Going green

Boston St. Paddy's parade, photo via flickr

If you're going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day somewhere besides the Emerald country itself, Boston is the place. (Quite possibly this is why Greg yesterday oddly advised the missionaries to go drink a green beer today. Or he's trolling for a release...? They laughed nervously.) Everybody claims Irishness today.

But I, must say, Maddy looks the very part today (just as green as last year) especially with her redbrown hair and green eyes (and lots of green bling):

Lastly & semi-related, maybe this would be a good day to add this favorite:

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

~Seamus Heaney

My related Irish blessing: May your heart be blown open.
But in a painless, pleasant way.

last two photos courtesy of Lauren & her Ireland trip

Triptych

Michaelangelo's Pieta

I wake up to a small sound at midnight, my Miss Clavell-like mother sensors detecting something is not right. There it is again--a soft sniffle, a low moan. Is someone crying? I shuffle into the hallway, blurry from the scant hour of sleep and still half in my dream.

Maddy is crying--a soft, forlorn sob that breaks my heart.

I scoot her over a bit to make room for myself under the covers of her twin bed. I fit my legs into the angle of hers {and note fleetingly how her legs have stretched longer in the last few months} and wrap my arms around her. She spills out her worries and disappointments that have been building under her cheerful 12-year-old exterior. Loneliness, jealousy, fear, nostalgia already for her simpler elementary school days, friend troubles, sister troubles, dashed expectations for the glorious experiences she thought would be hers at 12--these are all soured by their proximity to each other and by the late dark lonely hour.

There was a time when my midnight ministrations were easier, when, blurry eyed, I could provide milk and nearness and that was enough to satisfy her nighttime needs. Now my role isn't resolving or satisfying but simply witnessing & waiting while she resolves for herself.

***

Brueghel's Child's Games

Most of my interactions with Sam are still instrumental. Where are my church shoes? What are we having for dinner? Will you help me with this song? Will you play a game with me? Comb my hair? Check my homework? These things I can do, can check off as positive indicators for the parenting balance sheet.

Although yesterday, when he hollered up from the kitchen "Can you cut my bagel for me?" I admit I weighed the probability of a lacerated palm (if I had him try it himself) versus a few more peaceful moments of reading before I replied a delayed "okay." Even the simple things are hard some days, their grinding dailiness overpowering my ability to rise to the occasion.

***

Modigliani portrait

Lauren chose 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night, the last day of February break, to bring us the sheet of paper.
"I'm supposed to have a conversation with you."
Distracted by Jon Stewart's Oscar banter, I register her request but fail to respond.
"Like, by tomorrow. It's due tomorrow in Health."
"Okay...let me see what it is."

The form lists five questions that students are supposed to discuss with parents about sex and birth control: How should teenagers show affection for each other? Should a couple have sex if they love each other and are going to get married? If a teen is sexually active, what kind of birth control should she use? Etcetera.

This is not the conversation I want to have, on demand, on Oscar night at 9:30. Keep in mind we have had nine unscheduled, unhurried days of vacation before this. I sigh.

"I already know the answers to most of these. We've talked about this before" she says hopefully. "Maybe we don't need to talk about it and you can just sign the sheet."
This is true, although we haven't explicitly discussed birth control. I imagine a pregnant child, blaming her parents' cluelessness: They couldn't be bothered. The Oscars were on.

So we talk, our glances not quite meeting for most of it. One commercial break, Greg screamingly silent on the other sofa.
As she heads for bed, she says "don't worry, I'm not planning on doing anything like this anytime soon."

Silence in the wake of her departure.

Greg asks, "Did she say 'not anytime soon'? Because I was hoping to hear 'not planning on anything like this ever'." I'm just thinking why didn't I turn off the t.v. and spend a little more time? What's so difficult about that?

***

The notebook

The tween/teen years are tricky parenting geography, especially with your oldest child. How much permission to grant, what are the kids ready for (and you! what are you ready for?), how to balance freedom + protection???

So here's an idea we tried: Years ago when Lauren was around 9, we started a notebook conversation between us. At the time we were in a rut where I seemed to be finding much more negative than positive things to say to her (of course now I can't remember the reasons or the issues or why they seemed so important to me...) and she was getting moodier in that hint-of-adolescence way. I had a bunch of blank books so one day I grabbed one, wrote her a note in it, and left it under her pillow. Then she wrote back.

It's been a crucial thing for our relationship. Recently I got it back out again on an evening when neither of us could really understand where the other was coming from. We both sound better in writing at those times. Friendlier and more calm.

Our guidelines are that we can say anything or ask anything, we won't correct or critique, and (my personal commitment to myself as the purported adult in this whole thing) I try to say positive things each time.

And confidentiality, of course. I won't quote our exchanges here but I'm sure you can imagine them. Sometimes she just asked what a word meant, sometimes I simply praised her efforts at trying new things. Other times we passionately defended our points of view or begged for understanding (or forgiveness!).

As a bonus, we have a terrific chronicle of our relationship. I look back and realize how ridiculous my expectations were at times. Lighten up, Annie, I remind myself. Most often, though, a re-read of the notebook increases my compassion for us both + shows what I've hoped all along: we're both doing the best we know how to do.

Ah, the smell of bus exhaust in the morning...

Dear Daughter L,
Tomorrow at 5 a.m. you are leaving on your first lengthy school field trip. Without me. While I hope you have a grand time this week in Washington, DC, I want to pause a moment in sheer disbelief that I have a daughter old enough to go somewhere without me for more than a day. Simultaneously, I am having panic flashbacks to the long orchestra and debate trips that I had when I was just a smidge older than you. Watch out for cute boys in the back of the bus, be leery of the restroom facilities in buses (and sitting near them is a definite don't), keep a wary eye out for practical jokes while you are sleeping on the bus. Try to absorb some knowledge about the nation's capital in the midst of the ever evolving and revolving social drama that is 8th grade. Please don't watch late night t.v. in the hotel room. Know that we love you AND that we know you will miss us even though you'd rather pluck out your eyelashes than admit it. Bon voyage and see you Friday!

*******

In other--but semi-related--news, my brother Chris has received his Peace Corps assignment to Mali. (My kids are especially excited that Timbuktu is in Mali.) Can't believe the Peace Corps thinks that my ten-year-old brother is old enough to do natural resource work for the Malian government until I remember he's actually 27. It's an I-feel-old day.

Have crackers, will travel

I wondered why L brought a little pouch with her to a 5th grade band concert... just didn't seem the time to make a fashion statement. Then during the concert I looked over and saw the tell-tale Ritz wrapper sticking out of it, which gave it away. That and the crunching sounds coming from not just L but also her dad. Since she evidently can't be without constant nourishment (for even a 30-minute concert), next time I'll just hook her up to an i.v. I know she already has a handy pouch to carry it in!