Fans of Spring

This crisp Spring morning, we rode our bikes to school as usual.  Looking down as we rode, we discovered a kind of magic carpet--our sidewalk was covered in white Japanese flowering crabapple blossoms.  The gentle breezes from the lake blow these flowering petals off the trees that line our path.  Up to this point, I had experienced Spring in postcard form only.  Living most of my life in Florida and Texas, I've known Spring as that glorious two-week window when you can spend all day outside without sweating yourself into a dehydrated, red-flushed state.  Now that we have endured our first 'real' winter, we get to enjoy the beauty, bounty, and yes, reward, of Spring.  

I learn new things about where I live everyday.  I never knew that Spring brings not only the visual delight in everything colorful and lush--from tall tulips to meadow buttercups--but also the sound and smells that ring-in this season's arrival.  Buzzing honey bees pollinate right outside my office windows.  Sweet fragrances waft inside our kitchen with every breeze. Basketballs pound on asphalt in the playground.  Wake-up calls come early each morning outside our bedroom from birds returning to the North Shore.  And the choruses of play erupt with every recess bell.  

And baseball.  I know that I am truly a Chicagoan when I herald in the season' s arrival with the first pitch!

This is also new territory for my boys.  After school one day, L. lamented, "I want to be a Cubs fan. Mom, oh Mom, I wish I were a Cubs fan."  He went on and on, sounding as though he were being denied some essential pearl in life.  The baseball talk was obviously in full swing among the 4-6-year-old crowd, yet some basics of team worship were clearly eluding him: the fan's choice, for one.

"It's okay," I reassured him.  "You can be a Cubs fan."

"How, Mom?"

"You just say that you are--and then you are."

"What?" 

"You just say, 'I'm a Cubs fan!'  And then you become one."

What ensued next was one of the longest talks I've ever had in my life about any single sport! And at long last, his angst faded.

Yes, Spring in all its green glory and over-sized mitts is here.

"Oh happy day"

"Sons are the anchors of a mother's life."

-Sophocles

botanic garden bliss--brunch and tulips with my boys

Molo Mama

Continent: Africa.

Every month my son's class studies a different continent.  Parents are invited to volunteer their time to help the 3 to 6-year-olds explore a new continent.  

I have not been to Africa, but thankfully I could call upon my sister Caitlin, who spent a summer in South Africa volunteering with children.  She suggested I first teach the boys and girls how to say "hello" in the South African language of Xhosa--"Molo" and "Molweni." Hearing their sweet chorus of high voices echoing "Molo" and "Molweni" in perfect unison, I felt the oceans that separate us grow smaller for just a moment.  I also felt the instant intersection of contrast and connection--two continents with more than the separation of physical distance; two sets of young children whose sweet voices melt your heart, no matter your culture.

We sang a little melody in Xhosa that Caitlin had taught me.  But the highlight for the children was letting loose on all the instruments I brought to class.  I had envisioned the room coming alive to the beat of the African music playing in the background.  And alive it was: once those little hands hit the drums, there was no hearing anything but the loud, louder, and even louder drum beats.

I found all kinds of great African recipes to cook with the kids.  Spinach stew, lentils and rice, and couscous were at the top of my list.  When I relayed these options to L., his face looked identical to the time I gave away raisins for Halloween.  Not wanting to always be That Mom, I decided to go for a South African cookie, much to L.'s delight.  We added bananas and peanuts to the plates, reminding them of where some of "our" food comes from.

Here's the crowd, eating the "crunchies"  and drinking iced rooibos tea.  After the children patiently listened to the very long African folktale, "Where Stories Come From," one question remained, "Was that true?"

Images from our inspiration,  "Aunt Cait-Cait's" South African trip as a Warren Wilson College Worldwide participant.  Caitlin worked in Nynga Township with pre-school children, in a community affected like so many others by HIV/AIDS.

Bringing things full circle, as I write this post, our Aunt Roxie has joined a Florida hospice team trained to comfort terminally ill South Africans.  For this moment in time, it feels as if All roads lead to Soweto.

"Tell them I'm a knight," Mama.

Wouldn't it be great to have the inhibitions of a three-year-old again?  Then, when we needed a little boost to our day, a little more confidence on the playground of life, we could merely reach for that magic red cape and presto: another leap in our confidence meters.

T. can be spotted all around town in his notorious red cape.  From the train station to the library--countless mothers and grandmothers tell me all about their son(s) who would wear an equally treasured cape everywhere.

He has been asked on many occasions, "Are you Superman?"

He looks up at me.  Now, I no longer require a prompt.  I simply reply, "No, he's a knight."

Boys in Bloom

This morning, L. calls me into the bathroom for help before school..."Mom, how do I get this to work?"  He says this, holding up my blow dryer and looking at his wet locks in the steamy mirror, trying to figure out how to dry them after his shower.  The terry towel wrapped around his nimble waist trailed behind him onto the floor like a full length bridal veil.

Just to top off this week of independence, L. instructs Daddy to dismantle his training wheels after school on Friday.  Once wheels are off, he jumps on, and wobbly rides away.  By the time he comes back down the street, his ride is smooth, controlled.  He looks like a two-wheel veteran.

In a parallel way, this week mirrors my motherhood journey...many seeds of parental preparation, many nights of wondering, and then in the roar of the hairdryer, they are off...

and every cliche about growing up overnight echos in the clanking of the little silver wheels that take their resting place as they fall to the asphalt driveway.  

I can hardly take it all in before I'm barrelling down the street, trying to catch up with the fearless pedaler.  

Thank goodness for a three year-old in the house. 

T. loves Great-grandfather's trains.  

And he loves painting with pine needles.

And the full-body, full-sensory experience of it all.

Since everyone around me is full of firsts and creative spark, I tried something new this week, too.  I took a photo and tried turning it into a painting.  I spent waaaay too long in Photoshop only to create something that now looks like an out-of-focus, extremely low resolution file.  

I think my time might be better spent riding my "two-wheeler."

Mud Season

Yes, that's a wall of water and mud he is pushing with his feet...

Mud on your face...

Splashes...the sound of Spring.

Boy before the mud bath...

Innocence in pink and blue...

(with mud accents, of course).

The squishy feel of Spring...

mud season

(haiku)

children find reward

soak up Spring's bountiful kiss

wade in rain water

Media Mama

this post was lost in cyberspace, found today!

There are a lot of seeming contradictions in my life: I don't eat meat, but I married a hunter.  I'm a pilot, but I'm afraid of heights.  I grew up in Florida without air-conditioning, but now I can't function in heat.

But probably the biggest one--the one that gets the most eyebrows raised, is that we are an American family that lives without TV.  Crazy, I know.  I'm surprised there is not a TPS, a Tube Protection Service, that you can report us to.

Aside from the many conversations that I can't follow or can't contribute to, not having a TV is a great thing.  And lest anyone feel the need to report us to the media-deficit-watchdogs, our boys do get to watch a DVD on the computer every weekend.  We've recently introduced a new-old rule, adding yet another contradiction under this roof: young kids, no Disney.  Why?  That's a whole other post...maybe its own blog. Maybe in another lifetime.

So when this week's school field trip came up to watch a live production of Disney's "High School Musical," you can guess my response.  "Ummm...no."

Commonsensemedia.org listed the age appropriateness of this show for 9-14 year olds.  "Yes, I think we'll pass."

My search for something fun, entertaining, and educational on this day of playing hookie led us right to our own High School backyard.

This week our town's High School is host to one of the most amazing events, Focus on the Arts.

Every media of artistic expression in represented.  For this one week, we have winners of Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards, Pushcart Prizes....you name it.  They are here to perform, to teach, to create.  Yes, to spread the gospel of Art!

So instead of Disney's "High School Musical," we enjoyed The Langston Hughes Project.

I can't begin to describe how inspiring it was to sit in the audience with my two lads, soaking up the live jazz and powerful poetry of Langston Hughes.

The description reads:

The Langston Hughes Project is a multimedia concert performance of Langston Hughes' kaleidoscopic jazz poem suite. Ask Your Mama is Hughes' homage in verse and music to the struggle for artistic and social freedom at home and abroad at the beginning of the 1960s. It is a twelve-part epic poem which Hughes scored with musical cues drawn from blues and Dixieland, gospel songs, boogie woogie, bebop and progressive jazz, Latin "cha cha" and Afro-Cuban mambo music, German lieder, Jewish liturgy, West Indian calypso, and African drumming -- a creative masterwork left unperformed at his death.

The rest of our day of hookie was spent picnicking in the fresh, spring air...outside soaking in the sun at the park with friends--one of whom is named, Langston.

So what to do when a field trip doesn't really resonate with you?  Ask Your Mama.

Earth Day Garland 2009

The Men of Team 915: The Wasps

Soccer Saturday.  And these are the little men on the Wasps.  Today, they played the Dragonflies.

The reason we are here on the damp, grassy field with cleats and water bottles and sunscreen quickly fades from my present memory.  Before I know it, I am lost in the familiar trance--the spell of watching someone I love so much...watching his every step fall, his delight in his dancing feet, the swinging of his arms, his dark curls.

It is only day one of soccer, his first "team" sport--his first team day.

And I feel like I've been here a hundred times before--loving this boy as strong as the springtime sun.  Loving him down to his sole(s).  And watching those curls unfurl.

Haiku for my Lad

prince of pinwheel peace

ushers in spring's majesty

curls bloom crimson crown 

Easter Sunday

I feel as happy as my boys were this morning at the sight of several pounds of chocolate wrapped in little foil niblets.  To borrow from Woody Allen, when it comes to chocolate, "Love is too weak a word for what I feel--I luurve, luff with 2 fs."  And I intend to pass this love affair down to my sons.  Chocolate is, I can honestly say, my only vice.

So we had lots of chocolate.  Yes, it was a good day.

Squinting with pleasure at the sight of ye ol' plastic-pastel eggs scattered all over the backyard this morning...

Easter Hopscotch.

I love the simplicity in the morning light and shadows on our drive.  And how my boys dance unaware in its warmth.

Liam drew the hopscotch with the chalk that was in his basket.  Then Teagan came along to hop through it while holding his egg.  These brothers flow into and out of each other's worlds.  Their movement reminds me of the very opening and closing of shadows on their play surface...moments of time etched in my memory like the colored chalk into the asphalt.

Simple delights.   Half a yellow egg on Easter morning.

Silk Warrior, Resting.

Back to our Waldorf roots, the boys spent most of the day in their silks.

Even a Prince tuckers out...eventually.  A good day, indeed.