Wake up, don your superhero cape over your pajamas, and go outside to dig.

Dear Playgroup Friends,

I just wanted to write a note and say thank you for making our summer so much fun! I think our summer playgroup was terrific this year. I sincerely hope you all had a good time participating. It seemed to me that our boys loved having the play dates to look forward to, and I know Lucas was thrilled to visit his friends’ homes—you know, to check out how the other guy lives. 😉

To recap, our boys …

* went swimming many times

* played with race cars

* rode horses

* drove electric cars

* jumped on trampolines

* played with Legos

* visited a park

* played badminton

* had a birthday party

* rode scooters and bikes

* dug in the dirt

* and snacked on many delicious foods!

Getting together these seven times this summer has helped us feel connected and nurtured our friendships. Lucas is ready to dive into the school year and play some more! I got to spend time with some moms and dads I didn’t know all that well yet. I’m grateful to count you all friends.

I wish I had pictures to share, but alas, when I hosted playgroup in June I was so busy with the kids and fixing them food I forgot to get out my camera.

With love and thanks,

Sara

(and Lucas, Ian, and Asher)

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.

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.

It’s been a hell of a Spring Break and I, for one, am glad it’s OVER! 

It’s Friday night and I’m sitting here in the dark with my vodka and 7, while Ian suffers in the other room: On top of cold symptoms that he’s worked through all week, he appears now to have eaten some bad sushi.

Asher is still sick. He alternates between feeling reasonably chipper and totally lame. His nose is sometimes so congested it’s hard for him to breastfeed. Suck, suck, detach, breathe. Suck, suck, detach, breathe. Suck, suck, detach, breathe. It’s pathetic. He’s now whining a lot of the time, not crying, just complaining. I don’t blame him, but there is so little I can do to make him comfortable: menthol rub on his chest, hot showers to clear out the boogers, milk when he wants it, a sleeping companion, being held a lot. That’s about it.

Lucas is doing better. The antibiotics do the trick. I hate the idea that we’re wiping out all the beneficial flora in his system by giving him this medicine, but lung infections suck worse. Maybe. He’s got 6 more days of meds to take, but he’ll be back to school on Monday. (Otherwise, I may just end up in prison.) Fortunately, my son is mature enough to take his medicine without argument or fuss.

In 12 days, I have left the house only a few times and then only for a brief while. My nerves are completely frayed. Today I yelled at Asher because he wouldn’t sleep. Yeah, that’s stupid. I know. He would go to sleep, rest for 10 minutes and pop awake again. He did that three times. He only really took a proper nap when I calmed down and resolved myself to staying with him instead of working. 

I have work to do and can’t manage to do it. I have my first project to edit in a whole new software program. At the moment, I’m not sure how to do it, only that I’ve committed to doing it. 

Yesterday evening I split, engaged in some retail therapy, and (Thank God) dropped in on some friends who were kind enough to convince me that 9 p.m. was not too late. It was a dark moment when I was sitting in my car in front of Barnes & Noble thinking I had no friends and nothing to do and nowhere to go. Thanks, darlings. I really needed to sit in your kitchen and bitch for a while. 

In a (perhaps belated) effort to stay positive and be Zen about all this, here are some highlights from the last two weeks. There were some fun and/or funny moments, in between the SERENITY NOW! moments.

El Torrito Cilantro Pepita Caesar salad dressing. Lucas has been practicing pouring.

We took a walk at Negro Bar along the American River on March 26. Here are a few pics from that brief outing. It took Lucas only .5 seconds to get covered in wet mud.

It was a beautiful afternoon.

This was before we got sick. I like knowing how to take time-delayed shots! The camera is balanced on the stroller.

This is a cupboard in Lucas’s bedroom. Asher has taken to hiding his pacifiers in this cupboard. Now every time Asher enters Lucas’s room, he makes a beeline for this cupboard to check his stash.

My tulips are blooming and they’re fabulous.

I planted a multipack of pansies in the flowerbed by my front door a few weeks ago. They’re looking great now.

Some bath time fun. Asher kept sticking his tongue out.


And Lucas thought that was cool, so …

We have a book from the library called Hurry and the Monarch and another book all about the life-cycle of the monarch butterfly. Lucas spent two entire days being a monarch butterfly. I had to sneak this photo because he didn’t want one taken. He also had a monarch butterfly painted on his face—and it was damned good, if I do say so myself.

Lucas has also spent a lot of time pretending to be a mouse and a rabbit, which is more palatable to me than, say, pretending to be a Hells Angel or WWF wrestler. Even though small woodland creatures talk in unbearably high, squeaky voices and titter loudly enough to make your head explode.

To keep ourselves busy, we have also: 
* painted pictures
* painted faces
* made mobiles from tissue paper and sticks
* played board games
* played with dominoes
* drawn and colored
* cooked
* gardened and planted 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 1 cantaloupe melon, 2 lavender bushes
* read dozens and dozens of books
* shopped online
* done many, many chores
* cleaned out closets
* and blogged.

Last year, I managed to throw together a tiny Solstice celebration. At the last minute, I invited Theresa and Greg and Phoebe over for dinner. I decorated the table with a gold lamé and served only yellow foods (butternut squash soup, oranges, summer squashes cut into disks and sautéed, chicken with a lemon sauce, sparkling cider, and probably other stuff I don’t remember). We had a lovely, silly time, subtly worshipping the sun and its return.

Today I don’t have any such thing planned, but maybe I’ll go to the grocery store for some oranges or something.

Over the course of this month, we’ve been observing Advent, à la Waldorf schools and Anthroposophists rather than Catholics/Christians. The difference is slight, however. We have an Advent Wreath (a real evergreen wreath) and in the center we placed a Celtic-style candleholder that was a gift from Flonkbob (and Chilipantz?) many years ago. Although the candleholder is not a ring, per se, it features three outer candles with a place for one elevated candle in the center. It’s beautiful and works nicely as the symbolic equivalent of the four weeks leading up to Solstice/Christmas, with the fourth being the prominent one signifying the birth of the Sun/Christ. (The Advent wreath we had when I was growing up was a ring, but in the Catholic tradition, we used 3 purple candles and 1 pink candle signifying the climax. Pink/purple are the traditional colors of Advent in the church.) This year, I’ve stuffed it with golden beeswax candles made by lovely dakini_grl.

Each night, we’ve been reciting the following poem, which I believe is traditional for the Anthroposophists:

The first light of Advent,
It is the light of Stones,
Stones that live in crystals, seashells,
And our bones.

The second light of Advent
It is the light of plants,
Plants that reach up to the sun,
And in the breezes dance.

The third light of Advent,
It is the light of Beasts,
The light of hope that we may see
In greatest and in least

The fourth light of Advent,
It is the light of man,
The light of love, the light of thought,
To give and understand.

I like this verse because it’s earth- and human-centered. It’s pagan-sounding to me. But that pagan stuff isn’t quite so important to me as it used to be. I’ve become like Joseph Campbell in my old age. I’ve been meditating on the meaning of Christmas to me and how well I see the lines that connect this holiday with other, older holidays. My need to step apart and define myself as a pagan, as something entirely other than a Christian, is much diminished. I’m finding that this is making me really happy, and is allowing me to enjoy all the religiosity of the season more. Somehow there’s less of a reason to be uptight.

ASIDE:
At one point last year sometime, Ian’s mother expressed concern that Lucas must be educated about the Christian faith so that he can live in our God-fearing, Christian society.  I hardly fear that Lucas will somehow escape learning a basic knowledge of Christianity, just because we don’t define ourselves as Christians. She worried because we were attending the Unitarian Universalist Society services: “Do they even talk about Christ?!”

Anyway, we have been singing the Advent song that mentions the Christ child along with our candle-lighting ritual. Lucas’s face always lights up when we sing “Then comes the Christ child at the door.” I think that he is really captivated by the image of a child being the inspiration of the season.

The other morning, all by myself, I sat down on the couch in my living room with some Christmas carol sheet music and sang my wondering Christian heart out.