On the granite coast, I kneel down to see layers of round shapes in a tidal pool: the glistening curve of blue beach glass, ground shell, bits of marl, littoral litter. It is the texture of a cold and unhemmed coastline, a study in extremes.

Here, you have to hold on to your life. You have to blend in to avoid being hunted, unbruised by the pounding waves, while managing to stay wet in the face of sun and wind, maintaining your heritage by staying pretty in order to attract the opposite sex. Your existence is hinged on the passage of time, good genes and pure luck: will you survive until high tide?

This little intertidal oasis, paradoxically gorgeous, has a rainbow of life crawling within it: red, brown and green tranlsucences, bumpy lumberers, glittering gems, but it is growing stagnant by the minute. At noon, the water is warming up under the intense sun; in fact, it’s so sensuous to lie in the small ripples at the rim of the pool that you can hardly tell, with eyes closed, where the water ends and the balmy air begins. Then a breeze reminds you, as a shadow sheds some cool on your skin.

The estuary beyond the dunes, nursery for marine life, reminds me less of motherhood than these beautifully unprotected cavities. Here, time is compressed. Weeks become seconds. With little time to think, intuition develops. I slowly begin to trust my intuition as it gains conviction, but the experience that feeds it is time that’s lost: will I still be here by high tide?

I’m scraping dried droplets of Danimals yogurt off the monitor and keyboard on our old iBook that we retired to Ford. It has served as his personal, portable Harry Potter and Bil Nye cinema for about six months or so, and it’s seen better days: like, when responsible adults used it. Chas has popped off the keys many times; I’ve rescued some letters from the dustpan more than once. And in the center of the browser I see a large rainbow-colored diffraction that is likely a dent made by a Matchbox car. My guess is that Chas disaggreed with the content?

At any rate, here I am using the kid’s laptop, because my Powerbook’s hard drive died. Blip. Just like that.

One drawback to blogging in the wee hours, as I do, is that my time is short at the computer. I sit down, type, nearly fall asleep, and then fall asleep. Hopefully, somewhere in there, I’ve recorded something important about my children or my daily experience (I’m trying to remember little things that I might otherwise forget, if I didn’t take the time to write).

So, while I’ve been dutiful to record moments of firsts and little epiphanies, nature walks, whatever, I’ve been forgetting to do the necessary backup work: I’ve been forgetting to back up my work. And I can’t say I haven’t been warned. Damon’s raised eyebrows more than once, pointing his finger at the hardware before going to bed. But it’s in his nature to back up his machines every night, to dock into that little corner of his office, rejuicing fones and updating files, compiling this and that, reconfiguring hard drives, installing this, extracting that, blah blah blah. It’s all so left-brain.

But look at me, the right-brained artist, the distracted mother, using the high-maintenance, technical, inorganic hyperjournal. It’s like asking a Moose to gether nuts for ye coming winter: sure, it can be done, but why bother? And what do moose eat, anyway?

What I need is a good squirrel, I guess. To keep me from losing another six months of priceless data. Actually, and FYI: some data may be recovered for $500-700. Just to drive the point home: Don’t be a moose. BACK IT UP!!!

I am sitting on the grassy slope, keeping an eye on the kids and our bikes. Chas is lying on his back, arms wide, laughing at the twilight and the moon. Ford is networking with another stranger. They’re wild and free. I’m in a funk, but Damon encouraged this bike ride. And here we are, downtown, waiting for the bats. Emotional management.

A colossal thunderhead looms over downtown, rolling south. It’s insides churn with lightening. We pack up the kids and head back, weaving through pedestrians on the bridge. Half of them are holding camerafones to the sky. Passing them, we feel a headwind as the storm sucks up our warm air, wafting guano up from beneath the bridge: intense and murky, like cultured warm beef agarose.

Faster we pedal back, past the biggest pillowfight I’ve ever seen, diffusing with hoopla under police megafone. I want to be in it, to detox. I can’t clip through the shadows fast enough for all the angst. Instead, I whiz through the trees wondering whether my kids will grow up as moody as me. While some parents hope their children become pro basketball players, I hope my children become rational problem-solvers. Fortunately, I am married to one. The odds are even, I guess.

I watched you carefully this afternoon, at the lake, while your brother threw a fit about his ill-fitting swimsuit. You were so content to walk the length of the short sandy ledge, back and forth, cautiously. When my busy eyes returned to you, I found you pouting, somehow affected by something I missed, ready to cry, but so willful not to. My eyes flinched and I bit my lip, but you stood there facing the sun and let your feelings rest with a deep sigh and a frown to the ground. Even when I was on alert, a bear-sized yellow lab lumbered up and grabbed the football you found, right out of your hands. The nerve! You YELLED at him, and pointed to “MUH BALL!” When the dog walked away, you looked at me so desperately. I had to do the impossible, and explain to you that it wasn’t really your ball after all.

But then, I was fortunate that you are nineteen months old, you let your feelings go again, as I pulled you into the cold lake and encouraged you to splash. You upshifted to rowdy, and the raucous splashing started, drenching my shirt and sunglasses and soul with chilly wet abandon.

The other day, you were in the lake right here with the two boys. You were frustrated that they kept swimming to and from the diving platform without you. So I watched you meditate through your approach, but always kept two hands behind you: sure enough, you walked all the way out to the platform, until your little button nose went under water, just before the metal ladder. When I scooped you up, I saw fearlessness in your chattering, toothy smile. You are so courageous and unfettered in the water. As I laughed and nuzzled my face into your neck, I felt pride mixed with fear: I can’t leave you for a moment near water. You have dived into our bathtub, climbed into the kitchen sink, taken off towards the waterfall at the creek, traipsed along the edge of every fountain, submerged your own head (while lying face-down!) in the bathtub and stood in the rain and in the shower: completely in love with the feel of water around you. I’m so thankful we don’t have a swimming pool, but really, it takes less than two inches of water.

While you were getting ready for bed tonight, I handed you your football so I could attend to Ford. While I brushed and cleaned and put on pajamas, you threw the ball high into the air over your head, over and over again. It would disappear and you’d laugh like a robust Vince Vaughan, and it would fall five feet in front or behind you. Then you threw it up a foot or two in the air, and you caught it! And you caught it again. You did this like you’ve been doing it for months. Have you? When I applauded, your joy noticed the audience, and you joined me in clapping, laughing even louder. And afterwards, you picked the football back up and threw it high again, catching it on the return.

For every day that I’ve forgotten to read to you, or let your wet diaper pickle your bottom, I’ve been rewarded with these little hints of determination. It’s proof that there’s a lot of nature to match nurture. It’s amazing what you have managed to teach yourself while I’ve been preoccupied, and I’m happy so say that , at the very least, I haven’t been too preoccupied to notice.

love, ma

Mom, I want to play PBSkids.

No, it’s bedtime. And I’m writing.

Why are you writing?

Because I want to remember.

What do you want to remember?

I want to remember you, and all the little things you do.

I don’t do little things, I do BIG things. (frowning)

I just got a new battery for my Powerbook. Damon stood in line for service while Ford played a video game. I stood over Chas while he stood bouncing on one of the black ball-shaped seats at the kiddie table.

Friday morning we took a hike along the creek. We chased a young bullfrog, who teased us along a stretch of cattails at the bank before disappearing into some brown muck. Ford was so eager to catch him, standing there with his little plastic red bucket. Chas only wanted to shout and jump into the water. We had to retreat into the woods to keep everyone safe.

I stopped to inspect the mustang grapes, and Chas disappeared. I felt my heart in my thighs ten seconds later, when he reappeared uphill about thirty yards; he had found a loop and had come round to surprise us. Mind you, we were walking along a twenty-foot precipice that overlooked the creek.

Chas is a bushwhacker, both on and off the trail. We put him point blank, while Ford trailed behind, scouting for honeysuckle. He managed to find four blossoms, and gingerly dissect them for the four drops of nectar among them.

On saturday, we biked along the lake. Though the landscape is vibrant and the wildflowers are in bloom, people were the life force along the lake, running, canoeing, parading, strolling. Winding through the trees, we trailered the boys and their havoc, like a small zoo train with a cage of crackhead chimpanzees. I wore a constant smile; for one thing, I wasn’t the one hauling the trailer, and for another: it really does sound cute. Despite the mayhem, I like robust, vibrant kids and my kids are anything but reserved.

Some jocks were playing kayak polo under the MoPac bridge, the ball barely clearing the beams beneath me as we rode over them. A Pug meetup and show along the waterfront, one was wearing a pink tutu. A birthday party for a resident goose. The swallows are back. Wisteria and Chinaberry blossoms made the air heady and seductive. I am in love with Austin.

Dinner with friends Saturday night at a neighborhood dig, margherita pizza under the oaks with good wine while the kids scrambled on the lawn and playground. A two-man blues band played in an alcove on the patio. Sunday morning completely disoriented me. The blazing heat, with the loss of an hour, drove me straight into summer. Jogging through our barely-rural neighborhood, grasshoppers zirred past me across the blacktop. The only thing to ground me in April was the fresh, green terrain, littered with half dollar-sized white flowers; everyone’s yard looked like a driving range. Wooly bear caterpillars marched across the road, and a brown tarantula stood paralyzed as I passed it on the curb.

Happy chartreuse puffs have appeared among the evergreens here. Oaks and mesquite are leafing out in between cedars. They look hopeful now, but won’t take long to mature. The little, tender green leaves shine in the sun, denying that they are part of the dense, gnarly, scrubby chaparral.

I take ginger steps along the riparian trail behind the gym. After yoga, it’s good to be outside breathing fresh air, untainted by foot odor and old sweat. The cedar I walk on cuts the grime like a blade, cleansing me. It reminds me of the barn in the morning, fresh shavings cascading out of my wheelbarrow and onto the floor of the stall. In a split second I dodge after noticing a hanging inchworm. My feet reach high over little mounds where squirrels have dug into the mulch, I plod faster. Five shiny, tall brown mushrooms have erupted overnight. The basidiocarps are covered in a cheesy white film, like little newborn babies. I dodge another caterpillar. The creek is flowing steady, after a good rain. Wrens are on alert, surely happy with all the worms. One darts across the path just before me, and disappears into the shadows.

When I have finished my stretching routine on the mat, upstairs in the gym, I look down on my white shirt to notice an aberration: a bright green inchworm with a shiny black head is trying to navigate across my belly. Without thinking, I take my shirt and slingshot it across the room, towards the Cybex machines. Old habits die hard; at least I didn’t squash it.

It’s midnight. I nearly fell asleep at nine but Damon arrived at the bedside with a Coke float. It was delicious, like the ones we sipped in the middle of summer twenty-odd years ago. I remember laughing, in between foamy sips, while watching John MacEnroe chew out the referee during Wimbledon against Jimmy Connors. I was glad for Wimbledon, during siesta time in Beaumont, when the sun shone too hot at midafternoon to hunt for lizards or ride bikes.

A sure sign of the season, a few loony White Wing doves are cooing outside the window. At midnight.

Happy chartreuse puffs have appeared among the evergreens here. Oaks and mesquite are leafing out in between cedars. They look hopeful now, but won’t take long to mature. The little, tender green leaves shine in the sun, denying that they are part of the dense, gnarly, scrubby chaparral.

I take ginger steps along the riparian trail behind the gym. After yoga, it’s good to be outside breathing fresh air, untainted by foot odor and old sweat. The cedar I walk on cuts the grime like a blade, cleansing me. It reminds me of the barn in the morning, fresh shavings cascading out of my wheelbarrow and onto the floor of the stall. In a split second I dodge after noticing a hanging inchworm. My feet reach high over little mounds where squirrels have dug into the mulch, I plod faster. Five shiny, tall brown mushrooms have erupted overnight. The basidiocarps are covered in a cheesy white film, like little newborn babies. I dodge another caterpillar. The creek is flowing steady, after a good rain. Wrens are on alert, surely happy with all the worms. One darts across the path just before me, and disappears into the shadows.

When I have finished my stretching routine on the mat, upstairs in the gym, I look down on my white shirt to notice an aberration: a bright green inchworm with a shiny black head is trying to navigate across my belly. Without thinking, I take my shirt and slingshot it across the room, towards the Cybex machines. Old habits die hard; at least I didn’t squash it.

It’s midnight. I nearly fell asleep at nine but Damon arrived at the bedside with a Coke float. It was delicious, like the ones we sipped in the middle of summer twenty-odd years ago. I remember laughing, in between foamy sips, while watching John MacEnroe chew out the referee during Wimbledon against Jimmy Connors. I was glad for Wimbledon, during siesta time in Beaumont, when the sun shone too hot at midafternoon to hunt for lizards or ride bikes.

A sure sign of the season, a few loony White Wing doves are cooing outside the window. At midnight.

Happy chartreuse puffs have appeared among the evergreens here. Oaks and mesquite are leafing out in between cedars. They look hopeful now, but won’t take long to mature. The little, tender green leaves shine in the sun, denying that they are part of the dense, gnarly, scrubby chaparral.

I take ginger steps along the riparian trail behind the gym. After yoga, it’s good to be outside breathing fresh air, untainted by foot odor and old sweat. The cedar I walk on cuts the grime like a blade, cleansing me. It reminds me of the barn in the morning, fresh shavings cascading out of my wheelbarrow and onto the floor of the stall. In a split second I dodge after noticing a hanging inchworm. My feet reach high over little mounds where squirrels have dug into the mulch, I plod faster. Five shiny, tall brown mushrooms have erupted overnight. The basidiocarps are covered in a cheesy white film, like little newborn babies. I dodge another caterpillar. The creek is flowing steady, after a good rain. Wrens are on alert, surely happy with all the worms. One darts across the path just before me, and disappears into the shadows.

When I have finished my stretching routine on the mat, upstairs in the gym, I look down on my white shirt to notice an aberration: a bright green inchworm with a shiny black head is trying to navigate across my belly. Without thinking, I take my shirt and slingshot it across the room, towards the Cybex machines. Old habits die hard; at least I didn’t squash it.

It’s midnight. I nearly fell asleep at nine but Damon arrived at the bedside with a Coke float. It was delicious, like the ones we sipped in the middle of summer twenty-odd years ago. I remember laughing, in between foamy sips, while watching John MacEnroe chew out the referee during Wimbledon against Jimmy Connors. I was glad for Wimbledon, during siesta time in Beaumont, when the sun shone too hot at midafternoon to hunt for lizards or ride bikes.

A sure sign of the season, a few loony White Wing doves are cooing outside the window. At midnight.

Damon watches the boys on the weekends, when I’m at the gym or running errands. He curls around his guitar, playing the slide to paint the background blue, while the boys tear up the house and yard (little satellites of destruction that they are). Most of the time, they hang outside. But the rainy days have caught up with us, and lately the boys have amused themselves indoors, heating up frozen pizzas, devouring bulk bags of pita chips and watching sci-fi flicks together.

Chas, who can hardly follow movie plots, has begun dressing himself in my clothes while I am away. The other morning he was wearing a diaper and an orange tie-dye tee, when he found my pink and yellow Donna Karan camisole. Quietly, he negotiated the cami over his tee, until he was able to prance around proudly with the new sheer layer, grazing the pink rickrack hem along the floor. This morning, while I was brushing my teeth, I watched him dig through my unmentionables until he found a pair of calvins, and squeeze his head and arm through on of the leg holes. So pleased! He paraded around the house with a sideways smile, and when we caught each other’s grin, he exploded in laughter, straight from the belly. I chased him down the stairs, giggling, and lifted him up the the table for breakfast. And then I grabbed the camera, so I could get a few pictures for his wedding reception.