't mind sticky fingers, that they know babytalk and big-boy elitism and can move smoothly between them and I love that they're available wherever I'll end up. My own parents and A's are a special form of precious but, folks of their generation and beyond are a never to be overlooked bonus. There are few other things I want for my children relationally  than an inter-generational ease, and a genuine desire to connect to and understand people of varying ages. Try it out, you might find it as buoying as I do.

I dare you to adopt a few grandmas!

And Then He Was Four

 Well, it was a positively gorgeous weekend, blazing sunshine, honest-to-goodness hot weather at points and bright blue skies. Not a bad way to celebrate turning four!

We went into the city and strolled around, enjoying the cheery feeling of New York in the spring, took in the circus, bought sidewalk churros and "smelled the flowers." (just like Ferdinand)

Then on our way home we stopped at the local skate shop and A won Coolest Dad of the Year by buying Ru a genuine skateboard, deep desire of his heart for a year or so now. He was a pretty happy boy.

We rolled into our own parking lot in front of our unit and found birthday packages on the stoop to carry indoors with us...and then on to birthday cake, music, present opening and jolly well-wishing birthday phone calls. He slept pretty deeply that night.

And now he's four! Four! I can't believe it! For his birthday he got a camera, a skateboard, a pair of sunglasses and some gardening tools (among other things).

I have suddenly reached the point at which my children start accumulating their own "stuff." We've largely been free of that until now. There are assorted toys and books but nothing of any great quantity belongs to either child, just their special animals they sleep with pretty much. I am going to have to figure out where individual kids special belongings can live. I am not prepared for this...time to mentally and physically re-arrange for the kid stage instead of baby/toddler world.

What I Once Hated

"There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and forty-eight."  ~Ezra Pound

Just thinking today about how fabulously relieving it is that things do not stay the same. Change is in the wind (seasons, new child, new house, new job....etc. etc.) and I find myself thinking about and release that there is in the possibility of something else. Its great to not be boxed in, eh? I love that about being a grown-up...if you don't like something, you're in charge and you can change it. Gotta love that power over your own destiny.

In that spirit. Here's a lovely little list of things I once thought I hated and now really enjoy:

1. Horseradish. Once a nasty, bitey condiment that made my nose sting repulsively and seemed odd to even to stock in your pantry and now a dearly loved addition to tender beef roast dinners. I have A's family to thank for this one.

2. Sports. I used to be one of those wretched jock-hating, doughy, bitter people who expressed her own lack of physical self-confidence in opposing all sports and sporty people and any vaguely sport-like activity. I grew up. I am still no gym rat or jock-chick but, I hope my sons learn to appreciate sports and try a few of them and I have taken up watching The Super Bowl and keeping my ears pricked about The World Series.
 
3. Poetry. Once upon a time I thought poetry was all eye-rollingly sappy or else make-your-head-hurt boring. Yeah. I'm over that. See: Jane Kenyon, for poetry that can keep me up at night, its so lovely.

4. Sushi. Call it New York City sophistication rubbing off or foodie education or just plain wishful thinking becoming reality. I always tell people that the first time I tried sushi I thought it was disgusting, the second time I choked it down and the third time I thought it was alright but the fourth time I was irreversibly hooked. Its worth it to keep trying something sometimes.

5. Classical music. Put this in the same category as poetry, high class stuff I didn't have any interest in. All my growing up I thought the whole world of classical music was a complete yawn. BOOOORING. And now? I love The Nutcracker at Christmas, feel all cozy about Fur Elise (because its my middle name) and love to hear The Moonlight Sonata or Vivaldi's Four Seasons rippling through the house...I feel like a grown-up.

6. Autobiographies. I remember as a kid my mom urging me to read some autobiographies of people I admired and see what I could learn from their lives and thinking "Puhleeze! Ick!" Fiction seemed like the thing to me when I was growing up. Now, somehow, real life seems so much more exciting and promising than pretend worlds and those who have accomplished great things are incredibly inspiring to me. I read a lot of autobiographical stuff now.

7.  Research. I used to think the very idea that someone could go into such a mind-numbingly boring profession was completely daft. Research? I could hardly think of anything more blah to spend your life on. I keep a mental list of questions I wish I knew the answers to, from medical mysteries to philosophical conundrums that seem statistically answerable, just in case I ever find myself in research. And clearly, I'm a bit of a research hound in my own everyday life too. Chalk it up to "Ways A Has Made Me A Better Person."

8. Petunias. I used to think they were this sort of boring, stinky flower with weird pubescent, sticky stems that were over-used and pathetically fragile. I now appreciate how easily a carefree petunia can fill an empty spot in the annual border and how reliable a standard they are in the garden historically...and also, I found heirloom, scented petunias, a forgotten flower of great brilliance.

9. Canned fish. I always thought these were nasty little, bone-filled, really smelly odd kind of food. And then I discovered, extra tiny sardines, boneless and skinless, packed in olive oil....MMmmmm.....so tasty and so amazingly nutrient dense. The best way to eat them is with a teeny cocktail fork, right out of the tin.

10. My ankles and my forehead. Its true. Once I hated parts of my body so much that I told A I'd have them amputated if there was a plausible way to pull it off. I think, having babies changed the way I felt about my body and getting older and understanding beauty more thoroughly helped me learn how to frame my physical person in more pleasant ways. And I read somewhere that having a high, baldy forehead like mine is a sign of Native American ancestry...(which I have!)...and that made me feel cool.


It feels really good to get older and have your world change. I'm looking forward to even more of it as I go! May the sands ever shift....