Yesterday a four-year-old birthday party here that must have strained the deck to maximum capacity.
What is maximum capacity anyway? Hard to know when the deck is as old as this one.
All’s well that ends well, I guess. I write this post from the deck, which is still standing — in fact thriving — on this lovely, low-humidity morning.
(The trampoline was full, too.)
Into this week of lake and family come scenes from across the seas: Strong-shouldered swimmers who wiggle like dolphins. Graceful gymnasts who defeat gravity with nerve and style.
The children imitate them, do somersaults and dance on coffee tables. It all starts here, the advertisements say.
I think, yes, maybe it does … with renewed appreciation for the families of those who twirl and swim and dive.
I woke this morning, as I did yesterday, to the scamper of little feet and the noise of life being lived, hard, above me. It’s the configuration of this shambling old cabin by the lake that the deck that runs the length of the main floor also runs above where I sleep.
It’s not until the respectable hour of 8 a.m. that the little ones are let loose, but once they are, further winks are impossible.
They scamper, they giggle, they push plastic kiddie chairs across the floor. If there is a quiet moment, it’s when bowls of cereal are being offered, fuel for further activity.
I’m writing quickly because I don’t want to miss a minute of it.
Yesterday felt more like a weekend with a daughter and two granddaughters here. At a visit to a nearby farm park, I found myself on the merry-go-round with Bernadette (pictured here with her mama a year and a half ago).
Yesterday I was the one holding way too tightly to the rider, too tightly being a relative term, I suppose. Bernadette will be 4 in October, but hold tight I did. And as we made endless rotations to patriotic favorites like “Stars and Stripes forever,” I thought about how many times I took Bernadette’s mother on carousel rides, and how particular she was about her mounts — her favorite being the rainbow pony at the National Mall carousel.
Now Suzanne was standing on the sidelines with her newborn, and I was back on duty. The circle of carousels. The circle of life.
Children do, of course. But so do goslings! I’ve been watching this year’s Lake Anne spring babies toddle into semi-maturity for the last few weeks. A few weeks ago, this pair struggled to follow their mom and dad down to the water, slipping and sliding much of the way. No helicopter parents these.
By now, the spring babies have grown into gangly teenagers who would rather die than acknowledge their ‘rents. Notice the nonchalant way they graze and lag behind. You can almost imagine them grumbling, “Mom, puhleeeeeze! Don’t you have something else to do?”
Such is life. And such is parenthood … throughout the animal kingdom.
Today there’s another little person in the world, my newest grandchild, who just gave me the best birthday present ever: arriving yesterday at 6:30 p.m., just hours before the day I came into the world a few (ahem) years ago.
Who knows what triggers labor. I don’t know the latest research. But I like to think there’s something magical about it. At least two of my three children would have different birthdays if they were of this generation. Doctors don’t let women go two weeks beyond their due dates anymore.
But this little girl came on her own steam, at her own time. She decided she wanted her own special day. I can’t wait to meet her!
Once upon a time, I wrote a book for parents, encouraging them to avoid the trap I’d fallen into, double-thinking my words and actions until I’d turned what used to be a joyous and natural activity — raising kids — into a highly fraught, expert-dominated procedure.
In one chapter I talk about what children bring to adults when they’re allowed to remain children, not miniaturized adults, how they remind us of the way the world looks when we’re just coming alive to it.
I was reminded of this the other day when Isaiah asked his mother why his grandparents “capture birds.”
We keep parakeets in a birdcage, you see, but to Isaiah, we are stalking the Northern Virginia landscape in search of parakeets. Every time I think of this, I smile.
It’s the child’s mind trying to make sense of what he sees around him — and it’s a joy to observe.
(Two of our “inmates.”)
For many years I wrote articles about children and families. That these were the same years our own children were growing up wasn’t entirely an accident. I had, believe it or not, planned it the way. But the result was an intense combination of lived experience and professional pursuit. I wasn’t always in agreement with the experts I interviewed, but on one point I concurred. Over and over again I heard that play is the work of childhood. And is it ever!
I thought of this yesterday when the kiddos were over for a visit. First they biked and ran down the street, the youngest chuckling in delight as she raced to keep up with the three-year-olds. Next they swarmed inside where they pulled out the toy bins and dug in.
There were doll houses to decorate and jack-in-the-boxes to crank. There were toy trains to zoom across the floor. There were adults nearby, but we tried to fade into the background. Because the kids were losing themselves in the “work” of play — and our job was to leave them alone.
Today is the birthday of our oldest daughter. I realized, as I counted the years, that today also marks a parental equinox of sorts for me: I’ve been a parent as long as I have not.
What do I see from this perch, from this fine balance? Strangely enough, I see continuity. For me, becoming a mother didn’t mark a revolution of caring but an expansion of it. Parenthood has been a way to give back the love that was given so freely to me by my own parents. It is the completion of a circle.
I can’t imagine a life without motherhood. I’m grateful beyond measure to have become a parent. But I’ve tried always to live as not-just-a-mother, to honor dear friends who live full lives without children, who are wonderful aunts and uncles (honorary and by blood). I hope this message got through to my daughters; I think it has.
Most of all today, I’m thinking of the baby with a V-shaped mouth who seldom slept, who sang before she talked, who took us to places we never thought we’d go. She has grown and flourished. She has studied and learned. She has traveled to the other side of the world — the dusty red-dirt roads of the Sahel — and back. She has given us three other wonderful people to love: her husband and children. Because of her and her sisters, our hearts are full. A parental equinox, yes. But if I had to pick one side of the divide to live in always, I know which one I’d choose.
(Three-year-old Suzanne holds her baby sister, Claire.)
To see the world through the eyes of a toddler — what riches that would bring! A kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, smells and textures. A riot of color. What a boon for a writer, to experience such raw sensation.
The next best thing? Perhaps to follow a toddler around. A lively experience, of course, but difficult to document.
To capture a toddler in motion is like photographing a hummingbird. Too much movement to contain. Only when there’s deep engagement can you move in and snap a shot. Luckily, that happened yesterday.
