While reading the chapter on the battle of Helm’s Deep in the Lord of the Rings last night, Maggie exclaimed, “Whoa! The walls are 20 feet tall!”
“I know! That’s almost as tall as our house,” I replied, thrilled at her level of engagement.
“Yeah. . . . Did you know that dogs eat their own poop? And rabbits do too?”
Griffin and Maggie fondly recalled their joint birthday party in 2016 and decided to merge their parties again this year. Because we all love having parties outside, the endless winter of 2018 stymied our attempts to schedule it between their birthdays. We settled on the final weekend of the month, but even then our first two choices of parks weren’t open yet. We eventually settled on the Como playground near the Como Town mini-amusement park.
After all the weather hassles, the day was gorgeous. Breezy and warm in the sun and cool in the shade—perfect weather for a few hours rampaging around a playground. Sarah made two batches of cupcakes: Griffin had red velvet with cream cheese frosting; Maggie had vanilla with blue frosting. Griffin and Maggie (and Oliver, too) were exhausted and happy at the end of the festivities.
We weren’t trying to photograph the event, but I captured a few shots on my phone:
And two short videos of the celebratory songs:
This gem from Maggie while the family shared a few fancy desserts from Whole Foods, in her most matter-of-fact voice:
“You should try this one next. Even though it looks like throw-up in the middle, it tastes like lemon!”
Ever since building our modest Ice Castle four years ago, we’ve wanted to build a more proper ice-brick igloo. We’ve steadily filled the garage with half-gallon and quart cartons in the intervening years. This winter, with plenty of arctic chill, seemed like the perfect time to tackle the project. Despite some pictures of me working on the project, this was spearheaded by Sarah who did the lion’s share of the work with some help from Griffin and Maggie. (Oliver was an active observer.) The color in the blocks comes from some drops of food coloring added while we poured the water into the molds.
This morning I’m thinking about how the end of my pregnancy with Maggie is a metaphor for the way she moves about in the world. Pretty much every morning, no matter how much time I give her and prep her for the fact that the bus is indeed coming at 8:14am, just like every other morning, she waits and waits and waits and waits until the very last minute to get ready. No amount of gentle cajoling or reminders gets her to budge. Then she just acts like, “What the hell is your problem? I’m coming!” when I’m anxious and yelling about getting her out the door on time. Just like her birth. She waited and waited and waited and waited until the last possible moment at 42 weeks when they were requiring me to be induced, and then she arrived the night before induction, in less than 20 minutes at the hospital, like, “What the hell is your problem? I was coming!” And she always gets there. There’s a lesson for me in there somewhere about how to help her and myself move through the world. Not sure I’ve grasped the practical realities of it yet.
In the evenings at our house, in those interminable minutes while we try to finish preparing dinner, the two older kids are often “bored” and don’t know what to do with themselves. Recently, Griffin shuffled into the kitchen and asked me forlornly, “Daddy, what can I do right now?” He wasn’t asking, “How can I help?” No, this was a bitter expression of hopelessness in the face of far too few minutes of screen time.
I usually reply with something snarky like, “Go stare at a wall!” (Never very effective, but surprisingly satisfying.) Last week, however, I came up with something new. Perhaps a parenting lesson from ECFEÂ finally sank in. Or maybe it arose from the fact that I was facilitating an immersive “design thinking” week at school. Instead of snark or exasperation, I said, “YES! Quick, get a piece of paper and a pen. Draw a shape that represents you in a color that represents your mood!” (I was riffing off of an icebreaker from a recent workshop.) Startled by my specificity, Griffin immediately went to his desk and did it, coming back with a multicolored blob that included a variety of emotions (including “hungry” and “bored,” but also some positive ones). Then he asked for another “art challenge.” And I heard the distant sound of angels singing.
Art challenges have become a fun new activity to keep the gremlins of our witching hour at bay. Maggie, of course, joined in too. Below are a couple of examples of their responses to my challenges from the last few days.
I’m not deluded enough to imagine that this will work forever, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts. And I do love watching their artwork evolve.
After taking a hiatus last year due to Oliver’s birth, Sarah and I are diving back into our winter tradition of committing to the Whole30 program for thirty days. It’s always a good reset for us in the winter when we are more drawn to sweets and carbs. For those who don’t know what it is, we’re basically going to avoid sugar (including honey, syrup, artificial sweeteners, etc.), grains, legumes, and dairy for the next thirty days. That pretty much leaves fruit, vegetables, eggs, and meat.
I believe this is our fifth time doing it, so it feels like a pretty smooth start. We made lists of recipes last week and stocked up at Costco yesterday. Chicken chili is in the slow cooker and I’ve got a dutch oven filled with my proprietary kale-and-sausage stew which I eat for breakfast every morning (with a poached egg… it’s divine).
The kids aren’t included, though of course they benefit from having fewer sweets and carbs on the menu. Maggie, however, isn’t 100% clear on this fact yet. While we were making lunch for them, she came into the kitchen and asked, in her signature end-of-the-world way, “What are we having for lunch? Pleeeeease don’t say that we’re having only fruits and vegetables!!!”
(Actually, we made mac’n’cheese.)
This just overheard from the living room:
Maggie: “Griffin! You can’t have that on the couch…Barbarian!”
Maggie will surely die if you don’t come down this instant to eat our breakfast!!!!!
—Text message from Sarah this morning
PS: Yeah, we text each other across the house.
Travel with three is definitely harder with three than with two. Even though Griffin and Maggie are great travelers at this point, they still need a fair amount of guidance and support, especially around luggage handling: “Don’t run over that lady’s toes!” “Your bag is tipping over!” “Your coat is dragging on the floor.” And then, of course, they simply don’t have the muscle power yet to get bags onto shuttles or sometimes even escalators. Add Oliver to the mix and at least one parent is relatively hamstrung. He comes with additional supplies too. We ended up traveling “light” with merely five suitcases, five backpacks and diaper bags, two booster seats, one full car seat, and the seemingly infinite writhing tentacles of our winter coats. There were a few moments when we were entirely beholden to the kindness of strangers.
But we made it, unscathed, and the flight itself was largely peaceful. Let the mayhem of a seven cousin holiday begin!
