What's Kept Us Apart

Jon just took off with the kids for a few hours. I am almost giddy, yet paralyzed by the possibilities. First and foremost, though, I want to blog. It has been an impossibly long time since my last entry, and I honestly don't have anything brilliant to offer today, but more like several half-entries which have semi-shaped themselves in my mind over the past couple of months.

We'll go chronologically. You might know that one of my personal little thrills is coming up with strategies for smooth household management. Some are unspoken (if you use something up, write it on the grocery list) and some are posted around the house (like our freezer inventory, attached to the freezer door.) I have, admittedly, been laughed out of playgroup for sharing some of these ideas, so mostly I just subject my ever-patient husband to these "rules." What happens in the house, stays in the house. Anyway, one of these lists is a theoretical time frame for completing one large task every month, annually. For example, every January, I clean out the linen closet. Every February, I clean out the pantry. Every July comes an extravaganza we have named "Move-a-pa-loo-za."

I should back up. In the first 14 months we were married, we moved three times. Since we're look-on-the-bright-side kind of people, we decided moving helped us really pare down our stuff. When you move, you touch every item you own, providing the opportunity to ask yourself the following question (courtesy of my mom): Would I pay fifty cents for this at a garage sale? If not, chuck it. When we bought our first home in July '04, we were concerned that we would accumulate too much stuff, since we didn't foresee any immediate moves. (Ha ha. We moved again in May '06. But now we really aren't moving again.) We decided that once a year, we would pretend we were moving. Not to an extreme- we don't box anything up. But we do focus on decluttering our lives, passing things on that no longer serve us.

This July was a little different. We could have renamed it Minutiae-pa-looza. Very few large items got the pink slip, but I did accomplish some "important" tasks, like updating the CD's in our jukebox (and of course the corresponding posted list,) organizing and alphabetizing the spice rack, taking detailed inventory of the medicine cabinet (and, again, the corresponding list,) sorting through the winter hats drawer, clearing off the coffee table, devising a simple yet delightful chart for keeping track of our canned goods, and stacking four years of Mothering magazines in chronological order. Jon did his part by wrestling his growing seed collection into order and hanging up all our framed pictures. While casual visitors to our home would never know a change has taken place, I do think there's something to be said for more peaceful mental space. And there's always next July.


August was Jon's birthmonth. His one request (besides oatmeal cookies, apple pie, and Ho Ho cake) was to have regularly scheduled time for yoga. And when one of us gets time to exercise, the other one does, too. So on Mondays and Fridays, he attempts to sequester himself with a yoga mat in an undisclosed location for a little power-up time, while on Tuesdays and Fridays, I take off on a jog down the irrigation ditch behind our house. The kids, of course, are irresistibly drawn to Jon during his yoga time, which he is remarkably patient with, until they start crawling on top of him, making his workout impossible. We're still hammering out the kinks. Turning 37 was no crises for Jon. He's stronger, smarter, and better looking by the year, and, as a Leo, he knows it.

Did I forget to mention goofier? I actually found this picture on the camera.
Which means he took it himself. I love this guy.

Another August happening was the beginning of the academic year. As an adjunct instructor, my job is tentative from one semester to the next. About a month before class started, I was asked to teach not one, but two sections of Language Arts Methods. The idea excited me, and we decided to go for it. Preparing for the class would have been a a cakewalk if I hadn't decided to completely overhaul the course...but I am excited by the changes I'm making. I teach Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings. Reading and preparing for class requires just about all the "free time" I can squeeze out. I suspect this is the chief reason I haven't been blogging. (Of course, there have also been pears. Lots and lots of pears.)

Now, just a few notes about the kids. Back in July, I finally got around to reading The Wonder of Boys, and it really helped me understand Zephyr's behaviors that I couldn't relate to, like his obsession with superheros and his physical impulsiveness. I found myself talking about the book with other mothers of sons. Zephyr must have overheard. One night, he explained to Jubilee, "Girls' brains are different from boys' brains." He paused and tapped his forehead. "I have tencentsosterone, and you have only one."

The buttons read: Good Bad
Slow Medium Fast Superspeed

I enjoy watching Zephyr's literacy skills grow. A few nights ago, he spontaneously started writing "notes" to friends. He writes random letters on pieces of paper and seals them into envelopes (reused, of course.) The next night, he started reading these notes, sounding out the vowels and consonants. Since what he's reading and writing are nonsense, is he really reading and writing? I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm proud of him, and it's exciting to observe. Also, he's becoming more critical of what is read to him. One day he wanted me to read him a Charles W. Eliot quote from a bookmark I was using. "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends," it began. "They're not quiet when you read out loud to me," he pointed out. And just this morning, I read him a book about a bull who, traumatized by the red truck that shuttled him from the farm of his youth, hates the color red. The rancher solves the problem by painting everything green at the end of the book. "But what if next time they move the bull in the green truck?" Zephyr wondered. "Then they'll have to paint everything again."

This is the book, mere moments before aforementioned comment took place.

And Jubilee continues to leap and bound in verbal skills, as well as toddlerhood. Last Saturday, instead of merely saying "No!" when she didn't want to do something, it was "No! No! No!" Also, she made a special point of telling each one of us, "Don't mess my toys!" The same day, she fussed if Jon or I sat on the couch, for no apparent reason. Last night, she insisted I remove my pajama bottoms, which she would "fold" and put in the closet. She noticed that I had slipped back into them a few minutes later, and she again yanked on them until I relented. "Don't put back on!" she warned, before putting them back on the closet shelf. Her favorite thing to wear is Zephyr's Percy shirt, and, according to Jon, she is the star of her Kindermusik class (the other parents might not have noticed.) She can consistently count from 3-11, and gets such pleasure out of correctly identifying colors. She has followed in her brother's footsteps of loving books and quoting favorite passages at any given moment. What a fun stage.

Do you think they'll be like those kids who quoted Monty Python in high school?

There's more, but I feel the beckon of other tasks which are more easily accomplished with the house quiet. See you soon.