Sing, Sing a Song

I spent a lot of time in the car last week listening to my daughter sing.  I don’t usually use the car so much.  In fact, days go by when I don’t use the car at all.  Last week, however, my daughter and I were in and out of the car multiple times every day.  We took my son to day camp on Monday and Tuesday and picked him up again.  (On Wednesday my husband took my daughter to preschool, so she was spared the trip to day camp.)  One day we ran errands—a donation to the thrift store, a quick stop by church, library books into the dropbox, a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin, “a couple of things” at the grocery store.  We were in the car for over an hour that morning.  My daughter sang along with Lisa Loeb’s Camp Lisa.  On Thursday I picked her up early from preschool and brought her back home for lunch, then I drove the kids to their doctor’s appointments.  My daughter bopped along to songs from Sid the Science Kid. On Friday morning we headed up into the mountains for a little family vacation.  My daughter sang through Camp Lisa again.  Then my husband asserted his turn, but later my daughter listened to songs by Elizabeth Mitchell on the iPod.

I love listening to my daughter sing.  She can’t always quite keep up with the music, and she wears such a look of concentration on her face.  I’m amazed at how many songs she knows.

In our cabin overlooking the lake, we were “unplugged”—there was no cd player to slip a cd of lullabies into at bedtime.  I sang my kids to sleep for the first time in years.  I know three songs by heart:  “Amazing Grace,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and “The Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie.

I am a good enough singer that I don’t feel like I drag down the church choir.  I sang in the concert choir in high school and was in the show choir, too.  My brother and sister played in the marching band.  My husband, although a great music lover, can’t carry a tune very far, and my son isn’t showing much musical talent, either. Singing is my thing, even if I am only a good enough singer.  I used to wonder if I would be envious of my own kids if they were better than me at the things that I was good at, those things that are part of my sense of identity.  Listening to my daughter sing in the car, I realize with surprise (and relief) that I am not.  If my daughter goes from the back seat to back stage, with a star on her dressing room door, I will be nothing but thrilled.

Perhaps I will take a little credit.

A Beautiful Morning

Yesterday morning when I woke up I found the front door open and my kids’ breakfast missing from the kitchen counter where I’d set it out the night before.  The kids had carried their cereal and sippy cups out to the front step where they were having a picnic breakfast.  I was invited to join them with my fruit and yogurt.  It was lovely to sit there in the cool of the morning, listening to the birds and being quiet with my children.

I was surprised that they had the idea to take their breakfast outside.  I cannot guess what inspired it.  I am pleased, though, that they knew it would be okay.  I never explicitly gave them permission to have a picnic breakfast—why would I have thought of that?—but they reasoned that it did not break any rules, it did not put them in any danger, and it would not have any negative consequences.  That is the kind of decision-making I want to foster in my children. 

 

A blue sky, leaves shimmering in the breeze, children who are learning to think for themselves—it was a beautiful morning.

It's A Boy

My daughter is the type of little girl I was.  She likes babies and dolls and can play with them for hours.  I’ve always felt I have less in common with my son, who is more like his dad.  My son likes puzzles and robots and building with Legos.  This summer, however, I have discovered new affinities with my son—and released the seven-year-old boy inside myself.

I like to climb rocks, to run in the grass, to throw a Frisbee, to shoot hoops.  My son was not much into sports before, but last year’s P.E. class turned him on to basketball and soccer and taught him not to duck when things are flying at his face.  Now he is eager to play games that I enjoy, too.  To my satisfaction, I am just enough faster than him that I can still catch him in tag.  Next summer he’ll get away.

I also enjoy adolescent fantasy adventure novels with dragons and elves and magical quests.  (It’s no wonder I married my geeky comic-book-reading scientist husband.)  My son likes fantasy novels, too.  We read them together.  We’ve read all of Cressida Cowell’s How To Train Your Dragon series, Elmer and the Dragon, Cosmic, about a twelve-year-old boy who travels into space, and Dragon Rider, about a boy who travels with a dragon in search of the Rim of Heaven.  When my son’s a little older I’ll introduce him to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter.  I can’t wait.

Of course six and a half years ago I didn’t care if my baby was a boy or girl, as long as it had ten fingers and ten toes.  Now I am glad that I have a son who can be a little boy with me.

Summertime Black-and-Blues

I bear the marks of motherhood—not stretch marks or gray hairs but black-and-blue shins, scratched ankles, and a farmer’s tan.  Motherhood is taking its toll.

New Shoes

This week I bought myself a new pair of sandals.  I’d wanted to replace my old grungy brown sandals since the beginning of the summer, but I never had an hour to myself to run into the shoe store.  I didn’t miraculously get an hour to myself this week, either; I finally just dragged my son along to the shoe store with me.  We had a deal, that after I finished shopping we would go to the play land there at the mall.  Bribery has its limits, of course, and he couldn’t be a patient good boy forever.  I had to work fast.  That diminishes the pleasure of shopping, but at least I got it done—and we had fun at the play land.

The sandals I bought are impractical for a stay-at-home mom.  They are open-toed with crisscrossing straps, which immediately get filled with sand or rocks at the park, and they are leather, not ideal for wading across a creek.  They’re so cute.  So far this week I have managed to devise outings on which I can wear them, such as playing at the playground that has a rubber surface rather than sand or pea gravel and going for a walk to the grocery store for “a few things.” 

 

Today, however, I am wearing my closed-toed, durable-soled, water-proof adventure sandals.  Parenting is a compromise.

Rain, Rain...

Ten minutes ago I was standing in my kitchen packing an elaborate picnic dinner (grilled chicken breast with roasted red pepper, spinach leaves, and goat cheese on toasted Italian bread; broccoli salad; blueberry buckle for dessert) while rain fell outside and thunder rumbled, jeering me.  It’s not unlikely that the storm will pass before dinnertime.  But if this picnic is rained out, it will be the second picnic we’ve eaten at our dining room table this week.  When should I just give up?

Halfway, Part II

On the first Saturday of every month my husband has a “free day.”  In the winter he goes skiing on black diamond slopes, and in the summer he takes sixty-mile bike rides.  These are not activities that the family can do together.  I occupy the kids for the day, and in exchange my husband gives me the evening off.  The family usually goes out to dinner so I don’t have to cook, and my husband puts the kids to bed.

At least that’s the deal.  In truth, however, I often end up putting the kids to bed.  This isn’t because my husband reneges on his offer.  Sometimes I just feel like it’s easier for me to do it.  If we’ve been out to dinner, it’s probably late.  The kids need to get right to bed, and I’m faster at marshaling them through their bedtime jobs.  Even though I’ve been alone with them all day, doing all the work of parenting myself, I can manage another half-hour of child care.  I can do it.

Looking over the remaining weeks of summer vacation, I think, I can do it.  If I am feeling brain dead because I am not working (writing), if I am getting tired of having fun, if I am longing for a few hours to myself, I know that I can bear up and plow through a few more weeks.  I can do it.  I can pack picnics, arrange an outing to the reservoir, ride bikes, and kick the soccer ball until school starts again and my days are mine. 

 

Fortunately, I like being with my son.  He is good company.  He doesn’t drive me crazy or irritate me or bore me.  I’ll try to be good company for him for another month.  I know he’s anxious for school to start, too.