real summer

There are times, usually in the depths of the long, dark, damp winter, when I truly regret that we can't can't hop a bus to a real museum. There are summer evenings when the ten o'clock light inspires me to sit on a patio and drink gimlets in a dress, or at least wedges, but everywhere closes at 9, or earlier, or never opens at all on Sundays. The air is heavy with sweat and pesticide here where we live, and the bargain quarter acre lot comes with a price I never envisioned myself paying: a dearth of "the arts." The children's museum resides in a mall next to Chuck E Cheese and the historic theater only shows movies on the weekends. If you look hard, you can find potters and screenprinters, painters and writers who love this place, who infuse their work with their love for this place. But, for the past eighteen months, searching has mostly been a luxury whose spot in line for my time is so far down the block and around the corner that it seems prudent to just leave and grab dinner instead. When the rain starts, when, vitamin D deficient and bored, I'm California dreamin' of my own sunny childhood, I lament our location. I do. It's bougie and stupid and futile, but I do.

But July and August. Late summer, here, in 75 degrees, when the water sparkles and the trees stay green. I pocket a little July for later. For January, when I have to remind myself of Washington's virtues. My kids can't take the bus downtown to see a Cornell diorama and eat a slice, but they already know the supple willingness of a perfectly ripe blackberry on its cane. They pick peas while they play and chase the chickens that laid breakfast. 

Where I'm from, the summers are endless, even though the locals will tell you otherwise. Seventy degrees is seventy degrees, except when it's ninety, and the beach is always open, will always be there tomorrow, and the next day, so there's no need to rush. Nobody or nothing ushers in the change of seasons. Halloween costumes don't have to include room for longjohns, the palm trees are always expectedly understated in their greenery, your yard probably doesn't need raking, and for a long time I saw these things as givens, then virtues. But now, I appreciate the northwest's vastly varying daylight, and the other tangible qualities that make our collective perpetual spinning obvious. These loose markers -- our apple trees' June drop; the pears turning gold; our giant black walnut's falling leaves; opening of our first summer preserves; the return of nearby steller's jays' raucous arguments -- keep me aware of the passage of time. Help me appreciate what each month has to offer. Help my children learn about their place in the world. 

ay papi(s)

I belong to a few discussion circles and online groups that are either parenthood-focused or in which the conversation often turns to parenting and family life. Every once in awhile, the topic of labor division comes up, and I'm always surprised at the abundance of mothers who face the same problem: how to do all the housework, tend to the kid(s), and find an iota of personal fulfillment while not resenting the spouse that insists he's off the hook for the whole shebang because he brings home a paycheck. They all hedge their complaints with admissions that "he is tired when he gets home" or "that's just how he was raised." 

If this is you, and you like doing all the chores while you also do all the childrearing, then cool, but over and over again I hear about feeling dismissed, unappreciated, like a maid (respectable job, but -- ahem -- traditionally a for pay position), and always exhausted. Falling short. Because, you know why? These things add up to more than one full-time job. 

I was lucky enough to find a partner who believes in the importance of present parenting, who values happy kids over a clean house, who understands the exhaustion that comes with the "always on" state of nurturing small children. Someone who gets that, after cooking, loading plates, clearing plates, cleaning tables, wiping faces, stripping off dirty clothes and putting on clean ones several times a day, I don't want to do dishes or laundry at night. Someone who crams in every minute of quality time he can from the moment he walks in the door after work until bedtime, and double on the weekends. 

I'm grateful that there are so many papas in my life that hold it down on the fatherhood front. I love that my partner can serve as an example for those tired, stressed mamas that not every dad is unwilling to pitch in and, in fact, some defy their upbringing to show the mothers of their children they know exactly how valuable an investment in their family can be.

Happy Fathers' Day to the guy that does the wash, changes the litter, takes out the garbage, slings the babies to sleep, plays soccer, plays the guitar, cleans up the barf, tends to night cries, starts the morning coffee and so much more, without suggesting that any of it is a favor. Go forth and multiply. The women of the internet need you. 

PBS and the preschool body politic

Today, while I stood in the kitchen making lunch with a baby at my feet rummaging through the drawer of breast pump parts and old sippy cups, George was -- I thought -- watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. He came tearing in from the living room in a panic.

"Mama! Mama! Fun is being eliminated on PBS!" he said, stricken. I'd seen the requests for sponsorship a million times, heard the warning that government funding may be eliminated, so the onus was on us, the public, to keep the P in PBS.

"Not fun; fun-ding," I said. "That means the money that pays for the channel to run might go away."

"They have an empty bank account?" He asked. Uh... No idea where he might've heard that before. Ahem.

What began as a funny mishearing ended up as a civics lesson of sorts. Over lunch, we talked about the cost of doing business as a tv station, and the difference between the shows on PBS and other channels. I asked him if people should pitch in to keep PBS on the air, and he nodded his head enthusiastically. "Yes, because those shows teach me about going potty and they teach Zelda about colors!"

"But what about the people who don't watch the shows? The people who already know colors and how to go potty?" I asked.

"Well, they like Rick Steves!" he said. Unsure about how to delve into even generalities of socialism with a three year old, I assured him that not everyone likes Rick Steves (we had to agree to disagree on that one), just like not everyone plays with the matchbox cars at his school despite their availability to everyone. What he came up with didn't surprise me, exactly, because I believe that this is the simplest, fairest strategy for most everything: "But," George said, chewing his peanut butter and honey sandwich thoughtfully, "if I have a pee accident at Fred Meyer it gets the cart yucky (hypothetical, right, dude?). Zelda needs to know her colors so she can stop at the red light when she's a grown up kid. Daniel Tiger helps everyone even if you're doing something else at 11:00." Helping the least of us is not a concept foreign to kids. When do we stop helping our friends put on their boots so we can go outside together, and start telling them to hoist themselves up by those bootstraps and quit complaining that we've left them behind? Being helpful is most toddlers' fondest wish; socialism just follows.

Back to George: Cupcake Wars? Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - two of his other favorites? I pointed out that they stop for commercials, something he dislikes for their rapid pace and often unnerving content (ask him sometime how he feels about Anne Burrell). It wasn't hard for him to grasp the difference between money-making breaks and those designed to pause and reaffirm what you just learned. We talked about getting money from individuals and families rather than big companies. We compared it to the bus and the library, two other things he loves that require both government funding and the buy in of people who use them.

After lunch, he asked to look in his "bank account," a little red locking bank that opens only at five dollar increments. "How much do I have?" he asked. $6.05, I told him, pointing to each number. "You can open it when you get three more dollars and 95 cents."

"Can I give it to Daniel Tiger?" He looked at me hopefully.

"Of course! You can do whatever you want with your money."

"...Can I have three dollars?" Of course, I told him yes. But I also told him we'd be writing a letter to our representatives about how much we value PBS. 

birthdaze

It was George's birthday, it was Zelda's birthday. We had parties. I was going to write things about them, but everything I started to say was uninteresting. My kids had birthday parties like pretty much every other kid has at some point in their lives. 

(I love this picture for many reasons but one of those is that Autumn is just cruisin' the internet)

And the bowler:

(his favors)

three

Happy third birthday to the coolest, funniest, weirdest king of non sequiturs and detail-related putzing around; lover of cars and rock & roll; grilled cheese enthusiast and inexplicable sports aficionado. The Sagittarius I was afraid of. You are the kid that made me a mama. Thanks for whipping me into shape and rendering me incapable of watching Law & Order. We love you.