This morning we rallied with haste to meet Michael Berenstain, son and collaborator with the great Jan and Stan Berenstain at BookPeople for a Berenstain Bears storytime. But a big black felt marker “CANCELLED” on the calendar greeted us at the entrance, and the store clerk informed us all that Stan Berenstain is very sick in the hospital, and Michael had to go be with him. So instead we listened to a spunky, cheerful tale of a Siamese cat who thought he was a chihuahua while making get well cards with crayons and construction paper.
Alis and I agree the real draw for the Berenstan Bears, for us, was their enormous treehouse home.

This morning we rallied with haste to meet Michael Berenstain, son and collaborator with the great Jan and Stan Berenstain at BookPeople for a Berenstain Bears storytime. But a big black felt marker “CANCELLED” on the calendar greeted us at the entrance, and the store clerk informed us all that Stan Berenstain is very sick in the hospital, and Michael had to go be with him. So instead we listened to a spunky, cheerful tale of a Siamese cat who thought he was a chihuahua while making get well cards with crayons and construction paper.
Alis and I agree the real draw for the Berenstan Bears, for us, was their enormous treehouse home.

This morning we rallied with haste to meet Michael Berenstain, son and collaborator with the great Jan and Stan Berenstain at BookPeople for a Berenstain Bears storytime. But a big black felt marker “CANCELLED” on the calendar greeted us at the entrance, and the store clerk informed us all that Stan Berenstain is very sick in the hospital, and Michael had to go be with him. So instead we listened to a spunky, cheerful tale of a Siamese cat who thought he was a chihuahua while making get well cards with crayons and construction paper.
Alis and I agree the real draw for the Berenstan Bears, for us, was their enormous treehouse home.

It rained. It rained from the minute we awoke, in heavy little pats, until late evening, in one long exhale, the sky clearly exhausted from crying so long. I don’t think it’s rained here in weeks, so the plants outside–the non-natives–are completely overjoyed and outstretched for more, bursting to produce as many flowers as possible before the next drought. It’s impossible to traverse the driveway without stepping on tiny little snails, overzealous and anxious to breed. They are aimlessly sliding around like little old drunken men, groping their way through their drunken haze, leaving a trail of drool. One of the twin fawns is now an adolescent; I was startled to see her in the blue twilight, slowly stepping through the juniper-cedar outside the living room window. Her white spots travelling through the branch silhouettes made a striking image, inspiration for a quilt.

Alis and her family are visiting. Best friends are wonderful gifts. They arrive, and the music doesn’t skip a beat. Jim falls asleep peacefully reading on the sofa while Alis and Ford bake apple pie. The house smells more like home than it ever has, and I feel content and blessed.

Parenting is hard work, but proof of God. Otherwise I would have barehandedly killed Ford today. Stronger forces exist outside the realm of my patience. But oh, the demons within. I mean, how else am I supposed to react to our new residents Jeckyll and Hyde, where five minutes after retorting “That is not a good idea. bitch.” he murmured, “I want you to sleep with me, mommy.”
Yes, the “Terrible Twos” was a cakewalk. This, people, THIS is the Fucking Fours.

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.

I’ve been blogged down for a couple of weeks, but tomorrow is a new day.

But perhaps not as much as Chas. The two of them, they’se like peas n corn.

Chas has evolved into this dense chunk of loveliness that stops my heart mid-beat; I have to remember to breathe. I don’t know if it’s the hobbit-baby hair, long strawberry blonde pouring over his ears and face, or if it’s his huge top teeth set a mile apart from each other and opposing two tiny bottom teeth, or his cosmic blue eyes. Or if it’s the Proof of God that I see as I watch him sleep, with leaden eyelids. But it’s arresting, his presence. Of course, at other times I’m too distracted to sit in awe.

Chas is now walking across rooms. On Friday he began practicing in earnest, stopping only to eat and sleep, but today he feels he has mastered his first footed gait and is scrumptiously sleeping now in his bed, smiling and dreaming and proud of himself. His reddish hair is rumpled around his head, tired and wasted from a day of hustle-bustle, not just from walking but from climbing up and down from Ford’s booster seat in the middle of the living room floor. Chas looked like a finicky dog, spinning and adjusting, around and around for fifteen minutes atop the miniature seat, before sitting, sighing and smiling in satisfaction. And then clapping! And then he proceeded to traverse the house once more, clap, and repeat. Again and again. And again. Again. Again. again.