I Forgot…

Well, I forgot one of my kids tonight.

It was bound to happen eventually (Actually it might have happened before. I’m not sure. I forget.).

Fortunately her dad didn’t forget her and, while Ivy was the last kid picked up from her after school activity, she was remarkably fine with the fact that her mother forgot her.

(That’s not our kitten- Thank goodness!)

I mention this because:

A) Lots of people lately have been all “Omg you are amazing, you do so many things!” And I try to tell them things like, “Yeah, no,” and “Not really,” and then they don’t believe me so I try hard to learn how to accept a compliment and move on. But here is the thing. If you, like me, talk about slightly abnormal things like chasing escapee geese in a flooded river (I really should share that story here…) and traveling with pigeons and keeping bees, it seems that people assume you are doing all those things plus all the things that people, mothers even, regularly do. And to that crazy thought I say, “HA! Are you serious!?” my days have 24 hours in them just like everyone else’s. Something always has to give and in my life it always seems to be the “boring” things- you know, cooking, cleaning, and remembering things, like how to count to three (coincidentally that’s how many children I have) that fall by the wayside. Nobody is superhuman, least of all me.

B) She’s fine! I’m not the worst mother in the world (John assures me crackhead mothers and people who drown their children are much worse than me.). Sometimes people leave you hanging. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes shit happens. Would it be better if someone else taught my kid that sort of lesson? Probably. Do I still love her and she knows it? Yes.

C) Have I forgotten to return your call or your bowl or your e-mail or drop off a bag of apples or some other thing that I forgot I even forgot recently? Don’t be offended, it’s not you. I forgot my own kid today.

E-mail Conversation Circa 2012

Sep24

What follows is an actual e-mail conversation between John and I from May of 2012. At that time Jane would have been about five months old…

…Clara two and half and Ivy five, though not yet in school…

..and e-mail was John and my primary method of communication while he was at work.

John:

Can you email or call Abi and see if they are available for us to visit on the 31st? And to refresh my memory, you were thinking leaving Thursday morning, so I should take off right?

Did things improve with the girls today?

Me:

yes until it rained in kitchen – now sucks jane asllep pn arm, stuck and afraid to move

John:

Would you mind elaborating on “rained in kitchen”?

And then, according to my old e-mails I was cleaning out, I never answered him. Which makes me giggle every time I re-read it. Because what must he have thought at work knowing total chaos waited him at home? “Well, at least they didn’t burn the house down.” or “I guess it’ll be cleaner now.” or “Just another typical day at the Stevens house.” I have no idea, and he doesn’t remember either but, unless it rained in the kitchen twice in May of 2012 (a possibility I am NOT discounting!) I did blog about it…

“It’s Raining…”

One of the major problems I have staying home with three kids is that while I’m nursing the baby the other two are doing stuff. Some days they are doing nice stuff and some days are like today. Today I came into the kitchen and found that Clara discovered not only how to change the kitchen faucet from a stream to a spray but that you can also pull out the head of the faucet. I pull out the head of the faucet to wash large pans and clean the sink. Clara pulled it out, must have thought it was actually intended to be the worlds best water gun and got right to work spraying Ivy.

…

Read the rest of it’s raining here: https://behindthewillows.com/2012/05/22/its-raining/

Guess What I Made?

Sep23

“Mom!” says Clara, “Guess what I made?”

Turns out I hate guessing what the kids have/found/made/like/want. Part of this is because Clara likes to tell you “No,” when you guess the correct answer just to keep you guessing.

I do not always appreciate her form of fun.

My tactic in dealing with guessing games has evolved, I’ve gone from interested and caring new parent to jaded mother who has burned by too many fake “noes”. I now start crazy and guess wilder and wilder items until they become fed up with me and tell me.

The kids do not always appreciate my form of fun.

“You made a pterodactyl.”

“No,” says Clara, “better than a pterodactyl.”

“Well, I have no idea then, what’s better than a pterodactyl?”

“This!” she says and whips her creation from behind her back. IMG_6721-(2sm)

Yeah.

She doesn’t know what it is either.* IMG_6724-(2sm)

But it is so obviously better than a pterodactyl.

*And why? Why do I have to guess what a thing is when she doesn’t even know what the thing is? I also do not appreciate that kind of fun!

My Love Affair With Night

Sep13

Night is ever the seducer. He whispers in my ear and tells me I can do that one more thing before bed. He fills the night with a soft, quite peace and whispers promises of fun to be had. But Morning is waiting for me when he leaves and she is an uncompromising bitch.

Night makes all sorts of compromises. I can have fun with friends, or I can enjoy the solitude. I can read one more chapter, write one more story. I can do one more chore or have one more conversation.

21909891_144649976142608_2296088515714220032_n

This is the beautiful Ra, with illustrations by the amazing Tooks, we made a book together. A lot of it happened at night.

Morning refuses to cooperate. Her schedule is inflexible. She demands productivity. Immediately. Compromise is not in Morning’s vocabulary.

I know this.

And yet… Night is always tempting and I am bad at saying no.

Some nights I try.

I try to resist his siren song and when I succeed I meet Morning on a level playing field, but other nights he fights back.

On those nights he hangs the stars so low in a moonless, clear sky you feel as though you could pluck them down. But, of course, you can’t. Still they hover above, another temptation in the dark, and the wanting gets to you and it makes you restless. If you can’t play with the stars you at least have to move. You have to sing, dance, love, cry, you have to feel those nights. Those are the nights filled with tossing and turning. Those are the nights that normally sleeping dogs pace the house and kids wake up with nightmares.

Night compromises but at his heart he will always be a seducer. He doesn’t play fair and he takes what he wants in the end.

And Morning, she is always waiting, hard faced and uncaring on the other side.

I’m constantly lured into poor decisions in my love affair with Night.

Morning and I exist on a battlefield littered with broken alarm clocks and spent tea bags.

But between them lives Nap and we have the sweetest of relationships.

Not Home Yet

Sep11

It was passed the time the kids should have been off the bus and in the door.

I quick stepped out to the top of the driveway – still no sign of them.

Crouching to peer under the hanging apple tree branches I double checked- nope, no kids.

Jumping up I ran back into the house pulled out my hidden cookie and sat down.

DSC_0314-(2sm)

And as I enjoyed my last five minutes of quiet I thought to myself, “Yup. This is it. I’ve pretty much hit the pinnacle of motherhood and the stereotype of a stay at home mom all in one fell swoop. Good job mama, good job.”

Mosquitoes and School

Sep4

The first day of school arrives and I, like all the other parents and grandparents around take pictures of my kids. I do this because it was done to me and I hated it so it seems only fair that now I torture my own girls with it.

And then I, like all the other parents and grandparents around, share my pictures with the world. I do this because that’s what bloggers (I swear I will get a new computer and be a regular blogger again one day soon) do.

But I just can’t get on board the “bittersweet memory” and “growing up so fast” and “where has the time gone” caption bandwagon with the cute signs and the three smiling faces.

Because

A: The house is quiet today and that is a beautiful thing.

B: I hate to be the one to point this out but we are all aging at the same rate, and

C: The time has disappeared into years of sleeplessness and over caffeination and I can’t remember most of it anyway even if I wanted to.

So I post pictures of my kids getting attacked by mosquitoes and I don’t cry and feel bittersweet.

When Mom makes you take a first day of school picture in a swarm of mosquitoes. #whenmosquitoesattack #firstdayofschool

Nope, I’m just happy to be able to drink an entire cup of tea while it’s still hot, knowing that I’ll have some photo evidence that I did indeed send the girls off to school on a mosquito ridden day in 2018 because heaven knows I’ll never remember it otherwise!

Orchard Life

Aug25

Orchard life..

… so long as you crop the two dirty, tired, sweaty keepers of the place out of the photo it looks almost idyllic.

Death By Drowning

Aug22

39022313_445903369250422_3588852905643343872_n

Fortunately it was just the computer.

Unfortunately there is no “just” when it comes to how much I rely on my computer.

Hopefully soon, my technological life will be in order, the kids will be back in school, I’ll stop running all over the state on a whim and I’ll be back to blogging and writing and creating again. Because as much as I’ve enjoyed this whirlwind of a summer I have missed this.

Putting words on a page has become more important to me than I would have ever guessed.

Until then you can still find me on Instagram (because we killed all the technology in the house this summer except the phone *knock on wood*) where there aren’t many words but there are lots of pictures to get me through until we get it all straightened back out again. 38738842_2276205439273979_5467301984065290240_n

Enjoy what summer you have left!

The Delivery

Aug8

Once Upon A Time…

A big brown truck drove up the hill to a little grey house. The mother of the house met the truck at the top of the driveway.

Could it be her twenty dozen quail eggs were here already?!? Could it be that fifty new copies of her book were here already?!? She waited in anticipation… and then she saw the red circles on the box and her heart sank to her toes. It was nothing more than a giant box of school supplies.

The giant box of school supplies was set on the table where three young girls tore into it like wild animals leaving behind a wake of Kleenex boxes and discarded wrappers surrounded by a fog of “No, put it in your backpack!”, “Wait, you need all your things!” and “Pick that up!!!”

Disappointed and disillusioned the mother forgot all about the giant box but the girls took that box and transformed it into the best play house ever.

Where they played happily ever after…

(Or until the father decides enough is enough and the playhouse is discarded while they wail in harmony, “But I still like it!”)

The End.

The Rose Thief by Claire Buss

Aug1

Stealing roses might not seem like such a crime but some foolish person (the Emperor, may he live forever and ever) had the real meaning of love linked to a red rose growing in his garden.

I’m with the main character, Thief-Catcher extraordinaire, (or at least quite good) when he says, “What bloody idiot decides to tie love to a bloody flower.”

36386711 Perhaps the Emperor (may he live forever and ever), was an idiot to bind love to a flower but the story that follows makes me glad he did!

Would I recommend it? Is irreverent fantasy humor a genre yet? If it is, file this book with it’s thief catching team of a stinky sprite, luscious tree nymph, spying firefly and a pair of spell casters right in the middle of it along with Terry Pratchett, Piers Anthony and A. Lee Martinez. Likewise if you are a fan of the aforementioned authors you might want to pick this one up!