Chai, anyone?

I'ts been so long since I wrote anything that I have been feeling a need to write something momentous and monumental. I don't, however, have time for grandiose screeds, so today I am just going to tell you something.

The smell of chai tea makes me think of band-aids. How weird is that?

Return of the King (and queen and prince and princess)

We're home. We've even mostly unpacked. I've done loads and loads of laundry, and the house looks remarkably like it did before we left - which means stuff everywhere and no rhyme or reason to anything. The sameness is disorienting -- it's like summer didn't happen. But tomorrow I turn in all of Sam's school registration paperwork, and he starts second grade on Wednesday.

I have many thoughts from this summer, but my impressions are all inchoate. I am hoping that a week at home and some quiet time alone will help me distill my experiences. It's odd to feel so wordless. I keep stopping Will and asking for a hug; he is a touchstone that grounds me when I find myself turning and turning in the kitchen, unable to find a starting point to address the piles that surround me. Tonight he is watching the children while I work on the school directory. Perhaps I will feel more in control after I get that particular project running. We shall see.

Stinkin' bloodsuckers!

And by that I mean ticks. We've got 'em, and they got both Teddy (the dog) and Will. Teddy was scarier -- she had some issues with her foreleg one day, was fine the next (after some aspirin) and the third day she woke up and pretty much couldn't walk. Will had to carry her down the stairs and we rushed to the vet. Fortunately they have a 10-minute test to check for the disease, and immediately prescribed us an antibiotic. I love modern medicine -- she was running again the very next morning. A few days later I noticed a target-shaped rash on Will's back, and after a couple visits to the doctor (they didn't see the rash the first time and I hounded him until he went back) he, too, is on antibiotics. The good news is, a three (for Will) and four (for Teddy) week course of drugs should completely cure both of them. Whew. Stupid ticks.

Not so little girl

Yesterday we celebrated Violet's 4th birthday. Holy Cow! We had a Tinkerbell cupcake-cake, she got several princess-themed presents, and she proudly told Mimi and grandpa all about her new baby doll. I suppose she's meeting all the right milestones, but lately I look at and listen to her and I feel like I'm at the wrong end of a telescope. It's like she's a fully formed person, and I'm seeing a distant echo of her. I barely recognize her - she's taller and more delicate than ever before, and she uses words like preposterous and actually and definitely, even though she still can't even say them correctly. She's also working on her ability to bat her eyes and manipulate people (doesn't work on me so much) and how to drive her brother crazy with just a glance. She is everything I want to see in a young woman, but I can't quite handle it now. I am a very lucky person to have my Violet in my life. Many happy returns, little one!

Blame Canada

It's July. That should mean I'm so hot I'm thinking about snow to cool down, watching the kids run through sprinklers and have water fights, hanging laundry on the line and having it crispy dry in minutes. Instead I'm sitting in front of a fire with hot tea, dodging cold gusts and sending rude thoughts north. I blame Canada for the weather. Apparently there's some sort of anomaly in the jet stream that is sending cooler-than-average weather and lots of rain to us in Vermont. I know I shouldn't feel sorry for myself, but when the bedroom is so cold at 8 a.m. in the middle of July that I don't want to get up to pee, something's messed up. Plus I'm paying bills this afternoon which isn't helping my mood. When I'm finished, though, I'm going to take my sleeping bag out to the hammock (mosquitoes be damned!) and read for an hour. Fortunately the kids seem okay with the weather and they are happily coloring the tennis court with the chalk I picked up at an art supply store yesterday.

The First Step

is admitting you have a problem.

This is a picture of the various jars of jelly I have found around this house in the past couple of days. I knew about some, and found new caches yesterday. Now, I understand WHY my mother-in-law has so much jelly around: used to be she had two teenaged sons and a very particular husband to please, plus they had only a couple of weeks to accomplish what filled our whole summer, so shopping had to be very efficient. And she is a great bargain hunter. But still, I don't think we'll ever get through all this jelly, no matter how many summers we visit. Not to mention I'm still a little unsure about opening up a jar of 20 year old jam. I'm just sayin'.

Seven

I'm astonished. Sam is seven. He's been seven for more than a month now. Seven years since I first met him, welcomed him with a sigh of relief that confounded Will. I look across these years and I can't remember so much of them; I am grateful for the pictures we took that captured who he was because he's so much more now, but I regret not memorizing every last moment, especially the trivial ones not worthy of a camera.

Sam is my salvation. Not on a personal level, but on a grander scale. He is, in every sense of the word, a child of September 11, 2001. He was conceived just before then, my pregnancy was clouded by those events, and that event will always be part of his culture. But my boy, my sweet child, carried me through. When I got scared or anxious about the world I was bringing him into, I promised myself that, in having a child right then, I was not only expressing my hope in the future, I was _making_ a future - one of love and family and goodness.

I remember the joy that filled me as I ran to his day care to see him, and the lightness that filled me when he lay (drooling!) in my arms. Now he challenges me and exasperates me and astonishes me, and I don't think I'm as good a parent as I could be, but I do know that my son is love and joy and heart, and I am grateful for the chance to know him.