A Sheep and Other Blood Moon Wishes

I wish I had a sheep.

My pal Luckey and I are drinking coffee on my front porch on Saturday morning and she points to a bare circle of dirt bordered by stones. It’s about 8 feet wide, the only bare dirt in my very green, fern and pond bedecked frog garden yard. (I have this idea that we could have a city life with frogs and the sound of them at night andand also nightclubs and great coffee and shoe stores and high-rises.)

“What’s going to go there?” My friend Lucky says, pointing to the dirt.

”That’s where Forest and I make mud pies.” I say. “It’s a free zone. Maybe someday I’ll put in gravel.”

”Or grass,” says Luckey. “You could lay on the grass… look up at the sky.”

”Then I have to mow it,” I say. 

I don’t want to mow it… but I do like to lay on the grass. I turn to her. “What I want is a sheep who will crop it for me. Actually, I don’t want a sheep. I want to rent someone else’s sheep. I want there to be a sheep lawn service. Just show up, set up a little circular fence my front yard every week or so. I look over the fence at my neighbors’ lawns. “Maybe we could go in on it together?” This would be better for frogs than the puree experience of a lawnmower. 

Plus,  there’s the shepherd…  For some reason, right off the bat I picture great pecs and suspenders. Don’t you?

But, maybe a sheep is a silly thing to waste a full moon wish on. It’s a blood moon tonight, a special kind of full moon eclipse that makes the moon look red. Everybody’s talking about it. The guy at the grocery store – 20’s, blonde curly hair…he’d make a striking shepherd come to think of it – said this is the first of four blood moons, one every six months starting now. He also said that it's auspicious that this one comes the same day that Passover starts and that that hasn't happened since the first Passover. “I mean, the very first one,” he says, inclining his head. So, I ask him if he follows astrology. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Like lots of Jews, I’m a secular humanist I follow all kinds of traditions” He tells me “they say that that first blood moon was a bad omen…but this one, I think it’s the beginning of a new era,” he says. The time to let go of old, oh, I don’t know… resentments,” he says, then looks at me.  “Did I mention I’m a Jew?”

He says all this as his deft hands pass butter lettuce, strawberries, snap peas, and chocolate over the scanner and the boy with down syndrome bags it for me.

The shepherd_ – I believe I’ll just go ahead and call him that – has blonde hair on his knuckles.

I sort of like hairy knuckles.

(Is it weird to entertain lustful thoughts about a Jew I’m calling the shepherd while he tells me an astrological story about Jesus?)

Maybe. I think the world could use a little more weird. I think a new beginning on a whole lotta fronts is a good idea. I think it's time to dream big. Not just sheep lawnmowers and articulate blond shepherds, but new beginnings where we dare to believe that a better world, a big change is possible. So, I don't know, maybe a sheep isn't really a small wish. Maybe it’s the beginning of believing in a new weirder, more beautiful (and musical) world.

The boy and the bushtits

Kiwi got the bushtits.

No, that's not a porn title. It's the latest casualty in my front yard experiment.

This has been a banner year for wildlife. This spring, sucky though it has been, thanks to that rainy goddess La Nina, has seen a lot of traffic through our yard. Bird traffic, that is. (I feel like I am singing the Beverly Hillbillies theme song. "Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea...")

Before Kiwi

But ma and pa bushtit didn't make a mansion, they made a purse. I watched them and it was so cool. You know how I love accessories. They wove a dangling bag out of lichen and moss and it was so pretty. Here. Take a look.

They put it in the coastal silk tassel bush, one of my native plants that is finally getting burly enough for a nest. Or so they thought. But they built the thing pretty close to the ground, only 4 feet up and right by the sidewalk. I guess available property must be a little scarce around here. But I watched them doing their frantic race, sneaking up to the nest and then the whole thing shaking like Santa's belly when they got inside to the babies, jostling for their bit of jelly.

After Kiwi

Then Kiwi the cat found it. I threw water on him when I saw him stalking it. I even woke up in the middle of the night and thought maybe I should put a cookie sheet of water under the nest to keep him away... but the next day it was torn in two. Bye-bye baby bushtits.

I am a little more sanguine about this than I was a couple years ago when I annihilated the nest full of chickadees with my bbq plume. Helps that it wasn't my fault, plus the Fox just turned 3. He is burlier too.

You see, it's a numbers game. The older they get, the higher their survival chances are. At least with baby animals. And also, the more of them there are, the better the chance that enough will make it to keep things going. It's a numbers game. Like dating, like democracy, like craps. (Even though I've never played craps, I'm pretty sure I'm right about that.)  Funny, its easy to be philosophical about other species as populations instead of individuals. I know that human procreation is a numbers game too, though so far we are holding at one. He just turned three.

In the days leading up to his birthday, he kept saying "And everybody will sing 'Happy Birthday' to me!" I loved that it was about music, not stuff. I shouldn't make everything into a moral crossroads, but sometimes I can't help myself. Though I think we might have blown that with the complete craziness. New room (bunk bed up high, his own nest), new play structure, couch full of presents from family and friends. He is sleeping in his new nest as I write this, saving up some rest for the party later today. We'll burn some sausages and garden burgers on the barbie, and all his 3 year old friends will sing "Happy Birthday" to him. Spring. Joy and loss. Hope and realization and disappointment. He is growing so fast, like the sunflower seeds I had time to start in pots for the first time since he was born. Some of them will get to be 12, 16 feet tall.
A Forest of flowers that will give seeds to the birds in the fall. And there will be enough seeds to save some, I hope. For next spring, when he'll be four.  The silk tassel bush will be taller  and so will he and the experiment with new life will begin again.

Mea Culpa

Spring at last, a good time for apologies. I’ve got two. Please don’t be offended if I say the that first and less important one is to you, for leaving you on a bummer note for the dark months since December.

More importantly, for Forest, “Sweetheart, I am so sorry.”

Know what? He’s not “A Pusher.”

No. It’s true. And I am not Mrs. Dursely here. I know that because of the wonderfulness of last night’s visit from Katy, who pointed out that when Maggie dumped dirt on Forest in my front yeard, he did not take her down, as once might have been, but walked over to Katy and asked for help with his situation.

I know this, because he is now at a  full-time day care with Miss Angie and is kicking it. Or, should I say, not kicking it.  When I enrolled him, I did a full disclosure thing. (You know I can’t help myself. I am an over-sharer.) She said she’d meet him, but she had a really sweet group and she had to be picky…

He has now been there for four months. Within a week and a half of being there, the pushing was over and he was potty-trained. Seriously.  I attribute it to three things. One, Miss Angie actually loves kids. And they can tell. Two: She is totally drama free. Three, she’s had most of the mixed age group since they were babies and  --since she has mad skills -- her herd is awesome. She’s got some gentle three and four year old boys in there who are awesome heroes for the Fox. Don’t underestimate the power of a good herd.

So, to sum up: He just needed a loving teacher with skills. (And the herd that maketh.)

I know that sounds mean. But when I look back on the warning signs that I ignored – that the previous gals showed no affection for him, that they had no ideas how to help him, that they didn’t tell me he needed some help --

Well, I have to say it again. “I’m very sorry, Sweetheart.”

He’s blooming now, though. Rambunctious and kind. Generous and rowdy. Plus, a good dancer.. .Me and him and Maggie and Christina did the octopus dance together last night and he stayed right there with the girls without a white man’s overbite in sight.  My kind of guy.

Special thanks going out to his babysitter, who said to me, in the midst of the badness, “Don’t you believe them. Forest doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. They just want easy kids who will sit still and color all the time.” She’s worked in day cares, now is a full-time nanny when she isn’t whisking the Fox off for some adventure. “I’ve seen it happen too many times,” she said. “The day care convinces you that your kid is the problem and the real problem is they aren’t doing their job.”

Amen, sister. And a shout out to any mom who is hearing this bullshit. It’s not that your kid is bad. Or that there isn’t something to do. Its just that you and his teachers need a plan, together. And some skills. 

I Don't Want to Say It

My kid is the pusher.

When I write it down, it doesn’t look like it has sharp edges and pokey places, but it does. I feel ashamed and scared and disloyal, just for saying it about the boy I love. It’s been roiling around in me for a week, since the owner of the preschool told me I couldn’t add Tuesdays and Thursdays because she has too many parent complaints about the Fox.

What????

I mean, I knew something was off when I asked about adding days for the third time and she said, “Let’s have coffee.” But the really sucky part is that I knew about this a couple months ago, we had the conference, we made a plan, and every day since then when I picked up the Fox and I asked, “How did it go?” I heard “Better. It’s getting much better.”

Clearly there is a communication problem. Is it my hearing? I don’t think so. But when does the person who isn’t listening ever think it’s them? Is it their lack of talking? I think “Yes!” But again…

But this is my beautiful, amazing, happy boy... I hear in myself every bully's mother. I could be Petunia Dursely, the mother of Harry Potter's muggle nemesis Dudley, and I wouldn't know it.

So, am trying to focus on fixing this. Because, above pseudo self-awareness aside, I know with the a ROAR of love that the Fox is confused, not cruel. And believe this is what they call a teachable moment, rather than a character flaw. And I am helped by the fact that the full moon is tomorrow night, and the longest night of the year is also tomorrow night, which both remind me that, as my friend Steve said to me a couple weeks ago at toddler time, “It will change.”

He said that to me because I was, at the time, in a really sweet swing of things with the Fox. We were have tons of cooperation and laughing and singing and “I love you’s.” I even got one “I love you very much, Mommy!” as he ran down the hall, arms full of stuffed animals, ready to make a pillow pile. Steve said “It will change,” after I told him about that, because he was in a hellish phase with his girl, he was on the dark side of the moon. This was a good thing, for him to remind me to cherish the goodness and for me to say to him on the phone, as I hear shrieking and screaming and crashing in the background, “Just remember, it will change.”

So after I spent a week roiling around in shame (“Bad mothers create kids who push,”) and anger (“They are supposed to teach him!”) and generally being a pain in the ass to M, I remembered:

This too will change.

Though, we have to help it. I don’t know exactly how, since we have done a lot already. At home, he has gone from a dog-pusher to a (mostly) dog-petter. Took a LOT of repetition and it’s always worse when he is hungry, angry, lonely or tired.

I had a good talk with Teacher Amy* this morning. I said “What time does this go down, usually?” “Hmm. On Friday, it was right before playtime,” she said. “11:30.”

That’s what time the Fox starts to lose it at home, too. Because it’s nap time.

Teacher Amy is going to write down when it happens and with who, etc. So we can make another plan. And also, I told her  that I understand that if they are shadowing him and he won’t listen, he needs to be separated from the other kids. Yuck.

And now I'm saying to myself, Self, it's the day before Solstice, before the light starts to come back. Dark nights are here, but the bright moon lights them up. Love works and teaching does too. Things will change.

Because there are two things here: I really believe this is “developmentally appropriate.” (You know, that great phrase that experts use to describe behavior that is difficult and embarrassing and normal.) And I also believe in firm but calm boundaries, though sometimes they seem as elusive as Santa Claus.  I told the teacher that the boundary should not be shaming, and she agreed. We looked each other in the eye and at that moment, I felt like she got it, like we were in it together.

And I told her what I have learned from every job, every relationship and every bad week with the Fox: Love has to come first. No one wants to hear what they are doing wrong from someone who doesn’t give the love first. Not me, not M, not the person I’m supervising, and not the Fox. I told the her the one thing that I wish I could remember every second with my son, my marraige, my work as a person. I said, “Give him as much love as you can before it happens. He listens better if he gets love first.”

*Exciting moment. First pseudonym, since I try extra hard to be open about my stuff and fair about the stuff of people who know what they are getting into by having a relationship with me. Or should. Anyway...

Why Sarah Palin is Popular

I like certainty.

I actually like it a lot. I’m not alone, we’ve got a certainty-loving culture here. Ever been at a party when someone says “What do you do?” and the other person says “I’m between things…” Awkward silence.  Or ever been the single person in a room full of couples, all settled in their certainty and couple-ness. Yeah, certainty is pretty seductive.

So, the other day, I was pretty certain I was on the trail of a bad mom. Okay, I know I’ve gone out on a limb and said (with only a slightly self-righteous tone) that I am against labeling other mothers, ‘cause who knows what is really going on? Right? Right.

But this little guy, whose missing-in-action mom was the suspect in question, well, he was the terror of toddler time. He was Jesse James and a touch of Charles Manson all rolled into one. Okay, the Manson thing is a little harsh, but he was taking toys and pushing and steamrolling little ones and generally looking for trouble. I tracked this kid for ten minutes, fancying myself a defender of the innocent, working up a righteous indignation as I waited for the mom to appear. I even gossiped to my friend Steve. “Where is that kid’s mother?” I hissed, before detailing his crimes. “Unbelievable,” he agreed.

Then I saw her. Sitting in the corner. Trying to get her newborn to latch back on and looking mighty hollow-eyed at that.

I should listen to myself more often.

But certainty is so much more seductive than knowing the facts. (For proof of that, look no further than the popularity of Sarah Palin.)

So then, after I got over feeling shame-i-fied on the inside, and after I told Edith to shut the f#*k up, and after I recovered from the once-more-with-feeling relief that I have one kid, because I don’t know how the multiple moms do it, after I was done with all that, I realized that there is a reason that we have toddler time. At the community center. So that we can help each other out. I mean, I know that can go too far and all, but then again, I tend to get all caught up in doing it alone perfectly. (Which makes me really pleasant to be around at about 5:30 at night, let me tell you. Or M could…) 

So then I just found the kiddo with my eyes and kept an eye on him. I felt like a sort of giving auntie, a wise mama type who can help and give and be plentiful.

The next day, the kiddo and the Fox were both at the playground. They got into a pushing match over a toy and I will tell you two things: First, the mama was dealing with the newborn at the time, again. I caught her eye and said “I’ve got it” in an if it’s okay with you sort of tone.  And second, the Fox was giving as well as getting.

Just in case I had any more temptations to cast that stone. Other than at Sarah Palin.

The Purff and the Wurff

I used to carry small purses. Not little bitty sweater dog purses, but no bigger than a breadbox. You see, I had this theory that I’ll call the Law of Universal Purff (Purse + Stuff = Purff) Expansion: that the stuff that you put into a purse will expand to take up the whole purse, no matter how big the purse.

So why get a big purse? Just a backache waiting to happen, eh? (As they say in Canada.)

And now I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a similar law in effect with worry. Have you noticed? It’s almost like I have an invisible worry purse. It hangs somewhere between my throat and my sternum… and when it gets full it starts to choke me. But even if I try to empty it, if I take care of one, another rises immediately. This seems to be true, even if Worry A is a whopper, and Worry B is sort of pathetic. Which makes me wonder: Am I just filling my worry purse? Is there a Law of Wurff Expansion?

Cause Motherhood already blew my small purse plan. Now I’ve got these hunks that I haul around with tupperwares and wipeomatics. And now the worries have gotten so much bigger too, now that there’s so much more to care about.

But maybe they’ll both go back to normal with time? Maybe, just about the time that I can stop carrying the wipeomatics because there isn’t a constant explosion coming out of one Fox hole or another, maybe then I’ll be able to go back to my cute little tangerine orange bag with the ivory leaf top-stitching and stop worrying so much?

But then I remember the moment with my mom. The one when she leaned over my bed and saw the Fox for the first time, and then looked into my eyes and saw that the bottom had fallen out of my world, and I could see that was there in her eyes too, there for me, and I had never seen it before. And I said, “Mom, does it always feel like this?” and she sobbed just a little bit and smiled and said “Yes.” And I thought about all those years, not even the toddler years, but the later ones, and all the worry I put her through, not knowing that there was this hole inside her. This worry purse with absolutely no Wurff limit. And I said, “Oh, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

(She loves telling that story.)

Anyway, if that’s any indication, my Wurff is going nowhere good.

Losing Track Of Time

"What do you lose track of time doing?"

This is the question my friend Candace asked, one of those launching questions that we are given from time to time, the ones that are to the mind as the sawzall was to the pumpkins at that power-tool pumpkin-carving party I went to.

ZZZZZZt! Open up.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I watched M carry the Fox up the stairs from the basement, kicking and screaming bloody murder because he didn’t want to leave the shop for lunch and nap. I have two-year-old who loves tools. He gets lost in the moment of drilling, screwdrivering and sanding. This is M’s gift to the Fox, maybe the most precious gift a parent can give past the love: the experience of losing track of time.

I can see it when it happens to him; I recognize the look on his face like it was a mirror. His little jaw is loose, his lips are slightly pursed, like he was about to give the clamp and sandpaper a big wet kiss and then forgot halfway there. I know that feeling. That is how I feel when I draw, when I garden, and when the writing is good.

So today, when the Fox wakes up, we are going to go pick up some sassy new art supplies. His preschool teacher said he is one of the kids who wants to do art as long as possible. I felt a little bad when I heard this, partly because I felt like I should already know this and also because… Well, not to get too pointy about this, but I have been avoiding messes a little too much. It’s easy to do this, to get so overwhelmed by the exploding spaghetti nature of toddlerhood that I opt for the low-mess activities. C’mon. Let’s do one more puzzle. Let’s read one more book…

When what we really need to do is lose track of time together. Not him losing track of time and me checking my watch every two minutes (how long until nap time?) Not me losing track of time cleaning the cabinets, while he finds matches and knives in order to draw my attention back to him. Together. That, my friend, is today’s quest.