Dinner conversation

Sally: Why isn't Rudolph's nose shiny anymore?
Me: *blank stare*
Sally: He "HAD a very shiny nose."
Me: Oh. Well, he HAD a very shiny nose. But he also still has it. And he'll always have it.
Walter: Until he dies.
Me: Well, Rudolph is magical. I think he may be eternal.
Walter: You mean "nocturnal," Mama.

"I'm not going to bite you."

Being with Sally, particularly at bedtime, is this incredible opportunity to gain insight into the toddler mind. Because with Sally, all internal narrative goes external. And the most secret thoughts of two-and-a-half-year-olds are revealed.  

Bedtime often begins with these words of reassurance: "I'm not going to bite you." She'll say it to me very calmly and lovingly, as I'm stooping down to pick her up. Like many of her peers, Sally (apparently) has to fight some pretty strong urges to bite people.  Adults often try to explain this behavior based on adult reasoning: it must be those two-year molars, or a growth spurt, or anxiety about changes, or just a normal developmental stage.  But Sally can tell us exactly why two-year-olds like to bite. 

They want to eat us. 

Tonight, a little while after reassuring me that she wouldn't bite me while we snuggled in the rocking chair, Sally rested her head on my shoulder and started licking my neck.  

"What are you doing, Sally?"

"I'm licking you."

"Why are you licking me?"

"Because it is yummy to me to lick you,"  and then she put on her big, big voice, and started channeling all the fairy tales she's been hearing, lately: "I am going to eat you ALL UP. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM."

Then she laughed. Maniacally. 

My suspicions were further confirmed a little later, when I heard her muttering to herself. "I can't bite Mama. But I CAN lick Mama. Yes. Yes I can."

My precious. 

Other highlights from the pre-bed stream-of-consciousness tonight:

"Baba brought me pancakes to eat. Just me. When you weren't there. And Daddy wasn't there. And Walter wasn't there. But Umma and Baba were there. For me." (This was a day a few weeks ago when Sally was sick and Umma and Baba stayed home with her. She paused for a minute, remembering how wonderful it was to have all that grandparent attention entirely to herself. Then, she continued.) "PANCAKES! Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes! I really like pancakes! I am a very hungry girl for pancakes!"

At one point, she turned around, looked me right in the eyes, and asked with great, great seriousness and intensity: "DID I EAT A YOGURT WITH A BUNNY PICTURE ON THE SIDE OF IT TODAY?"

Hmmmmm. Looking back on all these quotes ...

OK, I guess it's possible it's just a growth spurt. 

 

"That's MY shadow on the moon!"

The "Super blood moon" of 2015

When I got home from catachumenate they were all upstairs, recently bathed and all jammied up, watching "Madeline." Sean gave me a look to let me know that getting to that peaceful moment had been a struggle. Lately, it seems like everything with both kids takes so much energy.  They are at the peak of their defiant powers and we're not entirely sure what to do about it.

I have found that saying things like "You need sleep to live" and "If you would just cooperate, everyone would be happy and the world would be a better place" are NOT, ultimately, helpful.

Sean told me he didn't want to make any more decisions that night and I said, "Not a problem.  I have a plan, and I will drive. Just help me get the kids in the car."

Walter was wearing one of my old t-shirts for a jammie, and threw on a pair of slip on shoes.  Sean carried shoe-less Sally out into the night.  "It's dark. It's late." she said.  I filled two sippy cups with ice water.  We stood in the driveway for a minute.  The view of the moon was pretty good there, but I thought viewing from the van would be better for mosquito avoidance.  That, and there's something special about driving out into the night to go watch the moon.

Really, there's something special about being up late and looking up at the sky together.  Walter immediately thought of fireworks.  Sean helped us find a great spot to park not too far from the house but in a nice dark patch of clear sky ... there were a couple other moon viewers (lunatics, if you will) out there, too.  Sean brought Walter up into the front seat to sit on his lap.  I squeezed in to the space between Sally's seat at the door, where we casually held hands.  We listened to classical music on the radio and watched the shadow on the moon get bigger and bigger.

We talked as we watched, an almost constant stream of Sally and Walter commentary on the situation. Sally was quite pleased when we affirmed her observation: "That's MY shadow on the moon!" Well, yes, in a way, it is.  The rest of the night, she referred to it as "Sally's shadow."  Walter careened between rather brilliantly correct observations, "You can't see the planet earth, but you can see its shadow on the moon" to observations we weren't sure what do with "The planet earth is above the sidewalk, now" to the downright poetic "The stars are shining on the road!" to the unintentionally earth-centric "I don't like it when you call earth "a planet." You should always say, "THE PLANET EARTH!"

I think Walter and I are a lot alike.  We fall in love not just with an event, but with all the sensory input and everything else surrounding the event. So, the lunar eclipse itself was quite wonderful, yes.  But for Walter, it was also a night to celebrate the classical music on the radio ("that's good, because I'm learning violin") my choice of beverage for them ("cold ice water, my favorite!") and his spot on Daddy's lap ("I really like this seat.")  All in all, the excursion received Walter's highest praise: "That was a good choice."

I don't think I realized how difficult the choices of parenting would be. I think the hardest ones are the choices we make when we don't feel like we have a choice: when one of the kids is doing something dangerous and we have to raise our voices or pick them up to get them to stop; when we're running late and we can't gently coax them into putting their shoes on anymore ... we just have to do it for them, muttering unhelpful things about the fleeting nature of time and the possibility of greater happiness through independent shoe putting-on.

That said, the choice to take my 2-year-old, who has a cold, and cold-induced-asthma, and my almost 4-year-old, who is testing the limits of every adult he knows and needs every minute of sleep we can get him, out into the night after their bedtime to see a lunar eclipse they probably won't remember ... that was a pretty easy choice.  We sat in the dark together, holding onto each other with that easy, comfortable grip of people who love each other without question.  We listened to the violins and looked up at the sky.  "The next time this happens," Sean said to Walter, "You will be the age that Mama and Daddy are, now."** "And if you have kids," I said, "You can bring them out after their bedtime to watch the moon." "Yes!" said Walter excitedly. "Let's do that right now!" 

**This turns out to be in error ... the last #superbloodmoon was 30 years ago, but the next one will be 18 years from now. 

I like to be with my family

Un-posed moment of sibling sweetness.

A few weeks ago, back when September was new and Sally was just starting to come more fully into her two-ness, we took a week of family vacation. We spent the first part of the week at Barb's House in Osh Kosh, the second part in Baraboo/Wisconsin Dells, and visited with my parents before, in between, and at the end. We did some more celebrating of Sally's birthday with dear friends, we did some poor sleeping and questionable eating.  There were fits of great sadness and defiance and moments of unbearable sweetness.

I took notes. 

• "Salad noodle cricket." Those were Walter's first words to me as we woke up at Barb's house Tuesday morning. I made him repeat it. "Salad. Noodle. Cricket." he said. "What is it?" I asked. "Something very yummy."  Silence for a bit.  "Would you mind saying that to me one more time?"  It never changed, and he continued to insist on it the rest of the morning. 
• "That was a good choice." That's all I wrote in my notes, and I don't remember what exactly it referred to, but it's something Walter's been saying quite a bit lately when he's pleased with a family activity and how it goes.  He likes to affirm my good choices. "Mama, that was a good choice."  I think in this case he might have been talking about going to the Appleton Children's Museum, or to the coffee shop for a snack after we played at the museum, or maybe it was the day before when we rode the train at the Oshkosh zoo with his dearest ones (Sally, Henry, Bennett, and Anna and the moms of same.)  When he enjoys something, he really enjoys it. Which leads me to ...
• "I think they did that for me." Another fairly common recent Walter-ism, which he says when something really delightful happens, like a violin piece coming on the radio while he's listening, or an especially beautiful sunset. 
• "All my toes are asleep.  Let's wake them up!" This is Sally, now. She is HILARIOUS.  And she seems be fairly intentional about it and aware of it. Other funny Sally sayings from vacation week: 
• "Look at that doggy, he can drive!" (On seeing a dog in a parked car.)
• "I'm gonna eat your pizza, Mama! Om nom nom nom nom nom!" (With great menacing flair, a gleam in her eye, and seriously wicked, pizza-stealing intent.) 
• "I'm standing. I'm a lamb." (I have no memory of what the set up was for this one, but it was one of the best and most brilliantly-delivered punchlines in the history of comedy.)
• Wandered Off: The Musical. Both kids sing almost constantly.  Two musical moments stand out in my memory of this vacation week.  One was the song Sally wrote while we were swimming one morning: "Swimming swimming where's my shoe? Swimming swimming where's my shoe?"  The other was on our last day in Baraboo, as we finished up lunch at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum and started to think about heading out to Umma and Baba's.  Walter found a giant tree stump and declared it a stage.  He got up and started to sing, and told Sally to dance; she complied. Then he started to sing her story: the story of a little girl who wandered off into the woods one day. "Wandered off!! Into the woods!!" Eventually, our hero makes it back home. Whew. 

  

  I like capturing the moment right before they zonk out.

• "That's what I'd been planning on." Walter's plan, every day we were at the hotel, was simply to maximize our time in the hotel pool.  Eating the deli meat we'd brought with us in the hotel room was great, because if we ate in the hotel room, we were closer to the pool. I think we swam a minimum of three times each day.  Our skin and hair will never be the same.  
• "Where's the duckies?" Excursions that took us out of our hotel room and into the gorgeous September days were met with some resistance: Walter only wanted to swim, Sally only wanted to watch movies. But we did manage to get them out and about.  My favorite outing was a ride on the Original Wisconsin Ducks.  The ducks are amphibious vehicles from WWII re-purposed as tourist carriers. I loved holding little Sally on my lap as we zoomed through the woods, the wind blowing in our hair.  I loved watching Walter walk very confidently up to the front of the duck when the driver asked for a young volunteer: we were out on Lake Delton, and Walter got to drive, and he did so like he'd been born doing it.  As we were walking through the parking lot to the van to head back to the hotel, Sally sleepily said, "Where's the duckies?"  All this talk about ducks ... well ... where were they?

Vacationing together is pretty exhausting.  Separated from their usual routine, the kids had some sustained moments of genuine misery.  They missed their friends, their teachers, their regularly scheduled programming. We started the week with a house full of friends, and when they went home and we four stayed, Walter was very lonesome for them and asked, repeatedly, as young ones do, "Can we just go home, now?" But we persisted in our vacationing, and the kids had fun, and so did we.  We watched a new Daniel Tiger episode while we were getting dressed and going one morning, and the theme seemed to fit just right with what we were doing, so we sang it often, usually led by Sally: "I like to be with my family!" Sometimes we'd sing it as though we were trying to convince ourselves. Other times we'd sing it and I'd know that there's nothing more true in the whole world.  

I like to be with my family!

Sally, two days from two years old

Walter has entirely given up sleeping in his room, by himself, in his own bed.  He refers to the room Sean and I used to share as "his" room, and his bed, now. How we got to this point is a story, but it's a story for another time ... and maybe a story I will NOT record for posterity.  As you might imagine, this sleeping arrangement has put a damper on blogging. And many other things adults like to do. But, for now, making sure Walter gets enough sleep to behave well during the day is the priority, and this is how we're doing it.  So, tonight Sean sleeps with Walter, and I bunk in what is arguably the comfiest bed in the house, the single bed in Walter's room.

And that's good, because Sally is about to turn two (on Friday, the 21st) and I want to record a bit of what she was like tonight! And, if I want to blog anywhere near her birthday: this is my chance.  Carpe laptop!

It's Wednesday night, which means I eat dinner with the family and then head back to church for Holden Evening Prayer.  When I came home after worship all the lights were dark in the house but I heard lots of voices coming from Sally's room, so I slipped off my shoes and went in.  "Mama!" Sally greeted me warmly. "Mama come home!"

Walter usually greets me, too, but he was pretty engrossed in the 5 minute Disney Princess story Sean was reading. Sally was the opposite of engrossed (grossed out? not exactly ... but certainly not interested.)  She was taking care of her baby ("Baby Baby"), which is actually the baby we got Walter to get him ready for Sally's arrival about two years ago.  She was taking off Baby Baby's clothes. "It's dirty, otay? Take a bath. Take off clothes, otay?" I helped take off the pink pajamas, knowing that if I wasn't able to convince Sally to put the clothes back on right away we might have a permanently naked baby on our hands ... but this is the risk we take in imaginative play.

Photo credit: Walter Paul Edison-Albright

"Take a tub ... in dis!" She grabbed a foam cheesehead hat that was lying on the floor (the way we all do, in Central Wisconsin) and stuffed Baby Baby in. "Dere you go! Take a bath! Get clean! Put clothes on?" I jumped at this chance, but she changed her mind. "Take anudder tubby."  Into the cheesehead hat again. She carried the hat around a little, looking for a good place to put the makeshift tub. "On-na my head!" she joked, and tried to balance the hat-full-of-baby-doll on her head, giggling.

Out of nowhere, she came over and did her classic Sally "throw myself at you and you will catch me" move. I did, indeed, catch her. She gave me a nice hug. "Mama home again. I love you. I get you a nana, otay?" She headed to her bedroom door to get me a banana.  "I'm OK, Sally. I don't need a banana." Her attempt at hospitality thwarted, she frowned a little, offered the banana again with a look of loving concern, then decided to get me something else. "I get you ... a pull up!" She got a Dora the Explorer pull up out of her box for me, and repeated the gesture for Daddy. For Walty, who has been completely in undies for some time now, she got a diaper. He didn't mind, and thanked her kindly.

We arranged for the boys to head upstairs for part two of their bedtime routine, while I stayed with Sally for two more short books and some songs. Walter was very sweet ... Sally asked for ice water, and he got it for her, and she was like, "That my Walty." He gave us goodnight kisses.  The sleep is doing him good, and he is a good, good big brother indeed.

Our Sally is so beautiful

As we read books and settled into bed, Sally continued her almost constant stream of patter. When she asks a question and gets an answer, her response these days is "Ohhhhh" or, even more hilariously, "Ohhhhh. That's right!" Every answer she gets becomes confirmation of what she already knows to be true.

We read "Clifford's Family" ("SALLY'S family!" ... and then she named us all) and "Dora's Backpack"

Sally said: "Hooray, to Dora!" "Hooray, to Backpack!" "Hooray, to Boots!"

Our Sally is always talkin'!

I said: "Hooray for Sally!"
And she giggled. "No way," she said.
"Yes, way! You helped, you get hoorays, too."
"I say, 'Swiper no swipin'?"
"Yes you did! You stopped Swiper. And you counted books. And you solved the troll's riddle."
"Hooray for Sally!" she said, decisively.
"Hooray for Sally!" I echoed.
"Hooray for Mama!" said Sally, always gracious, always generous.
"Hooray for Mama!" I echoed again.

We sang some songs, and she went to bed in her big girl bed with no fuss. We haven't taken the crib down yet, and she still asks to sleep there sometimes, but we'll make that change, soon.

Lately, Sally's been asking us: "Sally baby?"
The answer, you should know is "No." Or, as Sally says it when we echo that question back to her:
"No WAY! Sally big girl!"

Happy soon-to-be-birthday, big girl Sally. We all love you very much.

Our Sally is two-years-old!

A toast!

A week ago today, the Supreme Court ruled that it is discriminatory for states to prevent same sex couples from marrying. Auds and Curt were visiting, and they giggled a little when I responded to the news with a hearty "THANKS BE TO GOD!"  I forgot that such a response is not entirely universal! But to God be the glory.  Any time the arc of history bends toward justice, God is at work.

The end of the day brought us all together very briefly before we went in separate directions: Sean picked up the kids from day care, and then Auds and I set off for a sewing party to make re-usable sanitary pads for girls who live in countries without access to pads (I told our wonderful hostess, "This is our kind of party!")  Sean and Curt took the kids out for fish fry and put them to bed. But there was this brief moment, after day care and work and before we all scattered, when Sean gathered us in the van and told us we were going to have a toast.

He'd bought two bottles of sparkling grape juice and cider, and grabbed some plastic kids' cups from the kitchen.  It was pouring down rain, that serious summer rain that instantly floods the driveway and drenches you to sogginess. We all crowded into the van: Sean in the driver's seat, me in the front passenger seat, Walter and Sally in their carseats, Curt in the back and Auds crouched down next to Sally. We gave Sean our full attention.  The kids knew something important and interesting was happening.

"So, today," Sean said, as he started getting the juice and cups ready, "Today the Supreme Court, which is part of our government, decided that people who love each other can get married. You see, it used to be that there was a whole group of people who weren't allowed to get married, but now they can."

"It used to be that only women and men could get married in a lot of places," I clarified. "But now, all over over the country, women who love women can get married. And men who love men can get married. So, when you grow up, you can marry the person you love, whether that person is a man or a woman."

Walter listened with growing excitement.  It was clear he had something to say ... an announcement of great importance to make:

"I am going to marry Mama!"

We shouldn't have been completely unprepared for this; it's a pretty common assumption among three-year-old boys.  Also, he's told Sean in the past: "When I grow up, I'm going to sleep upstairs with Mama."  "Where am I going to sleep?" asked Sean. "Probably with one of the neighbors."  Sean was relieved that Walter still wanted him to be nearby.

But we did fumble slightly in the moment, and while we didn't guffaw or anything, we must have smiled and given him an "oh, sweetie" look, because immediately his joyful, proud look changed to one of shy disappointment.  "Mama is married to me," Sean explained. "But she'll always be your mama."  "And I'll always love you," I added.

With the grape juice poured and glasses distributed, it was time for the toast: "To marriage equality!" said Sean. "To marriage equality! To love!" I said.  "To love! Cheers!" the kids and Auds and Curt joined in.  Auds had offered to share a cup with Sally, but it was clear that Sally did not need any help drinking her grape juice.  A refill or two later, and we went our separate ways into a fun Friday night.

Sean texted me during the day on Friday to ask if we could sing "How Can I Keep From Singing?" in church on Sunday, and that morning the band backed him up while he sang (beautifully, and a little tearfully.)  The song was a perfect bridge between lamentation--as we mourned the murder of nine black church leaders at the hands of white supremacist--and celebration ("When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?")

It was my Umma's (my grandma's) favorite song, and I remember hearing it sung on a Prairie Home Companion, and hearing her sing along with all her heart.  I've always like Enya's version of it, too, and we used to listen to that album on our way up to visit Umma during the last year of her life.  It makes me think of summer, of 1991, of fresh raspberry pie from Norske Nook, of the sound of Umma's voice that I can just barely remember.  I wonder, now, what she thought about while she sang the song, and what it meant to her.

I don't know for sure what memories Walter and Sally will associate with the song, but I can tell you that they have been singing it a lot lately.  To make sure he could sing it without crying too much, Sean practiced singing it almost constantly over the weekend--while changing Sally's diapers, while getting Walter ready for bed, while walking Hank the Dog.  And so the kids, also, have been singing it as they go about their daily tasks of life. Walter likes to add a little extra vibrato when he does: "How can I keeeeeep .. from singinginginging!"

As I told the congregation on Sunday: God is at work for justice, peace, mercy and love in the world.  And we are called to be God's instruments in that work.  And we have a lot of work to do.  But as we work, we sing.

How can we keep from singing?

These are the lyrics Sean put together for church on Sunday, a hybrid of Pete Seeger and Evangelical Lutheran Worship:

My life flows on in endless song;
above earth’s lamentation,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest round me roars?
I know the truth, it liveth.
What though the darkness round me close?
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?

In prison cells and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
a fountain ever springing!
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?

"Sally!"

When you are getting close to 22 months old, you are pretty much the center of the universe.  But you are very adorable about it.

***We were trying to get the kids to sit down in their car seats so we could buckle them up and get the doors closed and not let too many mosquitoes in. "We don't want to let in any bugs," said Sean. Sally, also known as Sally bug, pointed at herself. "Bug right here," she said. "Right. Here."

***We've always made that line in "Baa, baa, black sheep" into "the little girl who lives down the lane" when singing it for Sally.  We all do it--Sean, me, Umma, Baba--without talking about it with each other or thinking about it much. We never explained our reason for the change.  Lately, when I sing that line, Sally helpfully adds, "Sally!" right after ... making it clear who the little girl down the lane is. She gets it.