The first day I did it, I think it took as long to prepare for the event as the passing of the event itself. The second time, the preparation didn’t sting so badly. By the third trip, I’d found my groove. Suits on, sunscreen applied, picnic lunch prepared, towels and toys and changes of clothing packed: we’re headed to the pool! A well oiled machine, we are.

A little less than a month into summer, and it’s hard to imagine that last year I hit the pool less than five times. Already this season, we’ve been five-times-five times, at least, and there’s no indication the pace will slow down. Both children are old enough to enjoy the water for hours at a time, and, finally, now having access to a pool with a shallow end, swimming is more an enjoyable activity than a worrisome one. The pool lets the kids expend their energy and gives mom a welcome relief from the hot, humid air. It is, quite simply, the summer of cool waters.

I grew up at the beach, spending entire days with my feet in the sand and tasting the salt water on my lips. Raucously riding the waves in on canvas rafts, combing the shore for never-found seashells, and dripping wet sand into fantastic fairy castles — these were the main activities of my summers.

But, every once in a while, we — my sister and my friends and their siblings — would all pile in cars and make the seemingly endless trip to the on-base officer’s pool. And there, in its teal blue and concrete expanse, we’d splash and dive and play in an entirely different aquatic adventure. Underwater flips, suspending all sense of gravity and spatial relations, turned our hearts and souls upside down, if only for a moment at a time. Entire worlds were created in our underwater games, filled with giggles and rules and imagined heroes. Those games spilled over onto the concrete patio, softened with damp, chlorine smelling towels, during the inconvenient and inexplicable “adult swim” breaks. And the diving board, both enticing and terrifying, was the site of many displays of juvenile bravery, triumph, and — once — tragedy. Fond memories, those chlorine-filled days.

Those memories are all returning this summer, splashing onto me as I watch my kids at the pool. The same rush of adrenaline I felt so many years ago jumping off the high-dive rushes through me once again as Evan enthusiastically (and timorously!) leaps from the edge of the pool. As Zoe flirts and giggles with her new-found friends, playing games to which only they know the rules, I find myself struggling to not insert myself into their imaginary play, remembering how fun it all is. Zoe’s first back flip — tossed high in the air — sent familiar waves of weightlessness through my own body. The poolside snacks, the picnic lunches taste every bit the same as they did at that officer’s pool. Slightly warm and salty, the food brings a much-needed burst of energy and makes the arbitrarily imposed breaks just a little more bearable. And, finally, the hard, powerful exhaustion at the end of the day brought on by the sun and water feels every bit the same as I recall from long ago. Sleep scarcely stays away from all three of us on the short ride home. All the packing and preparation and parental responsibilities brought on by a trip to the pool are washed away in that deep, rewarding sun-drenched slumber.

I’ve always known that parenting can provide the opportunity to reconnect with your own childhood. But, up until now, I’ve been parenting children of ages for which I have no personal recollections. Reconnecting with walking and talking and solitary play is simply not possible, as I have no memory of that time in my life. But as my children grow into the age of which I have memories, entire experiences are relived and recalled effortlessly. Unexpected gifts, they are. This summer, I’m swimming in them.

“When you clean up your room, you will get your quarter. That is the deal.”

“But I don’t like to clean up my room. It’s too hard.”

“Zoe, you clean up your room all the time. It’s your responsibility. Now, please, go clean up your room.”

“But, Mom, I don’t wan’t that responsibility.”

“Well, then, you don’t get your quarter, and you will still have to clean up your room.”

Pause. Clearly the wheels were spinning. And then, she spoke.

“I want my responsibility to be to stop sucking my thumb. Cleaning up my room is just too hard. Stopping sucking my thumb is what I want to do.”

Coming from the world’s most determined Junior Robert Downey, Jr., this is quite a proposition. Giving up an addiction as strong as crack instead of cleaning up a room? And all for just a quarter?

Hmmmm.

“Kristy, I’m in labor.” The phone call came early in the evening, just as we were finishing up with dinner. “I should be having this baby by midnight. Do you want to come over?”

On the other end of the line was a woman who’d graciously invited me to be a part of her birth. She had already lined up a doula — two, actually — but knew I was training to be a doula as well. She, quite simply, was giving me a very special opportunity to learn from a very talented group of people. Hers was to be a home birth.

“I’ll be right there.”

As I got in the car and headed to her house, I thought eagerly of the experience that lay before me. My first birth. A laboring woman. A baby on the way. What I’ve set out to do is undeniably a selfless task. Caring for a laboring woman, tending to her needs, assuring her, relaxing her — guiding her through a very intimate, personal experience — is not at all about me. It is about the mother, the baby, and the family into which that baby is being born. And yet, it is impossible to deny that I will be affected by — personally and intimately experience — each and every birth I attend. To fail to do so would be an affront to the very honor it is to be present at a birth. And so, as I drove to my friends’ house, I was thinking very much about this first experience and what it would mean to me. Little did I know what the hours before me would have in store.

Little did I know how awe-struck I would be at the power that is a laboring woman. Her contractions, gripping and pulsing, at once both capturing her and captured by her. Moans and cries, not so much a call of despair as a battle cry of strength and force. The slow, sly approach of another contraction caught with resilience; the thankful end accepted with grace. It was awesome to watch all of those powerful forces, each solely possessed by a laboring woman, hard at work in their inspired task.

Little did I know how beautiful it is, a gathering of women, friends, and family, there for one single, unified purpose and each sharing the same respect for the event they are witnessing. A mood of calm and comfort pervaded throughout the room. There was no anxiety, there was no fear, there was no confusion — only a sense of peace and honor. We told stories, laughed, tucked children into bed, ate when we were hungry, drank when we were thirsty, and slept when we were tired. All of us. Mom, too. Normalcy, in this case, was stunningly beautiful.

Little did I know how graceful a pair of eyes, how artful a pair of hands, how musical a low hum can be. The determined eyes, peering into Mom’s as she searched with her own frantic eyes for a place of familiar comfort, gracefully led Mom to a moment of balance. Small hands calmly searched for the right touch that would make Mom let go; a low hum, alone at first, was soon joined by a chorus of thoughtful internal contemplations. Together, the dozens of hands and eyes and voices throughout the room performed a concert that was nothing short of magical.

Little did I know how comfortable it would be, how natural it would be for me to simply touch another person. My hands went instinctively — to her hands, to her back, to her hips — with no question or anxiety. I knew what to do. I knew what to say. I found a sense of peace in each touch and word. I found a sense of purpose.

Little did I know how calm I would be when things didn’t go exactly as planned. I was composed, both outside and in, when personally emotional touchpoints arose. Seamlessly and effortlessly, I called upon my rising well of empathy, not to make me feel better, but to make Mom feel better. My words were for her, not for me. My one personal concern, alleviated. My only remaining concerns, hers. Little did I know how comfortable I could be while still genuinely burdened with those concerns.

Many, many hours later, after the sun rose and the birds began to sing, I left the house. Although she had many hours to go, my role in my friend’s birth, for many reasons, had come to an end. Alone, I was left only to savor the experience — all that it was and wasn’t — for myself. My role in her experience had ended. Her role in my experience had only just begun. So much learned that night. Little do I know, indeed.

Every one I know who says they’re done having kids is very adamant about it. “I’m done. Our family is complete,” they say with confidence. My husband is among this crowd.

I’m not so sure, myself. It’s not that I definitively want another child, but I definitely cannot say with confidence that I don’t want another child. By some obscure reverse reasoning, then, I’m left with an open door that I cannot seem to close on my own.

My husband is trying his best to shut it, though. Slam it shut.

“I’ll let you have a cat, but not another baby,” he said the other day. He’s been the biggest resistance to adding another living thing of any variety to our family. My pleas for a cat — of the tortoise variety, to match my dog, of course — have fallen on the same deaf ears on which my maybe-pleas for a third child have fallen. I suppose he decided relenting on the lesser of the two evils in his eyes would shut me up on the other.

Hearing his offer, I figured if he was willing to make a concession in our friendly stand-off, I would surely be smart to agree. I know, deep in my heart, that a third child is not in my destiny. I might as well, though, milk my position of influence for all it is worth. If he feels he must placate me, by all means, I will let him. “Be careful what you offer, Tim, I might just take you up on it.”

“Anything,” he said, “to get you off that baby kick of yours.”

A few days later, as I was vacuuming all the pet hair rolling around like tumbleweeds on my hardwood floors and lamenting at how completely incompetent my vacuum cleaner was for the task, I remembered yet another family acquisition my husband has been resistant to. I quickly picked up the phone to call him at work.

“Tim, I’m trading in the baby — not for a cat, but for something else. I want my Dyson.”

I realize this speaks volumes about my true feelings on another child in this family. Willing to trade a wee one in for a cat or a vacuum? Clearly, I have many issues to deal with. Not the least of which is: which one should I choose? Rest assured, though, the ultimate decision will not be without careful thought and consideration. For whatever creature comes to rest in this family — a cat or a vacuum, for clearly the child will not be — I have already put much deliberation into the question of its name. He or she will be called, quite simply, Omega.

[Ms. Pea, if you read all of this -- even the not-so-nice details -- just remember: it tasted good!]

Mmmm. Coconut Cake.

A recent read featured a coconut cake so enticing it single-handedly whisked a character away to her knight in shining armor and brought this reader all the way back to her childhood. Memories of my grandmother serving the sweet concoction — every bit of it home-made and always with only fresh coconut — became, as I read, entangled with the grand cast of characters in the book.

Food has always been an evocative force in my life. The tastes and smells of particular foods hurl me involuntarily into another time and place. Even the preparation of certain foods — shelling peas into a deep pot, cutting biscuit dough with the rim of a glass — can whisk me back into my grandmother’s kitchen with me scarcely able to recognize my trip as a break from reality. All of my senses can be brought to life with just one bite or just one slice of the knife.

It was this heightened state of conscisousness, this pleasant trip, that I eagerly looked forward to when I decided to make a coconut cake for a special gathering of my book club this week. [The book's author, Julia Glass, happens to be a dear friend of one our book club members. The author was in town for a reading, and graciously agreed to attend our book club, as she had done several years ago with her first book.] Surely the tasks of mixing and grating and pouring for this particular cake would bring on a far more intense experience than merely reading about it.

Intense, it was. Pleasurable? Not so much.

First, there was setting. I’d been up thirty six hours. Thirty six hours. (The reason for this is another story, and it will be forthcoming.) I was near comatose, ready for bed at last, and suddenly I realized I had to make this cake. Had to. I’d committed to doing so, and right then was the only time I had remaining to complete the bulk of the task.

Next, there was the coconut.

The instructions, in my mother’s hand, begin:

Strike a nail — or otherwise bore a hole — through the brown spot on the coconut and allow the milk to drain.

I should have been wary of any food recipe that required I get out a power tool.

The instructions continue:

Bake the drained coconut at a high temperature for as long as it takes for the coconut to crack. Break the coconut into small pieces with a hammer, removing the hard shell and the additional layer underneath. You’ll need a knife and a strong hand. And you will get cut.

I did not disappoint. Hands battered, I seriously began to reconsider my love for this particular food. But still, I persevered. After grating the coconut (Be careful not to grate your fingers!) and finding myself with an abysmally small pile of fresh coconut — all that work for so little reward — I repeated the process once again. My small little pile of coconut was declared “enough.”

Next, the cake. In all honesty, it was a piece of cake, the cake-baking portion of this task. A few moments at the mixer with a few basic ingredients — with one egg to spare! — and the cake batter was in the oven. In my sleep deprived state, the twenty-five minute wait was nearly torturous, but, in the end, each layer came out of the oven beautifully, and I declared my evening a success. The icing? Could wait until the next day. And surely, the icing would be, indeed, just icing on the cake. Sleep at last.

The next day, recharged with a good night’s sleep, I planned to tackle the icing in the afternoon while my children napped and rested. When the time came, I somehow forgot — both about the icing and an afternoon appointment which would, when I remembered it as my babysitter approached my driveway, consume the better part of the afternoon and leave me with a mere hour to make the icing and decorate the cake.

Boil three cups of sugar and a cup of water until thick — when a teaspoon of the mixture dropped into cold water “threads,” it is thick enough.

Threads? Threads? Oh dear God in heaven, what have I gotten myself into? Yeah, this looks like it’s threading.

Take two egg whites and --

TWO egg whites? TWO? Remember that “egg to spare”? That would be one egg to spare. ONE. Not two.

My dear friend from across the street rescued me with an egg. An egg well past its expiration date, but an egg, that, when cracked open, appeared to be perfectly fine nonetheless. It would do, dammit. [Sorry, Ms. Pea]

Add four chopped marshmallows to the egg whites.

I’d previously bought tons of marshmallows for a project that never actually happened and had intentionally planned on them when I’d made my grocery list for the cake. I opened the pantry door and reached for the marshmallows — that weren’t there.

Sweet memories of my grandmother were rapidly fading from my consciousness.

I did the only thing I could. I sent my husband to the grocery store to get marshmallows. The time? Twenty minutes before I had to be leaving.

Add the sugar mixture to the egg mixture. Beat until it forms the consistency of icing.

Two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes of beating later, I had the consistency of, well, not icing. This would take some improvising. As it was, the icing was far too runny to spread thickly on the cake, but it was just thick enough to provide a sticky layer upon which I could cast my emergency stash of (Nannie, please forgive me) prepared coconut. A nice layer of coconut would camouflage just about anything. It would have to do. I was nearing the end of this fiasco, and I dearly needed to be done with the nightmare.

Oh, but the nightmare was not done with me.

As I reached to one counter for a utensil with which to spread my runny icing, I heard a shuffle behind me. I knew in an instant what it meant. I slowly — the damage was already done — turned around with a sick feeling in my stomach. I surveyed the damage.

Things My Dog Has Eaten: One Layer of Coconut Cake. And A Nibble of Another.

My three layer cake had just become a two layer cake. And yes, the frosting was thick enough to hide the dog’s damage to the second layer. [Sorry, again, Ms. Pea.]

Without a minute to spare, I headed out the door, carrying a coconut cake that appeared to hiss at me in spite. Evocative, all right. I shall never wish to taste, see, smell or touch a piece of coconut cake again.

A piece of cake. This one gives the phrase a whole new meaning.

I left a small but significant observation out of my post the other day. That drama belonging to my daughter that I’m so often tired and annoyed by? She comes by it honestly. Very honestly. As much as I’d prefer not to admit it, I can be quite the drama queen on my own. No, I no longer have the tendency to crumple into a heap on the floor when I find out there’s no cranberry juice, but a sad revelation on the part of a friend or even an acquaintance can tax my empathetic soul to its maximum. My emotions bubble and boil at the slightest injustice. And my heart leaps out of my chest on a sunny day.

Seeing my heightened emotional make-up reflected back to me in my daughter can be very disturbing at times. For years, I’ve struggled with these emotions of mine, placing value instead on the ability to be calm and collected. Emotionless. It’s taken a lot of work on my part to come to accept the value of my emotions. Still, as I see that part of me so obviously stamped upon my daughter, I can not help but feel a twinge of anxiety. Will she struggle as I did? Has my genetic makeup taxed her unfairly? Why can’t she just be more like her father in this respect?

I realize, of course, that my reactions to these observations are merely indications that I have more work to do on my own part. And, for that insight, I am grateful. I keep the line drawn, and try to be very cognizant that she is her own person. I am not looking into a mirror; I’m merely looking through a lens — a lens clouded by my own biases.

The reflections and images I see in my daughter, though anxiety-invoking at times, have also been surprisingly therapeutic. When I recognized it was a deep, soulful empathy at work in her display of drama upon understanding the concept of mortality, I didn’t grieve for her, feeling guilty for burdening her with my emotional tendencies. Instead, I saw in my daughter a beautiful ability to connect, to feel, to understand the emotions of others. I saw that as a gift, and, in turn, I was able to see, for a moment, that beauty in myself. I smiled in recognition. A little bit of work, accomplished.

A favorite poem of mine, one that has meant a lot to me as I’ve come to understand myself better, boasts that emotions are gifts — sent from beyond — with a purpose. And although it might appear to be laying a heavy burden upon my daughter to say this, I believe my daughter is in the same sense a gift from beyond. Certainly it is not her responsibility, nor do I require it of her, these therapeutic revelations. But I do believe a little bit of magic is at work, a little bit of wonder, when I catch little glimpses, like the one the other day, reflecting light onto my own soul.

friendzy

Main Entry: friend·zy
Pronunciation: ‘frend
Function: noun
1 the state of uber activity on the part of a mother as she gets household work done during the discrete (and often short-lived) time her two young children are playing nicely together.

Zoe can be quite the drama queen. (We, in fact, call her “DQ” at times, and when we do, we’re not referring to the place that serves Blizzards.) A lost toy is almost always cause for manufactured tears and a piece of her food snagged by the dog is grounds for a display worthy of an Oscar. I’ve heard her mutter “It’s just no use. It’s no USE,” a la an over-burdened Cinderella more than once, and many times I’ve severely regretted my encouraging her to identify her feelings when I’m met with an, “But I’m angry and frustrated and sad and discouraged,” as if the combination were lethal and entirely unique to her existence. The drama is both humorous and tiresome — and, I’ve always claimed, fundamentally childish.

My claim has been challenged.

“Mommy, I’m sad and scared,” Zoe said yesterday, her eyes welling with tears.

“Why, honey?” My guard was up for one of her displays of acting merit, but I was concerned, too. She appeared to be drawing from a particularly despairing well of inspiration.

“I’m sad and scared because I think I’m going to die.”

Woah. Pause. Take a deep breath. How am I going to handle this one?

After approximately three hundred thoughts ran through my head in the matter of three seconds — not the least of which was those darn older cousins — I managed to mutter some form of reassurance and empathy. I hoped my words would calm her down and — more importantly — erase the concept from her mind. I didn’t think she was ready to deal with the concept, and I knew I wasn’t ready to deal with it. Not one of my better moments as a parent.

She took me to task on it. Today, the topic came up again, this time a little more subtly.

“Mom, will my heart beat forever and ever and ever?”

There was no denying the deeper curiosity of her question. I was no more prepared to answer her question than I had been the day before, but this time I decided it was time to deal with the issue. She was showing me was ready. I answered her as honestly and factually as I could. It was all I could do. No, her heart won’t beat forever. It will stop beating. And she will die. Not for a long, long time, hopefully, and not until after a wonderful, happy life, but, yes, she — and we all — will die.

The conversation continued, and was peppered with heartbreaking questions of my mortality and the mortality of all of her loved ones. With each answer, with each revelation, I could see a little more concern and anxiety in her eyes. There were tears and cracked voices. A lot of drama.

But this time, the drama was neither tiresome nor humorous — nor childish. Before my eyes, I watched my little girl really learn for the first time something that wasn’t happy, or exciting, or fascinating or enlightening or all those things that childhood is about. She learned, and she felt, with the deep empathy that is at the root of all that drama of hers, a little bit of sad reality. Her reactions, though dramatic, were real and thoughtful. Her empathy wasn’t at all child-like and immature; it was breathtakingly golden and soulful. The childish drama was no longer. Somehow, a little bit of old soul crept into my daughter’s young heart today. Somewhere, a tiny speck of her youth withered into adult.

Or, perhaps it simply blossomed.

This never happens. Two vacations inside of a month? Nah, it doesn’t happen.

Or, apparently, it does.

We’re headed off on vacation tomorrow. Again.

I’ll see you in a week.

(And then I’ll be paying for it — in every way imaginable — for eighteen or twenty four months.)

Irresponsible enough to fail to return not one, not two, but three phone calls. And yet, if eventually the calls are returned, I’ll instantly forgive and forget. All my requirements for civility, responsibility and maturity will be tossed out the window. I wish only to hear the word “Yes.”

Desperate for a date?

Nah. Desperate for a sitter.

Hmmm…