My mother's handmade socks for Asher and Lucas.

Apart from reading more than a hundred books, vacationing on the East Coast, prepping for her fall semester Humanities classes at American River College, sewing with me, and who knows what else, my mom knitted my kids nineteen pairs of socks! Nineteen!

She knows how much Asher loves to play in the clean laundry, so she saved them all up until last night, when she gently dumped them on Asher’s head to watch him squeal with glee and roll around in them. He played in the socks for about 20 minutes, throwing them around, playing fetch (as a puppy dog), and wrestling in them.

Isn’t her work beautiful? She is so talented in so many areas. I hope that I can learn to do this someday. She uses four tiny needles to knit socks.

She told me she used up a bunch of yarn from her stash. Some socks are made from several different yarns, which gives them a playful, unique character. Perfect for my playful boys.

I took these photos this morning. The sock game was just as fun as it was last night!

Welcome to Asher’s Store. He has lots of merchandise, but also something of an inventory problem.

He uses his “computer” to work all the time. “Don’t touch my stuff!” he tells us one minute. The next, he says “Come buy something in my store and pay me money.”  Because of the computer he is able to take credit cards.

He carries a wide selection of tools and books, and random gizmos of all sorts. Some items cost 36 cents. Others cost “40-85-shs dollars.”

“Sit down and pay me money.”

It’s good that he has the latest in price scanners. It makes his service so excellent. You can bet I’m a repeat customer.

I’ve written a couple of times already about the pottery class that Lucas and I took this summer. It was great fun and I’m hoping to do another class, perhaps this fall. It was five evenings during which we both learned something new and got to spend some one-on-one time together.  Our relationship seems to have benefited from having this time away from Asher. Ian and I have resolved to find more such opportunities for Lucas to be with one parent; we’re fervently hoping that this might help improve his somewhat spiky and melancholy moods.

Here is a small selection of our clay creations.

Here is Lucas’s clown. He conceived and executed this all on his own with no help at all. I think it’s adorable.

Detail from my birdie bowl.

Lucas made a small turtle he called Squirtle (à la Pokémon.) His beehive makes me think of Winnie the Pooh.

My frog and my Lucas and Asher hearts.

Lucas carefully glazed this small ball sculpture with a rainbow of colors. (I think of it as a paperweight, but I don’t know if he would agree with that description.) Choosing its glazes took him a long time because he had to find the color from among about a hundred samples, remember its number, and then find the appropriate jar of glaze. The teacher asked us to take no more than two glazes to our workspace at a time, so Lucas had to return to the table with all the glazes repeatedly.

And that little sprite guy is my invention; I had a few extra moments at the end of one class and thought he might look funny hiding in a potted plant or something.

Lastly, we both made thrown pots on the potter’s wheel. Lucas wasn’t too keen on his, so it’s not pictured here. And I made a sign for our doorstep, which you might see sometime.

As I type this, it’s not even 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, and yet the kids are already in the kitchen playing with clay.

Asher is away with his grandmother for a few hours, probably for the first time. I am alone in the house and I’m supposed to be working because I have this little book to edit called Lebanon. 

I don’t want to be all thinky, though. I just want to go outside in the coolish morning and sit in the hot tub in the shade. I want to drink shameless morning cocktails all by myself. Or with a shameless friend, who is over 21 and doesn’t call me “mommy.” 

I have recently discovered my inner drinker. My children helped me find her; she was locked deep within me and yearning to come out into the sunshine. 

I didn’t truly discover the sacrament of coffee until Lucas was a baby. I didn’t truly discover the medicinal use of alcohol until this year. 

Call me Mother of the Year. 

OK. Back to Lebanon, where everything is peaceful and tolerant.

Friday

Working, Asher at babysitters’ house, May Day celebration at Lucas’s school, potluck lunch, Lucas at babysitters’ for afternoon, hair appointment to become more fabulous, 4:30 p.m. vodka and seven, visit with my mom, Ian home from work with more fixings, dinner out, carboliscious Mexican food including nachos and a fajita burrito, evening visit to Chicken Park, bedtime rituals, fell asleep with each of my kids in turn.

Yesterday

Shopping for mom, trip to Lowe’s garden store to purchase new plants, Ian’s labor (shirt off, mattock swinging, digging holes), Lucas’s helping, coreopsis, primrose, orange honeysuckle, purple fountain grass, artemesia, foxgloves, marguerites, agapanthus, muddy baby, sex-on-the-beach cocktails, leftover pork tenderloin and salad, bedtime rituals, TV, lovemaking, snoring. 

Today

Awake at o-dark-thirty, nursing and listening to birdsong, snoozing, Lucas’s 6 a.m. temper tantrum, later in bed alone reading Dr. Doolittle, coffee, receiving handmade gift from Lucas (a heart-shaped necklace made of wet-felted wool and yarn) lax and cream-cheese omelet and breakfast sausage, champagne, brief visit from mom and dad, fancy soaps for my mother, hot tubbing with all of my boys, lunch at Ian’s mom and stepfather’s with Aunt Kellie, VoVo, and DeeDee, fancy necklace for grandma, Lucas swimming, breezy back porch time, Asher throwing the ball for the dog to fetch, Lucas’s temper tantrum, grumpy ride home, nap for me and Asher, chess and a Mary Poppins chapter for Lucas and daddy, waking up, playing outside, crab cakes, more sex-on-the-beach, homemade chicken dinner, crying baby, Lucas in bed early, blogging, and … if I am really lucky, soon sleeping baby, Eskimo kisses, toe nibbles, and spooning.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The great Old West “Ghost Town at Sundown” birthday party was last weekend and it ROCKED! It took two solid days to get everything ready and make the place presentable. I had help from Dakini, Parnasus, and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Ian worked his tail off before, during, and after the party.

We had 10 small, charming guests and a few parents who stayed to enjoy our Wilson Ranch dinner of hamburgers, baked beans, corn on the cob, strawberries, and salad. The kids had fun lassoing our cows, which were the greatest thing ever made: Ian, my brilliant husband took my cryptic instruction (“Take these sawhorses and make ’em into cows”) and did it well beyond my wildest expectations.

It was hard waiting for the party to start at 4 p.m. We spent the day decorating and shopping for food. Asher enjoyed playing in all the red bandannas.

Still waiting for friends to arrive.

They’re here, finally! We built this teepee from dead birch trees and a canvas painter’s dropcloth. In the morning, we painted “American Indian” symbols on it with termpera paint, such as rivers, bears, salmon, corn, a sun, a rainbow, a thunderbird, a moon, snakes, etc.

E and M ride on the cows.

A ties on his bandana to avoid breathing campfire smoke.

R takes a turn. Sun poses in his fancy costume.

M is M’s younger sister. Here’s M, too. They are both in Lucas’s kindergarten class this year.

R is rambunctious and Lucas admires him a lot. Here’s beautiful E; Lucas has been friends with E since they were 3 and 4 years old.

We had a campfire in the backyard for a while. The children ate their dinners and birthday cake while sitting around it, but we didn’t time the fire right for roasting marshmallows, unfortunately. Still, the novelty of having a backyard fire made quite an impression. Nobody got hurt, either.

Sun liked roping the cows.

Lucas loved being the center of attention. He basically thought the whole day should go perfectly, that is his way. It kind of sucked when he hit his head really hard on the swing set. Still, he got over it. (Those are healing mosquito bites on his face.)

Lucas got lots of wonderful presents, including new fancy Stockmar crayons, a paint-a-dinosaur kit, plastic cowboys and indians (alas, with guns), WWII die-cast airplanes, Dr. Doolittle and Mary Poppins books, original story books by a special 8-year-old nicknamed Snow, leather horsey reigns with bells, and an adventure pack/sleeping bag with a flashlight.


Snow had new, shiny red cowgirl books. I was jealous.

Snow played with Asher and let him wear her hat. Asher thinks she is dreamy.

Here’s Lucas showing off one of his presents. He is flabbergasted that the cowboys have guns in their hands and I have so far not taken them away from him. He keeps looking at me and wondering if I’ve noticed them.

I bought enough cowboy hats and bandanas for every child at the party to have one. Many came wearing hats already, so we still have a few left over. I’m happy with the cowboy cake I ordered from the Raley’s bakery, and even happier that I didn’t try to make it myself. The food was great, thanks to Cookie Daddy! And it was really nice that some of my favorite parent friends stayed for the party. Their presence made it more fun for me and Ian.

All in all, it was a great day on the Wilson Ranch!

http://www.dooce.com/2008/05/02/newsletter-month-fifty-and-fifty-one

Quoting from Dooce, Newsletter: Month Fifty and Fifty-one (The author is speaking to her daughter in a newsletter she writes every month since 2004—except for month fifty—about criticism she receives from readers who think it’s wrong for her to write about her child on her website):

“Will you resent me for this website? Absolutely. And I have spent hours and days and months of my life considering this, weighing your resentment against the good that can come from being open and honest about what it’s like to be your mother, the good for you, the good for me, and the good for other women who read what I write here and walk away feeling less alone. And I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you’re going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter.

“These are the stories of our lives as women and they often include you, yes. …
…

“I will not be discouraged from continuing to document the beauty of life with my family or supporting them with an income from doing so. Leta, some people will one day try to convince you that what I’ve done here is some sort of sickening betrayal of your childhood, and what those people fail to recognize is that I am doing the exact opposite. This is the glorification of your childhood, and even more than that this is a community of women coming together to make each other feel less alone. You are a part of this movement, you and all of the other kids whose mothers are sitting at home right now writing tirelessly about their experiences as mothers, the love and frustration and madness of it all. And I think one day you will look at all of this and pump your fist in the air.”

EDIT: I wrote this post late last night and I’ve been thinking I must add to it. I must add a little about why I do it. I write about my kids and my feelings about my kids in the hopes that someday they will know who I am. That I am human and full of flaws, and still beautiful. That I start every day with hopes and good intentions. That I strive for goodness and warmth, honesty and love in our family. 

If that bus with my name on it claims me before my sons grow up enough to remember me and our experiences, I hope that eventually, they will read what I have written here and know I loved them imperfectly and completely—in the very best way I could.

Today was spectacular! And to prove it, I submit this evidence to the court: It’s 8:30 p.m. and all three of my boys are sound asleep. That’s how much fun we had.

Our hot tub is working again and some lovely people showed up to try it out. The weather was warm and beautiful and our friends stayed all day long. Champagne was imbibed. Children and adults frolicked. I relaxed. It ended with scrumptious sushi. Simply perfect. 

Let the summer come. I am ready.

So last night was weird.

And fun.

And this morning I’ve flip-flopped between feeling embarrassed and giddy.

I met my mother for coffee and a mini shopping trip. I took Asher along of course. 

I got him dressed. 

Well, I took him in the outfit he slept in. But I put socks and shoes and a coat and hat on him.

I got myself dressed. 

We drove to meet mom. We chatted and drank coffee. 

Asher cooed at the passing people.

They cooed back at him.

We shopped a bit.

I drove home and put Asher to bed for a nap.

I worked while he slept.

I crept around the house silently.

He woke.

We played.

We ate lunch at around 2 p.m.

I mused about last night while he ate dried blueberries and bits of lunchmeat.

I looked over to where I had removed and left my black boots earlier while Asher was sleeping.

Two.

Different.

Black.

Boots.

Oy.

So, Ian and I have a date to go to a new restaurant owned by Mason Song, called Maritime Seafood and Grill, in Carmichael on Saturday  (http://www.sacbee.com/117/story/423116.html), so today, Valentine’s Day, isn’t the romantic, knock-your-cock-ring-off kind of day the diamond stores would have us think it is. (But don’t get me wrong—I got nothin’ against cock rings or diamonds!)

We have celebrated—but we did it with our kids. Late last night, I made a path of red, pink, and light pink paper hearts from Lucas’s bedroom to the kitchen table, and from our bedroom to the kitchen. I set out red placemats, a red candle, a Valentine’s balloon, and homemade Valentines at each place setting. I set out the heart-shaped egg molds, but forgot that we were out of eggs. No worries! Yogurt, chicken nuggets, and cereal for Lucas and quesadillas for us are a perfect way to celebrate Valentine’s Day!

When Lucas woke this morning, he came into our bedroom as usual and whispered, “Dad, there’s something special in the living room. Come see!” It wasn’t until the lights were on that he realized the paper hearts on the floor lead all the way to the kitchen. “Theres even a heart on my chair!” he said. We had a nice breakfast together, with only a moderate amount of “Get your clothes on!” and “No! My foot hurts!” drama. Five-year-olds are weird.

Today at school, Lucas enjoyed a Valentine’s Day party, complete with a story, a cookie, and a special dance. “Everyone fell down!” he said. “Even Miss Johnson! And Ripley, but I caught her. I saw that she was going to fall down so I went over and caught her.” (Lucas has a crush on Ripley, I think.)

He brought home Valentines that he made at school and a Valentine crown. He also brought out the Valentine that he made last week with grandma VoVo, which he’s kept hidden in his room, and gave it to us. They are all very cute and he was very proud of them. We talked about how on Valentine’s Day, we make sure that the people we love know we love them. 

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Ian went grocery shopping to buy a special (last-minute) dinner, too. Good thing he called home before he checked out! He brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers to grace our dinner table.

I took the kids grocery shopping late this afternoon to buy supplies for a special (last-minute) dinner. I cooked London Broil with mushrooms and onions and salad. I bought big, fat (heart-like) strawberries and whipped up some cream for dipping. Ian made me two cosmos and then poured a lovely red wine with dinner. So, halfway through the meal I realized that I was totally tipsy and thoroughly enjoying myself. “Watch out, mom! If you have too many cosmos, you might get drunk and then you can’t drive a car!” Lucas informed me. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere. The strawberries and whipped cream after dinner were a big hit. We all laughed  a lot and even Asher ate two strawberries.

So, in the midst of our “normal” weeknight routine of dinner prep, cleanup, shower, stories, and bed, I ended up being drunk and goofy. Ian and I got romantic while Lucas showered and Asher (unbeknownst to us) splashed in the toilet. 

Oh. Shit! Not supposed to get frisky while the baby splashes in the toilet! That’s on the special Only Bad Parents Do These Things list. Ooops. Dammit, Ian, weren’t you supposed to buy those toilet locks?!

We moved on to stories (Days wth Frog and Toad) and cuddles for Lucas and drunk mama. We sang and snuggled and professed our undying, immeasurable love for one another. Asher crawled into Lucas’s room looking for me while we were cuddling—not something that usually happens.

So, now we get to try to coax Asher to sleep before Ian and I can make love. Hopefully, the baby will fall asleep before I do, but after several worrisome, sick-baby, wakeful nights, I’d say it’s now about even odds.

I promised I’d get permission before I posted this one, so we’ll see if Ian lets it pass.

Sometimes being a parent and a woman madly in love with her husband results in crossed wires and surreal nights. Oh. I think I hear Ian behind the bar shakin’ up another cosmo.