white apples . a blog

this girl. this boy.

It occurs to me that these are my last few days (or hours) with just this girl and this boy. And I wonder how things will change, how our new little one will shift the him and her, their push and pull and lockstep brother-sister-ness. They move through the day as a pair, playing and creating, arguing and collaborating. They learn and lecture and fight and hug and giggle uncontrollably. They are my two.

 

Looking at Them Asleep by Sharon Olds

When I come home late at night and go in to kiss them,
I see my girl with her arm curled around her head,
her mouth a little puffed, like one sated, but
slightly pouted like one who hasn't had enough,
her eyes so closed you would think they have rolled the
iris around to face the back of her head,
the eyeball marble-naked under that
thick satisfied desiring lid,
she lies on her back in abandon and sealed completion,
and the son in his room, oh the son he is sideways in his bed,
one knee up as if he is climbing
sharp stairs, up into the night,
and under his thin quivering eyelids you
know his eyes are wide open and
staring and glazed, the blue in them so
anxious and crystally in all this darkness, and his
mouth is open, he is breathing hard from the climb
and panting a bit, his brow is crumpled
and pale, his fine fingers curved,
his hand open, and in the center of each hand
the dry dirty boyish palm
resting like a cookie. I look at him in his
quest, the thin muscles of his arms
passionate and tense, I look at her with her
face like the face of a snake who has swallowed a deer,
content, content—and I know if I wake her she'll
smile and turn her face toward me though
half asleep and open her eyes and I
know if I wake him he'll jerk and say Don't and sit
up and stare about him in blue
unrecognition, oh my Lord how I
know these two. When love comes to me and says
What do you know, I say This girl, this boy.

 

dancing on

A few of my dear friends are about to become mothers, which has me thinking about all the ways that having a child changes us, how parenthood reaches down inside us and pushes things around, rearranges parts of us that we had thought were fixed and immutable, and how there is no possible way to prepare for that kind of continental shift in our lives. All of our convictions and priorities get tossed into the air and spun around and around until they settle down into this whole new pattern that is parenthood. I can't help but remember how exciting and suprising and disorienting that journey was. Still is. How we can become big enough to hold within us these whole other lives, how we can become small enough to hear the faintest whisper of a breath, see the barest flicker of an eyelid. How we become every mother and every child becomes our child, and how this very fact breaks our hearts every day and give us immeasurable hope.

I am also reminded how our lives change in the smallest, oddest, and most mundane ways as well. How I nearly cried from gratitute a few weeks ago when I had just strapped two tired, hungry, complaining children into our sweltering car and the lovely lady in the smart white business suit who had just gotten into her spotless BMW next to us got back out of her car and said, "I'll return your cart for you."

I am reminded that there are idyllic days, full of mama-calm and sweet kid moments, and days when frustration is my constant companion. There are days when my patience is as deep as the ocean and days when it is a muddy little puddle. And kids, you know what they do with puddles. But those days, every single one of them, ends. And we do our best. And wake up again the next morning with little-kid fingers curling around our arms and start a whole new day.

So my advice is forget about advice. Put down the parenting books. Forgive yourself those days. And be grateful for small kindnesses.

snippets, updates, recaps, and such

Juniper, our little late-talker, is finally erupting with a barrage of new words in past few weeks. Her burgeoning lexicon is still mostly focused on identifying animals - giraffe, bird, llama, etc. Here is a little video of her trying out her newest and thus current favorite word - owl - though you will notice that, when put on the spot, she falls back on her first love - bee.

Juniper is still thoroughly enjoying the Carolina summer. She is all sweaty-baby curls and skinned knees and dirt-under-the-fingernails. While I'm counting down the days until Fall, Juni is loving popsicle afternoons and baby pools and green grass and doesn't even notice this mama-wilting heat and humidity.

We hosted Charlie's summer lab party last weekend with a characteristically over-the-top menu in both quantity and variety given that we were feeding twelve undergrad and graduate students who have never heard of edamame, Thai satay, or soba noodles. We could have saved ourselves a busy, stressful Saturday by throwing some burgers on the grill and opening a few bags of potato chips. The three different cupcakes on the menu, however... those were for me. Far from being intimidated by the dozen adultish people who invaded our house all at once, Juniper was the life of the party, basking in the attention (and the cupcakes). She showed off her iPhoning skills, her toy piano playing, her twirling, and her dancing (to our music playlist, which was described as "old school" by one of the young punks).

Speaking of old school, I turned thirty-two this week. Thirty-two is one of those ages that is neither here nor there. I'm far enough into my thirties that I just need to suck it up and stop bemoaning the loss of my twenties, yet I'm not quite old enough to be worrying about the downhill slide into forties. So the big three-two was celebrated by spending a nice, low key day at home with the family. Charlie made delicious, decadent chocolate chocolate chip pancakes with blueberry sauce for breakfast that Juni spurned in favor of plain yogurt. He also took the day off, which was gift enough for mama, who didn't have to change a diaper or do the dishes all day long. ahhhhhh...