Tell Me the Story of Your Life, Part 2

I love the moment, in passing or somewhere in the interview portion of the evening or even in a movie, where I discover something truly surprising about someone. You don't know me: you think I am a ______, but really I am a...blue belt in judo! Accomplished belly dancer! Mountaineer! Cellist! These moments can be the stuff of spy fiction, but they happen in real life too. Like when my friend Pie, someone I like to think I know quite well, totally moved and surprised me with her cello choir concert on Saturday. I knew she was rediscovering the cello, taking lessons, practicing with the choir. I'd even heard her play some on her own and with the burgeoning family band (longer, later post here). But I didn't really understand her secret cello identity until I heard her play with the cello choir. It was as surprising as if she'd given a speech in Farsi onstage. It was stunningly good, all those strings together, Pie a part of them.

So. Please, stun me, tell me more about your surprising self because it wakes up my capacity to live bigger, to show up to my life in more ways. Even if I am a little tone deaf.

You Know Summer is Over When...

...Lucy throws a shoe and a few other things at you and says, "I hate you again, Mom, just like I did earlier. You are the worst." I just continued making cookies, which is a better reaction than the time about 30 minutes earlier when she also hated me. She has been a shrill, angry wreck since we got home from El Paso: the victim of too much fun and not enough sleep, and maybe some nerves about first grade thrown in to season the furious stew.

Surely tomorrow will be better. Or least someone else's problem for 8 hours or so.

Vacation

When I tell people I am spending my vacation in El Paso with my in-laws, I get pitying looks. Is it the "El Paso" or the "in-laws" that draws such sympathy? Let me speak in defense of both. Coming here (where I am as I write this) is relaxing, in some way more relaxing than all but the most tranquil, lie-around-and-do-nothing beach vacation (the kind we don't go on because we like to do things). There are no sights we have to hustle to see (just some family to visit). There are no fancy restaurants to get into (just various local cuisine to sample, much of it made by Grandma herself). And unlike being at home, there are no house projects, no laundry, no busy social life. Just a swimming pool and plenty of free time.

Oh, and I like my in-laws. They are fabulous hosts. They love my children. They appreciate me. They are thrilled we are here. And did I mention the swimming pool?

Oh. Hi.

The whole life is under repair here in Suganaholand. Traveling. Changing. You know. Some recent progress: • Lucy can put together the entire Mousetrap game with only muttered adult encouragement. (This adult can only mutter encouragement, as she herself cannot put it together.) • Milo can blow kisses. • Jason and Kate can still shake it at a (totally freaking fabulous) wedding.

More later. X to the O.

Biter

Did you start laughing the moment you read the title of this blog post? It's not funny.

It's not funny when your son is either so impressed or pained by his new teeth that he bites anything within an inch of his mouth. The spoon or finger you are feeding him with. The fleshy part of your thigh as he pulls up on your leg. The arm of another child who happened to reach past Milo's face (this generated an "incident report" at school). After he bites you/something, he grins as though to say "The world is so DELICIOUS."

It's not funny.

Naughty

Milo is learning to be bad and mad. He crawls around trawling for the tiny, the sharp, the swallowable. When he finds it — which he always does, because all of Lucy's favorites playthings are tiny, sharp, and swallowable — he will show it to you triumphantly, put it in his mouth, then motor away. Today I fished a dime out of his maw and he screamed furiously. I told him what a bad baby he was and then smooched his neck till he laughed and laughed. Some scolding. But he really is pretty naughty.

Happy Camper

We picked her up from camp on Friday afternoon, and when I first saw her, she glowed. Not with happiness to see us, but with news and stories and songs to share. She was bubbling over. Turns out, she is good at camp. The way one is good at a sport or a hobby. I was, too. In fact, it was one of the first things I felt really good at in my life, so I was thrilled to discover she has a similar talent.

Camp is a place where you leave real life behind and make a new kid-run society, one that, for the most part, prizes qualities like enthusiasm, cooperation, curiosity, adaptability, kindness and silliness. You (not your parents or your background) define yourself. Emotional bonds and experiences are distilled so that one week feels like three months. Camp memories and friendships endure. My words fail me here, but if you're a camper, you know.

And now she's a camper. Liz said, "Kate, she's a Rocky River girl." Indeed.

Overheard

(via Liz) Lucy, trying to bully/negotiate class changes: "NO ONE is knitting." Willow, to her credit, held firm and did knitting. Lucy said it was okay if they weren't in all their classes together, because, you know, they're cousins and see each other a lot.

Willow, after the counselor in the Red Wagon asked if anyone knew what a "caper" was (caper is camp speak for chore):"I know! It's kind of like a little pickle." Which, well, it is.

Lucy, to Liz today three times in a row: "This is the best place in the whole world." Which, well, it is.