For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 65

Someone in this family has been making big strides this week: rolls to be exact. Nathan rolled over today. He's been building up to this performance all week, rolling on his side just to find himself stuck on an arm. But not today. Today he showed that arm who's boss. Audrey and I were involved in a game of pretend. Nathan was lying on his back. Audrey told me I needed to take a nap before we drove to one of the grandparents' houses. When I opened my eyes, Nate was on his belly. Just like that. When he's not amazing us with his physical feats, he makes us laugh as he sleeps. Most days he treats us to a Billy Crystal impersonation as he settles into sleep, as in Mr. Crystal's portrayal of Harry moaning himself to sleep in When Harry Met Sally. Nate moans until he finds that peaceful point of rest, at which time he presents us with a little smile (and really, don't we all want to feel like that when he finally hit the pillow?). But on Tuesday, he began giggling in his sleep. No explanation why. No flickering of the lids. Just sleep and laughter. I will always wonder what dream elicited such a sweet sound.

As for Audrey, the laughs roll from sun up to sundown. Here are just a sprinkling of the ones she's elicited this week:

Audrey came downstairs from bath time with Daddy on Saturday. Jason had a smile on his face. He asked Audrey to repeat what she had told him upstairs. "I have a baby in my belly," she said. "It's baby Jesus, or baby Moses. Or, it might be both. But I'm not having it yet." (Today she reminded me of the baby Jesus and Moses she's growing in her belly. Again, she told me she wasn't having them yet. Thankfully. I need time to alert the appropriate cable stations).


My mother called on Sunday as we were parked (short on gas) on the roadside. When I hung up, Audrey asked, "Who was that?"
"Mamaw. She called to see if we were still stuck," I said.
"And we are still stuck," she said.


Wednesday we were getting ready to leave the house. Audrey ran out to the garage. She told me she wanted to help me get ready. She overturned an empty cardboard box, stood on top of it and reached for the garage door opener. She hit a button, which opened one of the garage doors - the one on the carless side of our garage. "Oops. That's the wrong one," she said. "That's cool!"


Thursday, I told her we were headed to a neighbor's house. "We're going to Miss Ginger's house," I said. Audrey was ecstatic. I was slightly surprised. We've been to Ginger's once or twice, but I wasn't sure she would remember. Then it clicked. The neighbors who share our fence have a dog. Audrey calls this dog her best friend. The neighbors call her Ginger. When I said we were going to Miss Ginger's house, she assumed I meant the dog.


Later, we were pretending to be monsters. I told Audrey I needed to stop to go potty. "On the floor?" she asked. "Monsters go potty on the floor." (Needless to say, I stopped being a monster long enough to go potty on the toilet and not the floor).


Today was spent like most days this week, sprinkled with healthy doses of make believe. We've been heroes. We've been monsters. Skeletons. Dinosaurs. Animals. We've used a stool as a steering wheel and driven to Grandma's house. Today, Audrey got out some "medical supplies" and told me I needed a shot and a check-up. She proceeded with my examination. "I'm a doctor," she said. "But I'm still Audrey."


Some days, we get stuck on our own arms. We laugh and moan in our sleep and say nothing when we're awake. We open doors we don't mean to. You can't always tell if we're coming or going (see picture above - she's taken to dressing herself). But one thing is certain, whether she's growling or "doctoring," Audrey is always Audrey. And family is family. Sweet, sweet family.

Out of the Pantry and into the Cookie Jar

Some days you just have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty - or at least find your way up to your wrists in cookie dough. Yesterday, Audrey and I grabbed some pantry staples and got down to some serious cookie-making business. Audrey's aunt gave her a Sesame Street cookbook featuring all cookie recipes several months ago. While spring doesn't scream pumpkin, I've been eager to try one of the recipes for pumpkin cookies. Some cloudy weather seemed like the perfect excuse to give them a try (as if we needed an excuse). These cookies turned out chewy with a nice hint of spice, even though I think I baked them one minute too long. The best part? With ingredients like cranberries, oats, and pumpkin, I didn't feel too bad when Audrey and I ate over a dozen in two days. Here is our adapted recipe:

Pumpkin Cranberry Oat Cookies

1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 c. packed light brown sugar

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. solid-pack pumpkin

2 c. old-fashioned oats

1 c. dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flours, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and baking soda in a bowl and set aside. Meanwhile, in an electric mixer beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy (about five minutes). Beat in vanilla and egg. Slowly blend in pumpkin. Add in flour mixture and beat until just combined. Add in oats, beat until well mixed. Stir in cranberries and drop by tablespoon onto parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Bake for 12 minutes. Cookies should be golden brown. Keep cookies cooling on cookie sheet for one minute before cooling on wire racks. Enjoy. (Makes about 2 dozen).

~ Adapted from Sesame Street's Yummy Cookies.

Before the Rains

Into the Wind

This morning moved with a different kind of energy. One not our own. I had a meeting to attend, and two children to dress, feed and take with me. During this process, I caught wind of some news. Shots had been fired in my small hometown. Suspects were on the loose, possibly near my old elementary school. School was delayed and later canceled. Before I reached my morning meeting I had already made three calls: one to my mother, one to take care of a pressing home repair, and one to warn I'd be late.

By the time we reached our destination, Audrey and I were not quite our selves. I was heeding my phone more than usual, waiting for news and a return call to set up an appointment with a repairman. Audrey had lost her ability to play. She saw a young child playing with a toy she thought inappropriate for a "baby" (read: she wished to have it) and quickly began performing her best audition for the new Nightmare on Elm Street. I had never seen her resort to that sort of ear-numbing, dog howl-provoking, octave-shattering, nonstop screeching. I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Or her. So I put her out on the porch at the patio table (within view, mind you) and told her (in words too rushed, too loud, and too harsh) to regroup.

I would love to tell you that we got home and the day magically took a sunny turn. But while mothers in my hometown asked (unanswered) if criminals had been apprehended and backyards were safe for play, Audrey took to our backyard and found a new nemesis. She had requested a snack on the new princess child-sized patio furniture her Grammy had given her for Easter. (After her tone returned to one of the appropriate amount of respect garnered by adults) I complied. The wind did not. The sun umbrella blew away. Chairs overturned. Her snack was knocked (repeatedly) to the ground. "No, wind!" I heard her scream.

I decided we both needed to take some time away to seek out the world's porch, so to speak. We grabbed our old library books and headed to the door. The phone rang. I was told the repairman could come early. I asked if it was possible for him to come at our already appointed time. We had an errand we needed to run. Then off we went to one of our home bases - the library. After grabbing a handful of Paulette Bourgeois' Franklin books we returned to our couch, snuggled in and had a little read. Finally, page by page, we found our way back (back from a busy Easter weekend and a clumsy morning). Back to a rhythm that was ours.

We cannot stop the world. But we can stop ourselves. And, sometimes we must, to find our way back to our own paths, or we just might find ourselves screaming into the wind.

*I have been informed that three of the five people involved in the shooting incident this morning have been apprehended. While all reports assure that no one was hurt, I am sure there are some mothers who would disagree, who spent the day grasping their children, feeling innocence take another step away. (And, I fear, that in thirty years some fifty-something individuals will wish they could shake their former, younger selves for foolish mistakes made).

Easter by the Roadside

Some of you may have grown up with or read the Mercer Mayer Little Critter books to your children. Do you remember the one entitled I Just Forgot?

"Sometimes I remember,

and sometimes I just forget.

This morning I remembered to brush my teeth,

but I forgot to make my bed.

I put my dishes in the sink after breakfast,

but I forgot to put the milk away.

I almost forgot to feed the puppy, but he reminded me.

I didn't forget to water the plants. They looked fine to me."

That story describes me as well as any other. "Sometimes I remember, and sometimes I just forget." We left the house early yesterday. "I'm forgetting something," I said. It wasn't until we were several miles from the house that I remembered. "It's the camera." I had remembered the bottles, the extra changes of clothes, the thank you note, the checkbook, the diapers. I had forgotten the camera. And to fill up on gas. Sometimes I remember, and sometimes I just forget. Actually, I didn't even forget the last one - technically. I had remembered several days before. I just chose not to fill up. I was driving - who can remember where? I noticed the tank was half-full. I began carrying on an internal dialogue. It went something like this: They say you get better gas mileage if you keep your gas tank full. I should probably start filling my tank up when it's half-full. When it's not raining. Who are they and how do they know so much? [For those of you wondering how often I carry on silent conversations with myself, I hate to admit that I'm pretty much a non-stop internal dialogue machine. Have you seen The Informant? I am that man (minus the criminal shenanigans and deception) with fewer random facts and more fake interviews with Oprah and explanations to nonexistent police officers as to why it was necessary to have just run that red light.]

Well, I didn't think about that now-not-so-half-full gas tank again until Sunday when Jason told me to remind him that we needed to fill up after leaving my parents' house. Sometimes I remember, and sometimes I just (ahem) forget. Which, is how we came to be parked by the side of a farm-lined highway less than three miles from a gas station with an empty tank come Easter evening. It wasn't all that bad. The weather was perfect - a breezy warm spring (as if meant for stuck-on-the-side-of-the-highway folks) sort of day. The children were on their best behavior. More importantly, they were funny (always a plus when entertainment street-side is in short supply). The view wasn't shabby: fields, farms, and the sprouting of spring. And, Jason's mom and her boyfriend were ready with a gas can and willing to come to our rescue. I would show you a picture of our roadside stop, but um, you know.

Needless to say, I have no Easter photos for you today. No shots of pink polka-dotted Easter dress ruffles, or babes in blue knit hats, or brimming baskets of eggs. Nope. Today, you get the other snapshots of our weekend, those I did manage to capture: plumbing and planting.





Somewhere in between the spats of forgetfulness, a couple projects found their way to completion. First, a dripping faucet lost its leak. I should be embarrassed to tell you that we've had the hot water turned off on one of our sinks for a month due to this leak (but I admitted that I have lengthy conversations with myself, so I think we've passed the embarrassment threshold, no?). It's one of those hang-in-limbo projects: too easy to call the plumber about but not the sort of thing your mother teaches you over chocolate chips cookies while growing up. So it waited until I had sufficient time to search the web. At first, my search was fruitless. When I looked up leaky sink, I found how to fix everything but a simple faucet leak. Then, it dawned on me. I don't know how or why (but can you imagine the conversations she could hold with herself?), but Martha Stewart knows practically everything. From how to bake the perfect cake, to etching glass, to proper jail cell etiquette - she's your girl. Sure enough, she also knew how to fix a leaky faucet and demonstrated with beautifully photographed images. (You can check out her handy plumbing how-to's here.) A simple switching out of a washer (the circular black do-dad in the picture) and we were hot water happy and drip-free.

So just how do you celebrate a roadside rescue and plumbing success? By planting pumpkins, of course - our first planted seeds of the season. Now if I can just remember to water them. Hmm...

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 64

You know what enchants me so about spring? Its misleading simplicity. The rain comes: the flowers bloom. More rain comes: the trees grow an inch taller than they were last spring. Now, I took biology. I know that a more complex science lies beneath it all. Yet, on the surface, all I see is green. And ever-growing baby toes. And a little one who is several inches taller than last spring. Even the logic (at least the surface logic) all seems so simple:

On Sunday, Jason began singing. "Day-o. Day-ay-ay-o. Daylight come and me wanna go home."

"We're home already," said Audrey.


Monday some neighbors stopped by. Each of their toddlers gave Audrey a plastic egg filled with candy as a little Easter gift. Audrey was allowed to eat a couple pieces of candy from one egg that night before going to bed. The next day she asked if she could have the rest of the candy. She ate the skittles one by one until the egg was empty. "Well, my journey is all done," she said.


In the mornings I tell Audrey to pick out a book, which I read to her as I brush and "style" her hair. Often, she chooses her beginner's Bible and asks me to read from it. The last two weeks she's been requesting the stories about the women of the Bible: Sarah, Hannah, Ruth, and Esther. Tuesday, when I finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she pointed out that I wasn't in the Bible. I explained that the Bible was written a long time ago before I was born. That night, at dinner, I relayed the story to Jason.

Kristin: "She told me today that I wasn't in the Bible."
Jason: (To Audrey) "Yes she is, honey. You remember the part about sinners? (Audrey nods.) That's your mama."
Audrey: "Daddy, what's sinners about?"
Kristin: "Yeah, Daddy, what's sinners about?"


Wednesday's dinner conversation also revolved around mamas and daddies.

Audrey: "Daddy is my daddy."
Jason: "Did you put that together yourself?"
Audrey: "No. Someone else did."


We like to begin our meals by holding hands and saying a blessing. This week, Audrey commented that when we held hands at dinner we made a circle. Jason is typically already on his way to work by the time Audrey and I sit down for breakfast, so I usually only take one of her hands before praying in the morning. Wednesday she noticed that the two of us didn't make a circle. Thursday, I thought I'd solve the problem. I took both of her hands before we began our meal. I told her we could make a circle. She looked at our outstretched arms making two parallel lines. "That's not a circle," she said. "It's a rectangle."


Thursday afternoon the temperature reached eighty degrees. The sun was high and full, showing its strength. I told Audrey she couldn't go outside until I put sunscreen on her.
"Okay, mom. Put some sunshine on me," she said.


Today we played with friends from Ohio. We see them a handful of times each year. Our girls, three stair steps, take turns surpassing each other in height, weight, and speed. They play as their mother (a former classmate and friend for the last two decades) and I catch up, trading parenting secrets and laughing at their antics. It is simple really. You feed a child then watch her grow. You nurture a friendship then watch it blossom. You plant the seeds, nourish with care, and wait for nature to take its course. Just as assuredly as the arrival of spring, it does. Underneath lies a complex science. But this moment, as my little one digs with growing fingers in green-sprouting dirt (giving statistics on the numbers of worms she's found) all I see is the magic of spring - so simply enchanting.

Quietly Rising

Shouts are still emanating from the playground - the type that suggest a game of tag has broken out. It has been that sort of day. A much celebrated warm thaw. The neighborhood gave thanks in the only way we know how, by trickling out in pairs or trios all day long - venturing out to the playground or creating bases on the lawn. Or, staying in to make yeast rolls. Ahem.




I know, I know. The thermometer read eighty degrees for crying out loud. Everything about the day screamed strawberries and crisp salads and pink lemonade. But, somehow, we found ourselves mid-afternoon at the center island wrist-high in dough. And, somehow, it felt right.

It began simply enough. I was going to make risotto. I wanted some bread that could be used in lieu of spoons (you know, in case one should decide to ditch the silverware and get scrappy with one's food). Running to the store was not on my agenda. Running through the indexes of my favorite food blogs - that I could do. I found this recipe. We had everything on hand. While pounding out dough wasn't something I had planned for the day, the hour and a half wait for dough to rise sounded like the perfect excuse for an outside recess to me.

We rolled up our sleeves, manned our aprons, and opened some windows. Audrey mixed ingredients with gusto until she noticed dishes in the sink and decided to "wash" them. While she washed, I found myself kneading dough alone at the counter. Somewhere chimes were ringing. A breeze was blowing. All sounds were those of the outdoors. We could have been anywhere - my grandmother's kitchen that smelled of yeast rolls or cinnamon rolls or some such handiwork of the day.

Audrey washed and I kneaded and thought of my grandmother who once told me, "I know my grandchildren." And, she did. All seven of us. She could tell you our likes and dislikes, our talents and our trials. I visited her shortly before Jason and I married. I don't remember if we were already engaged at this point or if I simply knew we would be. I told her she had met him once. As I spoke, she pulled out a photo album. She turned the pages. She pointed to a picture. There we were as high school seniors, Jason and I sitting on a boat dock in my grandmother's photo album as if the picture had been taken for just this moment in her living room.

As I pressed dough firmly against my palms, working it into a malleable ball, I couldn't help but linger on her memory. She had a gift for things that took time: baking bread, bird-watching, threading a needle, learning the people she loved. Today as the breeze shushed us, the distant chimes soothed us, and Audrey calmly and quietly poured water from one cup to another, (with me rhythmically kneading) my kitchen felt like that.