Growing Family

Longing

This weekend I had a Skype call with a dear friend. The way we met continues to be one of the best stories I have about making a new friend.

We had been in Sydney about two weeks, and one morning I was desperate to get out of the house with the kids. I stepped over the clutter in nearly every room (who knew the contents of suitcases could explode on such a massive scale when you didn't have furniture yet to contain it!), put Sprout in the stroller, and managed to cross the busy road between our house and the adjacent waterfront park. Small Sun was 2 (almost 3) and Sprout was 18 months. 

To reach the play equipment, you had to run down a steep embankment of long, green grass. The cove sparkled and undulated in a different way moment by moment. It was living there, on that cove, that I learned how responsive water is to wind, and how they play together in a never tiring interaction.

Sprout couldn't yet climb the ladder on her own, and once up, I had to hover beneath to make sure she didn't step out of the play structure into thin air. 

In those early days, before we knew anyone, we haunted the playgrounds along the cove walk. Happening upon playmates, and snatching a few moments of conversation with another mum made our day.

That day, while we were playing, another mum rolled up with a Graco pram (stroller). Her daughter had on shoes from American Target, I knew because Sprout had those same shoes scattered on the floor of our semi (duplex). The blond mother's American southern accent rang out across the playground as she spoke to her companion. Her brilliant diamond ring threw flashes of light as dazzling as the light off the wavelets in the cove. I didn't want an American friend, I wanted Aussie friends, but I went over to say hi anyway.

"S" had been in Sydney just about as long as we had. She was also haunting the playgrounds along the cove walk, from her neighborhood a brisk ten minutes walk down the cove. She knew no one, and her house was also an empty shell, waiting for belongings to fill it.

She came back by my house with me, to borrow a power adapter, because she didn't have one, and didn't know where to buy one, and I had extra. I invited her in, past our monstrous mess, convinced that helping her with her need was more important than shame over my clutter. I wrote my number on a piece of paper and told her to call me if she wanted to get together sometime. I was completely shocked when she did.

That was over six years ago. S and I became fast friends. Our daughters were nearly the same age, and looked very similar as babies. So much so that at her daughter's birthday party, when both the girls were in diapers, splashing in the kiddie pool, her husband picked up Sprout to go sing happy birthday, only to realize he had the wrong girl. We did book club together, we fell pregnant at the same time and delivered our boys within weeks of each other. My Finch and her little M were the best of friends, inseparable in preschool, and always carrying on a conversation about dinosaurs (a passion only matched in each other's enthusiasm). 

I talked them into joining our school, and our daughters went to school together, attending the same playdates and parties in a tightly knit happy circle.

We went on holidays together. We watched each other's children. When S had to fly to the States for a family emergency, I helped to step in to make sure her house and her children had what they needed. We cooked for each other when one was sick. We helped each other move. We co-hosted Thanksgiving for a diverse crowd each year. We shared Christmas.

Then we moved back to America. We even stayed in our friend's house for a week while they were overseas, between selling our house and flying to Fiji. 

Being here, in America, I am so far from my friends and the country that I love. The two places are so different from each other, it is hard to hold both in my mind, in the same space.

Last week I had a Skype call with S. They are in North Carolina. They have moved back "home." She looked bewildered. Her voice faltered. She is hung over that chasm that is having left a life you love, and not yet having built a new life. She doesn't know where they'll live, or if they will ever find a new church where they feel they can uplift their hearts to God, or if they will ever find a school as lovely as our dear Sydney school. She is in the between place. I know it well.

Seeing S brought everything Australia rushing back. The light. The sky. The wind. The gum trees. Both of our families moved to Australia for a bit of adventure, only to fall deeply and madly in love with the place. They have citizenship there, as do we. Her children still carry their strong Aussie accents. Accents my children lost months ago. 

I wish I could cross the road, and stumble down the hill to meet her at the playground. I want to tell her "you're going to be okay. You will find joy here too." I want to brew her a good cup of tea, give her a piece of cake, and sit in the sunlit afternoon together. That is how we set everything right again.

 

 

*Our Thanksgiving table, outside in springtime, Aussie style.

My New Life

We're back from Tennessee, school is in session, and our house is turning into something like a home. My little laptop smirks at me each time I walk by. As I browse Facebook and Pinterest and read blogs, my own blog tab wiggles its eyebrows at me tauntingly. I click it away.

This is the season my little ship has been pointed towards all these years. All three munchkins are in the same school for the same hours, leaving my days as my own. We are in our own house (again) that will be ours for several years (that's the plan, Stan), so I can paint the walls and plant the trees, and do all those things I love to do.

Yet getting here has felt more like a crash landing than an easy slide. I feel more like a cartoon character sitting in a pile of dust, shaking those stars around my head, than a polished woman who has accomplished her goals.

Life is full of challenges. We have our own family challenges that take our time and require intentional focus. The Captain is in a season at work where he is working long hours to meet a project deadline. He is also sick, and has been for some time, but he keeps right on working. Things still feel out of place and unfamiliar. We haven't yet found that comforting rythm in this house and this season. We haven't logged enough comfort hours here.

The world seems to be exploding in violence and terror, and I don't know what to do. Malaysia Airlines MH17, Israel and Gaza, Michael Brown and Ferguson, James Foley, ISIS and Iraq... How do we live in this world?

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Romans 12:21

Last night we did what we do best. I pushed the kids outside, and sat on the steps to watch them play.

I soaked up my children's laughter, and their hilarious antics. I enjoyed the amusement of passers-by observing their abandon. I set life aside to live those moments. 

Let's not let fear win. Not in our own hearts and minds. Not in our relationships. Not in our communities. Not in our policies and laws. Not in our worldviews.

May your choices reflect your HOPES, not your fears.

Nelson Mandela

Let's hold on to the good!

 

Fledgling Finch

Lately Finch has been a real pill. He's gotten really mouthy, he doesn't want to do anything he's asked, he huffs around with crossed arms, and he yells "this is so hard!" as often as he can. The level of provocative cheekiness varies between cracking me up and wearing me thin.

Illustration A:

Recently Finch discovered that sticking one's tongue out is a way to communicate rudeness. After trying it on me and being informed that he was not able to do so without consequence, the next time he was angry at me he gaped his mouth open like a fish, not sticking his tongue out but still communicating his clear disdain for me. Cracked me up. Laughed out loud. Couldn't help myself.

Illustration B:

At my parent's house I was worn thin doing the solo mom thing. In effort to speed up and guarantee bedtime success, I promised the kids a reward if they could be in pjs, teeth cleaned, and in bed in ten minutes. Small Sun and Sprout were done in about four minutes. Finch rolled around on the floor, took his clothes off and refused to put anything else on, and in general made himself a nuisance. The older two were rewarded with a hand-full of cheap, plastic reptiles that they were delighted with. Finch, despite my repeated requests for compliance, passed the ten minute mark in the nude, with unbrushed teeth. Reward lost.

I'm sure my parents thought that I was downstairs beating the poor child, as he raised the roof with his hysterical, snot slinging, breathe stealing, tiny fist pumping tantrum "I want a frog!" A tiny plastic frog. I rode out the storm with him until he was calm and hiccuping his way towards sleep, assured that tomorrow he would have another chance to earn a frog, by brushing his teeth and putting his pjs on in ten minutes, when asked. No laughing that night. He nearly wore me out.

Today I relayed the day's challenges to The Captain, and it dawned on me...I've been through this before!

Wind the clock back to when Small Sun was finishing up preschool. "What is wrong with my child?" I wondered. I felt guilty to admit it, but I was kind of looking forward to sending him off to school just to have a break from the little strong man routine. 

School starts in a week and a half. Yesterday I wasn't sure if Finch was ready. Today I'm pretty sure! I might sign him up for an activity too. This little fledgling might need his first push out of the nest.

 

Revisiting Childhood

I had a wonderful childhood. We moved many times, but lived mostly in rural environs, and I was homeschooled by a nature-loving, creative mother. The result was hours and hours of freedom to explore the countryside, create our own fun, and nurture a wonderful imagination.

There are a few places we lived that stand out as my favorites and last week I spontaneously stopped in to visit one of them. We know the family that lives in the house now, and we were welcomed to explore, so I was able to show my children the things I loved about the property.

After visiting the kittens in the barn (a good farm property always has kittens tucked somewhere), we discovered that the hay was already baled for the season, creating the most wonderful playground you can imagine.

When I was growing up and had friends over, they always loved playing on the hay bales. First, you have to get up a good running speed, and hurtle yourself over the crest of the roll, or else you will slip right down. After a couple tries, the big kids made it up on their own, and the fun began. Jumping from bale to bale is easy, if they are close, and scary, if they are widely placed. Sometimes you fall down into the crack between (where there might be snakes!), and have to place your hands and feet on either side and walk your way up, like kids climbing a doorframe. If you are very brave, and not prone to claustrophobia or panic, you can wriggle on your belly in the space between the rolls from one end to the other. At night, you can lie on your back and look at the stars, feeling the mightiest grace envelop you. 

Holding Finch's hand, hurtling us both from bale to bale, I had as much fun as the children did.

 

If you haven't ever had a willow tree, they are a source of endless childhood fun. Many a childhood prisoner's hands and feet were bound with willow ropes, and guarded with willow whips. I remember feeling utterly lovely with a cirlet of willow on my head. Here Finch is admiring his willow tail.

This property had a creek where we spent endless unsupervised hours. I had a loyal cat that would swim across it to follow me on my adventures, and once we found a hollowed coyote den with babies in the bank. 

We often slept in the tobacco barns, under the richly fragrant, drying crop. In the night the barn would creak and moan with nocturnal creatures and ancient beams. We would clutch each other with terror and delight. Sometimes the fear overcame us and we crossed the pasture, wet with dew, to sleep in the comfort of the house. Other times the terror of the dark pasture was too much and we finally fell asleep in the barn, shivering with fright, only to wake up to a bang in the night.

How wonderful to go for a satisfying prowl around my childhood haunts with my own children, and how wonderful that they were as taken with it as I was.