Primary Program

Every year, the children in our church put on a Sacrament Meeting program for the whole congregation. They sing the songs they've been learning, they share scriptures, and some of them are asked to give talks. Alice got to sit in the pews with Bobby this year (she aged out of Primary last January, after participating in 9 years of programs!) while the boys and I sat up in the choir seats. Matthew did great. James did great. Robert did great. I was SO relieved that the loudness of the microphone and the congregation staring at them the whole time didn't intimidate any of my kids very long.

Robert was all tied up in knots about his speaking part, though.

He was asked to summarize a story from the scriptures where Jesus showed his love to someone.

I wasn't part of the writing session this time. Bobby kept Robert company in his room and asked him questions to help him figure out what he wanted to say. Robert didn't WANT to say anything. Especially something he wrote himself. He would MUCH rather have been handed a script or a scripture to read. I heard much wailing and moaning through the shut door. It took probably 30 minutes to write it start to finish. In the end, he came out with this, and this was his contribution to the Primary Program this year:

I love that boy.

Right after Robert spoke his part, he turned to go back to his seat. As he passed my seat, he gave me a quick expression: furrowed brow, frown, tongue stuck out in disgust, head shaking side to side. I interpreted it as, "Whew, I hated that." And then he thrust his hand towards me, containing his folded and scrunched up paper, and spoke with a raspy whisper, "Burn this when we get home!"

I received several comments afterwards from people appreciating Robert's honesty.

Both of Matthew's preschool teachers came to see the program. There are three kids from our congregation who attend Wee Disciples Preschool and Matthew is one of them. It didn't occur to me to invite his teachers to the program, but I'm glad someone else thought of it :) One of Matthew's teachers has been at the school long enough to remember Robert as a preschooler there. She especially appreciated Robert's post-talk expression, noting that it was very, very Robert to respond that way. She loved it.

Can I just tell you now that I LOVE that there are people outside my immediate family who know and love my kids? That's special to me.

We got home and I let Robert burn his talk in the outside grill. He was utterly relieved that the whole thing was over. Me too. Those programs are so, so stressful for the kids and the teachers and the leaders. Whew!

Doing Some Math

I was fast-walking the track at the gym this morning, thinking to myself. On my mind this morning was the farm and my exercise goals and my schedule this summer. This is my last school year with a preschooler. That's been on my mind a lot. It's been 13 years or so since I regularly spent most of a weekday on my own. I'm curious about the change. A little excited. But also pretty sure that there's a lot I don't know that I don't know about this new chapter. Oddly enough, thinking about Matthew going into full-day kindergarten also has me thinking about Matthew leaving the house entirely. An empty nest. I'm curious about how that will feel and what all of us will be doing and learning at that point in our lives.

I did some math.

Alice born in 2007, Matthew turning 19 in 2033. That means the "kids at home" chapter of my life is roughly 26 years. When Alice turns 13 in March, we'll be halfway through it.

Astounding!

And I have the unsettling feeling that the first half was the easy part ;)

And that the third and fourth "halves" of motherhood will hold plenty of learning opportunities, too.

I used to think that change was hard for me. I don't think that's always true anymore. Change is sometimes refreshing and inspiring. It's inspiring me to love the now and be patient with its frustrations, at least. For now. Ask me again in 13 years ;)

When I sit on the couch

This is what happens when I sit on the couch to listen to music:

And, moments later, when Robert was done doing his thing on the computer (putting 40+ graphic novels on hold at the library on MY card!!!) he came over looking for a piece of me to claim as well. This particular evening, I enjoyed the attention and physical closeness. My kids have no problem these days demonstrating (and fighting over) how important I am in their lives. It won't be like this forever. So many things won't last forever. I'm not sad about it, though. Just recognizing it. Trying to appreciate it right now when it's too easy to take it for granted.

Why Poetry?

Why do I have a hankering for poetry? What am I craving?

It's not Walt Whitman.

I scoured my bookshelves for other kinds and found some Shel Silverstein. That was fun to read out loud with the kids. Robert took it with him to bed. But it didn't scratch my poetry itch.

I rediscovered some poetry by Bobby's maternal grandmother, Celia the Great. That was more what I was looking for:

Singing Silence

Yes, all the world 
Has gone to bed,
And so should I
And yet, 
There was magic silence singing,
And I would sing in silence, too.

(Published Helen Reese, ed., An Anthology of Fraternity and Sorority Verse, The Greek Letter, (New York: Henry Harrison, 1940), 123.)

And this one from a book of poetry she gave her future husband on Valentine's Day 1940:

I love you when laughter
Sparkles in your eyes,
And tinkles round us
And even the wind laughs.
But I love you best
When we stand, gravely,
Side by side,
Finding beauty too deep for words.

And I revisited the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows for a couple of my favorites. Here's one:


midding

v. intr. feeling the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it—hovering on the perimeter of a campfire, chatting outside a party while others dance inside, resting your head in the backseat of a car listening to your friends chatting up front—feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be.

The creator of the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows said this, "I think the act of naming something implies, very simply, that you’re not alone. We give names to things so we can talk about them. Once there’s a word for an experience, it feels contained somehow—and the container has a handle, which makes it much easier to pick up and pass around. Kinda comforting."

And I think that's what I'm looking for in this poetry hunt: 1) proof that others have felt the things I feel and 2) beautiful containers with handles.

Comfort, empathy, feeling understood...that's poetry.

Poetry and Live Jazz

I have recently had a hankering for poetry. But I don't even really know what kind I like. Robert was unbearably bored this evening waiting for Bobby to make dinner, so I suggested he read me poetry from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (it's one of only a handful of poetry options currently in our house). He humored me, slightly amused, and read the first one. After a few more, he said, "This is like reading random words in a line. No rhyming. No sentences. I don't understand ANY of it. It's even worse than reading the scriptures!" Well, I had a hard time understanding it, too, the way he was reading it.

*sigh*

Maybe Walt Whitman isn't the best start. I'll give him another go on my own and see.

Bobby, Erin, and I went to see a friend sing jazz tonight. She was great! On my way out, I saw the venue's performance schedule for the rest of the month...there's a poetry night! Dare. I. Try?

Make a list

Driving away after a lunch date with a friend, Matthew started rattling off everything he wanted to do once we were home: do a chore and a worksheet to earn a computer turn, have a computer turn, and play Duplo with me. I mentioned I had some things I needed to do, too. Then he got all excited and announced, "Let's make a list! Then we can see what we want to do in the order we want to do them!"

I didn't have a way to do that safely as I drove, so he patiently reviewed the list out loud over and over and debated to himself about which order was ideal.

We dashed into the house and got it down:

1. Play Duplo
2. Do chore and a worksheet
3. Computer turn while Mom does all her chores

We did just that.

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Matthew surprised me the other day. He's got a precocious sense of humor, thanks to his older siblings exposing him to all sorts of things. And maybe he gets more screen time than his siblings did at this age...I'm really trying to remember. Anyway, when the kids are chatting and laughing together, 99% of the time it's about a play on words or something that was misheard. They keep adding layers to the story and more and more twists to make it so, so silly.

Alice was programming a Mad Lib-style word game for computer science. At one point, the example sentence read: "You're so scared, that you clean your glasses." Matthew immediately acted it out sarcastically:

"Aaaagh!", reaching for imaginary glasses on his face and rubbing the imaginary lens with his hand, "Ee, ee, ee, ee!" He had made the sound effects! We all burst out laughing. That was so unexpected. It floored me. This kid. Sheesh.

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During dinner tonight, Robert was in the kitchen and yelled into the dining room where I was sitting, "Moooom, one of these tomatoes on the counter has a bad spot."

I replied, "Ok, thanks, I'll have a look at it later."

Robert walked over to me at the dining room table and said, "That sounded like your 'I already knew that but I'm saying thanks just to make you feel good' voice."

My eyes widened.

He was totally right, of course. I use that same tone to mean exactly that, even though that's not what I was thinking in this particular case. I'm not surprised that he notices my different tones, but I am agog that he 1) had the maturity and verbal skills to express his perception like that and 2) that it mattered to him if his perception was accurate and 3) he was actually asking me about it.

What I was ACTUALLY thinking when I responded to him was, "Aw, man, I completely forgot about those tomatoes. They were green when I brought them in from the garden. Do they even taste good? And if one is getting rotten I should check them all and decide what to do with them. Maybe put them into tomato sauce where their flavor matters a little less."

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James had a fantastic thought on the way home from piano lessons this week. He said, "Do you ever imagine what it's like to be in another person's body? I mean, I like my body. But I'm sitting in this seat and Matthew's seat is in front of me and I can imagine what it's like to sit there and look out that window. And wouldn't it be cool to go into other people's bodies and see if they see the same way you do and move their arms and legs like "whoa whoa whoa" (he's wibbling his arms and legs every which way).

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Alice can tell when I'm in a dark type of mood. She calls me out on it, too, with a tentative sort of suggestive sentence, "You seem quiet." That's my cue to be perfectly honest with her. She's a perceptive, intuitive sort of person, and will pick up on emotions and reflect them. The only way to ease her worry is to tell her the whole truth, "Yeah, I've got a few things on my mind: Matthew's asthma attack this morning, a friendship that is going through a rough patch, sadness that I didn't get to spend as much attention on Grandma and Grandpa as I would have liked during their visit, and I haven't eaten in 16 hours. I'm kinda spread thin right now." That's when she breathes a sigh of relief and smiles and asks, "What can I do to make any of that better for you?"

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