Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today my mom turned 58, and we spent the weekend in Pekin to trash her house and dirty all her towels and sheets, uh, I mean celebrate.

On Friday, we took the kids to Mineral Springs Park, and Harry was playing with a group of older kids. The kids looked to be about 9 or 10, and I figured he was okay as long as they were nice to him. Harry does this really annoying thing where he puts his fingers in his mouth and screams shrilly at the top of his lungs and claims to be whistling. He did that several times to the boys, and one of them was particularly bothered by it. He said, "Knock it off!" really loud to Harry and then commented to his friends, "If he doesn't shut up, I am going to get him and make him stop."

Harry ran by me, giggling, "He's going to get me!" In Harry's world, this means someone is going to chase him and tickle him, but I kind of thought these kids had something else in mind.

Still he impressed them with his lack of fear when it came to jumping off the jungle gym, and he stayed close to the big boys for a few more minutes. I heard them talking loudly to him, though, and went over to the rock wall just in time to see one of the boys jump onto a railing so that both of his big feet were inches from Harry's nose.

"Hey!" I said to the boys. "Stop being mean to him right now. He's only 4 years old."

"He's 4?" One of the boys asked me. "He said he was 7."

"Yeah, " said the rest of them. "We thought you were 7."

Harry turned bright red and came over to the smaller play structure, the one that is designed for 2-5 year old, to play with me and Jack.



Saturday, my parents took the boys to see Megamind in the morning, and Ben and I went to Bradley to see our old speech friends because BUST was hosting its annual tournament.

In the afternoon, Ben and my dad and I took them bowling.

Which? Will be fun in like 2 years. Nw, it is about 6 frames too long. Even with bumpers.

I especially liked how both kids put their fingers directly from the ball holes into their noses and mouths. Harry was eating a bag of Cheezits with his filthy bowling hands, and I noticed that on the bench next to him was a discarded band aid. Blech.


There was a brief interlude where Jack tried on the hat my parents brought him from their most recent trip to see my brother in NYC


We took my mom out for dinner at our old country club, the place where I spent all my summers and that has become a public golf course, ripped out the tennis courts, and FILLED IN THE POOL. So sad. But they opened a new pub in the old restaurant area and it was really good and made us nostalgic.

Back at my parents' house, Harry and Jack demanded my mom open her presents even though her birthday is today.


This morning, we celebrated with breakfast cake and the holiday Target catalogue

On our way out of town, we stopped by Bradley again to squeeze a squishy baby our friends had over the summer and let the boys nearly vandalize some sculptures on campus.

I even got to eat my favorite sandwich from Fedora's Pizza & Deli, the best restaurant in the universe.

An excellent weekend all around.

Harry's memory lane

The other day while Jack mercifully napped, I had to turn off the TV because I was afraid Harry's brain was going to literally rot out of his head because I worked on my NaNoWriMo book when we first got up, letting them watch whatever the hell they wanted.

This was quite a bummer, actually, because I was hoping to nap a bit myself while the TV babysitter did her job. I didn't know what the heck to do with Harry, especially because 85% of his toys were in the room where Jack was sleeping.

Harry, though, had a perfect solution to my activity dilemma. I sprawled on the bed, and he pulled out a bunch of old picture albums and flipped through them and exclaimed how cute he was when he was a baby-- for an hour. I might have dozed a bit even. And when woke up, he might have been sporting all of his old Little Gym medals that he pilfered from his baby book.

He was cracking me up. Even fairly recent albums (which are actually not that recent because I have thousands of pictures in a box in the cabinet under my desk, pictures that I print out every week at the Walgreens by my office and then shove in a dark cabinet, which really doesn't make any damn sense, now that I think about it) elicited it a "I was so little!" or "Look how cute I am!"

He is little. He is cute.

I love them so much when they are sleeping

Every night after Ben and I start the dishwasher, vacuum the laundry room, and stumble upstairs, I stop in the boys' room to stare at them before I take off all my makeup and moisturize the hell out of my old face.

Sometimes if they look really funny I take a picture. This is actually very Gar of me-- my dad has whole vacation albums of his co-vacationers passed out on the beach.

But, seriously, can you blame me?

Early to Bed

Yesterday my kids really bugged.

Harry woke up the whole house with a bad dream at 3:30 and while he and Ben managed to go right back to sleep, Jack and I were up for the duration.

Around 5:30, I took Jack's temp. 101. Awesome and too bad I didn't think of that sooner because Tylenol broke it right away and he may have gone back to sleep except that Ben and Harry were just waking up.

It's supposed to snow here(!), so after swim lessons the kids and I went to their favorite playground the take advantage of the 50 degree temps. This playground has a bunch of Little Tikes vehicles that are typically locked up, but miracle of miracles, they were unlocked. Unfortunately, both kids only wanted the same Cozy Coupe, and they had a fistfight on the sidewalk so we had to go home (and by go home I mean I had to carry one hysterical kid and lead the other screaming mess by the hand all the way to the car. special magical moments).

But do you know what I am happy about? Salad. Crisp, fresh, organic salad that Ben and I topped with grilled chicken and ate tonight with huge glasses of wine and baked potatoes, after the kids went to bed. And I also went to bed, before 9.

My chain of fools

In the car on the way to school, I couldn't bring myself to start playing holiday music (don't worry-- not only am I over THAT silly reluctance, I am searching for tons of new songs to get us in the Chrismukkah spirit on iTunes every time I take a break from my ludicrous to-do lists which might be less ludicrous if I took fewer breaks), but I also didn't want to hear anymore Monster Mash or Purple People Eater.

I randomly played my Monday Morning playlist-- the one I like to listen to while I am cleaning out the hellhole that is my inbox when I get to the office and scribbling a brand new list for the day in my Moleskine-- and a few seconds into Chain of Fools (Aretha), I heard a little voice piping in from the backseat and looked in the rearview to see Harry happily joining the chorus while Jack kicked his not-quite-baby feet into the passenger seat.

They even danced amicably through the next song (Bonnie Raitt's Papa Come Quick) and clapped joyfully when their favorite Beatles tune (All Together Now) came up just as we were pulling into the preschool parking lot. Harry didn't even mind when Jack got all of the words wrong. Everybody sings songs differently, he told me. Songs don't mean the same thing for everyone.

I love my tolerant little backup singers, even more because I know that someday they'll just want shaving cream and to be left alone.

Chilly

Yesterday morning, Ben left for work while the kids and I sat happily at the breakfast table eating our pumpernickel bagels with cream cheese (them) and English muffins (me). We said goodbye and went on about the business of eating breakfast and sipping hot coffee (me) and cold milk (them), just like everyday when we heard a sound we haven't heard in 5 or 6 months-- Ben coming back inside.

"Dada home work?" Jack asked, confused.

"No," Ben told him. "My car is covered with ice." Harry ran to the window to investigate and Ben made himself a cup of coffee to go and pillaged the trick-or-treat stash while he waited.

After breakfast, both kids ran joyously around the house in their Spiderman hats and gloves (Harry)/ mittens (Jack) from last year that they rediscovered in the winter accessory bin in our front closet. They wore their outerwear inside all morning, so excited to feel the chill on the playground and the warmth of their fingers nestled together. Harry told Jack all about snow, which Jack claimed to remember.

Usually, I dread the long winter and its approach, thinking only of how much more shit I will have to carry around when we go places and I become the default hauler of scarves, hats, gloves, coats, sometimes if I'm lucky boots. You know the cliches-- taking 20 minutes to get bundled up to go outside and staying out for only 15. It ill be dark when we wake up and dark shortly after the end of the school day. While I love cold fall nights that smell like leaves, I love them best inside my house, snuggled under a blanket. By the time February rolls around and the snow is black, I am perusing real estate in the south.

Yesterday morning, though, charmed by the site of my warm Spidermen, I stepped back from the precipice of the slippery winter-sucks-I-hate-this-town slope I was poised to tumble down and saw the magic of the season's change again.

I even found some turquoise mittens of my own.

NaBloPoMo: What the Eff?

Because I have apparently lost my damn mind, I am going to do NaBloPoMo here and at Harrytimes 365 this month. I am also working full time teaching a class I have never taught before and writing a scholarly book. Oh and I have 2 kids. And, yeah. I am also writing a novel this month-- 50,000 words in 30 days.

I told you guys that we have started going to a Unitarian church, right? Well, over the last month, Ben and I took new member classes, and a couple of weeks ago we signed the membership book and became official members.

We came to a UU congregation because it seemed like a good compromise between Christianity and Judaism, a place where our kids could attend religious education classes and believe in something larger than Santa and the Tooth Fairy. What I found was a place to help me answer the big questions-- why are we here? What is "the good"? What happens when we die? You know, those questions.

I have started to understand that some of my ongoing anxiety issues stem from these questions and that the answers begin to lie in the practice of living mindfully. So that's what I am going to do here for the next 30 days. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, fat kid that I am, so this month, I am going to post things I am grateful for. Well, not things in the material sense. Moments. Lived experience. Everyday interactions.

On Saturday, listening to a lovely reflection on reimagining the sacred, I realized how thankful I should be for the unremarkable days, the ones that start the same and end the same and feature the same routine crammed in the middle-- the days that everyone says go so fast even though they seem to linger for more than 24 hours.

This month I will revel in the beauty of my ordinary life.