When Dad is away...

We watch Say Yes to the Dress and do each other's hair.

It's an indescribable kind of bliss.







Thanking my lucky stars for these girls and the daddy that gave them to me.




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Endings

I am not ashamed to admit that for every five books I read, I turn ahead to the last part in at least 4. I like knowing, somehow if I know that the hero is triumphant, the love is requited or that the child is saved, I can more easily enjoy the story. I suppose to some this may mean that I am not getting the full effect of the book, I will comfortably say, it's my choice.

More and more I am learning how little a say I have in life. I can impact journeys, shape beginnings, but, when it comes down to it, I cannot change endings. The layers between loss have become more slender, the stretches of time between one passing and the next seem uncomfortably close. Actually, I think it is just the predictability, the knowing that no matter whether I could turn the to the pages ahead or not, there are more. Always, there will be more.

Yesterday a man died. A father. A husband. A cousin. A son. An uncle. A friend. A teacher. A soul. One minute he was here, as potent and unstoppable as John Wayne, and the next, he simply was no more. I am reeling, wondering how I could so completely have missed the possibility of this twist. This loss.

It has been said before, but it feels as if something greater should have precipitated this. After the news settled, there was more. Relaying and narrating. Bearing witness to the realization of loss is a page that, given the choice, I would not read. Naked shock. Years whizzing before glassy eyes, a nearly imperceptible whoosh of air.

I am so very sorry that Ted has gone. He had a twinkle and a ferocity of hug that always made me squeeze back in the way you only do for some people. I am perching softly as those who loved him longer reminisce. There is laughter, but more then that there is a kind of stillness in the silence of reflection.

It is between those layers, when there is no speaking, when his spirit seems most present.

May you sail peacefully, dear friend.



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H2Fun

Yesterday was my birthday, I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a bit dubious about the idea of spending a good deal of it on a raft in the Hudson. The Tramps were shooting a commercial for SOC during a white water rafting trip. Ever game, I went along, biting back a bit of whining about the weather. Because, seriously, it was chilly. And wet.



I chatted up the guide as we waited for the bus. Yes, a bus. We go high glamour for birthdays 'round these parts.



We paddled, floated and then swam. The water, as it turns out, was perfect. I slipped out of the raft and into the river, my pfd tightly cinched and doing its job I bobbed about in the water. Every so often I'd turn and stroke into the current, sending water sluicing over my body and the delicious burn of exertion running through my legs.

At one point I joked that I felt like a navy seal as the charcoal sleeves of my shirt blended into the water. "Did you say navy seal?" the guide asked. "Did you know there is a navy seal approach to getting back in the raft? Wanna try?" I looked at him and asked how as the rest of the group watched. I imagined the number of ways a woman could embarrass herself by "putting your back to the raft and then lifting yourself in a backward somersault up and into the raft."

They waited. I hemmed and hawed. And then I thought, "What the hell?"

I may not get high marks for grace, but it was the most fun I can remember having in a long time. Empowering, invigorating and unforgettable.



I couldn't have asked for anything more than the chance to feel strong, alive and loved.

Thanks, you know who you are!

On second thought

Found myself getting my overly-sensitive nose bent out of joint over things beyond my control. Again.

Does it amaze anyone else how we fall into self-defeating ruts, whether it's not working out, falling behind on chores or getting sucked into the vortex of giving a rip about who likes you and who takes you back to the meanies in fifth grade? I'm too old for this. I'm a parent, aren't we supposed to be beyond this people?

I have a handle on eating right, at least keeping complete pigstyness at bay and of practicing what I preach, but man alive the relationship dynamics get me.

Morose, blue, self-pitying and impotently pissed, that was me this morning. Gross.

Enter iPhoto, Fin and Sean.



Salvation.

So while I'd really prefer it weren't an issue, I'm going to ignore the clouds some people bring, and focus on the abundance of blue sky in my life.




.

I admit it, I watched

I have never watched a full episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8, but tonight, the girls asleep and Sean at work, I watched. I kind of wish I hadn't. This parenting and marriage thing is not easy. I write about the beauty of my children and my life, and while I mean every word there is, of course a dark side. I have my eye-rolling moments or my wishing they would just for the love of all that is good go to bed moments.

None of us wants our foibles to be on display or to have someone weigh in on something based on their limited perspective. I've read the rants about the riches and perks, but at the end of the day it's still a marriage and kids. The amount of energy, commitment and perseverance needed is sobering.

Listening to their interviews I thought at one point as Jon talked about the divorce requiring communication and how it might help, "You bet it does dickhead, but so did marriage," and then I bit my tongue. Who the hell do I think I am to judge him. Sure he's on tv, sure he is annoyingly laidback and exudes a palpable air of "Whatever, my shit doesn't really stink," but he is also privy to so much that we don't know.

I want my marriage to work. I want not to screw things up for my girls, but there but for the grace of god I can see myself in this kind of failure. Kids are hard. Marriage is hard. Life is hard. It's also breathtakingly beautiful, but I don't believe there is a person out there who hasn't had one outweigh the other to the point that it sours you.

Tonight I am grateful that despite some times when it has seemed bleak and some nights when I thought I was truly not capable of making it through bedtime without screaming, my kids are sleeping and I miss my husband.

We have made it through another day. So tonight, after watching that show, I am reminded that it really is day by day and each one requires work, love and biting back things that you have no business saying.

Let's play nice and preserve the love that we can, eh?

Here's One Reason

It might have been for the way he courted me in equal parts swagger, creativity and dogged persistence.

It could have been the way he held doors, listened and hung in there.

It didn't hurt that he looked past my vices, the massive chip on my shoulder and my insistence that it wouldn't work.

Or that I knew he would be a wonderful father.

But seriously, one of the defining "I knew it" moments was when I listened to a recording of him singing, while flying 3,000 miles away from him.

It's not the same song, but it's him, always him. Go have a listen.

Melting

Sean had the car this morning and his day was stacked like a Dr. Seuss illustration— deadlines upon deadlines, projects intersecting projects.

"Want me to pick Briar up with the stroller? I asked. It was the right thing to do, but in all honesty I had no desire. I knew I'd be going unshowered in less than ideal weather conditions. Not going would almost certainly mean another night with him gone and both of us frazzled to nubbins. I cringed as I waited.

"Sure, that's great," he said not giving it second thought. I spent no time ruing having made the offer or resenting his decision. I spent a lot of time earlier in my life being upset about things, stewing. I have a better understanding now of when to let go, when to move on and focus on what is relevant or within my control.

He left for work and as I waved I felt Ave and FIn behind me, one look and I knew a nap was unlikely. We slogged through and eventually they fell asleep. To be precise they fell asleep at 10:40, Briar's pick up is 11:20, less than ideal. I worked until 5 after 11 and then roused the girls, freshened clothes and set them in the stroller.

We ran to Briar's school. My feet sloshed through the snow and slush as Avery called out, "Ya gotta not get me wet, mama. I'm going to Briar's classroom and I gotta not be wet." As the burning in my lungs grew, so did the smile on my face. Finley began to chirp, contented and excited yelps to which Ave offered a running commentary, "Fin's'a talking. She's so silly and happy going to Briar's school!"

Turning the last corner, the slate topped steeple piercing a billowy cloud beneath the almost-blue sky, tears sprang from the corners of my eyes. Weeks of frustration slipped away, as forgotten as the road behind me. My legs pumped and my arms flexed as I steered the wide stroller through the treacherous terrain. Cars whizzed past and the girls called out hellos.

I was almost late, sweaty and unshowered, but as the front wheel careened over the lip of pavement between street and parking lot, I felt accomplished. Three daughters, a husband, a life and a sprint. A sprint to school, a sprint to playing before school, to eating before leaving, to loving after hours, and to managing it all. I don't always hit it just right- Briar hits school with her hair barely brushed, Ave sometimes stays in pjs till noon and Fin plays with toilet paper, but today I did.

Today I ran for all I was worth, but the running and everything followed ended up being a beautiful thing, a testament to willingness. I am so grateful that I can stop to listen, jump to action and embrace the moment.

We walked home with cars whizzing by, classmates calling out, "Lucky!" and moms watching with unmasked envy, but most importantly, the four of us together and living inside the moment.

Just the other night

Back to mix-tapes and day dreams; Garth Brooks.

Just the other night at a hometown football game
My wife and I ran into my old high school flame
And as I introduced them the past came back to me
And I couldn't help but think of the way things used to be

Sean had gone to bed and I was dinking around on Facebook. An old friend, one of those people who for a short time blurred the lines between friend and something else, popped up in the chat window. I immediately smiled, remembering the cadence of his speech, the inimitable way he embodied the sort of slacker-stoner dude of the 90's. We began chatting, joking about babies and parenting, the long road from free-wheeling theatre majors to now: contented, married parents.

He was not a boyfriend, or someone that I had unrequited feelings for, just one of those brief blips of neon in a life far better suited to jewel and earth tones. I looked around as I waited for the next ping of conversation, the floor was strewn with pinks and purples, walls and shelves lined with cherished tomes, mementoes and photographs. It felt odd to suddenly have this gateway, almost a wrinkle in time, connecting parts of my life that I never consider together.

We live near the area where Sean grew up. It's strange sometimes, this experience of being perched along a history I do not belong to. There have been brushes with things that don't threaten me, but feel a bit like rubbing against the grain. Knowing shades of something, an ex-this or that, a quick cocked eyebrow from a friend, a sort of, "Is this something we don't mention?" Nothing sinister or untoward, just natural, if awkward, attempts to buffer the present and past.

I often think how glad I am not to be living where I went to school. I don't have any great shame, but somehow coming here forgave certain missteps or even allowed me the courage to growt. I am, as always, Amanda, but the there was never a time, not in middle school, high school, or college, when I truly found solid footing. I don't have life-long friends, no one that I ever stayed connected to. I sometimes envy people who have that, conducting the odd search for names of people I grew up with, people who might have become that had things gone another way.

Here I have my daughters, my husband, the wisps of my mom's east coast upbringing curling around my life. There is a hint of bygone pride, of striking out and laying claim to a place, building a home and a life. The furnace is humming, it was the first major purchase after our house, barely 2 months after in fact. We used to joke about it, "Hey, wanna see our furnace?" we'd ask guests. The expense was so great for a thing so, well, unimpressive. "How about we add racing stripes to it?" Sean asked late one night as we sipped beers through our plaster-caked lips, sitting on the floor amid strips of ancient, gold shag carpet we'd yanked up. I sighed, phantom aches tickled my shoulders remembering the work.

"Mott," flashed on the screen, my maiden name. "You look really, really happy in all your pictures. But, Mott. That's what I thought when I saw your picture, but that's not you. Weird. You are you now."

I smiled. Before meeting Sean I'd not given a lot of thought to name changing. I hadn't imagined taking someone else's name or being conflicted about losing myself in doing so.

"Wild, right? To love someone so much that you change your name. I'm lucky," I typed.

Letters flashed on the screen, "My wife is brilliant. She grounds me." I'm pretty sure we both grinned at that.

We chatted for a while longer before saying good night. I closed the computer and blew out the candle on the mantle, a just because gift from Sean. I don't imagine we'll chat again. I enjoyed it and found myself thinking back to Ellensburg, the smells of the town, the rhythm of my life back then, but that was it. A bit like a moth weaving and wending, fast then slow, in pursuit of the light. A quick bump against the window, then again, before pausing and making a straight shot for an amber glow. To Sean, my light.

And then and there I thanked the good Lord
For the gifts in my life.

This, time.

Morose might be a good way of describing my take on time these days, but I am working my way back. Two nights without sleep, the first on account of teeth and the second a stomach bug, doesn't really help, but iPhoto does. Proof of a valiant battle against time lives there, with golden portraits of life lived unfettered by grains of sand or the growing march of crow's feet framing the eyes snapping each shot.



Our girls spin in a blur of ringlets and tumbles, their squeals taking root in our souls as their feet leave welts on the drywall. It can be dizzying, but as I pause to reflect I see the outline of the curves, the full panorama of this life that I am blessed to be at the center of each day.



We're home nursing a bug that started with middle of the night upchuck and has magnificently transformed to dirty diapers that remind me of the bathroom shacks at camp sights—I can be lyrical, but make no mistake, this sh*t stinks. Luckily the makers are cute.


>



Wishing you sun drenched windows and side splitting laughter.



How do you know you are living in each angle of now?

Snap

Winter has arrived, with the weariness and tension of last week being replaced by wonder and excitement. Each window frames a snow so white and trees so dramnatically laden with snow and ice, it is as if we are experiencing it all for the first time. Yesterday was a crystally blur of snowman-making and snowflake spying. No cameras, no phones, just mittens and sticky kisses. Our noses were red, our fingers frosty and our laughter unending.

The girls are fast becoming stepping-stones, markers of all that I have accomplished, even as I might worry about one thing or another, they trump everything. I can nearly see the nuances in Briar's face emerging, a line here, a hollow there. Her eyes becoming more pronounced, a blue so light and clear it seems impossible. Her lashes like something from a fairy tale, with each girlish blink a whoosh as lips the color of coral part to allow titters and sighs to pepper the air like pixie dust.

Avery sits beside her, dark hair wild with twists and turns that practically demand to be tousled. Her eyes are gooey, a blue so dark they sometimes look purple. Dark lashes flutter along lids tipping down ever so slightly, tempting your fingers to trace the lines like waves of frosting on a holiday confection.

And Fin, Fin shimmers— a tight, compact bundle of I can, and if I can't, I will. She smiles as she stretches, questing evermore to not just catch her sisters, but to surpass them. Her exclamations of all our names stop us in or tracks, eliciting "Oh my's" and "She said my name's." She ignites us with the joy of being; ourselves and hers.

So while this week was not, in fact, better. Banging my head against the proverbial wall, desperate to understand why people act the way they do, or why they say one thing an mean another, I found a light. Finley with her howls, Briar with her huffs and Avery with her growls, each remind me of my fluency.

51 months of Briar, 31 months of Avery and 8 months of Fin and I have a mastery of their ways. The shifts in behavior, which can come as abruptly as a winter storm, are familiar to me. The particular pitch of a cry or intensity of a call speak to me with a clarity that makes my way clear. There is a kind of shelter the chaos of my life offers, for all the unpredictability inherent in life with three, there is calm. Here at home, Sean by my side and the girls in all directions, I am certain of peace and belonging.

It's the blue that gets me

I never noticed eye color before Sean. Never. Friends would ask about a guy's eye color and i honestly wouldn't be able to answer.

Now I can. Blue. True blue. They are the eyes of my daughters and the eyes of my best friend, a pale blue, cool and inviting. Steady, loving, my favorite kind of blue.

He sent me an email tonight recounting the night's events.

I told them a bedtime story about how Mama and Fin had been captured and were made to work in a cavern.

"Were they pirates?" Briar wondered.

"Pirates?" Ave repeated, eyebrows up. This is getting good, said the eyebrows.

I went with it. "Yes, Mama and Fin were in the cavern with Pirates, and their job was to charm the pirates out of their money."

"Their Gold?" asked Briar.

"Treasure?" said Ave, eyebrows no longer visible.

"You betcha. And if Mama and Fin can work it with the pirates to get them to give up that treasure, they can come home."

Such a seemingly little thing, but imagining him sitting there, the nightlight casting stars on the ceiling, the girls listening with freshly scrubbed faces glued to him, and telling this fanciful story of our trip made me melt. I forget how wonderful he is with them, how imaginative and magical he can be.

And Fin, well she's got that same magic and more of that incredible blue. She is working her magic, earning those ducats so that we can get back home, back to our pack of blue.

Taking Note

The summer has gone by in what can only be described as a blur. Briar starts school on Thursday, Avery is speaking in paragraphs and Finley is sleeping through the night. Yesterday we celebrated a milestone: a run. We loaded Bri in the single jogging stroller, while Ave and Fin rode together in the double. Armed with iPods and water we ran block after block, passing through the neighborhoods in ways we've never been able: together.

Briar beamed, Fin kicked and Ave squealed. After a while, as we found our rhythm, they slept. And Sean and I reveled in the freedom to just run and watch and experience.

Can you remember the last time you did that?

Soflty into the night

Daughter. Sister. Wife. Friend. Mother. Grandmother. Great grandmother. Beautiful human being.

Carolyn Frost Barnes.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. ~William Wordsworth

Waking up to yesterday

I poked my head through the door this morning, intending just to peek, but feeling the morning air I had to step outside. Beyond our threshold I visited the past. The air was cool, damp even. The light had the calmer, weightier feel of a late August morning, there was a scent of endings. I padded to the edge of the porch and felt the cool planks beneath my bare feet, the morning air crept beneath my shirt and I drew a deep breath.

It was 9 years earlier, before kids, before New York. Summer was loping to a slumber, the intense, whirlwind days of June and July were past and the melancholy of another season's close was seeping in. The memories of my time took root and though I didn't know it at the time, I was both meeting and saying goodbye to my future.

This morning, while my husband and my babies slept I traveled back in time. I kissed a boy, who back then was just my baby.

This Baby's Got Legs*

*Title is a play on words, props to the ladies at BabyLegs, Fin caused a sensation in her two pairs! And thank goodness we had them. Twain was right about San Francisco:
"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

Finley is seriously the best traveling companion ever.

She went so far as to save all of her pooping for today. That's right, no pooping on the plane, but we have chalked 7 messy diapers since waking this morning. My fingers are raw from the wiping. Sorry, off track. We flew to San Francisco on Thursday for the BlogHer Conference, which brought back more memories of being excluded and rare moments of fitting in than I really care to remember.


Luckily, with my exquisite Fin strapped to my chest, I had a safe place, my face buried in her silky head, her hands clutching mine.

We went to several sessions a day.
Fun with Janet and Lara (not pictured).

Weaving in time with Grandma and Auntie Abbie in between,

We were camped out with in the charming and luxuriously cozy St. Francis.



On the flight home, Fin made me feel silly for worrying about flying,
"Look mama, no hands!"


It was great, but being home is greater.

Summer Squeal

I've not been a very good blogger lately, been working on being a good mom. This isn't an excuse or an apology, just a matter of fact. Another fact, I am miss writing here. My hope is to merge Tumble Dry and The Wink, so that I have one place to go. Three girls makes two blogs perhaps one thing too many. If you'll bear with me as I work through the mechanics (read: Have Raeanne work some magic).

I promise, I have so much more that I want to write. I cannot wait to tackle describing Finley's personality, from her lopsided pirate smile to her insistent demeanor. What began as "Life with Briar" and morphed, in my own mind, to "Two and Counting," and which could now easily be "Living for Three," is more precious to me than ever before. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I am so honored and grateful that you are on this journey with us.

More soon, I promise.

Pygmy windows and pudgy tummies

Greetings from the Adirondacks,
with humidity so fierce,
even the blackflies have left.


We trekked to Sears last night in search of an AC unit that would fit our windows and somewhere a contractor snorted, many decades past having installed deviously narrow windows.

Me: "Ah, yes, we're looking for an AC unit no wider than 15 inches."

Dude from Sears (with a chuckle): "You mean no taller than 15 inches."

Me: "No, I mean no wider than 15 inches."

Dude from Sears: "Ah, no, you mean tall, windows don't come 15 inches wide." (swallowing a snide, "Unless you're in a 5 x 5 cell.")

Me: "No, I really mean 15 inches. The window we need to install this in is 15 and 1/4 inches wide."

Dude from Sears: Silence.

Me: Projecting serious waves of, "Figure it out."

Dude from Sears: "We have this one, it's 14 and 3/4 inches but it's supposed to go in the windows that slide side to side."

We all looked at it, circling the thing which must have shot out three feet in back, thereby necessitating the construction of a support and destruction of siding.

Me: "How much?"

DfS: "Ah, like 4-something."

Deducing quickly that he did not mean a five spot would cover it, I slunk my head and bade him farewell.

*****

42 days.

It's been 42 days since Finely arrived. She is amazing and wonderful and our family feels so perfectly complete. My belly however, well, my belly feels, umm, like Finley, soft and rolly polly. Nothing wrong with that really, except that I am going in a pool tonight. In front of people. I'd stay out but it's like the 7th chamber of hell it's so hot here. You know the kind of hot that starts before the coffee has even brewed and has you drenched with sweat before you've switched from towel to underwear after a shower?

At 42 days I could theoretically start working out, but again, the heat...

Why did I move here again?

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Forgive me my infatuation

I wake up each morning to a life I never imagined, even when I dared to dream for the perfect fairy tale - three daughters, each magnificent and dazzling in her own way, prancing, singing and questing at every turn. A loving husband who looks at me with a mixture of marvel and passion, his hands reaching for mine in the night, at the dinner table and on walks. A house brimming with the kind of electricity born from a life rich with love and memories.

Between morning cuddles, impromptu vocal performances and declarations of love as strong as in our earliest days of courtship, I am blissfully adrift, unable to focus on any one thing, rather alighting on one delicious experience after another.

My laptop sits, slightly dusty and strewn with burp cloths and Lowe's circulars, an old friend. I long to write, to capture the memories of each day in words that will soothe me as I sit waiting for the girls to return from track meets, dates, and overnights. Right now there isn't the time, the pull of little hands and sunny days are too strong.

I'll be back, I promise, but I've got hair to tousle, lips to kiss and shoulders to rub.

The Expense of Postpartum Joy

One of the traits I inherited from my Grandpa Davie is a zest for life, followed immediately by a sentimentality so strong that it can stop me in my tracks, weeping with homesickness, weeping with joy at having seen a beautiful thing, weeping just to weep.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and when asked what I wanted to do, sentimentality and joie de vivre took over. I wanted to watch sunlight braid itself into the golden curls on Briar's head, I wanted to watch Avery gallop, hips swiveling with each magnificent stride, I wanted to feel Fin on my chest, the gentle rumble of snoring and the kisses of newborn fingertips on my bare skin. I wanted to stand proudly with Sean watching our brood. And so I did. For six glorious hours we played at the park, picnicked beneath evergreens and then scaled the mossy trails of Buck Mountain.

It was just the kind of day a person could weep for having tasted.

Today I weep with fever and aches, my body upset with my heart for trodding so heavily toward joy that it trumped reason.

Off to a hot bath, but oh the sweet memories of the day. Maybe Grandpa was watching, weeping and sighing at the beauty of it all. I hope so.

Not so little things

For granola bars and hand written notes,
For compost piles and faerie blankets,

For riding the bus and my aunt went to Europe,
For pretty little blue bird and ting-a-ling-a-ling,

For Anne Murray in the living room late,
For number one with the bullet,

For painted nurseries and bran bullets,
For back splashes and enchanted granddaughters,

Happy Mother's Day.