Ford is really, really into circuit boards. Sadly, I’m not. But his father steps up to the plate in my stead. When I walked outside before dinner, he and the boys were elbow-deep in chalk dust, reviewing their designs. So pervasive is the circuitboard concept in his everyday speech that I’m unsure where to begin elaborating on this current fascination. (oh, I just did a funny, did you get that? Because I just did) And, seeing as I’ve already had a day chock-full of the stuff, I must admit that I really don’t want to discuss it any further. Maybe another day. Or maybe I can transcribe something from the engineering mini, himself?…

At any rate, I thought the grandparents would really love to see some of Ford’s creations and I wanted to mention that I, for my part, am thrilled that he’s finally beginning to enjoy drawing and sketching more than he used to. This is so important to me, that he always feels comfortable letting go with paint or pen, whatever medium. You see, for a long time he seemed to have little interest in this kind of activity, preferring to flip through books or pretend he was blowing things up. I tried never to push it, while always having accessible materials. Somwtimes I’d try getting him to work through a freeform “assignment” but it still didn’t break any barriers (of course, knowing me, you’ll understand that I’m certain it only made them!) I think that his seeing me spend more time at the desk doing my own work (which has been more frequent lately, as well) may have something to do with his increased comfort in expressing himself on paper.
Whatever. This just made me smile.

I wish I had left the words out. Everything spoke a quiet abstract tongue to me without the embellishment, and the filigree is really grating my ribs of sarchasm right now, as I look at these pages I painted last night. I had planned on doing something completely different to weave the pages together, and then I got all sappy. I had a Hallmark moment. It happens. It might have involved wine, but I can’t remember.

Edited to add: And I have obnoxious waves of sourness, too. Like last night, when I wrote this post.

Christina organized this journal project. I’m #2 in a big group of gals contributing to the book. It’ll be fun to see the book once it nears completion, in all it’s Flickred glory. For now, it’s in a truck on the way to Houston.…

What does ‘home’ mean to you?

As it turns out, Ford hates school. He dreads it like a fat set of immunizations, asking every night whether the next day is a school day, telling me that he’s already feeling sick; he asks me every morning if it’s a school day, and tells me that he’s not going to school; he runs away from the classroom on some mornings, bolting back towards the car. This is a lot to pay, on top of tuition, for the three hours each morning that he is in “school.” In his defense, Ford says he’s “bored,” and that he doesn’t like the teacher, and the schoolroom “sucks,” along with the toys.nThey, apparently, “really suck.” Straight from the horse’s mouth, four going on fourteen.

And I just don’t know what to do about it. I thought this would do him a world of good. After all, I loved my Montessori years: feeding the animals, teaching myself to ride a bike, learning about different countries and fiedltripping to cotton gins and post offices. In fact, the only school years I like to reflect on are those freeform, user-paced, friendly three foot-high days. Really, my heart is in unschooling him and raising him on experience and one-on-one “lessons.” But we aren’t able to freewheel it around the globe for years at a time, immersing ourselves in the daily rhythms of various cultures, learning to make our rope hammocks in Bali, build fishing boats in New Zealand and forge our own stainless steel toenail trimmers in Germany. Who has that kind of independent wealth? If you’re in this group, don’t bother raising your hand because it’s already pressing my angry buttons.

I also don’t know whether Ford is telling me the whole truth. When I ask him,
“Ford, what did you guys do in circle time, you know, right after I dropped you off?”
“We didn’t do anything. We just sat there and stared at the walls.” Is his immediate and nonchalant reply. And when I asked him about the red bump on his noggin, he told me he got hit with a rock, “and no teacher noticed. Nobody cared.” Yeah. And when I asked him whom he sat with at lunch, on the second day of school, he replied: “Nobody. I didn’t sit next to anybody. Nobody cared about me.” Uh, huh. He follows with this raised eyebrow, sideways-glance. It looks like this: C’mon, Mom. Buy it! I’m so convincing! And you’re soooooo gullible!
For the record, I sat in today and watched the little rugrat in circle time. Lo! He did sit and stare at the wall. Complete disinterest! And I’m beginning to see why. He’s the eldest in his class, eccentrically focused on resistors, capacitors, stratacone volcanoes and molecules. He could care less about “learning to roll a rug” (which, according to Ford, he has practiced in circle time three days in the past week) and “how to walk in a line” (today’s lesson—something I thought he’d learn if he ever entered public school).

So, I’m in a conundrum about what to do with him. I’m a neurotic, borderline schizophrenic parent who plays devils advocate with herself and her decisions. I can’t decide what’s best for Ford. I think I’m deciding for my own reasons, at this time, since those few morning hours are well-spent laughing uninterrupted with Chas, helping him learn to pour rice down a funnel and into empty cups, feeding the chickens, reading books and brushing little teeth. I like this time alone with him. But the situation is not ideal for all of us, and I’m left feeling guilty at the end of the day that I just can’t figure out what’s best for my child. After all, isn’t this really my job? I can’t seem to get the hang of parenthood; it constantly throws me curveballs.

I wonder, staring across the house while I do dishes: how do some parents exhibit such
conviction in their decisions? What makes me so neurotic? Is it all a matter of self-esteem, for my part, or is it just pigheaded perfectionism? With the huge parent market out there, it seems that keywords such as “THOSE CRITICAL FIRST YEARS” and “HOW TO BUILD YOUR BABY’S BRAIN” and “DON’T YOU WANT WHAT’S BEST FOR YOUR BABY?” have anchored in my brain, flailing wildly around the canyons of doubt, to echo, “DON’T FUCK THEM UP! IT’S ALL UP TO YOU! DON’T FUCK THEM UP!” Even though my teeny rational brain, tucked away in my frontal lobe somewhere in a fold, is meanwhile repeating the mantra in a soft whisper, “It’s not up to you, how the kids turn out. I mean, it’s your job to give them security and love, but they will evolve for themselves out of experience—it’s not what you hand them, it’s how they process what they’ve got to work with.” Or something like that. It’s hard to tell, because I can’t really hear it under all that screaming.

So…I guess the pivotal part of my job becomes clearer amid the conflict: staying sane.

It’s mid-August and we’re roasting under happy white hot skies with evenly-spaced, cottony clouds. And it’s dry. Natives hark back to the 1950s and dust storms and hectic farming, and they get giddy about gray clouds on the horizon but are too supersticious to predict rain. When the clouds pass overhead, they spit fat droplets that pat the pavement and vanish magically, evaporating before you can call it rain. And then you sigh and shrug your shoulders.

In the morning, I crawl downstairs to start a pot of coffee and let the hens out for the day. Almost immediately they run for respite in woodier shade, and I start watering the deer-picked, rabbit-picked, chicken-picked truncation of a summer garden: wrinkled and dark green, prostrate. Within minutes, the cicadas start humming a low, warm-up drone. Like dry beans shaking in a parched pod, the cicadas rattling trance intensifies as the heat sets in. I slink back inside.

Chas wants to be outside at all hours, so for him it’s all a matter of being buck naked out there. I have no choice but to follow him with a tube of sunscreen in my back pocket and a narrow set of eyes, since the job mostly entails shepherding him out of direct sunlight. Which is difficult, really, because our yard is mostly sun. He glows in the sunshine, his white back reflects the entire spectrum of light as he examines a pillbug in the brown grass, something the hens must have overlooked; they’re busy meanwhile under the boxwood, flinging dusty mulch onto the walking path as they burrow six inches into the landscaping. I re-pave the path with the broom as I return for cover, my feet now dusted with roasted umber dust. Chas runs in my wake, the chickens flurry from the hedge to follow him, but the door closes. From inside, Chas laughs at the unaffected triplet standing on the doorstep, wasting little time before they start scratching again and picking at the potted ferns.

When it’s too painful to write, it can be easier to draw or paint. In my sketchbook, this is one of the only pages recently that isn’t a painting of a horse crammed into a small wooden crate. I think this means I might need a mental vacation. As if plugged into my psyche, my close friend randomly sent me this link today.

Ford recognized our car as it idled in the parking lot. He raced towards me, half-smiling with uncertainty– was I was in the car? or not? But when I arose from the car, his expression relaxed into a joyful open smile, his stride lengthened, and this all released with a spring the bundled cords of my anxiety. He was happy!!! He rmet me at the fence, and I hugged him, holding him snug even in the hundred-degree heat. Behind him: two tentative little girls. One came forward and tapped my arm, with eyes on Ford, and asked me if it were okay for her to kiss him before he left school. I didn’t give Ford a chance to answer for himself; I was too amused with the cuteness. Another girl stood patiently in line behind her for a kiss, I think. But Ford squirmed out of all this loveliness and bolted towards the gate.

Getting in to the car, he told me this was “the best school ever” and asked to return tomorrow. And then began to eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he’d forgotten to eat when he was at lunch.
…and there’s a whole hour of writing I’d love to indulge myself in, to sort of respond to all of this on my own time. But I’m about to pass out. How did I ever find the time to write, months ago? Where is my time going? There’s a black hole in my schedule…

We bought a canoe. We needed a water vehicle and this is the perfect entry-level family waterpod. So we’ve been mapping the aquatic terrain around town and last night we tried putting in at Redbud Island, a popular dogpark not far from home. Only, we didn’t gauge the current well by sight and had a difficult time attempting to circumnavigate the island. Standing at a push against the current, over boulders and eddies, I sweated as Chas fussed and leaned out of the canoe. He wanted to swim off the starboard, and Ford wanted to lean over the starboard to watch Chas, and all I could do was pitch nagging pleas and breathe shallow puffs as I tried holding onto Chas’ lifejacket. I was so afraid of tipping, since we really haven’t practiced rolling safety with the kids.

The rest of the lake felt like satin and reflected the huge pink clouds above. A Chinese duck followed a trail of goldfish crackers left by Chas, who giggled and greeted him with a singsongy “Hi, Dut!” We paddled through a troupe of swans whom I was sure might attack us (for being so rude) but they just watched us compassionately, as if we were lost mental patients, wandering alone and down the lake and shouting out high-pitched nonsense. An annoyed red-tail hawk tracked us as we glided only a few yards beneath him and his cypress perch, taking off for a quiet place once we were too close. Bats, everywhere against the blue twilight and the greasy feeling of sunscreen and sand and sweat between skin and car seats.

…

Ford starts school on Monday. We found a way to pay for the neighborhood Montessori program, decided it would benefit everyone and enrolled him yesterday. I feel like a homeschooling dropout but the only thing that will likely be damaged by this decision is my pride. So while I busy myself preparing for next week, I think I’ll stay on this little blog hiatus another few days. I just haven’t felt like talking much or writing much. It’s time to reflect and be quiet amid the chaos so the boat doesn’t tip over.

The chicks are hardy in the heat. This has been the hottest week this summer and they’ve spent the whole time outdoors in their new tractor. I’ll return home at noon from the gym, walk barefoot to the edge of the deck, and peek down on them. Looking back at me are three chicks that are always an ounce heavier, more feathered and panting with open mouths. Every few hours I give them cooler, fresher water. I love the way they peep quietly as I move about, rinsing and rearranging.

We’ve been terrestrial lately, despite the heat outside, tending droopy plants, cultivating the soil, digging. We have a few good books to inspire more curiosity and garden-play: Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin, and Thumbelina, by Hans Christian Anderson. Ford digs Thumbelina. Yak yak. We haven’t yet made it to Microcosmos yet. Then, of course, we have all the nonfiction we could need at home. The huge sci/nature nonfiction library in our bedroom: that would be my fault.

This afternoon, Ford and Chas helped me pin together a 3x4ish compost bin out of some remaining galvanized builder’s cloth. Once we’d finished, they helped me rake leaves and pile them into the compost bin. Somtimes they’d run through the piles and the lawn would look no different than it had before I’d organized the chaos, and a fuse would blow in my brain, but I’ve been more mindful of my wiring today. I’ll have to write more about that later, about what it’s like lately, ramming horns all day with the four year-old rebel. But right now I’m slipping like mercury through planks of burnout. And I’m falling asleep. But god, he has his Hallmark moments, too:

When Ford was about six months old, and we were weary of living in a hotel in Connecticut, we slung our money into an Airstream trailer. If not just as an escape, we bought it so we could toodle around the East Coast for a while. We trailered it with a converted stepvan that had a wireless satallite atop the hood, which served as Damon’s workspace, and I’d follow the trailer around New England in our family car, birddogging through the convoluted Boston construction, around granite cliffs in Maine, along quaint historical neighborhood streets. I loved every part of the journey, even the perpetually damp and confining bathroom that served our family of three and any visiting guests.

During the days that Damon worked at the brick office in Middleton, Connecticut, Ford and I spent our mornings and afternoons at the beach. I’d jog along the trail, he’d fall asleep under the billowing mosquito net ofthe jogger, and when he awoke we’d hang out on the beach itself. He learned to crawl on the sands of Hammonassett State Park. I’d put gossamer ctenophores in his hand, and they’d glisten little rainbow hairs as they slipped through his fat fingers. He’d wave his hands through the floating garden of red and green algae, slick translucent stained glass that looked entirely edible. He’d put rocks in his mouth, I’d sweep them out.

During the middle of the day, when it was too hot to be outside, we’d be confined to the trailer. And this was all good and actually lovely when he took his afternoon nap. I would steam up a latte and write or read. But when he was restless, we went a little stir crazy in the 22 foot trailer.

In this photo, Damon caught us decompressing against the screen door one hot afternoon, when we were too chicken to leave our three-odd square feet of cold air-conditioning and head to the beach.

Last May, we downsized and sold the trailer where Ford spent most of his first year. I miss it dearly, but what’s shocking is that Ford misses it, too. The other day I asked him,
“What do you miss about the Airstream?”
“The stickers in the windows. And the bed with all the windows around it.”
I miss the bed, too. I miss the encapsulation of our family within a small space, streamlining our experience and always having home to return to at the end of a bust day exploring some foreign place. That’s why I dream of a sailboat, of taking the kids for a year or so around the world, when they’re old enough not to need a “time out dinghy” or a line of drying cloth diapers hanging from the mast.

See more enclosures at SPC.

The other day, when I finished a lap at the pool, I cleared out my goggles and confided in the lady in the lane next to mine. “You know, learning to breathe on both sides is really hard!” I blabbed through upcurled eyebrows. To that one confession, she donated the rest of her workout towards coaching my bumbling, barge-like freestyle into bilateral breathing, tilting my body upwards, so that I felt as if I were gliding across the water an hour later. I love her. I wish I could be that helpful to someone else. Well, beyond the normal butt-wiping and nose-wiping that comes with motherhood.

The first lap felt like swimming in a storm today: the water spraying from the sprinklers into my face, my nose, my mouth; the traffic of the experienced swimmers. I stabbed the water with my arms at first, struggling to remember her pointers: head down, tilt head only as high as the inside corner of my mouth, gentle roll left, right, left, right. Don’t think about getting air, just poof and it will return back automatically.

What I have discovered about swimming is that it may start out loud — the bubbles and splashing assault me when I first get in — but within a half hour, just like in running, everything gets really quiet. No music, no newscast– nothing but the roving tiles and dancing sunlight on the bottom and the steady rhythm of puffs and rolls.

edited to add, with an embarrassed blush:
HOLY CRAP! It’s (still, thank God) August 1st! Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!! See you Friday 🙂
Love,
*s