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!

Today was the Big Party Day. I do not have enough energy to write about it yet. But I want to record this birthday wish that Lucas received from one of his very best friends in the world. It is perhaps the most wonderful birthday wish ever wished.

From Snow (8 years old) to Lucas on the occasion of his sixth birthday:

“I hope the sun will keep you warm. I hope the moon will guide your way and every twinkling star. I hope the wind will keep you calm. I hope the water will be there when you need it. I hope the fire will make you strong. I hope the earth will make peace in your life. I hope you will always be safe with your family.”

I can add only this: Me too. Thank you. Amen.

Tomorrow at 3:45 a.m., my son will become 6 years old. I am flabbergasted by this fact, although it’s been on my mind for months. We have big plans for his birthday party with his friends and classmates on Saturday evening: an Old West/cowboy birthday party creatively titled “Ghost Town at Sundown.” I have all sorts of ideas and no idea whether I can pull any of them off. I’m starting to feel frantic about all the things that must be done before 4:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Unfortunately, I’m currently suffering from some godforsaken SICKNESS, in which my throat feels like hell and every swallow is murder. I spent a feverish, rotten night, sweating and being miserable. All I can think about is how Ian and I are supposed to go to Lucas’s classroom tomorrow for the Very Special Kindergarten Birthday Celebration. The one we’ve looked forward to all year because it’s the only time in the whole year when we parents are allowed to be in the kindergarten and watch the magic unfold before our wondering eyes. The place is truly a fairyland, where children play, learn, discover, and blossom in their own, unique ways. It is what every kindergarten everywhere should be, but most are not.

My being sick is too, too ironic. (http://sarabellae.livejournal.com/100785.html) For last year, Lucas was too sick to go to school on his birthday and we had to postpone the special day (http://sarabellae.livejournal.com/100879.html).  Ultimately it ended up being more disappointing to me than to him.

I really just feel terrible though. I should be resting.

I guess I did a good job on Syria because today I was offered a project copyediting Israel, 2e from the same children’s publisher. Maybe after this one I’ll tell them what my hourly rate really is. In the meantime, they’re getting good value for their measly money.

I have a couple of strategy guides going: one full-size guide that’s almost done and another tiny hint book. I’m hoping another one to three guides will come my way soon.

The chapter on pet massage that I was told to research and write has been placed on hold. It seems the publisher for that textbook isn’t actually sure it wants to include that content. Now I’m supposed to do market research instead of writing research. Thanks for yanking my hours back, folks.

Related to work worries are my summertime worries, which have awakened rather early this year. Looking ahead just a hop, skip, and jump from now reveals twelve yawning, empty weeks until school starts again. Although summer has always been my favorite time of year, I now understand why my mother dreaded it, and why every time the words “I’m bored” were mentioned in her house, she went insane with rage. 

This summer I’ll have part-time childcare for Lucas and Asher. Today I registered Lucas for a weeklong, half-day camp at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. The program is for first and second graders and  it’s called “Signs Along the Trail.” He’ll get to comb the trails near the American River with the group looking for evidence of animal activity, use binoculars, make notes, play games, do crafts, and meet some Nature Center animals.

I’ve recently found out that several of Lucas’s classmates will be doing a Waldorf-oriented Summer Art Camp and I’m wondering if we can swing that, too. It’s not cheap. Lucas is quite the artist nowadays and enjoys working with crayons, charcoal, beeswax, watercolors and other paints, and even pastels. I think he would really like this camp.

There will probably be more swimming lessons too.

But all this still leaves me with the challenge of working while caring for Asher nearly full-time. As he gets older and more mobile (meaning into more stuff), it gets harder and harder to accomplish anything during the day. I’m often wiped out by 8:30 p.m. and find it challenging to work at night, too.

All this sounds complainy—but today I’m really in a decent mood. I’m glad to have the new project. I love the fact that when I tell the Universe I need more work, something usually arrives in my lap. Hopefully my childcare challenges will resolve themselves in the same manner. 

So, thank you, Universe. And if you could figure a way for me to earn a decent living and still wrangle my kiddos, I’d really appreciate it.

I’ve just finished a small copyediting project about Syria. It was interesting and thankfully short. Arabic names are a bitch; transliteration produces all manner of variant spellings. I did not make a ton of money on the book and worked harder on it than I’ve worked on most projects in the last … um … six months or so, but as my freelance work has been spotty over the last several months, I’m grateful to have had the project. Now I am more convinced than ever that peace in that region of the globe is hopeless, although that was not the message of the book. 

I’m experiencing a lot of internal conflict over work and what I’m supposed to be doing with my time. On the one hand, I have a voracious appetite for work. I like working. I find it stimulating and rewarding. I like concentrating and solving problems, unraveling knots of words into a single, easy-to-follow thread. I like challenging myself and learning new things, which is truly the beauty of the work I do: Every project is different. There is always something to learn. And getting paid to work on books that I wouldn’t normally pick up to read for pleasure has the added bonus of forcing me to learn about things I’m not necessarily naturally inclined to learn about. It broadens my horizons, so to speak. Whenever I speak to other freelancer friends, I’m impressed by what they are doing, by how many clients they have, by how much hustling, networking, and marketing they do, by how much they work/earn (although direct conversation about money is rare). I’m impressed by their drive and ambition and success. I yearn for the same. I yearn to do more, earn more, learn more, be more. My immediate impulse at this moment is to email all my clients and ask for more work.

And yet …

I’m equally motivated by the needs of my family. I have two small people who can’t get along five minutes without me (or so it often seems). I have thoroughly enjoyed Asher’s babyhood thus far. Sometimes I get to take naps with him. We look at books together. We listen to music. In the afternoons when Lucas is home and not at the babysitters’, we enjoy the outdoors, go to the library, visit my grandmother, take walks, do art projects. These things are fun and fulfilling. I know that my children will grow up quickly. I am not willing to miss these early years. I think they do best when they are with me, and I’m grateful to have a supportive (literally and figuratively) husband and a profession that allows me so much flexibility to be with my kids. I also know that I would be a miserable wreck of a mother if I had to ship my children off to daycare full-time. I wussed out at the prospect of part-time daycare back in 2003 and have never looked back since. Some days I am able to slow down my brain and watch the butterflies drift across the yard. Some days I can take great pleasure in washing the dishes by hand with Lucas. I try to cultivate patience and peace by watching good things grow—vegetables, messes, and boys. They grow slowly. I am unable (and unwilling) to speed up the time. And so, my world turns slowly. 

Sometimes that slowness—the drowzy and dizzying days of taking care of children—is a welcome balm. And sometimes it makes me grit my teeth and feel corralled.

There is a metaphor about marriage that is a better metaphor for raising children. Ian and I have “hitched” ourselves to a cart full of precious cargo. We did it on purpose. We must ensure the cargo’s safe delivery to (hopefully) a happy and productive adulthood. We must choose our path carefully and not deviate from it randomly or without consideration. We must go slowly and steadily so as not to jostle or damage the cargo, or bounce it out and leave it by the wayside. We must make frequent rest stops and potty breaks. And although we might wish to run off together without the cart and cargo, we basically can’t—at least not until the cargo gets much farther down the path, and then only for a short break. And the cart won’t travel nearly so well with only one of us pulling, so we are hitched. It’s a good kind of hitched.

*Sigh*

Lucas has been sick all week and still is sick. Today we took him to the urgent-care doctor, who determined he has a lung infection and asthma because of it. We now have medicines to treat both. And now Asher has a fever, too.

On Thursday night, after the fourth solid day of fever, I got creative. More about that in a minute. 

There is a whole school of Athroposophical medicine, of which I am largely ignorant. I know a couple of key points, however, and have an uneasy relationship to them. One key point is the idea that fever is one of the body’s main ways of purging itself of unwanted substances, i.e. viruses and bacteria. People who subscribe to this theory recommend not suppressing a fever with drugs, but say we should instead simply provide supportive care and allow the fever to run its course. The supportive care stuff is somewhat familiar (and seems natural/reasonable to me), and somewhat alien. Lemon leg compresses are not the stuff I was raised on.

Over the course of the past week, Ian and I have waffled a bit. Sometimes we gave Lucas ibuprofen to suppress his fever so he could feel better. When his eyes get glassy and he stops moving and talking, I begin to worry. Whenever we dosed him, he felt much better and was able to play and be more himself (still sick, but more himself). When he wasn’t that hot, we let him be in the hopes that he’d rest and get rid of the bug. Now I kind of wonder if dosing him may have prolonged the sickness, given that he was far more active with the ibuprofen in his system. Perhaps he overtaxed his impaired body during those times.

I am so not a doctor, and often have a hard time separating the health info/advice I have stored in my noggin into appropriate True, False, or Complete Bullshit categories.

Anyway … In an effort to distract him and keep him still, I made him a needle-felted Fever Fairy. (Yes, I made her. With. My. Hands. You may rightly gasp with amazement now.) So. A Fever Fairy. She is adorned in fiery colors and is made entirely of wool roving (with a single pipe-cleaner inside for structure). I named her Scarlett (OK, that part wasn’t very creative) and gave her to Lucas, telling him that Fever Fairies are special friends who visit children who are sick and feverish. 

The job of a Fever Fairy is to keep sick children company and to whisper soothing things to them. Fever Fairies stay by their side as long as the children are sick, then disappear. But whenever a child needs a rest and some quiet time, he may call to his Fever Fairy and she will come to him and whisper soothing words and cuddle him.  



I told Lucas a story about a sick little boy and Scarlett, the Fever Fairy. Every time the boy became sick while he was growing up, Scarlett came to him and kept him company. She reminded him of all the cooling things in the world, like the sweet taste of ice-cold water, the many flavors of ice-cream, swimming in summertime, the feeling of snowflakes falling on his cheek and raindrops on his skin. She told him he would get well and feel better soon and that she loved him very much. Scarlett came to him when he was a boy, and a teenager, and a grown-up man, and even an old man—whenever he was sick. And each time she visited, the boy always felt better. Her sweet words helped his fever come down. They were forever friends.

Lucas has slept with Scarlett since then and held her while resting on the couch. I don’t know if this is an original idea or not, but I’ve never heard about anyone else doing it. Either way, his Fever Fairy has distracted him a little. And for that, I’m grateful. 

 

And now, we’re off to do some face-painting. He wants a teddy bear on his cheek.

This Easter was really great. I especially enjoyed the buildup to it because we did a number of crafty things that turned out beautifully. 

I’ve always loved dying Easter eggs—for my whole life it’s been one of the things that signifies Spring to me in a very concrete way, even when Easter arrives rainy and grey. This year, I decided it would be fun to dye our eggs naturally—meaning no Paws dye kits, no food coloring and vinegar concoctions. This time, we used kitchen and yard ingredients only.

* Turmeric for yellow
* Beet juice for pink
* Blueberry juice for lavender
* Red cabbage for blue
* Birch leaves/grass and assorted kitchen veggies for green
* Coffee for brown
* Onion skin juice for peachy orange 
* Vinegar

It was significantly more expensive dying the 18 eggs this way, and it took probably four times longer than a kit would have taken. But it was easily four times more fun! And we spend less than … probably $9.

Getting a good-looking green solution took a lot of work and time, and surprisingly, it did not color the eggs at all. I also assumed that coffee would easily stain the egg brown, but it didn’t. (That may be because I used the used coffee grounds instead of fresh coffee. I suddenly became frugal when it came time to use the coffee. Can you see my vices?) 

We called it “Kitchen Science” while we were doing this, and stressed to Lucas that it was all a big eggsperiment. We didn’t know how well it would work, whether we’d get nice colors, or if it would fail completely. A la “Myth Busters” we said, “Failure is always an option.” 

But if you care to scroll down to the end, you’ll see that our eggsperiment was a great success! We got lovely eggs in soft, earthy shades. They weren’t pale, as I expected. And as they aged overnight and over Easter day, they sort of changed colors, which was unexpected. Some got darker, some paler. Perhaps they oxidized? We wonder if the beet-colored pink eggs turned brownish because of iron in the juice. And weirdest of all, the blueberry-dyed, dark lavender eggs became a mottled lavender-and-orange before Easter was done. They were really cool!

At one point, when it became clear that we wouldn’t have any green eggs, I contemplated cheating and pulling out the food dye. But Ian convinced me not to, reminding me how cool it would be to have a basketful of plant-dyed eggs, and how not cool it would be to have almost all plant-dyed eggs and the green ones we cheated for. So we finished it as originally intended, and they were gorgeous!

That’s probably the longest story about eggs you’ve ever read.

We received the acceptance letter yesterday. It says that the Waldorf school is pleased to offer Lucas a place in the first grade next fall. There was never any real doubt that he would get in, but I’m happy it is now official. We already know about half of the families that will be in Lucas’s class—a class he will be together with for grades 1 through 8. Most of the rest of the children who will make up his class will come from the other kindergarten class at his school, which means that Lucas already knows them, but Ian and I don’t yet. 

I know they are actively interviewing candidates for the teaching position that will hopefully take Lucas all the way through the eighth grade. It’s an extensive process. At our family Easter celebration, I learned from my cousin Jenna, who is in the master’s Education program at Sacramento State University that one of her classmates is up for the job of Lucas’s teacher. Jenna says this woman is very competant and Waldorf trained. Who knows? My curiousity is really high right now.

I’m really happy with my mural! In fact, it’s just getting better and better with more detail. The challenge may be figuring out when it’s actually done.

I have a tiny problem in that I would like to find a good, easy way to draw in the stems of the berries. My tiny brush won’t do the line cleanly and efficiently enough to satisfy me. I’m hoping that there exists a sort of paint pen that will do the trick.

I’ve had Lucas help me a little bit with some of the watercolors. He wants to paint with the “acrylicals” so badly, but I won’t let him just go to work (yes, I’m a control freak that way). I’ve promised him that he can help me paint the lion’s tail tuft blue, and I’m hoping that will satisfy him. The tail is the key element in the storybook. The lion’s tail keeps changing color and the little red bird is very curious about it. She finally finds out that he has been painting pictures with his tail tuft on the walls of his cave at night. In this scene, it’s blue from his painting a lake the night before. Here, he’s gathering berries to use their juice to paint the little red bird on his wall. Lucas’s favorite color is blue, and we’re going to use the “acrylicals” to do it. I may try to make the tuft the very last thing I do on the mural. That way he can help me finish it!

I’ve added a stream at the bottom and some hills in the background on the right. I’m kind of working “off book” now, as most of the fill in work is being inspired by other Kleven pictures or my imagination. My wall is bigger than the illustration I’m emulating so I’m winging it in certain areas.