Week Two

I’ve been writing things down since here and there since the coronavirus really started to impact our lives. I’ve shared some of this as snippets on Instagram but if you’re interested in reading more, feel free to read through these lightly-edited words. As this essay says, I’m craving to see what people are thinking/doing/feeling through all of this. Maybe it’s helpful to use my own still, small voice to give some words to what we’re all going through at this moment in time. You can find Week One here.

Sunday, March 22nd
“If I’m going to be successful at homeschooling I need paperclips,” is a thing I say now.

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Monday, March 23rd
We started homeschooling today. Technically the governor has excused kids from school through this week, but we couldn’t go another week without a schedule. “Are we doing school today?” Brooklyn asked every single day last week.

We sat at the kitchen table and Nolan actually got really into the letter and number worksheets I found for him and Caden and Brooklyn enjoyed having their attention diverted into creating their own little stories with sight words and working though math worksheets. Those two thrive on that sort of stuff. So we did school for a few hours. Science was a booklet about the solar system. Then we watched the StoryBots episode about planets, so. And library, which would have been their “special” of the day, was listening to the Story Pirates podcast while they played, which basically meant they just played because not a single one of us had any clue what we just listened to when it was all done. It was fine.

I’m tired. It’s frustrating to see all the memes about how “bored” people are. I mean, a lot of them are really funny (this sock puppet eating cars and this marble race that I became significantly invested in gave me LIFE) but also, I would LOVE to be bored right now. I would love the time and the space to sit with a book, or with my knitting, or with nothing at all but myself to figure out how I really am feeling about all this. 

As it is, I feel like I’m go-go-going just as much as usual, if not more, with three kids now home all day. They still wake up at the same time (read: far too early) and need meals at regular intervals (And snacks! So may snacks!) and need supervision and they bicker and they talk so much (the talking make it stop) and I just spent part of my evening printing out some more math activities for tomorrow and it’s fine! It’s going to make tomorrow run so much smoother! This is all exhaustingly fine.

And because we’re living the epitome of both/and right now, I’m both exhausted by having children around and so absolutely glad they are here. They bring a sense of normalcy and schedule and routine and silliness to the day that helps so much right now. If I could choose between having this happen with children around or without I would still emphatically choose with.

But also I wish I could drink a glass of wine or three and sit and take some time to myself.

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Tuesday, March 24th
I’m tired of seeing things to the effect of “maximize your quarantine”. Can we just...not? Even leisure seems to have been co-opted into this big thing to DO. Are you binge watching/learning how to knit/baking sourdough/sewing masks/recording a new podcast? Simultaneously? 

In a similar vein, I’m tired of all the “Isn’t it great that we’re not racing all over and bringing our kids to activities and things all the time?”

Well, no. My kids LOVE their activities. To be fair, my kids are still fairly young. I understand that parents with older kids might be glad to not be running somewhere every. single. night. But we had activities just twice a week: dance on Tuesdays and gymnastics on Thursdays. My kids love those things. And baseball was supposed to start up within the next month. Caden and Brooklyn have been counting down the days until they’re back on the field and Nolan is so looking forward to his own first year of t-ball. Will they even have a season this year? Will the activities I’ve signed them up for over the summer even...ever...happen? Will they have a dance recital?

Of course, I don’t have any answers. I’m out a solid $700 (which I’m sure we would be reimbursed) for activities I don’t know that we’ll ever get to do.

I didn’t see their activities as a burden. They brought us so much joy.

To build off the both/and of yesterday, I’m both sad they don’t have their activities right now AND we’re enjoying being home. It is nice to not have to rush in the morning or eat dinner at 4:30 so we get to gymnastics on time. Our evenings are completely free now but so are the rest of our days.

Still, if I could choose, I’d prefer activities.

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Wednesday, March 25th
Today was maybe the hardest one since it all began. It’s rainy and gloomy and the third day in a row of doing school with the kids and I don’t know, I can’t exactly put my finger on what it was about today, but it’s just exhausting.

Though, as I texted to my friends, just wait a day or an hour and I know I’ll feel differently. The emotional roller coaster is real.

It’s exhausting in a way that having three kids under three—or, to be more honest, having two three-year-olds and a one-year-old because that was so much harder—was exhausting. There’s no time or space to think and it’s loud and there are so many needs to be met and it’s loud and I just want space to think, to be and also, it’s loud. It reminds me so much of that time, before Kindergarten, before even Preschool, when we were all together under one roof and it seemed like there was no escape. At least then we could go to the park.

Beth on the Pantsuit Politics nightly nuance last night said something about how her daughter came in the room just to tell her she had a papercut, and then walked out of the room. How just that one little interruption cost her like five minutes of thought process and productivity. And I nodded in solidarity and thought, yes, it’s just like that. About 37 times a day.

To be fair, the kids have been fantastic through this all. They’re more or less their regular selves: sometimes whine-y, sometimes needy, sometimes loving, sometimes disruptive, sometimes cooperative. They miss school but haven’t complained hardly at all about their activities being cancelled, that their days are different, that our life now looks almost nothing like what it did two weeks ago.

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Caden and Brooklyn’s school sent out a video of three of the teachers singing a parody of “Some Things Never Change” to the kids today and I cried.

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Friday, March 27th
Brooklyn broke her wrists yesterday. Both of them. She was swinging and then pulled her arms in through the ropes and fell straight forward onto her arms.

“Why did you do that?” I asked her. She’s jumped off the swing before but this sounded different. I actually didn’t see it. I’d kicked all the kids outside because they were driving me insane. It wasn’t five minutes before I heard Tyson call, from his upstairs office window, “Oh my gosh are you okay?”

“I was showing Caden something dangerous,” she replied.

Beyond the initial pain (“I think it’s a 10” she told me, when I tried to explain the pain scale at the orthopedic walk-in clinic) she’s been perfectly fine. (“It’s a 1 now,” she said, immediately after getting splints on.)

It’s a strange time to be injured, though. Thank goodness for the walk-in clinic. I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere close to an ER. Also her follow-up appointment has been cancelled because of the governor’s stay-at-home order, though we can go back to the walk-in clinic anytime on Tuesday for her to get casts put on.

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Doesn’t “stay-at-home” sound so much nicer than “shelter in place”? A little less ominous, at least?

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I’m totally and completely worn out this week, just in the same way I used to be at the end of week when the kids were much younger. I don’t want to do anything or talk to anyone. I didn’t get a single thing done today besides the feeding and schooling and caring for children. I know that’s important and that’s “doing” something, too. I know. Still. I’ve been used to some time and space carved out during my weeks and that’s gone now. We’re all going to have to adjust accordingly.

But it was sunny and 60 today and we spent the entire afternoon outside and that made all the difference.

Thoughts on Disney

WE DID IT! We survived travel and three theme parks and more with three small children (who turned six, six, and four on our trip!).

It was expensive. It was magical. It was exhausting. (Although thankfully my Enneagram One moves to Seven in growth, so I ran on a crazy amount of adrenaline and let’s-do-all-the-things kind of vibe the whole time.)

You’ll wonder where the magic is as you push around a stroller or two and stand around in more lines than you thought possible. You’ll think of how much money you paid and seriously you’re spending like 50% or more of your time just waiting for things to happen and what even is this and was it a good idea? But then you get on a ride and it IS magical, it IS. And we don’t remember the lines now. I mean, we do, but it’s not what we’ve been talking about. When we talk about our trip we talk about the fireworks and the light show and wasn’t the Buzz Lightyear ride cool? And the safari ride where we got to see all the animals? And we remember the things we actually got to DO, and not the 45 minutes we waited.

And when you’re holding a kid as the fireworks begin and they say, “There’s real magic here” and another kid says “This is my magical day” as she swishes around in her ridiculous princess dress and another kid asks, “Can we come here again?” as the fireworks end, you get tears in your eyes and think, YES. Yes we can come here again. This was 1000% worth it.

The kids are back at school this week and it’s the first time I’ve really been without them in the past seven days and it’s AMAZING. I can think entire thoughts and my brain space is my own for at least a couple of kid-free hours and sweet Jesus, I kind of forgot what that was like. My body is still getting used to not being in a crush of people all the time and having almost an entire freaking house to myself right now feels like the ultimate luxury. I can take entire steps with my feet! And swing my arms around without hitting anyone! What a gift.

Random Thoughts:

I remember loving Animal Kingdom as a kid but there weren’t as many rides as I thought there would be. It was also stupid cold the day we visited, which put a bit of a damper on things. BUT. The three main things we did: The Festival of the Lion King, the Finding Nemo Musical, and the safari ride were AMAZING. The shows themselves were jam-packed full of some serious talent and seeing them was worth the admission price alone. And the kids are still talking about how we could have practically reached out and touched a rhinoceros on the safari.

Legoland was perfect for us - Caden and Brooklyn each say it was their favorite day there and Nolan lists meeting Emmett as his Favorite Thing From the Entire Trip. The wait times for the rides were minimal which made it feel like more of a break in our trip than a full-on theme park day. If they were a few years older I think they would have been bored, but ages four and six with a healthy (unhealthy?) amount of LEGO obsession made it ideal.

At some point your kids will say they want to leave and go home or that this is boring because kids are jerks and you’ll kind of hate them for it.

You can be a feminist and also spend way too much money living vicariously through your daughter as she gets all dooded up at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. As a girl, I played with trucks and never came in at night in the summertime without a healthy amount of sand in my hair and also the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique would have been my absolute favorite thing at Brooklyn’s age. The boys got made over into knights and they also loved it. You’re only this little at Disney once and, as far as I’m concerned, this experience was worth every penny.

Those FastPasses are amazing. We used them for both shows at Animal Kingdom and for some character meet-and-greets at Magic Kingdom. I highly recommend the Enchanted Tales with Belle experience - it was one of my absolute favorite things besides the light show.

Speaking of meet-and-greets...what is up with the lighting at these things? I’m surprised that in 2020, the age of Instagram, the lighting is really this terrible. Disney brings in millions of dollars each and every day...can we really not figure out how to get some natural light up in here? The grainy, gross lighting really takes away from some otherwise adorable photos.

Things I Used/Wore/Recommend:

These shoes held up to walking (15,000+ steps!) around Magic Kingdom and everywhere else. I had purchased them last summer so they were already broken in, though I haven’t worn them recently. No rubbing, no blisters, just comfort.

These sandals worked well for our Legoland day and bumming around elsewhere. Not sure I’d want to wear them for one of our long days (Legoland closed at 5:00 - we were at Magic Kingdom almost four hours longer!) but they held up for a more relaxing day. And by “more relaxing” I mean only 11,000 steps around the park.

This belt bag. I was between this and another one with a zipper, but the flap closure made it sooo easy to get in and out of. I fit a small wallet (below), my phone, a hair tie, and lip gloss in here with room to spare.

This card case. Held mine and the kid’s cash, my ID, my credit card, and mine and the kid’s FastPass cards. Loved how thin and portable this was.

This windbreaker was a lifesaver on our day at Animal Kingdom where it never felt warmer than 45 degrees. You can smoosh it up and cram it anywhere and it feels super flimsy and you’ll wonder if you spent money on something that actually doesn’t even do anything, but it WORKS. I never felt the wind (which was substantial!) the whole day.

Also:

I purchased carbon offsets for the flights for our trip here. We’re not a family who flies often - this is our second trip with the kids, and Tyson and I each fly maybe once or twice a year. I feel slightly guilty when we do, just knowing how negative the impact is on the environment.

I debated whether to buy offsets or not - as with most things on the Internet, you can find all sorts of articles telling you why you should, why you shouldn’t because it doesn’t matter, etc., but came to the conclusion that it certainly doesn’t hurt anything, and since it may even (hopefully!) help, then for all of $30 for our family of 5, I might as well. 

Just a friendly heads up that most product links above are affiliate links.

On Repeat

“It's not that I don't want to, I just don't want to today
I'm not a fan of mornings and I love my chardonnay
No, I'm not saying never, I won't wish it all away
But my name can't be Mama today, oh no
My name can't be Mama today”

I’ve been feeling these lyrics from The Highwomen down to my bones. The problem is, I’m not sure what I want my name to be. I don’t want to be wife or chef or maker of the plans or keeper of the plans or volunteer or house cleaner or writer and definitely not mama. Being buried under the weight of expectations and obligations and the never-ending cycle of all the things has been exhausting. Debilitating.

Maybe it’s a case of the Januaries. Maybe it’s coming up on six years of motherhood. Maybe it’s the relentless to-do list and the house that devolves into chaos the second I’ve brought it to any sort of order. Maybe it’s the fact that the children have been louder than usual lately. (Kids: “Hey Google: volume eight.” Me: “Hey Google: absolutely NOT!”) Maybe it’s having things on our calendar every day of the week. Take your pick. But I’ve been feeling like I could crawl out of my skin.

These photos don’t do that feeling justice. In fact, upon reflection, as I sat down to edit, they look refreshing. That mid-afternoon winter light is a trickster. It makes even those loads of laundry look inviting.

Maybe that’s the lesson here, that there is beauty in the ordinary. Maybe even the tasks that are on repeat, that have been on repeat for years, are still beautiful. 

Maybe it’s a reminder that there is beauty in this place even when I don’t see it. Maybe there’s beauty even if I don’t feel like being Mama.

As the lyrics say, “I’m not saying never, I won’t wish it all away”.

There is beauty here. I see it. Even when I just can’t be Mama.

Photo credit @pheonixfeatherscalligraphy for C+C, 2020.

This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series “On Repeat”.

Life Lately

Has the “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” line from Anne of Green Gables been over-used yet? Because that’s something my heart has been sighing pretty much all day every day. It’s as unoriginal a thought as a (white, suburban woman) person can have, so, unsurprisingly, here we are.

The kids had fall break last week, Nolan for the entire week and Caden and Brooklyn for two days. Thursday and Friday, when they were all home, felt just like falling back into our old, familiar rhythm again. As though this whole Kindergarten thing were nothing more than a momentary blip.

Of course, it was different in that I KNEW it was a blip in time. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in some ways seemed to last forever, but in a good way, in the way that it was hard to dive back into routine and actually need to wake up to my phone alarm again on Monday morning. But unlike so many of the never-ending days of the past five years, I knew there was an end to it all, there was a slight relief to it, that I could count it down on a single hand.

Our weeks have a rhythm, more so than our days. Where most days in the past five years felt more or less the same, it’s our weeks that seem to loop now, instead of individual weekdays. Preschool on Monday, playtime on Tuesdays before I go off to a writing class and rush home to delivery pizza and dance class for all. Wednesdays it’s back to preschool and don’t forget to pick up the groceries. Thursdays are for eating lunch with Caden and Brooklyn at school before volunteering all afternoon, and Fridays equal preschool again and an afternoon movie.

Then, somehow, it’s the weekend. The weeks don’t usually feel quite so long anymore. Especially once I fit in errands (Target at least once, maybe Costco, and do I have any returns to make?), an inevitable appointment of some sort (dentist, chiropractor, optometrist), bringing a meal to a friend, writing, reading, and the cleaning and meal prep/consumption/clean-up of regular household function: the rest of my “free” hours fill up quickly. (Though ask me about that again in a few days if we continue this streak of rain, clouds, and sub-50-degree temps.)

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“When I was a baby,” is Nolan’s current favorite go-to line. Some things are factual. “When I was a baby, I could only crawl,” is more or less accurate. Others not so much.

“When I was a baby I couldn’t say ‘puppy’ so I said ‘po-pa’,” being one.

“When I was a baby I was in a tree and then I fell out of the tree and you were there and then a lion scratched me right here on my cheek,” is another.

Sometimes he even projects into the future. “When I was 10 I drove in a car and then I climbed in a tree. And I lived in my own house and it was pink.”

“But Nolan, you’ve never been 10,” you might say. You would be wrong. He was 10 at some point in the past and you’re a damn fool for thinking he wasn’t.

These statements are absolutely, positively not up for dispute. You just have to nod your head and agree with him or else you’ll realize you’ve enmeshed yourself in a debate with a three-year old void of all reason, facts, or logic, over whether said three-year old ate hot dogs with ketchup when he was a baby or not.

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Some thought-provoking reads from around the Internets:

This article on the privilege of obtaining an elite degree…and the pitfalls.
This one on why it’s not just about the cooking.
This post from Emily P. Freeman.
This beautiful poem from a fellow Exhale creativity member.

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“We have homework,” Caden announced the second week of school. He strode into the house, plopped his backpack on the ground, and rummaged through his folder for the orange math worksheet, “Mrs. Hawes said we HAVE to do it. It needs to be done in pencil and you need to sign it when I’m done and I need to do it right now and I need a pencil.”

He sat expectantly at the counter while I rummaged in the drawer for a pencil. He and Brooklyn sat down and completed their simple worksheets in a minute or two, working seriously the whole time. And that’s more or less how the school year has gone. They’ve adapted to kindergarten like fish to water; I think they would sleep in their classroom if it were allowed.

At back-to-school night, the second or third week of school, they couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. “We’ll show you where everything is!” they told us, giddy with excitement. They showed us around the school, showed us how to go through the lunch line, which table they sat at. They explained the rules and showed us the different classrooms with all the importance of freshmen.

“No sloppy-poppy!” Brooklyn says while she’s coloring. “That’s what Mrs. Hawes says.”

And “There’s no scribbles in elementary school!”

And “Name on your paper - first thing!”

And more. Almost every day they come home with another tidbit of information about their teacher which means that by the end of the year I expect to know Mrs. Hawes more intimately than I know some of my closest friends, despite only seeing her a handful of times myself.

DEAR KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS: THANK YOU. You are doing the Lord’s work. These kids hero-worship you. And I hope they talk about us at school even half as much as they talk about you at home.

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Believe all the five-star reviews. This soup is perfect, even more so with a loaf of crusty, homemade bread. My only quibble with the recipe as it’s written is that it absolutely should be doubled.

I’ve already made this applesauce cake twice this fall. And I’ll probably make it at least once more. All of Deb’s recipes are fantastic but this one has become tradition.

This blueberry oatmeal is my favorite. Topped with a little dark brown sugar and some chia seeds when I can find them in the pantry: yum.

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The more I think about it, the more I realize just how much the weeks continue to blur by. I’ve said yes to some things, things I wouldn’t have said yes to with three kids under five at home. I’m taking a writing class (it’s giving me LIFE), volunteering at school, doing some design work here and there, heading up a committee at church. Somehow the time and space I thought I might have with two kids gone all day and another a few mornings a week has never quite materialized.

Especially as we rush into the end of the year. Halloween blurs right into Thanksgiving and then into Christmas (and did you see how LATE Thanksgiving is this year??) which means my mind is already crammed with all the shopping, meal planning, parties, gifts, etc. (I possibly had a meltdown to Tyson about ALL THE THINGS in the next several months that need to be done in addition to ALL THE REGULAR LIFE THINGS last night. It’s fine.) Basically, I’m living this meme:

Of course, to the kids, Christmas is still a lifetime away. Two months is an eternity in their eyes. Heck, Halloween is in less than a week and that’s unbearable enough. (“Is it Halloween yet? Do we get to wear our costumes today? Is it trick-or-treating tonight? Can we eat candy?” MAKE IT STOP.) I remember, as a kid, just how long the time felt between each break, to get from one holiday to the next. I empathize with them, even as my brain feels scrambled with all the to-dos.

Hang in there, everyone. Buckle up during this last mad rush of the year. Enjoy the colorful leaves if you can, a mug of something warm in the afternoon, and bake up that applesauce cake SOON. This time of year might fly by, but it also doesn’t keep.

Life Lately

Like many of you, my heart has been with the detention centers at the border. As more and more reporting came out late last week and over the weekend, I couldn’t tear my mind away from it.

Which means that as I washed off a face mask and shaved my legs in the shower, I thought how immigrants to my own country weren’t even provided with soap. And when I started my period on Sunday I thought of all the teenage girls who would get their periods, maybe for the very first time, in an overcrowded detention center. I have little hope these girls are being provided with pads or tampons if they’re not even being given toothbrushes. I pray for a kind female border guard or older teenage girl to help them through. And as I threw away a head of lettuce, a pint of blueberries, and two containers of leftovers that went bad before we could eat them, I thought how these kids are saying they’re not being fed enough, they’re still hungry, that they can’t go out to play because it takes all their energy just to survive another day.

These are kids who are in America. In 2019. I’m tired of being told these people are a threat to us when clearly we are a threat to them.

Sit with that a moment. And then read this Instagram post, and this article, and this one, too. And let it crush you as you imagine your children in such a place and let it make you physically sick to your stomach. Then read them again.

Part of me wants to rush down there and scoop up as many of those children as I can and bring them back home. Obviously that’s not practical or feasible in any way shape or form. It seems like so little, yet if you can, please consider donating to Together Rising. They are working with people on the ground to reunite families, give these children proper medical care, and to get them out of there as fast as they can.

Also contact your representatives. Let them know we’re watching. Because there’s no such thing as other people’s children. And if we’re a country that truly values children, this is not the kind of country we want to be.

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Horrific story adjacent: One thing I’ve been doing to combat mindlessly scrolling through social media is to stop whenever I see something awful, something that hits me to my core. Things like the reports of the treatment of children at the border, a post from a friend about infant loss, etc. When it makes me stop and think, when it makes my heart hurt, I stop what I’m doing and put my phone down. I may click into the article if it’s a news report, but then I put it away. I sit with those feelings and really force myself to think about what I’ve just read.

It can be hard sometimes. Who wants to sit with those shitty feelings? But it feels more honest than to continue to scroll. To continue through photos of happy families on vacation and ads for clothes I don’t need but am tempted to click on, anyway.

Honestly, it felt more shitty when I kept scrolling and tried to shove those feelings down. It’s helped. It’s something.

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In an abrupt shift, because that seems to be how my brain works these days, these two spent the better part of the weekend riding around on two wheels.

One push from me, and a little bit of convincing, was all it took. Those balance bikes are miracle-workers for sure. Teaching them to ride on two wheels, something I thought we could do to kill time - maybe take up the better part of an afternoon - took all of ten minutes. And that included the time it took to take the training wheels off.

“That wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be!” Brooklyn said after her inaugural ride down the sidewalk.

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The food websites have been bringing it lately with their collections of food writing. First was Bon Apetit with their “Welcome to Red Sauce America” essays. (I read it over a period of a week…and had a mad craving for some chicken piccata the whole time. Which has yet to be fulfilled.) Then, less lengthy but no less fun, Taste talked all things 90’s in “The 90’s Issue”. While all the pieces are worth a read, I’m calling out “The Bizarre History of Buca di Beppo” and “The 1990s Boom of California’s Mexican Supermarkets” as my personal favorites. (I also have to give a shout out to a favorite spot in Madison as well as a favorite here.)

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Food adjacent: please read this op-ed from the New York Times: “Smash the Wellness Industry”.

I had paid a lot of money to see a dietitian once before, in New York. When I told her that I loved food, that I’d always had a big appetite, she had nodded sympathetically, as if I had a tough road ahead of me. “The thing is,” she said with a grimace, “you’re a small person and you don’t need a lot of food.”

The new dietitian had a different take. “What a gift,” she said, appreciatively, “to love food. It’s one of the greatest pleasures in life. Can you think of your appetite as a gift?” It took me a moment to wrap my head around such a radical suggestion. Then I began to cry.

It’s. So. Good.

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I made a big batch of homemade freezees a few weeks ago using these. They work great, though the zip-close doesn’t work very well. While they’re not reusable like I was hoping, at least the kids are eating pureed fruit instead of high-fructose corn syrup.

I promise it’s simple: pulse up some fruit along with just a little orange juice or lemonade in a food processor, add sugar if needed (I used less than a tablespoon with each batch, otherwise they were pretty tart), pour, and freeze. My next step is to just freeze lemonade for some Italian ice-style freezees. So far we’ve made:

• strawberry (strawberries with orange juice)

• mixed berry (strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries with lemonade)

• cantaloupe (cantaloupe with a few strawberries and orange juice)

• strawberry-banana smoothie (strawberries, a banana, and yogurt instead of juice) (my favorite!)

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I’ve been living in these shorts and these shirts. I bought two pairs of the shorts (dark cinnabar and palm tree - recommend sizing down) and three of the shirts (fit is pretty true-to-size, or size up for a looser fit). They go perfectly together. I wear the shirt tucked in (and consequently feel like a throwback to the early ‘90’s), with a light cardigan thrown over the top for the cooler days (which we’ve had way too many of lately). It’s my summer uniform.

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I’m scared to write this for fear of jinxing myself, but we seem to have entered an era where the kids enjoy playing with each other. Several times recently I’ve discovered them scattered: the twins playing LEGOs together in their room while Nolan flips through books or builds with Duplos in his, Brooklyn and Nolan playing “baby” while Caden plays with (you guessed it) LEGOs on his own. To be fair, Caden and Brooklyn have been able to play well together for years now, it’s the fact that Nolan has been that’s the true miracle.

It’s a nice break. Just this time last year I felt I couldn’t leave the room for fear Nolan would trash the house looking for the remote, sneak into the pantry to steal snacks, or climb on the counter to sneak actual spoonfuls of sugar.

Even outside I’ve been able to pull up a chair and sit - truly get lost in a book - while they play together in the driveway. They’re still riding their bikes and scooters and that old cozy coupe we got for free from a garage sale around the roads they create on the driveway with chalk. But it’s the very first time I don’t fear Nolan dashing into the street. The past couple years it was a game - I always felt there was about a 50/50 chance he would dash into the street for fun. And now he just…doesn’t.

I wrote this last summer, and it seems relevant again now:

This is what I've been waiting for.

…A moment prior to this realization, guilt had found me. It crept in during the break in the action and began to berate me for not doing more. To write more, volunteer more, accomplish more. Maybe I should even go back to work. Guilt admonished me for the streaks on the kitchen floor and the fruit snacks they ate in the car and for being "just" a stay-at-home mom. Surely, at the very least, I should have cleaner floors.

In the next breath I realized this is what I've been dreaming of. This little break where no one at all needs me. The past four years have been intense. Twin infants and that whole three under three business and the sleep deprivation and the making of all the food and everything else. Of course even a little wiggle room feels like a lot. A pause, a moment to take a breath; it's been seemingly impossible these past few years. Which means my type-A personality kicked in to cue the guilt. Because surely only lazy people sit around their backyards at 3:30 pm on a Thursday with their sparkling water and their sandals and their colorful lawn chairs.

Soon enough a fight will break out or they'll see a bug or rush over all at once to demand freeze pops. Soon enough my backyard will be empty as they grow older and more independent. So I take this afternoon as a blessing. Just me and my sandals, a book in my lap, three small bodies in swimsuits, a blow-up pool, sunshine, and my sparkling water. With a lime.

This is exactly what I've been waiting for.

He’s still exhausting with all that energy, his penchant for anything as long as it’s a little bit life-threatening. But we might be getting there. Instead of holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop during any momentary lull, I’ve been taking deeper breaths, able to recharge and relax just a little bit more into just exactly what I’ve been waiting for.