Jason: Lu, is that the piano you're supposed to be practicing? Lu: DAAAAAD! YES, IT'S WHAT MISS MARTY TOLD ME TO PRACTICE -- MY CHRISTMAS MUSIC?!!!"
Jason: I don't need to tell Santa about your attitude, because I am pretty sure he heard you all the way from the North Pole.
Milo: Yeah, Lu, you not gonna get any pwesents.
Lucy made a 79 on a book report. A BOOK REPORT. A book report where she mainly just had to decorate a pumpkin like a character in the book (a picture book, at that). She made a C on an arts and crafts project about a book. This from the child whose past-times are reading, writing and drawing/gluing/decorating. When we brought it up, she was not worried about the grade. She did her best, she said. Jason and I tried to be loving and supportive, restrained and encouraging. But what's the right way to say, "That wasn't your best, kid. We know how smart you are. And we want to see an effort that reflects your intelligence." Well, I don't know the right way, but that's pretty much exactly what we said.
I was more proud of the things I didn't say:
This conversation caused much gnashing of teeth and dramatic wailing. At one point, she blamed me for her bad grade (which she finally gave up defending as good) because I bought her an ugly pumpkin. She seemed unconcerned about the grade, but offended by our conversation.
I don't want to pressure her. Except I do. But I can't make her care as much as we do.
Milo LOVES Mitt Romney. But, to the relief of his progressive parents, not because of any nascent right-wing political leanings or plutocratic ambitions. The opposite, rather. Milo loves Mitt Romney because he thinks he is the plumber. Whose name is Ronnie. As in, when he comes over, which is not infrequently in this aging house of ours, we ask the kids to use their manners and call him "Mr. Ronnie." Which sounds to a three-year-old just like "Mitt Romney." Milo started identifying Mitt Romney on the radio a couple of months ago: "Hey! They talk about Misto Wonnie!" And I laughed and tried to explain that Mitt Romney was...well, I had no short answer, but left it at, "No, they are talking about Mitt Romney and he is running for president. MISTER RONNIE fixes the sink."
But then today on the way home from school, he was flipping through the New York Times Magazine (not reading it, just to be clear), and he saw a picture of Mitt Romney and said, "Misto Wonnie! Where his mustache?" The real Mr. Ronnie, who also has a lovely head of salt and pepper hair, but can actually fix things, does indeed have a mustache. That, a tool belt and the trust of a three-year-old? Some campaigns are built on less.
...that if you pee in the bafftub you have to get out? And then you mommy puts you to bed and you have to go to bed and stay in you bed? And the moon is go night-night too? So we don't pee in the bafftub.
Warning: this post contains strong emotions. If you want a glib update on the kids, tune in later. I have been thinking lately about vulnerability. About how all of us pretending we are okay all the time is putting a layer of padding between us. Sometimes the layer is comfortable. It's polite. Maybe when you ask how I am, you just want to hear that I am fine, that's as deep as we need to go.
Or maybe you would want to hear that I have not been fine. Maybe we can peel away the polite padding of pretending, and I can tell you that for the past two months, after a year and a half of hard work on a thrilling but stressful project in a dysfunctional situation, I came out the other side and realized I had a different kind of work to do. I needed to work on myself. So I have been doing...nothing. Well, not nothing. But not much besides thinking my thoughts, feeling my feelings, trying not to worry about the undone tasks and unearned wages. Oh, and also going to therapy. I have been calling it my nervous breakthrough.
And my breakthrough is this: I am good enough. In every way. I don’t need to pretend to be anything or anyone I am not to impress any person I really care about. And that might not sound like much of a breakthrough, but this understanding has recalibrated my heart in a way that lets me feel, deeply, the joy of my life.
And a big part of my joy is the amazing people around me, who I have been letting into this process. I have been vulnerable — told the truth about my sadness and my pain and how I am getting better. And this vulnerability has created an opening for other people’s fear, despair, need and joy. Without the polite padding, I have felt more love and connection to the people who matter to me, and from what I can tell they do, too. I have felt, more truly, my very worthy self.
This is not to say we always — or ever — have to talk about our feelings. I am not telling people in the grocery line, “So, the other day in therapy…” But maybe we could consider that our constant burnishing of the rough edges of our lives — only good news, only perfect photos on Facebook, everything's always fine — is keeping us from each other.
Maybe a good start is knowing that when I ask you how you are, I promise that I really want to know.
Lu: Grade Three
This big girl started third grade a couple of weeks ago. She has a big brain and big feelings — every day I see something more nuanced and mature in her, which I both love and mourn. Current big concerns: getting to school via bus or bike, keeping track of homework and finding ways to incorporate a sweater-coat into her wardrobe when the high is 92.
Milo: Three Years Old
Milo turned three earlier this month. He's potty-trained, he uses complete sentences and has a raucous sense of humor. He still loves "guys" — in fact, we are awash in tiny plastic people because we're still giving him prizes after he goes potty. He really needs to move out of his crib, but I'm not ready yet.
After a couple of rough weeks in the new three-year-old classroom (Milo was coming home exhausted, grouchy and slightly violent), we decided to move Milo back to the two-year-old classroom. We'd been concerned that he'd be bored, way ahead of the younger two-year-old set developmentally. Hardly. Not only is he not fully potty-trained like most of these younger kids, many of them know shapes and colors, the dates of their birthdays. Milo knows none of those things. What he does know, as we discovered this morning, is how to swear. Milo, after falling out of his chair at breakfast: "DAMMIT!"
Jason: "Milo, don't say that word. That's not a nice word, and it's only for grown-ups."
Milo: "I cannot say 'dammit'?"
Jason: "No, Milo, don't say that?"
Milo: "Can I say 'poo-poo-head'?"
Jason: "Don't say that either."
We couldn't be more proud.
Me, noticing the chocolate smears around his mouth: "Milo, what are you eating?" Milo, holding out an empty foil wrapper: "Chocolate."
Me: "Where is the chocolate?"
Milo: "In my tummy." Lifts shirt, points to belly button. "See, right here."
Me: "Where was it before?"
Milo: "In my mouth."
Me: "But where did you get it?"
Milo: "My room."
I know he has a stash in his room somewhere, pilfered from the snack drawer. I just haven't found it yet.
Coming home from camp is like returning from an enchanted forest through a wardrobe, or re-entering earth's atmostphere from space: you are leaving a magical place for an ordinary one. Home: a place you missed, filled with people you love but who just don't understand.
When I went to get Lu from Lantern Creek on Friday, I was semi-prepared for this bittersweet adventurer's homecoming. I wasn't prepared for how tall and tan and self-possessed she would be. How her teeth would fit her head better. How she would seem so in command of herself and her world.
She took me on a tour of camp, where I've been a few times, and feel like I know intimately because I've watched Liz and Sunni give birth to it these last two years. But I hadn't seen it through her eyes.
She showed me the Muse (the theater), where she played Wendy in their version of Peter Pan. I met Courtney, her BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. I met various campers and counselors named Shout, Cupcake, Snowflake, Nando, Table, Shiva, and Vulture (fun exercise: what's your camp name? I am still working on mine). When I asked "Toad" her real name, she looked at me earnestly. "Just Toad," she said. And I liked that.
Lucy showed me the place she learned to use a drill and wield a hammer. Where she built and nailed her "one word" on a sign post (her word was "brave"). On the way to Mr. Barrett's Lake, she pointed out the tall grass where the ogres live, noting that ogres are only a little bigger than gnomes, but a lot uglier (I always thought ogres were really big, but I am not an expert on magical creatures). At the lake, she showed me where Pixie (Liz) taught her to canoe. (Note: Liz also taught me to canoe. I was cool and didn't cry.) Lu tried to introduce me to Jerry, the rabbit who lives in a thicket near the garden, but he was otherwise engaged.
We walked by the room where the Dames meet — the Dames is her camp team, one of three teams alongside the Terras and the Gypsies. On the car ride home, I asked her what is means to be a Dame and she said, "Dames are confident and brave. You know, Mom — a Dame? A female warrior?" Duh. I always knew what I had on my hands, but until she drew the purple bead marking her as such, I didn't have such a perfect name for it.
Jason asked her about Jane's Night, a Ren-fair-style evening program that's a magical celebration of the legendary founder of Lantern Creek: the Dread Pirate Jane Brilliant. Now, I have known the founders of Lantern Creek since the early 80s, and neither of them are pirates (unless you count some unfortunate hoop earrings). Jason asked who Jane Brilliant was, and Lu, exasperated, said, "She invented the stars, Dad." Duh. This is the power of magic.
On the way home from camp, we stopped to eat at a Subway in Navasota (perhaps one of the least magical places in Southern U.S.), and she sat in the plastic booth staring into her bag of Sunchips, a bereft version of the self-possessed girl I'd seen at camp.
"What's wrong, babe?"
"I just don't feel right."
"Are you sick?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I'm glad to be coming home, but I just don't feel right not being at Lantern Creek. I belong there."
It's like she had the emotional bends.
Yesterday, we went to see April in the hospital, where is she recovering well from a mitral valve replacement that will (fingers crossed) give her a huge and long overdue quality of life improvement. April chose "Luna" as her Lantern Creek name, and in her honor, the girls at Lantern Creek sing every evening in a ceremony they call "Circle Luna." As a get-well card, Lu drew April a picture of Circle Luna, with all the girls saying goodnight. As Lu described camp to April, I could tell she thought April got it more than I did (April has a strong capacity for magic).
My adventuress-astronaut-dame was home all of 44 hours before we put her on a plane (gulp) all by herself to see Baga and Opa in El Paso. And that was just enough time for her to do her own laundry. A skill she learned at Lantern Creek.
So big. So great.
All evidence indicates that Lucy is doing okay at camp. They are posting regular photos, and from what can I tell she is clean, well-fed, sun-protected and wearing clothing that appears to change at appropriate intervals. Oh, and she looks positively radiant in every single photo. Plus, a little bird has informed me that she is starring as Wendy in the camp production of "Peter Pan," she did a part of the ropes course called "the Screamer" and she peed behind a tree. So, yeah, I think it's going okay. What do you think?
