Thankful Turkey 2015

Our Thanksgiving tradition is to fill up a jar that is decorated in turkey fashion.  We fill it up over the course of November with little papers on which we write things we are grateful for.  Then we read the entries and sometimes try to guess who wrote what.  Here are this year's entries:

Toys
Bed
house
pets
water
bed
holidays
I'm thankful for mountains, trees, waterfalls, wide-open fields, lakes, flowers, berries, vegetables, the ocean, and autumn leaves.
Cats, "kittys", "kittins"
Mama
I'm thankful for SpongeBob
my life
I'm thankful for Cinder, Rocket, and Patch.  They are good animals who give lots of affection.  I'm also thankful for Patrick.
I am grateful for everything.
I'm thankful for farms.
pilgrims. May "Flour", holidays
I am grateful for the wild turkeys just down our road.  I enjoy seeing them- a flightless flock- running oddly across the road on my way to work.  They remind me of the beauty of the country.
I'm thankful for zzzzz, (drawing of a bus), (drawing of a chicken drumstick??), (drawing of possibly a salt shaker), (drawing of a book)
I'm grateful for my kids: Nolan for the way he perceives needs and cares, Gerret for his goofy ways -always helping us laugh and feel better, Auburn for being my princess and just loving life.
I'm "grateful" for my "cosy" bed and my cats.
I'm grateful for 5 years in our little green house and for all of the memories we've made in it.
I'm thankful for Dad.
I'm grateful for Mama.
I'm thankful for all of the kind and loving people who have helped our family and Grandma&Grandpa this year.  And I'm grateful for Patrick the Boy.
I am grateful for Patch, who goes outside with me in the dark to tend the chickens.
I am grateful for my best friend.  I am grateful for her smile and her laugh.  I am grateful for her kind voice and gentle ways.  And, above all, I am grateful that she chose me as her best friend.
I'm thankful for Thanksgiving.
I am grateful for warm crackling fires in our new stove.
Christmas and food
I'm thankful for my parents.  I have had such a good life largely thanks to them,  I treasure so many memories with them.  They have taught me and continue to teach me how to do and to be.
the howling wind and my boy, Patrick.
I am thankful for Mama's laugh,  Especially when she says "Bwah ha!"
I'm thankful for Jesus.
I am grateful for my mom and my loving family.
I'm grateful for the way Patch always looks like he's smiling.
I'm grateful to play the uke and piano and sing.  I love the sound of the cello.  Music is one of my most favorite things in the world.  And Patrick, my boy.

Mitchells Go West: Day One

On the first morning, we left our home around 7 and dropped Patch off at a friend's kennel on our way.  That day we travelled through the rest of New York, a smidgen of Pennsylvania, all of Ohio, an hour or two of Indiana, and stopped for the night in a suburb of Chicago.  Finding ourselves in Chicago and met with our abiding hunger for good pizza, we knew we had to find some famous deep dish. After a Google search for "Chicago's best pizza", we found ourselves in an outpost of Lou Malnati's, mouths drooling, stomachs rumbling over the rich smell.

It turns out Chicago's deep dish, while interesting and deliciously fragrant, left my hankering for pizza largely unsatisfied.  Maybe it's ridiculous to say this in the MidWest, but there was too much corn in that tall, flat crust. Besides, the sauce to cheese ratio was off and the sausage was one piece the size off the pie, hiding out somewhere under the sauce and cheese.  It was strange.  I went to bed and dreamed of large slices of New York pizza heavily laden with every scrumptious topping my mind could conjure.

Patrick reading to the kids in the Illinois hotel:

Mitchells Go West

We like to travel. We're known to pack up the car and head out on the interstate, covering large swaths of country or coast, watching the landscape slowly mold into wild new forms, those forms taking on new colors and new uses.  Discovery and adventure are the staples of our family's diet. Without them, we perish. 

And so it should come as no surprise that when the news came of my sister-in-law's upcoming marriage to take place some 2,000 miles to the west in Utah, our first and last inclination was to make out of it a road trip and a grand exploration. East to West.  South.  Then West to East and North again.

Nine

Well, somehow I have a nine year old. I think 75% of parenthood is wondering how you're old enough for this.

How am I old enough to have an alien bean growing within me? How am I old enough to be keeping another human alive? How am I old enough to be sending this child to school?

I looked at Nolan today on his ninth birthday in awe. He is slowly inching his way out of boyhood and it's both amazing and frightening to watch from the perspective of a parent. I'm not old enough to parent an adolescent, but the train is set at full speed with no planned breaks. .

Sometimes it's such a paradox, a birthday is. How to celebrate life's grand motion when what you want most is for life to stop right here and bask in this day for a while or forever?

But whatever. We celebrate reality and I try to forget the impossible. We enjoy each other and try to do our best to be kind and to help and to forgive. We love our friends and we love to play. We work hard. We work ourselves weary. And we greet each new day and every birthday with joy.

Happy birthday, my nine year old boy! I will remember forever the day you were born, because it was a second birth for myself. Thank you for your patience as I've stumbled along in learning to parent. I will always keep stumbling for you.

Sunday Sliding

My mom gave the kids a slip and slide, so we set it up in our back yard Sunday afternoon. Gerret has strong adverse feelings toward water, so he stayed inside. Nolan was the instigator. He helped me set the contraption up, blow up the inflatable ramp, and run the hose out to it. And he was the first down the slide.

His first run was a bit of a dud because he was dry and the slide hadn't had time to get entirely wet, but after a few trips down he really flew. Auby was oblivious to the joys of slipping down hill until she overheard Nolan's high-pitched squeals. PTB helped her dress in a swimsuit and he accompanied her out the back door, stilll in his church attire. In fact, he even demonstrated how to use the slide for her-- white shirt, tie and all. All three of them took turns flying down our little hill and PTB would give the kids a boost at the top which they responded to with laughter and screams all the way down.

The thing about slip n sliding is that hose water is cold and when your hose runs from the well in the side yard, the water is bitter cold. Eventually Nolan was chilled to the bone and decided to call it quits for the day, but Auburn was still going obstinately strong. Her lips were purple and her skin goose-pimpled. PTB announced the limit: five more times down the slide and then she'd have to go warm up inside.

Private message made public

Happy Father's Day to the one I am so grateful and relieved to parent next to.  Your caring and thoughtfulness are so inspiring to me. Your love and guiding hand is such a gift to our children. It makes me so proud when I hear them call you their best friend. I think that is a rarity in this world of absent parenting and I know they are so blessed to have a friend in you. I am so blessed to have a friend in you, as well. Thank you for making life for us fun even when much of it is a drag. Thanks for adventuring with me and making those adventures crazy chaos by bringing along three little humans. Thank you for always picking up my slack, especially these past few months. My mothering is a lot more substantial when it stands paired with your fathering. Thank you a million times for it. I love you more than blueberries, fuzzy cats, beautiful music, long bike rides, visits to the ocean, and life itself.

Bleak and Beautiful

My Dad and I were sitting side by side, hand in hand yesterday in the hospital. I had just shared some fairly devastating news with him and so we were both just plain crying our eyes out. The pain in that hospital room was palpable by every person present, but mostly it was a tightly woven cord bound around me and my dad. We've become so close through this suffering..

I couldn't let pain fester, though. I knew we must press on, so I offered comfort in the form of truth.

Dad, I said, This life is very hard sometimes, but there is always beauty and goodness to be found even in those times. And there are always good things to come.

That's what I repeat to myself again and again. And then I look around for the beauty and have always been able to find it.

I Wrote This in November

When Auby and I go over to help my parents' out, she goes straight to her beloved grandpa's room, where she finds him propped up in bed and she welcomes herself to hop right on. She sometimes crawls across his lap, splashing love across his cheek and chest as she slides to his left side and makes herself comfortable. Other times, she walks past the bed, pulls with her hands, climbs with her legs, and grits with her teeth. Once she has made it onto the mattress, a full body length away from my dad, she will bounce across the vacancy to her grandpa's side and exclaim some cheerful greeting to him, then proceed to find her place in the nest. Then she does something with him. She'll show him her toys, load his lap with stuffed animals, decorate him with colorful stickers. Sometimes she takes one of our phones in hand and photographs all sorts of odd angles of the room and her grandpa. Other times, he will turn on a show for both of them to enjoy… like Doc Mcstuffins or Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

Sometimes, if I'm helping out in another room, I begin to worry about what the girl might be doing to or with her grandpa and I'm called to confirm that everything is well and everyone is safe.

I was doing some work in the kitchen today. Auburn was in her spot next to Grandpa, but I hadn't been in to check on them for a long stretch of time and began to feel the pull of unease. I made my way to the doorway where I stood to observe. And this is what greeted me:

My dad was propped up in his usual spot and Auburn was next to him on the bed. The sound of boisterous orchestral music filled the room, streaming from my dad's phone in his lap. Auburn was standing, dancing, arms and legs flailing wildly to the beat. Her entire body was snapping back and forth, spine and head bending in opposites directions. And my dad's arms were extended above his head, waving back and forth as his hands conducted the music. They were a happy sight and one I hope to always remember.

On the First Day of School

I heard there was an opening at the nursery school both of my boys attended a few years ago. So, one day last month I asked Auburn if she would like to go to school. She was strapped in her carseat behind me as I drove through Ithaca. I could see her in the rear view mirror, her face the image of careful consideration.

Finally she said, "Yeah!" and then followed it with, "But Mama?"

"What Aubs?"

"I will really miss you."

"I will miss you, too."

My youngest child started school today. PTB and I dropped her off this morning and she was so pleased to be there.

That girl, she is built for going off into the world, what with her gregarious nature, her stubborn independence, her smiling confidence. She is everybody's friend before she even meets anyone. She is so assured about her abilities that she is not too timid to try any new thing or say any bizarre phrase. She lights up every room. And though she only attends school for three hours, three days a week, dang I really will miss her and will probably wonder each time we hang up her coat on the hook marked with her proud name, what in the world happened to my new little baby.

This goes without saying, but I must iterate it anyway: kids grow too fast and life speeds by at a rate that I can't catch up with.

I would be sad about that if I weren't so happy for them to see this big wide world and all the colorful people in it. And I guess it starts with nursery school three days a week.