Tuning Back In

I am sitting here at the keyboard in our silent little Orange Blossom Cottage, listening to the occasional far-off whooshing of a car off on the freeway and otherwise, nothing to be heard but the distant burble of the fish tank. 

I have been distant myself, more than I meant to be. Somehow, two years blipped past and I wrote not, shared not and burbled along in the my own little corner, trying to keep the wheels turning, doing dishes and laundry and dishes and laundry as life kept on. Situations kept on oozing into different shapes and the kids kept on growing into new versions of themselves and I kept stacking up post ideas and drafts and snippets of things that drifted across my mind. Things I meant to write about and needed to think about and ought to post about and would love to share and the the pile was so tall that I think it might have slid sideways and toppled down on top of my writer self. Writer-Me may have been here in this dark corner of the house waiting to post, buried sheepishly beneath all those intentions for quite some time now. It's nice to be back.

I am homeschooling 9th grade this year, head-on into high school with enthusiastically interested and yet unabashedly inexpert energy! Ru is reading wonderful classic literature: C.S. Lewis, Ivanhoe, Shakespeare, Defoe and Churchill and the things he is understanding and connecting together impress, delight and underwhelm me by turns. He is still after all, a normal 14 year old boy. Sometimes, he is brilliantly fresh and insightful and sometimes he just misses stuff. I am leaning in toward the promise of life being long, there being seasons for everything, subconscious knowledge still counting and my own role being just a beginning in the long line of teachers and guides he will have in life. My job is not to equip him with the whole body of knowledge, its just to keep his fire going, teach him some habits of discipline, and whet his appetite for the reams of things there are to know and learn. 

Everyone asks me if I am scared to be teaching high school and the truth is I'm not. Its closer to compatriot learning, he can understand and write about and read the things that I am interested in. I can imagine growing into adult friendship and an grown, peer to peer, life-share path. I am sure he will grow up and leave and differ and have areas of his life that he doesn't let me into but, I feel like he is increasingly a whole and separate person looking back at me bringing his own new things into the room and the conversation. Its encouraging and emboldening to me to know that I don't have to know all the things because he is going to be such a different person from me, living in such a different world than the one I grew up in. I also feel encouraged by the fact that his own freedom is allowing him to enrich his own high school experience and by turn our family and the rest of the students below him. 

“Our children should feel that they can peacefully say anything: questions, doubts, criticism, points of view. They should feel that we are genuine interested in what they do and think. We should not deprive them of privacy, but all our words and conduct should encourage an open relationship. One cannot overestimate the value of such relationships.”
― Sister Magdalen

So, that's a little peek into the velvety corners of my inner world in the dark of the night here in California. I hope that you are all well. I have missed you. I hope to pick up the loose threads here and weave onwards, mending the holes and filling in the gaps.  

12 Years Old, Ru's Taste

Yesterday my oldest son stepped to the brink of coming-of-age and turned 12. I can hardly believe we are here, teetering on the edge of the teen years. Its both refreshing and a little demoralizing to realize that here, in tween land I feel not a whole lot more grave, impressive or wise than I did when I first started parenting. I know a lot more than I did when I first started trying to be a mama to this boy who was handed to my unripened and eager self but most of what I know is how insufficient I am, how much his childhood is about me growing up and how very humbling and human it is to try to be anyone's mother. I am comforted that I am not all jaded or superior and that I am still playing, discovering, laughing-out-loud and even running and climbing trees but I am amazed that at 37 I don't feel very much like I have a corner on anything. I have learned to love parts of parenthood that scared and repulsed me (toddlers who talk back, vomit, and hosting playdates) and I have cherished the pieces that I always knew I would love (the hugs, playing sick nurse, making birthday cakes) and through all of it I am learning so much.

12 years ago, what an exhausting, scary, amazing day

Reuben, one his second day of external life.

 I am figuring out how to be tougher than I knew I was, more vulnerable and open and changeable than I ever have been and man, has this boy blazed the trail in teaching me these things! I don't know how it would have gone if I had started with sweet, little complacent child as my first but I am pretty sure that I wouldn't have learned what I needed. God knew I needed this spitfire of an action figure with a taste for leadership in my life. I needed my world rocked, I needed skateboarding and baseball and graphic novels, to pet more dogs and ride more horses and hear more knock-knock jokes than I could ever have prescribed myself. I am a different woman. I sure love this kid. I love who he is, what he brings to our family and whatever it is he is about to show me about his adolescent make-a-difference, live-an-adventure self.

Here is a little peek into his world, on his second day of being 12 years old.

Reuben Loves:

1. Babies: He's always loved babies but the older he gets the sweeter it is that he hasn't lost his love of holding them, making them smile and knowing just what little things they need. He's a fantastic older cousin and will make a top drawer babysitter someday.
2. Baseball: He's played steadily in Little League for years now, never missing a season and I am amazed to see that he still is wistful over winter when there are no trips down to the ball diamond. He's a sports kid for sure and baseball has been his game, although interestingly he has no real interest in following professional games or players.
3. Greek mythology: He has drawn up his own family trees, read oodles of legends and stories and can tell  you all the details of each of Hercules' labors. This inclination made him great fun as a fellow tourist in Italy. So many stone reliefs were unveiled before our eyes because he recognized the stories.
4. People: He loves groups, laughter, conversation, friends and even strangers. Always has, always will. Card carrying extrovert. 
5. Avocados: He's always loved them but now that we live in California, the land of fresh avocados and can even get them at our farmer's market it seems like a legit part of him. We regularly split on together as a snack...half for him, half for me...although these days Pom in horning in too.
6. Swimming: We are about to gear up to go back to swimming lessons like we did last year before summer. Ru can hardly wait! He regularly needs two or three scoldings to get him out of the water after lesson has finished. He loves to swim, loves water and has great facility as a swimmer too. Fun to watch him learning to dive and perfect the trickier strokes now.
7. Monopoly: This is his favorite board game. We have the original and two other variations and he loves them all with equal fervor. I think this one may be genetic, it was my own mad love as a child too. I may have infected him. 
8. Zinnias: They are always his favorite bouquets at the farmer's market and he plants them every year himself. He can never have just one variety and he's always totally impressed when they bloom. They look good in the packet, but even better in the flesh. He's already got a couple of varieties ready to grow this year. 
9. Audiobooks: We are always listening to at least two together as a family and Ru is always my ready reminder to remember to turn it on during long drives. He's always loved story, hearing, imagining, telling and reading....its in his blood.
10. Mowing the lawn: This has become one of his personal chores over the last year. Its pretty cute to see him relishing the mowing of our teeny little postage stamp of a front yard. He sometimes mows it before it really needs it again just for the joy of the experience. I have just begun to experiment with having him string trim as an extra connected privilege.

Reuben Loathes:

1. Cooked squash: All the varieties get the miss. I have to say, I try to make sure nobody knows in our household but I hated cooked squash as a kid. I eat it some now but I always thought it was so squishy and far too sweet for my liking. Not sure what gets him about the whole family of squashes but he sure does skip them all preferentially. 
2. Editing papers: This is his second year writing papers for me and although he enjoys the craft of putting down his thoughts he really doesn't like editing and drafting the next rounds. I drag him through the process of polishing the piece and adding the next layer each time, he'd much rather just bang out the story and be done, fussy he is not. 
3. Star Trek: We showed the boys the Star Wars movies this year and so we thought as a compliment it might be fun to experience a little Star Trek too. Nope. Nope. Nope. We showed Ru the first episode and it freaked him out so much that he can't even calm his skeeves down enough to consider discussing the show. Way too scary. Ooops.
4. Origami: His younger brother's maddest passion completely drives Ru bonkers. He can never stick with the pattern long enough to get all the folds right or crease the corners evenly and he doesn't really care to. We are all given things we love, precisely folding paper is not one of his loves. 
5. Saving money: He loves making money, he loves spending money, he doesn't really enjoy or value saving money. Hopefully, this will come with time but at least we don't need to worry about any miserly tendencies! 
6. Home days with no exciting plans: His least favorite days are the days when we have nowhere to rush off to and nobody coming over. Homebody he is not. 
7. Snakes: Something about moving Out West to the land of genuine rattle snakes has made him very nervous about the whole family. Of course, a few tweeking younger brothers have exploited his aversion and perhaps deepened it with their repeated surprising faux rattle sounds on hikes.
8. Wearing a helmet: He loves to ride his new bike and still enjoys skateboarding along with playing on his new ripstick he got for his birthday but he hates wearing a helmet. He is a devil-may-care child and doesn't see the point of a lot of fuss so we have to be vigilant for him and keep on the reminders. He also runs warm and I'm sure a helmet doesn't help keep him already toasty temp down.
9. Early bedtimes: He loves to stay up late and has no natural inclination to sleep and going to sleep early because of some scheduled need drives him batty. He'd rather flip back and forth in bed for an hour than actually go to sleep early! Total waste of time.
10. Scary movies: He still really doesn't like scary films although he is slowly easing away from his previous jumpy relationship with any plot tension. I am not much for encouraging scary movies anyhow to I feel like his tenderheartedness can just stay right exactly as it is and I won't mind at all.

Ru, Here and Now

 Time to stop for a minute and think about this oldest boy of mine. What is he made of at the moment? Snips and snails and puppy dog tails undoubtedly but there are always a few unique ingredients if I take the time to pause and notice. Here's the rundown:

Ru Loves:

• Dogs and calves. Dogs have always been his heart animal (and interestingly his Chinese birth year animal too) but lately he's been open mouthed and willingly slobbered on for any calf he sees in addition to all canines that happen by. I think the calf attraction comes from reading a lot of Farmer Boy and hearing so much about Almonzo's yearing to have a team of calves of his own to train. 
• Stories of all kinds. I have yet to outlast his attention span...EVER, while reading to him from books. He frequently and eagerly requests rote, oral storytelling too and never wants them to stop. He will sit with books for hours on end, flipping through them and imagining the plots and we have several multi-cd books on disc that he listens and listens and listens too....every naptime, every nighttime, and most mornings if we end up in the car. Mommy eventually had to plea bargain for afternoons to be Mommy audio material time when driving. Pretty cool problem. The boy has ink in his veins. I like it.
• Graphic novels. His particular passions involve the trio of Tin-Tin, Asterix and Obelix and Calvin and Hobbes although he'll dip into Star Wars, Zita the Space-girl or Garfield on a whim too. He heads right for the comic book shelf in the library and spends all his time there every week.
• Playing outdoors. He is out every single day, no matter what the weather. He does all kinds of stuff...messing around with sticks, digging, lying on the lawn watching the sky, climbing the apple tree...etc. He loves to be out and he has no trouble making up his own fun. Makes a mama proud. :)
• Avocados w/ lime juice and salt. He and I are the house avocado lovers. Anytime he sees me preparing the slice one open he plea bargains for half of it. I don't mind sharing though since it makes me so happy to have him share my love the divine "alligator pear." We sometimes snuggle up together and split one for a snack, half a lime for each of us and a few cranks of the sea salt grinder and then we eat them with matching demitasse spoons, right out of the shells. Mmmmm.....
• Video game arcades. A has been taking the boys out for a special one-on-one Daddy Outing in rotation and Ru almost always wants to go to the huge video arcade a few towns over. He calls it his "most secret, favoritist place" and claims to be withholding it's identity and location from the rest of the family, lest we all discover the deep happiness to be found there. He pronounces it "art cave" which makes me want to giggle every time.
• Lemonade. Whenever he's allowed a special drink for a treat at the store or a restaurant he always asks for lemonade. It used to always be orange juice but I think the tide may be turning. I foresee a sidewalk stand in our future one of these days.
• The t.v. show How It's Made. He's obsessed! I'd never heard of this show until we accidentally bumped into it on Netflix on a whim but boy do I hear about it now. I hear it is a cable show from The Science Channel, basically the premise is that they take you into factories or wherever an object originates from and show you the nuts and bolts of how it is created. We've seen: snowboards, guitars, pencils, Cheerios, paintballs, kayaks and lots more, and I don't think this trend is going to be over anytime too soon. We've still got several episodes left. Love to watch his curiosity and hear him re-telling all the details to A over the dinner table later that night.
• Scaring people. He has discovered the fabulous comic effect and power-tinged elements of the startle reflex. He's far too good at scaring his little brothers who are frankly a big jittery around him now and far too bad at scaring his father and I who always give him bland reactions. This interest hits the nexus of two of his favorite topics at the moment: joking and power. Interesting to watch him struggle to understand and agreeably execute the old "Boo!" trick.
• Opening the car doors. A has started letting Ru have the car keys to go open up the doors on mornings when we're all trying to rush out of the house together. He feels like a million bucks to have his daddy's big jangly key chain and the responsibility of herding his two younger brothers into their seats.

 Ru Hates:

• Soup. Once in a fit of sobbing angst he told me that I was terribly mean because I always pick on him by doing horrible things like always making soup for dinner. Poor A (a real soup lover) had a good laugh over that one, I haven't actually quit making soup all together but knowing that it will be completely boycotted by the younger set has taken my output down a bit. Ru won't touch the stuff beyond the obligatory mouthful which goes down with much shuddering, no matter the ingredients. 
• Tension in movies. He calls it "scary movies" but the term misleads most people...we're not talking bad guys with guns and masks...he just means scenes of any tension or danger or stress or worry or fear. He can't handle it. It's fine in books, but these kinds of feelings in movies are too potent for him. I thought this was just a little kid thing until Dee grew past him in his tolerance level. We'll frequently notice now that Ru will leave the room in a dead panic and refuse the rest of a movie Dee is happily watching with no issues whatsoever. It's just the way this boy is wired. Tension gets to him.
• Going to sleep. Still not a fan of naps or actually bedding down at night. He likes to keep himself awake as long as possible...and in the morning he's nigh unto impossible to rouse. Groggy to the core. Silly little mouse. Once he's down he sleeps hard and long and doesn't rouse at all but man, he sure does fight it.
• Girls. We've reached the legendary stage when girls are icky. Although, to be fair...when coaxed a bit he will admit that he's not so much repulsed by them as interested and hurt when they giggle and run away or tease him. He really means he can't figure girls out. He insists that if the baby is a girl there will be hell to pay. Yesterday at lunch I floated the idea that maybe a sister would be good, "She could tell girls to be nice to you and help you understand them. And even if no other girls would be your friend, she would, right?" He seemed pretty into that idea. Again, Dee is so different here. 
• Waiting for things. He really hates postponements and having people put him off or make him wait. Patience is not his strong suite. He is a bit prone to pestering, even after he's been told yes if the desired outcome doesn't happen fast enough. Trying to work on teaching him a bit about respect and patience and delayed gratification. Big lessons.
• Taking his vitamins. He has all chewable, candy tasting vitamins and he says he likes the flavors, but every single morning I have to watch him to be sure he actually eats what I hand out instead of palming them into his pants or dropping them on the floor or shuttling them to the kitchen on his dirty plate. Still not sure what that's all about.

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Life Potpourri

Little potpourri of our life lately. Today was a good day. 

Big trucks in the yard much to the glee of my boys bearing three lumberjacks with cigarettes clamped in their grins, lustily removing trees and adding sunlight to my garden plot. Yay light! Amazing when you just call professionals and then they just come do work for you. I am not used to white collar life.

I had a long chatty visit with my aunt, watched the baby taking teetery steps across the living room and gently watered my tiny sprouting seeds that are living so very happily on the radiator in the front window. The potted gardenia we bought in the grocery store recently (the world's most suicidal plant) is suddenly blooming and scenting the whole sunroom. Victory delayed is a few levels deeper.

Then I baked two chocolate cakes from scratch in preparation for the world's most intimidating prospect....my first Fairfield county child birthday party. Saturday we'll be throwing open the doors and welcoming all of Ru's little friends to a circus extravaganza and I will not panic! I can hardly wait. Anyhow, the cake cakes are done. (I started to bake only one and realized that I needed way more cake than that.)

The weather is finally warm and suddenly I am awash in happy smells and misty rainy mornings. We're jacket on/jacket off fiends and we can hardly think up a reason to stay indoors when pressed. Good problems.

Ru Snapshot

Today the beginning of a new bevy of lists. Kids tastes and interests, even their most passionate ones, change like the wind. At the moment...this is a snapshot of my oldest son.

Ru Likes

avocados

(he and I scoop avocados out of the shells with spoons together)

sweets

forklifts

 chocolate milk

"fixers" (repairmen of all stripes)

taking pictures 

skateboarding and skateboarders

pudding

Aunt Gigi's apple cake

 buses

baking things

dinosaurs

farmers

being read to

(we're working on Little House In The Big Woods)

sausages of all kinds

plain cheese pizza (I am mortified)

weed whackers and leaf blowers

dogs, of all kinds

Darth Vader

salad

helping A take out the garbage

marbles

painting (both walls and watercolors)
St. Marcellin cheese

snow

having a knife at dinner

drinking water

his flip-flops 

(he's very sad about the non flip-flop winter footwear custom)

salt on his food....lots of salt

mopping the floor

washing dishes

peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Ranch dressing

Ru Can't Stand

tomato sauce on his pasta

fish of any kind

taking a nap

having his food cut up for him

long socks

zipping his coat up 

(he prefers to wear the whole thing flapping open, hanging by the hood from his forehead)

soup

having anyone in the room while he's dressing

having anyone think he's "dumb" (his current paranoia)

mangoes

waiting for winter

being put on the spot

dried pineapple

pants that are too short