Sunday Slivers, 4/10/11: Half-full

Our ever-changing bedtime routine included, every night this past week, a fifteen-minute tussle of Thing One and Thing Two on Thing One's bed after bath and before books and sleep. It's one of my favorite parts of the day, because it captures this moment in time--with a five and one-and-a-half year old in the house--as I would like to remember it years from now. I'd rather not remember the drawn-out battles to make Thing One eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the constant anxiety that Thing Two will split her head open on one of the few edges left in the house after we removed the TV stand, the internal torment about whether I'm showing more affection to Thing One or Thing Two on any given day, the exhaustion at the end of a day when Thing Two has taken only a brief nap and Thing One has been clingy all afternoon because he did not get his fair share of mommy during quiet time, the sickening realization, every few months, as we trial and fail and fail again, that my kids can't eat cow's milk...

Instead, I'd much rather remember the two of them naked or half-naked on the bed, shrieking with laughter as they fall over each other and hit their foreheads with a bang that makes my hair stand on end, Sava's delight as he smothers his sister with pillows in a half-playful, half-serious reenactment of his gentle but deeply felt sense of sibling rivalry, Raya's hysterical giggles as her fat little bottom crashes over her brother's head after a failed attempt to stand upright in his bed. These are happy, as well as tense moments, as Rado and I sit on either side of Sava's bed, watching in awe the two Things we've created engage (somewhat) meaningfully with each other, while simultaneously using all of our senses in order to ensure that neither of them incurs serious trauma in the act of play.

A story on NPR this morning about the the relationship between longevity and the ability to bounce back from stress had me thinking today about the presumed Eastern European predilection to see the half-full glass as half-empty, or worse. Half-empty is the default position in parenting also, where any failure on the part of a child to live up to some presumed standard--learn to swim at age three, eat breakfast with gusto, assert his place at the playground, you name it--can often be seen for what it is not, rather than for what it is--a fearful child rather than a cautious one, a picky eater rather than a connoisseur, a timid soul rather than a sensitive friend/partner/husband/father-in-the-making.

Five years with Sava have taught me, slowly, to prefer the half-full glass over the half-empty one, and Raya is now helping me recognize that half-full glasses come filled with all sorts of different beverages: it's possible to have the most timid considerate and the most pushy feisty kids on the playground, and it's possible to see both as a glass full of color, pizazz, and taste.
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This week Raya felt running water while standing on her own two feet for the very first time:

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Sava got a saxophone, which he naturally loves--

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We got some good sunshine, without any of the heat of the previous week:

 Yup, she's got a new bonnet. A bit big on her still, but she'll grow into it--

 Never letting the boys just do their own thing--

Obsessed with his Winnie-the-Pooh crocs, thanks to wonderful auntie Michelle--

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We got a new kiddie couch to replace the TV stand, and the new reading nook turned overnight into the kids' favorite spot downstairs; Raya now picks up a book and plops herself on the couch, demanding in a loud voice for someone to come and read to her; brilliant, I tell you--

Waving goodbye to dad in the morning--

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And she is really into caring for her doll, all of a sudden, including feeding her--

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So, even as all four of us fight some nasty virus that would not leave the house, I try to look at the silver lining, drink the half-full glass, enjoy the green grass on this side, and remember not to forget that life is damn short and we might as well take the time to savor it.