on snow days and awaiting baby

It snowed today, not much, but enough to cancel school and send down satisfyingly puffy white flakes for a short time.  When enough had fallen to coat the street we began the laborious process of getting everyone dressed to go outside - 2 pairs of pants, shirts, fleece, jackets, hats, gloves, rainboots.  The littlest one ranted and raved about how uncomfortable she was.  The older 2 managed fairly well on their own, a newer development this winter for which I am truly grateful.  With final complaints about shrinking boots (or could it be growing feet?) and a mad dash for the camera, we opened the back door and stepped out into the falling flecks of white.

It was, as always, magical.  Faces upturned, tongues outstretched, hair collecting bits of snow.  Aida and Sophie ran to the slide - the place where the most snow had collected - and gathered enough to make a few powdery snowballs.  Daddy went to find the sled.  Lucy joined the snowball “fight.”  I snapped a few photos and fixed mittens and hats and tried to memorize it all, these sweet happy faces and little shouts of joy and bits of ice and snow flying.

Daddy pronounced the street out front sleddable and the party quickly changed course.  I stood with Lucy in the front yard, my sweater and winter coat both on but neither able to button as my large belly amassed its own collection of snowflakes.  I thought about Emmie curled tightly inside, floating and warm and wiggling.  I thought about bringing her into this cold world with its ice and wind and all its heartache.  I thought, maybe she knows what she’s doing, camping out where it’s cozy and refusing to make her appearance.

I glanced over at my Lu sitting directly in the snow on the driveway, scooping small piles of white onto her mittens and stuffing them into her mouth.  She smiled at me, hat slightly askew and nose pink.  Sophie and Elijah rode past, bodies leaning hard to the right in an attempt to avoid prematurely crash-landing in our neighbor’s lawn.  The sled cut through the quarter inch of snow and scraped along the street.  The 2 of them stood, triumphant, and then Aida quickly went to take her turn.  I breathed in the chilly air.  I breathed in the beauty of the bodies around me.

When toes were numb we tracked water and snow inside, removing soaked layers and hustling for warm, dry clothes.  I poured milk into a saucepan, watched as my whisk dissolved flakes of dark chocolate into it, got down the marshmallows and the teacups.  The heater ran, clicked off for a few minutes, and groaned back on again.  The girls stirred until their marshmallows completely dissolved and then drank.  (Lucy spilled all over her dress. Time for outfit #3.)

I thought about Emmie again, and how she’s bound to make her entrance into this cold world soon.  And I thought about pink noses and shouts of wonder and hot chocolate and a heater.  Come on, little girl.  We’re ready to keep you warm.

cutting down trees

Gerald works for my Granddaddy and has for as long as I can remember.  He’s certainly getting on in years but his age is hard to distinguish - I’m guessing he’s well into his 70s.  He has thinning hair that he often covers with a feedstore cap and wears pinstripe overalls or well-worn jeans with suspenders.  He is missing one of his front teeth, along with parts of several others, and he talks in such an affected Southern accent that I can only understand about 70% of what he says.  (This is a significant improvement over the 40-50% I understood when we first moved in with my grandparents.)

Lucy spent the first 2 years of our life here afraid of Gerald but decided at the beginning of the summer that he wasn’t so scary after all.  Now Lu not only acknowledges his existence but stands at the edge of a field and yells at him until he waves at her from the tractor.  Now that Queen Lucy bestows her graces upon him Gerald, in turn, adores Lucy, thinks she's the smartest thing ever, and has taken to calling her “Cupcake.”  She is okay with this.

Gerald takes care of the land around here.  He mows field after field in the spring and summer, taking slow turns in the tractor with Bella chasing behind him.  He splits and stacks firewood, maintains the blueberries for the church, and gathers fallen limbs each time a storm whips through these woods.

But this summer it seemed like all Gerald was doing was cutting down trees.  30 years ago (before anybody knew better, I guess) my Granddaddy planted a line of Bradford Pear trees along the drive in front of the house.  They are the biggest Bradford Pears I have ever seen - they’re never topped and so they’ve grown to an immense height.  They stink like no other in the spring when they’re blossoming out but they are beautiful in the summer with their lush green leaves and they are just gorgeous in the fall as they turn any number of autumn shades before dropping their leaves to the ground and resting for the winter.

Lately, though, a few of those trees haven’t been able to withstand the winds that have gone whipping through and around them during the Tennessee storms that I don’t think this California girl will ever quite get used to.  One was pulled up at the roots, another was cracked entirely in half, and a third was showing sure signs of disease and death.  And so, at successive times from May to July, Gerald was out with his chain saw, cutting the trees into limbs, cutting the limbs into logs, and dragging the logs away to be stacked for firewood or added to the burn pile.  You can imagine that this would take a 70-something year old man working on his own quite a while, and so it seemed that every time we turned onto our drive and headed down into our little valley we saw him there, just cutting down trees.

I know that Gerald didn’t cause the trees’ demise, but I couldn’t help feeling like he was betraying me a little.  There he was all day long with that stinky loud chainsaw and that stinky loud tractor, taking down beautiful trees and leaving ugly old stumps in their place.

And then one evening as I stood at the sink doing dishes I looked up for a moment and glanced through the window.  For the first time from that vantage point I could see the pond perfectly.  The fading sunlight shone golden upon its surface and the breeze blew it into tiny, perfect, perpetual waves.  The beauty took my breath away.  I had never noticed it like this before - those giant trees had always been in the way.

It feels like there have been some trees getting cut down in my soul recently.  Maybe they are even overgrown Bradford Pears, giant and beautiful and lush but secretly weak and not grounded nearly well enough.  And I hate the stinky loud chainsaw that feels like it’s wreaking havoc on the landscape of my heart.  But I’m hoping that one day I’ll be able to look out the window and see something beautiful because they’re gone.  And that one day I’ll be able to say “Thank you for it all.”

i write so that i will remember

Yesterday my littlest woke me up before it was light, just like she does every morning, like she has every morning since I stopped nursing her through the night.  I pulled her from her bed, brought her into mine.  Her daddy lay still on her other side.  She was on her back looking up at the ceiling fan as it slowly rotated.  I curled into her and listened to her breathe.  Her small, perfectly chubby hands found my hair, my neck, my cheeks.  "Mommy, I'm ready for my milk and water and graham crackers," she cheerfully announced.  Snuggle time over.  Morning had officially begun.

We went downstairs, retrieved her snacks.  I silently cursed the dishwasher which had failed to complete its cycle.  Lu sat perched on the counter where she always sits while I do the morning chores - dishes, silverware, counters.  I changed the date on the white board to attempt to orient my grandparents to the day ahead.  I made tea.  Lu sang.

We went upstairs and read from our giant stack of library books.  Aida burst into the room, sleepy-eyed and smiling.  She created a spot for herself in the rocking chair.  Her daddy pulled himself out of bed and into his 6-mile-running shoes.  We read some more, and listened to Lucy as she pretended to go to the fair, and relived the best moments from the previous evening's carnival.  We got tired of waiting for Sister to wake up and Daddy to get home and make waffles so we went downstairs for a bowl of cereal.

Sophie galloped down.  We cleaned up cereal bowls and moved to the front porch to await the arrival of that running Daddy.  My favorite part of Saturday.  Each of my big girls huddled into my sides, knees bent and nightshirts pulled over goose-bumpy legs.  Lulee was on my lap.  We swung and sang.  It was raining, and it felt like fall.  I breathed in fresh air and exhaled thanks.

We waited.  Daddy came home.  He turned on some music (heavy on the synthesizers) while he stretched and Lucy hopped down, poised to begin.  Her favorite part of Saturday.  She hopped, and ran, and spun, and bent in half so that her head was on the ground and her face peeked at us through her legs.  She made faces and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

Inside for puzzles while Daddy finally made those waffles.  Mimi restarted the dishwasher again.  (I had a minor ridiculous freak-out moment.)  The girls ate a 2nd breakfast.  We putzed and puttered.

At lunchtime Aida cried about her head hurting and not wanting to eat.  She crawled back into bed and I took her temperature.  Fever.  And then, after such a sweet morning, I found myself holding onto her and a tupperware bowl as she retched and spit and cried.

And I thought about how motherhood - or the idea of motherhood - inspires so many fantasies, and about how during my pregnancies I had these (silly) visions of cutely dressed children in coffee shops, sitting nicely or playing cards while I drank my vanilla latte.  I haven't had a vanilla latte in years.

Motherhood is closing your eyes as you dump vomit from a bowl into the toilet.  It is getting your heart tugged and squeezed and stomped on.  It is poop all up in everywhere and it is trying with every ounce of self-control to stay calm and speak gently.  It is working to forgive yourself when you don't.  It is humbling and exhausting, and the best work I've ever done.  It is chubby hands on my neck and songs on the front porch swing and the ache deep within that says, "This.  Thank You for this."

a belated birthday post

These girls, these teeny tiny babies who rushed into the world on an August day

are now 6, tall and long-legged and funny, creative and loud but quiet, in Kindergarten and suddenly away from me more than they are with me, loving and lovable and quirky, beautiful and intelligent and exhausting.

Aida loves to create things out of crumpled papers and boxes and cast-off toys.  That "trash" in her room?  She's playing with that, and heaven forbid anyone tries to throw it away.  She leaves the sweetest notes on my pillow that say "Mommy. I love you so so much.  Love Aida" and they will never, never get old.  I love it when she comes downstairs in the mornings, usually a few minutes before her sister, hair disheveled and glasses off, rubbing her eyes.  She likes to be sung to and snuggled in those moments, long legs and all.

Sophie is still our fancy girl.  She loves sequins and rhinestones and dresses her stuffed animals up in the most elaborate costumes one could imagine.  Each one is beribboned and bedazzled.  All of a sudden she is a fluent reader and she perches on her bed with a stack of books and reads.every.word.  By herself.  She is a dancer and a singer and a dreamer, and loves to giggle uncontrollably with her friends.  She is gentle and dramatic and loves to cuddle her baby sister.

We celebrated 6 years of twin delightfulness 2 Saturdays ago with a unicorn pool party (don't all unicorns swim?).  The day of their actual birthday they took brownies to school to share with their classmates.  Lucy and I met them for lunch in the cafeteria and I marveled at how comfortable they already were in their new environment.  Grandmom had a special birthday tea party for their afterschool snack and then we Skyped with Nana and Grandpa and Auntie Cat and Timmy and Ginny and then we headed to McDonald's (always their birthday choice) to meet Daddy for dinner.

Then we came home and Sophie cried because her tummy hurt and 2 hours later she threw up more than anyone I have ever seen.  We officially dubbed her as having had "too much birthday" and will probably not return to McDonald's for quite some time.   Or forever. Which was perhaps an unexpected birthday present.

Happy birthday, sweet girlies.  Oh, how we love you.

kindergarten

These little cuties started kindergarten today.  How did that happen?

They picked out their clothes last night and we laid them out in piles on the toychest.  As Aida pulled her shirt over her head this morning she noticed her pocket.  These girls love pockets because these girls love tiny treasures that fit inside pockets.  She immediately began the search for something to tuck into hers, but Kindergarten has rules and in Kindergarten you can only bring toys on Friday for Show and Tell (oh, the world gets so mean as you grow up!).

Thinking quickly, I piped up, "I can put a little heart in your pocket."  We dashed into my room, pulled out the arts and crafts bin, rifled around for some orange and pink paper and cut out 2 tiny hearts.  I whipped out my pencil and wrote, "I love you.  Love, Mommy"  We slipped them in.

"Yeah!" shouted Aida.  "This way, if I ever need to remind myself that you're coming back to get me, I can pull out my heart and remember."

Oh, melt my heart, little girl, this heart that beats love within and through and out of me each day for you and your sisters.

But how DID they get so big?

Lu, you're 2!

This girl

is a complete gift.

warming up those winter days

So it seems that we might be emerging from the gray chill of winter into the windy sort-of-warmth of spring.  Hallelujah! this wimpy Santa Barbara girl cries.  But we did have a fun way of bringing some light into the browns and grays of late January and early February.  I left the girls this little invitation:

They took it VERY seriously.  Fancy dress-up clothes were donned,

(and they insisted Mommy wear some, too - you should have seen me trying to wriggle into this tutu)

the tea set was put out and hot chocolate was procured,

and treats were enjoyed by all.

SOME of us got messier than others - 

but we all had plenty of fun.  And the best part?  That evening, after Daddy got home from work, 3 little messengers delivered this:

I love having little girls. (I also love their Daddy.)