fall nuggets: attitude

Some mornings ago we all woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Dressing for school--the agonizing and prolonged choosing of outfits by those who do not wear uniforms--and then breakfast--the reluctance to get out of bed and begin eating pancakes by those in uniform--was a battle of wills that had all of us yearning to begin our day elsewhere. I left for work wishing that days had a reset button and we could go back to the moment of waking up and usher the morning with gentler thoughts.

Moss Beach

No such thing. Families do not have reset buttons, and it helps to acknowledge that some days are just plain hard.

On the other hand, there are all of those other wonderful moments which, most days, make us happy to have each other, like: Raya hugging her slippers, unbeknownst to me, while I sang her to sleep in complete darkness tonight; Sava laughing hysterically as he chased me and tickled me during a spontaneous trip to the park after school today; Rado spending forty-five minutes after dinner doing, with all the patience he could muster, six extremely difficult math homework problems with Sava; the list goes on.

This fall has felt particularly busy, and we've found ourselves talking, on occasion, about what it would feel like to move someplace else, where life goes at a slower pace. Montana. Oregon. Colorado.

I've also been reading a lot about the future of education and have been doing a lot of new stuff in my classroom, while pondering how to encourage creativity and curiosity at home.

touching an anemone in the tidepools

Sometimes, it seems that there are too many possibilities. Other times, none of the possibilities seem good enough.

What helps is to remind ourselves that we are unspeakably lucky to be where we are, surrounded with the kinds of people and opportunities that make up the fabric of our daily lives.

Just yesterday, I ran fives miles in a natural preserve twelve minutes away from work under an overcast sky that turned brilliant with sunshine by the time I circled back to the parking lot.

Sava's favorite activity during the week is a woodworking workshop run by an Israeli man, while Raya ice-skates on Saturday mornigns with children whose ethnic backgrounds span the entire globe.

Rado works daily with people who are mostly thousands of miles away. We attend a school where every teacher knows almost every kid. The list goes on.

The point is that, to overcome doubts about whether we're doing decently at the task of managing jobs while raising our kids, it helps to adopt an attitude of thankfulness. As I've read, and written about before, feeling grateful and thinking about feeling grateful seems good for the soul and good for the mind, too.

getting stickers from the ranger 

Also, taking the time to photograph and then contemplating photographs helps us remember to savor the present moment. Stuff like that.

Without further ado, a belated summary of some of our fall happenings.

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As already mentioned and celebrated on this blog, Raya turned FOUR in October. In addition to the photos of her having a grand old time at Happy Hollow, there are also photos of Sava thrilled to be going on kiddie rides and beginning to discover the delightfulness of Raya's friends.

As far as his mother is concerned, this is the world's most eligible seven-year old. No wonder girls flock to him.

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I've been majorly bummed since the start of school because an awkward alignment of perfect-swim-teacher and wrong-hour-on-wrong-day make for fragmented Sundays when no major family outings can be undertaken.

We've tried doing our hikes on Saturdays instead, but going out for a long trek after a tiring week is just not everyone's idea of weekend relaxation. By Sunday morning, we are all ready to be outside. Saturday mornings? We want to cuddle and cook a long breakfast and enjoy each other's presence (or, in the case of the kids, run around the house while laughing maniacally and concocting all manner of pretend sibling games).

So, hikes have been sporadic, and this mama is peeved at the interruption of what had become a solid family tradition by nothing less than a regularly scheduled swim lesson on Sunday noon. Arrgh.

(For the record, Sava loves swimming, wants to keep doing it, and this is the only good teacher at the only facility which does not require an unconscionably long drive. Did I already mention the pace of life here?...)

Still, when we do go out, we register each time, without fail, an unmistakable change in the tenor of our walks. Sister walks. She treks. She'll sometimes complain and sometimes drag her feet, but for the most part, she is becoming a good sport. 

Having someone to talk to helps, as do wide enough trails to accommodate two walkers side by side (more on that later).

She'll suffer the occasional fall and then shed histrionic tears, which make her mama pull out the camera to capture that darling crying face. Which makes her cry louder.

I love that, wherever we are, whatever time of day, she has an instinct to look for the moon and then insists that we all see it also. Really. I adore that about her.

See the moon, mama? See the moon?

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Halloween came and went, as did the whole peculiarly American celebration of pumpkins and of the color orange. We get pumpkins and squashes and all kinds of autumnal goodness from our CSA, so I had not felt a particular urgency to visit a "pumpkin patch" this year (plus, Sava went on a school field trip to a farm). Come last weekend before Halloween, though, guilt overcame inertia, and we headed to a pumpkin farm, along with everyone else who had postponed this essential October activity until the last moment. It was crowded, and the kids seemed not to care.

It blows my mind that Sava still enjoys the puny little train which, for $2 a pop, takes one very slow turn around the patch. It's cute but utterly incomprehensible.

When it comes to balancing a huge pumpkin on a wheelbarrow, though?

That's more like real fun.

 

The pumpkin was really Raya's, as Sava already had one, and she spent much of the visit trying to pick "the perfect one."

Umm, she found it.

Also, some serious hay-jumping was had.

And Sava practiced tying his shoe lace, which is his favorite new skill and in which he engaged for a while approximately six-hundred-forty-five times each day.

That was the pumpkin patch.

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Then there was Halloween itself, which was spent primarily chasing three very mobile fairy-princess-butterfly hybrids (powered by ether and sugar) and their attendant Navy pilot (powered by dark chocolate).

I can't seriously get into the spirit of this holiday either, but I love that they do, and I enjoy their enthusiasm.

I really do.

We are lucky to live in a neighborhood where people don't mind young trick-or-treaters-whose-parents-want-them-in-bed-asap knocking on doors at 5:30 pm and where almost every house is beautifully decorated.

That was Halloween.
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On another hike, just this past weekend, we went to one of my old new favorite places, Coal Mine Ridge, which features a stunningly beautiful single-track trail.

Like the day mentioned at the start of this post, when everyone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, this was a walk where it took us a good hour for everyone's mood to stabilize and for the goodness of the great outdoors to infuse our bodies.

The presumed irritant? The inability of Child #2 to walk ahead of or side by side with Child #1.

Thankfully, the park was mostly deserted, so her screams and wails did not bother anyone but us. We, too, eventually managed to tune her out.

Plus, the path widened towards the end (we got lost and ended up on the wrong trail back), and she recovered her cooperative, gregarious self.

Thank goodness for the most patient brother in the world.

That's going to the woods.

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On the personal accomplishment front:
As mentioned before, Sava's new self-generated, self-propelled, self-motivated interest is woodworking. He declared one day that he wanted to be "like Papa Bear" in The Berenstein Bears, who makes stuff out of wood, and I believe now he is.

Between the weekly workshop where he makes things like retractable hangers (above), and monthly workshops at Home Depot where he and Rado bond over wooden planes and boats, the boy is becoming a true craftsman.

Also, he wants to learn to cook.

I tell you he is the world's most eligible seven-year old.

Raya continues to ice-skate with undiminished enthusiasm and increasing grace.

We wonder every week whether she enjoys the exercise or the socialization more, but actually, deep down, we know the right answer: it's all about hanging out with the right kind of crowd.
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She is also starting to read. In typical fashion, she won't be told or shown how to do it, but she is fascinated with spelling and constantly trying to figure out how to spell words on her own.

She'll spell words like "bat" or "cup" no problem and is beginning to figure out other phonetic principles, such as "oo" for the sound "u" etc. Her earnestness about the whole process is endearing.

It is an awe-inspiring thing to witness, as well as an exercise for us in allowing learning to happen, rather than trying to guide it purposefully. Kids, propelled by their own drive and curiosity, will steer themselves beautifully in the direction of knowledge. If I know one thing about parenting and teaching, this is it.

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She's also, as pictures above and below demonstrate, acquired a whole new level of agility lately.

She does most monkey bars effortlessly without any help and will often be seen hanging from stuff in the most frightening positions.

I take deep breaths and try not to interfere.

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Because our schedules are so different, and afternoons are sacred times for rest, Raya and Phoebe have not been playing as often together. We miss seeing them more often.

When we do see them, though, the earnestness of their pretend games is heart-warming.

Board games are a favorite, too.

And frequently, they have to negotiate at length about who is boss.
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Finally,
Stuff They Say 
We've sort of started a new tradition of "family meetings" on Sunday mornings. I got the idea from a book, and the presumed goal is to have a forum where kids and adults can discuss things that have happened in the family over the past week: it's a place to air grievances but also to celebrate good moments. So, to that end, we now have a little white board on the wall where people who know how to write can jot down ideas in order to remember them. Or, if people still can't write, others can help them do so. The board prior to our first meeting:

Raya: does not like being pulled up.
Sava: I like what dinner you make.
Raya being "pulled up" refers to Raya being transported upstairs for bed when she refuses to cooperate; she is not being dragged, but she does get gently pulled up in the direction of the second floor.

he reads to her all the time; it's the best thing ever 

Sava is starting to figure out things about life.
Sava: I wonder if Santa is alive, or if you guys get all this. 
When I ask him if he really thinks Santa does not bring presents, he says that he knows Santa does bring "stuff," because where else would we get all these things? But he wonders about the reindeer and the flying sleigh.
Me: What about magic?
Sava: There is always a key to magic! 

Raya went through a brief phase last month of loving the phrase "as a matter of fact." During the first of the above-mentioned family meetings, when I asked if someone had something good to say,
Raya: I'm going to have something good to say, but as a matter of fact, my bacon slid down into my maple syrup.

Most of the time, Sava is beyond gracious about being around his sister, who taxes him both emotionally and physically with her loud voice and her constant chatter. On a rare morning when Raya was feeling ill, he and I had breakfast together, while Rado read books to her upstairs.
Sava: My favorite times are when you and I are alone, and we just have some privacy.

When I told Raya that being hyper at bedtime is why we limit sugar after dinner:
But, mama, I have a special button inside that puts the sugar in a special can so that it doesn't wake me up! 

Conversations in the car on our way to pick up Sava, when Raya is at her sleepiest and most tired, often take on a surreal turn.
Raya: Mama, do you know Texas Florida? 
Mama silent, as she considers how to respond.
Raya (not waiting for response): It's in the state of Washington DC!

no matter where, she finds someone to hold hands with

Raya: Mommy, does the baby grow in the mommy's tummy with clothes?
Mom: What do you think?
Raya: Yes!!!

During another one of those surreal car rides, I heard Raya intoning repeatedly:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest in the mall?
(For the record, we have never read this well-known fairytale at home. She must have picked it up at school.)
When I suggested gently to Raya that the correct phrase is, "who is the fairest of them all," she replied with a brusque No! and proceeded to repeat:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all in the mall?

Happy fall. Happy winter.