I crave fish and chips. I don't know how it happened but people seem to be psychically picking up on it because people keep referring to fish and chips in my presence. Almost as though they are teasing me. Am I thinking out-loud again?

It's hard you know, you're not as homesick as you feel - nostalgia is not your friend. Trust me on this, there is nothing novel about being an American abroad. Partly because, unless you blog maybe and have a massive fan-base - there is no one to brag to. So in the end, you're just another isolated foreigner. The British in particular are so xenophobic that everything you do will just be queer and gawky. No one will treat you like you're cute and novel.
You want to say things to other Americans like "look how cool I am, I figured out the system - I can do anything here like a native" but you look around and no one else is American, and the ones that are American are either too squirrelly for words or have the same thing to say back to you. Usually, the Americans you find are so drained and fatigued from working said system, that you can't even vent together.
Of all the lingo I perfected in my years in Britain, the single most expressive was The Sigh. My mother and I used to call it the Mum's Sigh. The "I'm long suffering, pathetic, pity me, please let me die early - pay attention to me now" sigh. One day when I realized I was sighing like that on my own, in the privacy of my own home, I feared I was becoming one of them - of them.
The Mums. The ones who want to die early, the ones with female pattern baldness, borne of stress, of bad marriages and looking like twenty miles of bad road.  British road. That equates to at least double the distance in Texas.

If you come back here - to America - you can say you lived abroad, or you live abroad and the girl at the register in the card shop will either look at you with that semi-scared, disdainful look that says "why aren't my parents rich - the flesh is talking again." Or you'll get the five second "that's awesome, I love London" speech. The one that doesn't keep you warm at night - because everyone loves London, but to the average American, London encompasses all of Britain. You could tell them you lived in Northern Ireland and they'd ask you what part of London that's in. Then, you go back to being an American in America. A drop in an ocean.

I like to remember all the things I miss, the ones that make me ache inside. I miss the simplicity of British life when I'm in America. England is scheduled and straight. Things don't vary from routine. There are not so many variations that you feel diluted in your choices. When I'm in England I miss the simplicity of life in America. I miss roads that go through, thoroughfares. I miss straight lines and compasses that have true north, east, south and west. I miss food that makes sense and doesn't scare me (except commercial meat). I miss people at Starbucks who tell me the coffee is on them because there was a line and I had to wait 5 minutes (that happens to me about once a month here). In America, I miss (did I already mention fish and chips and mushy peas?) the weather -- yes, I am not joking or deluded. Fog, frizzy, insipid rain and cool wet suit me. I miss people who won't give you the time of day but when they decide to - you're in for life. I miss the straightforwardness. You don't have to guess when people don't like, or like you. I miss the high streets, Oxfam, pedestrianized districts, parking up and walking, trains. I miss never being more than an hour and a half from the beach.

Then, just to shake myself up, so whichever country I'm in I don't go to sleep with tears in my ears, I like to remind myself why I left.
I left Britain because the anti-semitism was too broadly spread and unacceptable to me. Because the Mumbai terrorists were homegrown, as were the London bombers. Because I can't handle the consequences of that, and driving through places like Keighley, saw letters 6ft long painted on the roads that said "Kill All Pakis."
Because people use expressions like 'Paki' in polite company and it turns my stomach. Because not everyone dark is "Asian."
Also because there is no service culture, by and large people don't care about you, or your custom. Because the place is filthy and even just driving people home from the airport was a source of embarrassment for me. Because if they get a chance to cheat you - they will, 9 times out of 10. But if you say that, everyone will act like you are the most horrid liar they've ever met. However, in a way that's to be admired, they have at least enough of a national identity to be defensive. Though, they themselves will complain - and vehemently - you aren't allowed to. Having said that, by and large their national image scares me. Patriotism means something else entirely. Most Americans don't realize that the flag that officially represents England is not the union jack, it is the cross of St. George: a blood-red cross on a white background. They equally don't realize that unless it's being displayed for an England vs international side football match, seeing the cross of St. George is a reason to go completely cold inside.
Because once I actually had an old man shout at me "You bloody foreigners, coming over here, marrying our men, diluting our bloodlines" and he wasn't joking. Because the island mentality is too much to handle. Because I couldn't get a job because America isn't part of the commonwealth and discrimination is so widely accepted that they could refuse to hire me based on the fact that they'd have to fill out an extra form. An extra form. All the weight, muscle and armor a xenophobe needs in Britain. By that token, making a living was impossible - at least over the table.
Because there were times when I was genuinely worried about being heard in an American accent. Because I had a little kid in a park spit at me and cuss me out while asking where my burka was. Because all of this tells of the free-floating hostility that I feel is dragging that country down.
The British love - LOVE - to bitch. They loved to shout and cuss - or as they say 'effing and blinding' - over any slight. However, you are absolutely not allowed at any time to fix the problem, see a solution to the problem, or discuss any possible way around the problem. The first time I fell for this, you know. I addressed a problem, I tried to form a group of people who cared. I went and confronted authority. I was abandoned by my group, and labeled a "rabblerouser." Yeah, I'm your classic rabblerouser all right.
My motto became, if it's broke don't fix it.
Me telling you all of this in public would probably get petrol pushed through my letter box in the middle of the night (even though it currently retails at around $8 a gallon). That was one of the other great mysteries of Britain to me. The absolute way that the rest of the world is to be kept in the dark about their problems. They can bitch about it to each other, but any media you get will be greatly dampened and toned down. For example, did you know during the worst of the winter last year, the councils decided they didn't have enough money to grit roads? So people were sliding about, having accidents, driving into each other, totaling cars and or just not able to drive at all. Even in places that quickly - and predictably - became impassable, the situation was not addressed. We never saw a mention of it. Our snowmageddon made their news though.
Did you know that there was a trash crisis there - not just Paris? The French bitched. The British swept it under the rug, as it were. The bins were being picked up once every 3 weeks, if even.

Britain is also classest and a bizarre dichotomy of sexes. Over here we are screwed up in many ways that they aren't. We're prudish due to our puritanical upbringing in ways they aren't. They are comfortable with their bodies and sexuality in a way we aren't. Breastfeeding is normal and acceptable. Children run naked on beaches, oblivious to the taboo.
However, I couldn't get anything done, ever, with any service people without my husband there. I was treated like I was stupid and a second-class citizen. On the other other hand though - they are far more accepting to gay and lesbian culture and unmarried partnerships. The same goes for dietary needs including vegetarianism. The vegetarian council will go so far as to put the equivalent of heschers on food so at a glance you know what is safe to eat if you are veggie.
The Jewish community is not so bold. They seem to be British first, Jewish second. They are far less comfortable with their Judaism than Israelis or Americans. You could get little 'v's for the Americans but there were no little 'k's in sight. Not all Americans, though, America seems to have invented and perfected the self-hating Jew image.

And yet, they have things like Jewish welfare boards and Jewish councils, and real, functional, Jewish schools.

The healthcare is so iffy. By and large I used to say you get what you pay for, and you pay nothing. I had a simple condition there that was treated so badly I ended up flying to America for 4 months until I was treated sufficiently to come home to Britain. The cancer death rates are much higher - but the maternal death rates lower. The waiting lists are years long for bypasses and the like, but the blacklists of drugs and the fact that someone else is paying for it mean that the big scary pharmaceutical companies are held at bay. From time to time I had what I was sure was superior care - that was the exception though.

Britain is simulatenously 20 years ahead, and behind. The banks still keep banking hours. The only way to do certain things is to come into a branch. The international banking departments of most banks are an utter joke. Banks and medical practices still use paper records.
The electronics are advanced, the education is advanced, the non-racial community funcionality is advanced. They aren't hung up about voting for women, they aren't afraid of gays, they accept a far wider variety of difference in the mix. Dealing with local governments, however, I felt truly helpless. I felt there was no recourse to take against ill treatment and there were times when I felt abused by the system because they knew there was no recourse. When the Home Office held my passport for 9 months over what turned out to be a clerical error, I never would have found out had I not thrown a fit over it. They warn you though, throwing a fit can get your application quietly murdered in the night. They have the right to arbitrarily refuse you for a good deal less than fit throwing. I was warned to not even call to check on status, lest it upset someone and cause them to push my application back. How is that even okay? My friend Mbula who was Malagasi, said they'd had her passport for nearly 15 years, her family had never met her children, she was statusless. She'd missed both her parents' funerals.
This caused me to have a nervous breakdown and pull my application and demand my passport back. Which is when they found my passport, on the wrong desk and the clerical error that had put it there. I never got an apology. The same happened when we applied for the family tax credit and were summarily denied because I had issues with their reporting. Later I found out - years later and thousands of lost tax dollars - that I should never have had to sit the interview. They have a policy to just check the social security number and my records with their American counterparts. I never got an apology. We were literally scoffed at when we asked about back-dating because of their error.

I used to hear about how "litigious" America is. This was said to me with derision. The above examples emphasize to me that our litigiousness is actually synonymous with progression.

In some ways we meet and are equal. Bullying is a problem everywhere. Neither place has the answer to universal health-care. The job market sucks across the board.
I miss the fruit markets there, I miss the organic grocery stores here. I miss the prevalence of innocent children's clothing there, I miss the variety of toys and games here. When I'm there I miss knowing where to go at 2am when your guinea pig cage breaks to bits and you desperately need a new one. When I'm here I miss knowing where to go at 2am when your guinea pig breaks and you don't want a new one. Did I mention the fact that animals are treated far better there?
And who wouldn't miss pikies? Who wouldn't miss being told that their children look like a pikey (I'm actually subbing words here) when they dressed themselves that morning in shorts and welly boots. Who wouldn't miss the occasional, bloated, upside down, dead pikey horse on your roundabout?

Then, after a while, my head starts to spin and I wonder if I'm going to live like this forever. In this weird whirlpool frame of mind. I get dizzy thinking of it all and I try hard not to think about it. I can't have fish and chips - not for real. So I don't think of them. I push them away.
When I was in Britain I could imagine dying there. I used to say "I'll die in this place, I'll die a foreigner." However - the big however is, I could imagine it. We were happier there in many ways and we always said if we could make ourselves sustainable, if we had the money, we'd make our life there. I don't have that feeling here. I love the desert. I love the views. I love the way that life here is by and large much much easier. I do not, however, see myself here. I don't see myself a part of this place or a part of its history. I don't think of my children as New Mexican. Though I did think of them as British when we were in England. That's where I start to trip up. We talk about never going back, and being well rid of England. However, somewhere I can't get rid of the feeling that I did all that for nothing.
It's gone. An entire life was ephemeral and fleeting. How does that happen? It's like looking at ancient gravestones of people with which you are completely disassociated, having no idea what their lives could possibly be like outside of Hollywood portrayal of the times - but I'm sure they weren't sepia.
I look at our pictures of our entire life in England, my heart sinks. All that work for nothing. For what legacy? I broke the back of the damn place. I snapped it. I could speak the language. I could drive better than most people I knew. I wasn't afraid anymore. My children were cultured and darling. They had peaches and cream skin and adorable accents. I was next door to France and Holland and Ireland. I could spend any weekend my heart desired near water, or in Scotland. I saw basking sharks!
It's gone. It's gone and 4 years later - approaching my anniversary of re-patriating - I still feel vacant and hollow where it was. I still feel lonely. How can I feel lonely in my home country?

When I got back America had moved without me. Who could blame it? It had given up on me. The currency had changed its face, the people had invented a criminally insane political party, Fox had a news channel (heaven help me), and there were a dozen types of candy come and gone. The place was in love with itself and the newspapers showed narcissistic views of the nation - as though it were the only place that existed in reality. Having lived outside that reality for so long, I was irritated and found it immature.
It wasn't all bad though. Time and again I was affected by people's kindness. I'd missed kindness. I missed random strangers offering to help with flat tires and heavy bags. The entire adjustment process was hugely compounded by the fact that I myself felt like a stranger. I felt nationless - and yet I wasn't. My country wasn't gone - it hadn't changed names or been refounded or taken over. It was here. I was here in my homeland. I had changed. It felt as though I'd lived on an alien planet and my DNA had subtly shifted to accommodate the change - then I'd come home to realize I couldn't breath the oxygen any longer.
You know, like the phantom gear shift knob you grasp desperately for with your left hand. Or slamming on the brake whilst looking for the clutch. Or using the word whilst - and expecting people to know - what you mean.
Explaining to the doctor that it wasn't vertigo it was more like "falling down a lift shaft." Telling your neighbor the bin lorry was coming and did he want you to help him with his wheely bin? Pence/Cents.
4 years later and I'm still falling down the lift shaft which at this point is a euphemism for rabbit hole.

I don't know where I go from here. I know that it breaks my heart that when my husband was trying desperately to help me through my recovery process of late and he thought that something uplifting might heal my soul - in turn heal my body - he offered to go through pictures and pick out my favo(u)rites. He proposed we'd sit together at the kitchen table, with a cup of tea. We'll frame them for you, and put them around the bedroom, to make you better. Instead of saying - oh how lovely, my darling thank you. I just burst into tears and cried so hard I almost threw up. Hormones, eh? Yeah. That's how you get homesick for a foreign land. That's how.

Because I did work that hard at it. Because at the end of the day of speaking the foreign language they call English, I would come home and my head would pound and throb in fatigue from having had a hard day's translating. Because I finally freaking made friends I'd die for. Because I worked that hard to make it my home and because I never thought I'd see American soil again. So I pushed America away, and I made Britain my home. Because I saw myself there, old, with English grandchildren. I saw it. I saw it and it was real and now, where is it? Where are they? What the hell do I do now?
All I can think of this week, as I approach our anniversary or immigration/re-patriation is of Brigadoon.
My British life happened but it may as well not have. In turn that makes me feel less solid and even deluded about both my past and my current future. Everything is mutable, changeable, malleable, and losable. This compounded by the tough recovery I've had from this baby. I wonder if I'll ever feel "home" or "whole?"
This is only part of this story as well. It doesn't even cover the entire subject. There's more and there are bound to be more insipidly rainy posts on the subject. For now though, tara....

Last night Brian read me an email from a past co-worker. She'd taken the news of our latest baby as an excuse to become sort of melancholic and philosophical. All in all what she said was poetic and sweet. However, something she said hit me when she said (paraphrasing) that when all is said and done she's looking forward to her life flashing before her eyes. If only for those moments when she was cradling her new babies.




Yeah - maybe I'm still hormonal but that made me a little tearful.

I always said if heaven were what you made of it I'd like to fashion mine out of my own life: Those moments of raw hysterical laughter with my own mother. The incredible views I've taken in from time to time and country to country. Mindless, slow moving, languid weekend mornings with my husband. Most of all though, the new babies. The tiny high pitched voices of toddlers. The exquisite joy over nothing that only a child can provide.
"Mommee, Mommee! Mommee! Look, that flower is the same color as my shirt!!!" I don't know why that kind of thing makes me stupid happy, but it does.

I realize now, quite clearly that I can't remember it all. I try, I try so hard.
I figure some times, when I'm laying in bed with the baby who is making eyes at me, and cooing softly that this is heaven. The little toothbrush hair on my newborn.

I get that way sometimes with kittens too, or gardens after the rain. Mostly though, with my children.
My kids aren't quite old enough to share the relationship I had with my own mother, and grandmother. Every couple of days, during the occasions we've chosen to pass the time watching mindless television, thoughts stray into my head. The primary thought being (whilst feeling frustrated with the concept of enforced rest) is that there are things in this life I have not yet managed to achieve. There are things I'd regret not passing on to my own children if I weren't to recover from having this child.
Most of them are simple things; things that don't actually matter that much. Like, this is a full boil; if you add this to strip your washer from time to time your clothes will last longer; this is how you splice roots to make a new plant; this is how to write your own cookbook; this is how your great grandmother made this sauce, but this is how your great great grandmother made it, and this is how your great great great grandmother made it; the people in this ancient picture are related to you thus. This was how you came into the world....

My great great grandmother holding my grandmother at 2 weeks old

I get supremely irritated when the day-to-day life seeps back in and forces me to be irritated at my children. I feel used and resentful of the passage of time. Why can't I fixate on all of them at the age they are now? Why am I forced to move so quickly that I can't even tell you when one turned from 5 to 6 - I wasn't watching. Why do I have to care so deeply about forcing us all to bed because traffic will be so bad, because of construction in the place we need to be, on another schedule set for us by people who don't even care?

Why can't we move to the country and grow a lot of peaches?

And maybe that's why. Why I feel those little heaven moments so deeply - because they are ephemeral. Because the 5 seconds that my 3 year old wants to grow up to marry her brother - divorce him and then marry her other brother are just that - 5 seconds. 5 seconds of fleeting toddler charm.
The 3 seconds my oldest son's voice was so high that you can't even hear him in some home videos. The day he was stood on the porch with his Thomas wellies and his umbrella being Christopher Robin saying "tut tut tut, looks like rain." My second oldest son who is in the first grade but miraculously decided he believes in faeries.
My oldest son who has no sense of gender to the point that his back pack is purple and he wanted both his ears piercing rather than just one - because he thinks fashion statements forced on us by a repressed society are wrong and based in opinion. Or the way that when I bought them a $.50 clay model to paint they spent an hour each painting theirs and then showed me with such utter pride that I felt overcome with it. The painting job was rubbish, but I felt such love in my heart for the little figures that I placed them up on shelves immediately.

Even now how sometimes I look at my daughter, virtually an adult, and still manage to see a 2 year old child in her. Her own 2 year old persona shining out from time to time in her soft lisp, or the way she holds her ankles when she's sitting on the couch, or the way she giggles when watching TV. It will be another 2 seconds before she has her own toddlers to memorize and covet.



I'm intensely satisfied at the decision to have this baby - more than I was even when I began on this adventure. She fills a need I wasn't even aware I had. I feel so warm and whole when I am sat staring, trying to memorize every detail of her babyhood. I told myself I'd write it down this time, videotape it, not let any of it slip away. But still it slips and fades before I even get to the paper. The day she was born is mostly lost to me, as are entire days of her first week. I remember trying not to bleed too much, trying to gauge how much sleep was enough sleep to stop feeling dizzy - I have no idea what the baby was doing or how she might have changed.








Then, together we read this nostalgic and sad email from Brian's ex co-worker/friend about new babies, lives fleeting before our eyes. Which made me come to the conclusion that every single one of those heaven moments is as important to me as they feel at the time. That every single daisy that my daughter brings me is the single most special flower in the universe - right then. Because if I ever get to replay my life, I want those moments to be in the queue. I could care less really what other people think I make too much of (including children). This life is too short for hang-ups. I feel that more sincerely at times like these when I'm struggling so hard to recover physically from a major life event. I feel closer to those moments I shared as a child with my own mother; lazy Sundays in bed, endless streams of cookies, sitting in the clover patches at the park, blowing bubbles, coloring and flying kites. How could I have forgotten those? Everyone was somebody's baby once?

I haven't dared look to see when my last blog post was. It was a while ago.
I have excuses. I was brewing something in my tummy. I was tired. My computer was in the shop again (and is now again but this time for 'other' reasons) and I hate typing on any other computer.
What else? Ummmmm.
I had things to say, that's what's sad, and I had blog titles in my head. However, I was feeling a touch down, a touch anti-social and a touch just, simply, too tired to cope.

This is blog purgatory. Blog interlude. Blog Intermission - Part 1.
Or Part 2 really but no one followed me in the beginning so that one doesn't count. Shhhh, forget I even mentioned it.

I wanted to revamp things a little, come up with a better format or background. Mine disappeared, which was weird - why'd it do that then? Twice it reverted itself to old formats, or even just formats I tried on for size.

I can't figure it out, and normally I could - and that's the point. I'm struggling too hard right now, mentally, to think of both how to phrase what I want to write; revamp my blog; remember who what's going on; and come up with wit. Who are you? Hi, my name is Dory.

Apparently, my latest thing (I'm sure I've had a stroke and no one will tell me) is that apparently I repeat myself. Often in the same breath. Though I have no memory of this. I'd type that twice for comedic affect except it's not funny to me. Luckily, I have a patient husband. That or he's just waiting for the poison to finish kicking in and he's encouraged by this first symptom...actually either way that still makes him patient.
It doesn't make for a lot of good posts though, as I'm pretty sure I'm well past linear coherency at the moment. Cogent? I can't even spell it.

So, on that note, I'll leave you with a vague promise that I'm working on it, and I do miss you - gentle reader - and your lack of ability to encourage me through comments, simply letting me know you're still there - you miss me and or are even paying attention in the first place. Therefore, I'll be back to harass entertain you again soon. I promise.
I'll leave you with this quote -
"Buttercup, I love you so much I could eat you - "
"Mommee, I'm going to poke your eye out while you watch, with a sharp stick - and then eat it like a marshmallow - that's how much I love you - more than you love me - see?"

First, let me link to this - because it sums up a lot of what we've found with our chickens. That and I'm plugging the blog because I love her stuff and the way she spends time with her kids. This also sums up the life I miss from our homeschooling days.

http://havingfunathomeblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/they-grow-up-so-fastan-update-on.html

So peruse the blog as you have time and keep it in mind for spending time with little people.

Today, we are taking things easier than I planned. I had Brian all geared up to help me attack the rest of TBC, but I woke up in a mellow mood (enough sleep and a lie in on a Saturday with one's husband make for mellow vibes). I woke up first (as usual) but having said that it was after 9. The kids stayed up after we went to bed last night and watched movies. B'cup went to bed with me and Ash was out about 30 seconds before. I'd expect them to be first up. Ash had wandered into our room around dawn saying he was having "weird" dreams. This is a massive step up from his night terrors of days gone by. Following the usual routine of either finding a space that doesn't push me out of bed or creating a space in the same room - he then made himself a pallet on the floor and started snoring.

The other 2 stayed up until only they know when watching movies together. They've really bonded over this whole going to camp together thing. They remind me more of when they were both younger and coping with being the oldest together when the other 2 were born. Suddenly, the two of them who had been squabbling all year against everything the other did are now falling asleep talking late into the night about how camp works and what they'll do and what the flight will be like.

When I crawled out of bed Buttercup was missing so I figured she was up, with her breakfast (she forages or has Celia make her something on the weekend days I don't wake up first) and will have found something to do. However, she wasn't at the table, or in the bathrooms. My camera is missing or I'd show you how I found her. She had come out and found the other 2 sound asleep on a mass of blankets they'd dragged from their rooms and she curled up between them and went back to sleep herself. They all stayed like that for another hour or so. Some days I like to let them wake when they wake - despite civilized schedules. As growing children I like to know - for sure - that they are getting enough sleep.

So the day didn't seem to have the urgency behind it that it had yesterday. Yesterday when I thought "I'm so close to finishing TBC - I'm so close!" It felt like an actual magnet, mental-struggle of a pull. Today, it seemed like the essential lazy Saturday - and who doesn't need and or deserve that from time to time.

I realized I'm a bit of a slave driver though because as and when they'd woken and eaten, each of them asked repeatedly what the chores were for today. "I don't care" I'd say. "Go to the park", "go pick cherries", "eh, whatever". This led to them all sitting and staring at me, in turn. They'd hover on the couch next to me and say "but what do you want me to do now?"

Eventually, Ash became overheated picking cherries, so I put him and B'cup in a cool bath (our new favorite thing with the endless sun and our swamp cooler under-performing). Then, it was time for the baseball party.

Ash had been waiting since his last game got canceled for his baseball party. He was so excited, and he was excited to the point he was worried he'd miss the party, or it would not happen for some reason. To aggravate the issue it was pushed back a full week for some reason (I knew, but forgot since it wasn't important to me what day it came).

At some point Ash became interested in Leif's game ball. Ash internalizes a lot so often it is hard to know exactly what he likes and exactly what he's thinking. What he was thinking wasn't fame and glory (like the kind that makes you MVP for a game so you get a game ball) what he was thinking was Leif had a tangible souvenir of his season as a baseball player.
Ash had spent a lot of time with these little 4-6 year olds and he decided they were his friends and he had nothing to remember them by. That's when he found the ball that we'd found lying in an abandoned field in the toy box. He began carrying it around for days and by himself started making a post-it note of the players on his team. I didn't know what he was about at first and I felt sort of sorry and sad for him when I realized what he wanted. I wasn't sure the kids would come to the party, or if the party would indeed stay scheduled. I felt intrigued that Ash felt moved enough to care about remembering his little friends over the course of his life. I told him to hang on to the ball and we'd take it to the party. This became an issue because I chose my words badly. What I meant was don't lose the ball - what he heard was -don't let go of the ball. So he carried it about and slept with it. This worried me because I was worried that he'd lose the ball surely by carrying it everywhere. Finally, I took it away from him, putting it up and assuring him we'd remember it today.

When we arrived at the field the coach gave a great speech about how valuable each child there was, and each child as a player. He said they needed to have fun and stop to actually enjoy the game rather than care about the game itself. Coach said a lot of things that made the kids look like they were really listening. Then, he gave Ash a sharpie and Ash followed all his teammates around until he had every last signature. This was another interesting development. Because they don't do game balls in T-ball, the other kids had no idea what was going on, or why they were signing the ball. They all agreed, in a confused way, and signed their names in huge sharpie - 4 year old writing. Then, Ash intently insisted he needed his manager and both coach signatures. The coaches seemed amused and pleased as they signed his game ball. Then, we put the name, team name and the date on and promised him tomorrow we'll go buy him a case and the game ball will go up someplace in the wall of fame.

Then, the coach called each child up, in a random order and gave each child a little talk as to what made them a special person and player and presented them with a trophy that had their name and date. We read the trophy to Queak and he just soaked it in, it had his name, on a plaque - his name, engraved. That turned out to be the biggest deal of all.

We stayed for the kids v parents game and everyone acted relaxed and happy. People asked who was joining fall ball and who was not coming back. Eventually, it was time to go and Queak clutched his little trophy and his little game ball all the way home.

Some days - lots of days - I think to myself, it's the stupid things, the tiny little things, that genuinely make or fill up a life. It's nothing this trophy, and it will probably mean less to him in 30 years than it means to me then. However, it means everything to him right now - tonight. Tonight, our house is all warm vibed and happy for the sake of a $5 trophy and throw away game ball. I like to think I will remember each child from this team.
I always like to think that but years later I know better. My oldest daughter's preschool picture is a mystery to me. I can name 3 of the 20 kids. I remember knowing them. I remember memorizing each personality and caring so much who threw sand at her and who had shared a toy with her. Those things filled those days and so they are still vitally important to me. However, it is throw away information that won't matter at all in another couple years, let alone now. Same for the names on the game ball. How many of them will I remember this time next year, or will Queak remember in 5 years? None, maybe.

That doesn't take it away from me now though. Right now, I care enough that I don't care how throw-away and random these little moments of joy are. I'm not going to pass them up or act callously toward them. They are my "the small things in life." Like hollyhock dolls or chalk drawings on a sidewalk. It might seem sad, or pathetic or even unambitious but that really is all I'm asking for. Just warm vibed, slow moving days and nights when my 6 year old boy falls asleep clutching a ball with other children's signatures on it.
Perfect.

Today, I realized the summer routine is kicking in. Buttercup has grown used to her brothers being home and while when they leave the room she still absent mindedly asks me if it is time to go get the boyses, by and large she's found peace with it all. She's enjoying the affection and attention they lavish on her.

The affection and love and attention is a signal also that they are finally in their summer routine as well. I'm seeing more of the behavior I associate with my children, and being home, and less of the stressed - high strung - school period oriented behavior. They have stopped waiting for the bell to tell them where to go next. They've started waking up when they are rested. They have stopped with the stupid 'verbal viruses' as my husband and I call them. A verbal virus being when one child discovers a sound effect, interesting word, or catch phrase and it spreads like wildfire through the rest of the child population of a school or play group. "cool", "awesome", "lush", etc..

They have stopped trying to out do each other and trying to one up each others school stories. They have settled into waking up to see how much more our seeds have grown, where they let their crayons, or if I've finished shelving the books so they can unshelf them as fast as possible. They are finding their coloring books and craft box.

All in all it is a huge relief now.
That's not to say they aren't still fighting or tetchy or they lose their patience with each other. People get tired, and nerves run dry after the fifteenth time of using someone else's green crayon without permission.
However, I come out to the living room more and more to find them laying cuddling with each other, sharing a book, or so quiet that I'm convinced they've left the house and snuck off to the park.

So - deep breath - knock on wood - bite my tongue - but we have summer as I envisioned it.

Now - for the letdown.

Does anyone remember the thing I wanted most out of this summer? The thing I've fixated on since about November? It was the garden. I wanted my garden. I had intended on building a hoop house but we didn't have the money to front it in the fall and then it was too late. Our winter was hard and windy and frustrating and tiresome. I longed for the plants I'd tried to save. I cried eventually, as they were all eaten away. Some things came back to my delight - others that should have - didn't. Our hibiscus, despite going in the ground in the spring, died totally. We had to dig it out. The artichoke didn't make it, the leek did (until the chickens found it) and so on.
This year I am both getting my hoop house but I am taking my garden back. This has pretty much nothing to do with the realities of social pressures or having the best garden in town. I won't ever. I will never take anything quite that seriously. I can garden but I am not obsessed. The man across the way spends part of every single day in his garden and it is marvelous, but I need to miss days - spend more time with the kids, or fixate less than that. Still I want my little planty plants. They make me happy and I talk to them. My next door neighbor (our favorite) upped his efforts to make his lawn greener than ours. Does he think I care? I planted grass because it is child friendly - and cooler in the summer - and small insect and bio friendly. I didn't plant the grass to start a pissing contest.
The back garden was my want. I wanted to be outside with the kids as much as possible without having to go to a public place. I wanted my hammock back and I wanted to see little lush flowers grow - and more thrillingly - by my own hand.

So does it surprise anyone that we've had the driest year? Or that we've had the windiest spring on record? Or that by now I am truly beginning to think that I did something to piss the universe off and give me incredibly bad garden karma? The Arizona fires - which constantly leave my heart going out to the people who are closer are still strong enough here that I can't be out for long in the smoke. My lungs are compromised and the smoke leaves my chest aching. When it isn't smokey it is about 300 degrees out, or 50mph winds.
Now - and I have a few theories on this - a mystery substance shows up in our yard. Right now, the only working theory is that either aliens came and deposited a mystery substance on our lawn or this is another attack by living with either a)socially anti-social and mean neighbors or b) across from a public park where we get a lot of low level vandalism at night on our property. The mystery substance is black and liquid. With chunks, very like crude oil. It smells of the worst kind of death you can imagine. Celia going out to water the plants comes in retching her guts out. I've seen her help me rebury a dead chicken that a neighborhood dog dug up, wipe up day old blood after the kids have household injuries, and deal with distemper cat sick and diarrhea - freshly ground into carpet (with a sponge - by hand) so this is a real statement when she comes in actually throwing up from the smell. First of all - what the hell is it? We dug under to realize it isn't coming from the ground, it is indeed topical. We tried burning it off and it isn't burning (so much for crude oil). We have been reduced to digging it out, bagging it up, and putting it with the garden waste for collection on Monday.

Which begs the question. I have had 2 days I have been able to get to my garden and we are fast approaching halfway through June. I started the endeavor of trying to reclaim the garden in January. Is this a joke? Grin and bearing it, smiling and trying to be good natured, zen breathing, are all things that can take me only so far. Some part of me is ready to just write the bastard garden off. I'm seriously having a hard time not taking this stuff personally anymore. I know, 90% of it is nature and who can be angry at nature? Until you remember that anger is a capacity of human nature and while I don't indulge in or roll around in self entitled misery I do stop to think that stifling my own nature is probably also not healthy. My nature right now is pissed at nature. I want my garden back (shakes fist at air) and I want it now. My planty plants will die soon if they don't get planted in the ground and out of their little seed pots. I invested my heart in these little suckers and wildfires, wind, sun, drought and mystery alien leavings can just freak the freak off. So there.

See - very yin yang. Childhood peace balanced by forces of nature rants. Whoever said I'm imbalanced?