Chas is no longer satisfied with the way crayons and paints taste; now, he is interested in their use as tools. Fingerpaints are in order, although he tends to dislike using materials and tools in ways that are different from his older brother.

Yet, in so many ways, Chas is very different from Ford. Today I suffered multiple minor heart attacks as I caught Chas atop various perches, each time rescuing him from a fall: The back deck has a seat-railing around the perimeter, and he is able to climb atop the railing and prepare for launch off the other side (and down five feet to impale himself on juniper-cedar bramble). For example.

I am frustrated that we can’t pile the kids into the Airstream and drive up East for the next few months. I had more serenity back then: the cabinets were impossible for a child to open, there were no “dropoffs,” everything was so…ship shape. Eighty square feet of control. Minimal cleanup. Simple. Irresponsible. So much less baggage than just the two images below, in and of themselves:

The piece of land, our whole quarter acre of it–I’m so overwhelmed with that right now, I can only sit in my car to photograph it, let alone walk up to a rock on site and watch the sun set, or plant a few Cinderella pumpkin seeds in the middle of summer, or place a few good luck totems around here and there. Something about the land is haunting me and I can’t put my finger on it. Am I just rebelling? Not enough shade? Too many fire ants? Burrs? Mosquitoes? Slippery kaliche on the walk down? Not enough privacy to enjoy a few minutes of meditation, what with the big peach McMansion next door? I’m disappointed that I’m just not clicking with the property, even though we’ve had it for a few months, now.

Today was Museum Day in Austin, when all the museums are open to the public, free of charge. Most of them also hosted fun kid-centric activities, like making seed balls and collages at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Because it was noon, and white hot outside, we decided to head on over for some masochistic martyrdom at the Wildfower Center, where we could either bake to death outside in the beautifully landscaped terrace or pressure cook till our eyes popped out in the Little House, aka Little Barely-Air-Conditioned Room Where the Children Hang. So we decided to share the best of both worlds, and I took Ford to the House while Damon and Chas kicked back in the brick oven.

Lois Ehlert is in town, and while she was signing her picture books that we left at home, Ford and I made Leaf Man-inspired collages:

While working on them, I paused to take a break and admire all the children at work on their collages. Ford had squirted huge silver dollar-sized dabs of Elmer’s glue onto his paper and stuck, very gingerly atop it, thin strands of dried grasses. It was so cute. An eight year-old across the table scanned this and then looked at me, scrunching up her face, and asked “Why did he use such a big glob of glue?” Before answering, I smiled, immediately thinking of the way Ford and I laugh together at Chas’ “mistakes” all of the time, and the way he in so many words, asks the same of Chas when he makes a “mess.”
“Oh, Chas! What are you doing?” Ford will say, and laugh in a very infectious way.

I am sitting in my bed, listening to jazz pipe in from the next room as it ripples through the white noise of my children, in bed beside me, breathing. I think I am damned lucky to enjoy this moment, I want to cling to it knowing that I’m still here enjoying this as a refugee from Katrina sits up in bed, acheing through a wave of despair in having lost a home, a loved one, possibly a child.

Ford and I visited the Montessori school at the end of our block yesterday morning. It was poised, pretty, just bubbling with children. They practice strict Montessori method, and I was impressed with the industriousness and self-reliance of a 4 year-old girl as she swept collage remnants with a child-sized broom into a child-sized dustpan. The place glowed with purpose and warmth and Ford (and Chas, for his part) seemed to enjoy it very much. In fact, he didn’t want to leave. He was attracted to station after station, wooden baskets and utensils, glowing freshwater fish tank and sunny windows facing the children’s vegetable garden.
But there are no openings until June 2006.
This might be our opportunity in disguise to travel this year and shuffle the boys out of the country for a little exploring, while we still can.

I feel as if I’m waiting for Them to come take Chas away. With conflicting travel plans coming from more than three loved ones, I find myself pushing Chas’ birthday celebration nearly two weeks following his actual birthdate. Is it so much to accommodate everyone’s schedules that they might be able to join us in celebration, or am I reluctant for Time to take away Chas’ First Year away from me, with all of the poignant milestones? He’s not going to be a baby once he passes his First Birthday, but a toddler. It’s not fair that decades of dying are preceded by the short, enthusiastic pant of life in that first year here.

I can’t believe it, and you probably can’t either: we have never hired a sitter to watch the kids. I realized this when we were the only guests in the sushi bar this evening that had about a quart of white rice scattered on the floor beneath our table and from which a preschooler’s voice echoed across the restaurant: “DABBY DOTS OF JELLY! (giggle giggle) SALTY ON MY TONGUE AND YUMMY IN MY BELLY! (ikura) LOOK Daddy! There’s rice on the wall!” But this is us, and these kids are having fun eating fancy with us, being served with luscious glazed pottery and playing with the food-art. And the money we saved for not hiring a sitter pays nicely for two cold bottles of sake. DOWN THE HATCH, HONEY!

Inexpensive is good. Cheap is better. But at what cost? Photojournalist Michael Wolf has documented the flipside to the euphoria of cheap and returned my thoughts towards weekend garage sale shopping and the recycling of consumer goods.

Part of Texas’ charm lies, to some degree, in its insanely diverse and bizarre bug population. I suppose this statement is purely subjective; I know an equal number of folks who think this fact is amusing and of people who think this fact is a nuisance. But it’s not a question of “half-empty” or “half-full,” but a matter of survival. Because when you pass things each day like, say, rat-sized tarantula wasps dragging impaled tarantulas across the road (and turning their heads to INSPECT you as you cross paths), it’s all about how you can handle the situation:

You could run, for instance, but this might make you attractive to such an aggressive predatory insect. This might also attract all the wandering ankle-biting neighborhood Cujos.

Or you could stand there, frozen like a deer, and hope that you might blend into the asphalt and surrounding trees. But the problem with that is the wasp might decide to fly over and hang out on your shoulder with its paralyzed tarantuala buddy before it decides to lay its EGGS in the abdomen of the totally doomed arachnid.

Don’t forget that you could also be hit by a truck rounding the corner while you stand there staring at the natural beauty.

Better yet, you could raise an eyebrow and whip out your Super Soaker (that you carry in the baby jogger when out for neighborhood walks, you know, for those roaming Cujos). But wouldn’t THAT just stir things up?

YEE HAW!