dear santa,

you and i have a long and significant history that began when my eight-year-old self questioned the existence of you and god in one fell swoop. so i hope that you will not get your velveteen knickers in a wad over the fact that i have chosen you to be on the receiving end of my latest musings.

first, i should say that all i want for christmas is for my life to slow down. i’m not talking about the way that time creeps sluggishly under the weight of anxiety when sick kids are (again!) home from school.

sick bird

i’m talking about the reinstatement of routines that had their own happy, measured rhythm. i never thought i would ask for something like this, but i just want to wash and fold all of the family’s laundry on mondays while the kids eat popcorn on towels in our bedroom and watch back-to-back episodes of the british cartoon kipper the dog. also, i would love for there to be two (TWO!) nights in a row when the adult residents of our house are free from all recreational, church, work, and civic commitments and can resume the deep spiritual practice of falling asleep while watching the latest season of top chef.

p.s. if this slower-paced life could still include the necessary d.i.y. renovations to our newly purchased mountain house that would be swell.

den before and after

"the mermaid room" becomes "the god's eye room"

i am willing to give up running the half marathon this saturday, creating and distributing our annual christmas cd, and, as evidenced by my behavior in the days preceding and following thanksgiving, major components of my self-hygiene routine.

what do you say, big guy?

second, my children are under the impression that they can ask you for items on their lists without notifying me that they are doing so. goodness knows, at ages five and almost-three, the kids are way too young to start questioning your existence (and god’s), but their unwavering belief in you is making my job difficult. would you mind forwarding me all texts, emails, letters, and telegrams that come your way from our house? thanks. lylas (love you like a sis).

third, and this is a two-parter, when you come bounding down our chimney, would you mind cleaning it out at the same time? ’tis the season. also, how do you feel about entering our home via an UNDECORATED hearth? just think of it as a few less strands of tinsel that ms. clause will have to extract from your beard.

to show my appreciation for all that you do during this busy time of year, i’m going to leave you a little something special to go along with the usual christmas cookies.

peace out,

mary allison

it is no small wonder that in our culture, a pregnant woman is referred to as a person who is “expecting.” not only are the cells of her child multiplying rapidly in her uterus, so too are the visions of her future multiplying in her consciousness, along with the imagined qualities of a little person who has yet to meet the world. for ten months, expectations build super-human momentum; they crouch, waiting to bully the hell out of the reality that begins on birthing day. starting with variations from the birthing plan, breastfeeding troubles, meconium diapers, and the like, new parents quickly learn to expect the unexpected. but this difficult work is a breeze compared to its necessary and slowly-unfolding inverse:

learning to unexpect the expected.

every day of my last five years has been fraught with compromised parenting ideals in the face of the most unpredictable embodiments of wonder and mischeif. i have not bid farewell to all of my expectations. this is a life-long challenge, i think. but i have gotten used to the exercise of unexpecting in the same way that i am used to my blue jeans. every day, i pull them on. every day, i zip them up. every day, they poke me in the gut just a little.

a few weeks ago, andy and i piled the kids into a canoe and paddled to a swimming hole in arkansas’ sylamore creek.

we enjoyed a picnic while the boys practiced skipping rocks. the monkey, encouraged by his more daring cousins, dropped from a rope swing into the deeper water. we hiked for a mile or so on a creek-side path before cooling off in the water and returning to the canoe.

as we paddled back to our cabin, andy and i had the same thought at the same time.

“this is what i thought having kids was going to be like,”  i said.

“me too,” he said.

and the strange thing is that the summer has afforded us several moments like this — cherished, surprisingly familiar moments. and as we are meandering down a wooded path, or piled into our car on the blue ridge parkway, or looking out from atop mt. mitchell, it dawns on us that these scenes are familiar to us because they are straight from the postcards, sent to us through time from our pre-kid selves. after committing ourselves doggedly to the exercise of unexpecting, we have been shocked when little bits of the hope we’ve released come boomeranging back to us with more majesty and hilarity than we dared to pen in our dreams long ago.

perhaps this is the beauty of unexpecting. when we are occasionally able to stand down the crouching bullies, who loom before us with idealized pictures of ourselves and our children, we will be able to glimpse a life that is really pretty sweet on its own terms.

it’s enough inspiration to keep me paddling on.

is there such a thing as military school for two-year-olds?

this is the question that began to plague me about ten days in to our mountain vacation. ten days seems to be the duration of time that the bird is willing to feign compliance and cooperation in a camp or school-like environment. he affords everyone just enough time to fall in love with him before his teachers report, with measured caution and disbelief:

[the bird] was a little agressive today.

i found myself having the same discussions with the bird’s clubs teachers that i had with his PDO teachers last year. i apologized. i asked for advice. i sincerely hoped that they could impart the key to managing the bird’s behavior and maintaining his magnanimous spirit. but in both cases, the teachers had no new ideas.

i think the moment that elicited images of boot camp and boarding school was when the bird’s teachers asked me how to deal with the bird. this felt very confusing. isn’t it obvious that i have no idea what i am doing?

somehow, and for no clear reason, things did get a little better. the bird did not get kicked out of clubs. maybe he won’t even be kicked out of every school in memphis before he’s ten. one can dream. as i was nursing these worries (as i am genetically prone to do), i shot a quick email to my friend sharon in pennsylvania, who has given me quite a bit of unimposing, sage motherhood advice over the years.

“does it every get easier?” i wrote.

within a few hours i was reading the following reply that was so encouraging i got permission to share it:

parenting gets easier when everyone can use the potty without help, no one is sleeping in a crib (but everyone stays in their bed all night more nights than not), and everyone has at least some ability (however rarely used) to verbalize what they need. it also helps if no one requires a stroller or pacifier or elaborate car seat (belt-positioning boosters are much easier than five-point harnesses).

and finally, parenting is easier when your family figures out a behavior management system that works for you (meaning the kids respond to it and the parents are able to use it somewhat consistently).  we use a significantly pared-down version of positive parenting with a plan (it’s for kindergarten and up, though). friends have had luck with the smart discipline approach (also for kindergarten and up). the point is…IT DOES GET EASIER.  you’re probably at a really difficult stage, i would guess, based on the ages of your little guys.  hang in there.

it’s helpful to know that there is hope (and a couple of new behavior management options) on our horizon. for now, the best i can do is maintain a sense of humor and strive for patience.

…and send the bird to clubs in this carefully selected, organic cotton shirt:

lest you be misguided by yesterday’s blissful notes on camp, i must add the following observation about traveling with small children:

vacations are not really vacations. they are simply the act of schlepping all of one’s stuff, one’s kids, their stuff, and all of the responsibilities related thereto, to an alternate location of one’s choice. kids still hit each other, wake up in the middle of the night, refuse to eat growing foods, and stack chairs in the kitchen in pursuit of chocolate. it’s just that on vacation, parents have the pleasure of looking at the mountains or the beach while they are dealing with the aforementioned issues.

however, july in montreat offers a bit of a vacation from the vacation in the form of “clubs,” a kids’ day camp that meets on weekdays from 8:30 to noon and 2:00 – 4:00 in the afternoon. this is the first year that both of my children have attended both morning and afternoon clubs, which officially makes july of 2011 the most time i’ve had away from my children since they were born. i was musing to my friend, anne, about how this absence was affecting  me, and she (the mother of two grown children and three grandchildren) summed it up well.

it’s all about energy. the more energy we have, the better parents we are. when we don’t have energy, we are simply muddling through.

having my children in other people’s care gave me more energy for the times that i was with them. for example, on the saturday when the bird tee-teed all over the dining table and the monkey promptly covered the rest of the table in glue, i reacted with an uncharacteristic sense of calm likened to that of the dalai lama.

when the bird spent thirteen solid days clamoring for his daddy, who was in memphis, i was able to laugh and not get my feelings hurt as i usually do.

the kids did eventually wear me down though. by the end of the trip, even with the added childcare, i was muddling through. the grand finale, marked by two sleepless nights hovered over a croup-plagued bird, returned me to my familiar listless state.

if only there were a couple of extra hours in the day for sleeping or a couple of extra parents in the household for trouble shooting! in the absence of these wish list items, i can offer you only this: my recipe for muddling through in style (adapted from design sponge):

summer elderflower cocktail

ingredients

• st. germain licour
• club soda
• lime
• mint
• gin

directions:

• muddle mint and juice from half of lime in the bottom of a low-ball glass.
• add ice and throw in the squeezed lime.
• add the desired amount of alcohol (about half st. germain and half gin).
• top with soda and stir.

you might want to purchase one of these.

every muddler needs a muddler.

a few years ago, ira glass dedicated an entire episode of “this american life” to exploring the phenomenon of camp. in his words,

no one back home understands it, none of their friends, nobody. there is just a gap between camp people and non-camp people.

when glass interviews a teen-aged girl camper at an upscale camp in the northeast, she confirms his assertion:

…it’s also like little stories you tell, and you think they’re so funny, and everyone in your cabin understands them, and then you tell them to your friends back home, and they’re like, “that’s stupid.”

our family does camp a little differently than most in that we allgo to camp for a month. the week-long church retreats andy and i attended as teenagers apparently did not satisfy our desires to be part of a small sub-culture of nature-loving people. but though our camp model isn’t traditional, some of the universal camp themes apply.

first, there are bizarre traditions at montreatthat make perfect sense to those who have been part of them since they were in diapers. my children, for example, will probably never question the normalcy of the greased pole competition on the fourth of july, wherein a smooth 20+ foot wooden rounded plank is cemented into the ground, adorned with u.s. currency of various values, thoroughly greased, and scaled all day long by daring contestants as an emcee narrates the events to spectators scattered on picnic blankets all around.

and then there is the fourth of july parade, complete with bagpipes, makeshift family floats, and saved seats along the route for onlookers, whose families have occupied those particular patches of bag-chair-real estate since before bag chairs were invented.

these are the kinds of things that carry a certain meaning that can only be adequately translated by virtue of experience.

the monkey and the bird attend a day camp at montreat called “clubs,” which entails morning and afternoon activities led by college-aged counselors, who bring a necessary coolness to the imparting of silly songs, dances, and story telling that goes on there. the monkey would return to our rental house during lunch and, with eyes dancing, relay tales of how his counselor, ryan, wrestled a troll in the deep end of the pool at the conclusion of a treasure hunt. this event, by some sort of camp logic, resulted in the distribution of stickers to all of the campers. all of this made perfect sense to the monkey and the rest of the “blues,” as his group was called. even at age four-and-three-quarters, the monkey is already what glass calls “a camp person.”

both children look forward to the friday night circle mountain dancing and are committed to mastering the motions to novelty dances such as “the hampster dance” and “agadoo.”

the bird has chosen the car as the ideal place to practice the verses of “i’m bringing home a baby bumble bee,” a song that his older brother helps him with when he forgets the words.

about this kind of camp vocabulary, glass remarks

the special songs and ceremonies are part of so many american camps… these traditions bring kids back year after year….you let them know about all the extra rights and privileges the kids are going to get if they return as older campers. it is using all of the stage craft that all of the world’s religions have always used. the ceremonies, the chanting, the repeated words, the official honors and offices, but for an entirely different reason: to thrill children, to make them feel a part of something big and special.

i’m not going to lie. our annual sojourn to montreat is not just for the kids. i enjoy being part of an alternative, smaller world. my children are in someone else’s care from 8:30 – noon and 2-4 on weekdays. and like an older kid at traditional camp, i have the freedom to choose my own activities. i spent many hours last month in the pottery studio and hiking my favorite mountain.

but my favorite part about julys in montreat really is as glass describes. i love that my children are thrilled. it means the world to me that they get to be a part of something big and special… even if they will never be fully able to convey the meaning of it to their friends back at home.

there are good things about returning home after a month in the western north carolina mountains. chief among them are things like air-conditioning and laurelwood pediatrics.

but mostly, i am sad that our montreat month is over. below is a little preview of the blog inspiration i’ve got up my sleeves for the coming days. but who am i kidding? i don’t have on sleeves. it’s too hot. the ideas are stuck to me like sweaty toddler legs grip a vinyl seat. nevertheless, here is the “amuse-bouche” as they say…

hiking

ridiculously good food and drink

barn dances, cloggers, and the fabulous red june band

a variety of textiles

stay tuned!

if the monkey were to plan a wedding, he would follow the lead of julia roberts in steel magnolias. in other words, “pink is his signature color.”

as the mom of this pink-loving fellow, i have enjoyed MANY a self-administered pats on the back for allowing the monkey to exist outside of society’s color rules for boys and girls. you should see me at the cupcake counter, for example, proudly presenting both boys with their requested pink “plain janes.” i love myself in those moments.

photo from http://liplickin.blogspot.com/

but last week while we in asheville, the pink craze got a little more complicated when i took the monkey to pick out this season’s “creek walking shoes.” from a lovely, multicolored bouquet of keen sandals, the monkey plucked these with great zeal:

he was as pleased as punch (pun intended). i, on the other hand, was faced with an unexpected choice. is it my job to protect my children from teasing, or is it my job to help them be their truest selves? i hated myself in that moment.

i texted andy the above picture along with the words, “HELP! what should i do?”

his sentiments were the same as my own. we both want to protect our children from teasing AND help them be their truest selves. meanwhile, the monkey commenced to skip around the store in the fabulous pink shoes.

i contemplated my next move and imagined the silent horror of the sweetly-smiling sales woman, observing my attempts to squelch my son’s spirit. should i explain to my four-year-old that kids are mean, and that in our more traditional town, kids are mean AND traditional? or should i just purchase the pink shoes and hope for the best?

i opted for plan C. we revisited the multicolored bouquet of keen sandals “just to check for any other colors we might like.” and lo and behold, there was another pair on the display that was calling the monkey’s name. the dark pink pair:

now this pair is much more pink in person than the above picture reveals, but i didn’t care. surely he could be his true self in these shoes AND avoid teasing. we bought the shoes, and i was off the hook.

but only temporarily. i’m convinced that time and again, i will be revisiting the questions i asked myself in the shoe store. ultimately, i believe that it’s healthy to be selective about when, where, and with whom we reveal the deepest parts of who we are. i want to teach my kids to be selective. unfortunately, nobody learns to be selective without being teased.

i’m not sure i did the right thing. i am not writing to defend my choice. i’m just saying that in parenting, everything is complicated. nothing is as simple as wanting my kids to feel the cool mountain stream washing over their hot summer feet.

friday and saturday brought us back topinecrest, the presbyterian camp where andy and i both spent time as campers and counselors. i officiated a five o’clock wedding there in the beautiful new chapel, so we packed up the whole fam damily and left memphis around noon. after the hour’s drive, there was plenty of time to enjoy the fall day in the country before the shin-dig.

i could write a whole post about what it’s like to try to keep up with two small boys at a wedding. there was the part where i was making small talk in the food line while the monkey engulfed himself in my dress and wrapped his body around my legs, the scene where the bird ran off into the wooded darkness, the ten minutes before the ceremony that i spent frantically looking for drawing paper for the monkey, and the constant and desperate begging for slices of the not-yet-cut wedding cake.

but this is not a post about the split second it takes for my family to turn a party into a circus. this is a post about marrying young.

the ages of the bride and groom were a topic of conversation among dismayed family and friends during the wedding weekend. the bride is 22 and the groom is 21, which makes them a year younger than andy and i were when we got married and several years older than the bride’s parents when they got married. modern wisdom suggests that it is best to do a bit of growing up before one joins one’s life to another, and though this was not my experience, i certainly see the value in doing so. but it seemed appropriate, in celebrating this couple’s courtship and marriage, to highlight the particular challenges and joys that arise when the newlywed years contain the decisions and experiences brought about by college, graduations, grad schools, vocational discernment, and watching cake boss on tv. here are some excerpts from my homily:

[Groom] and [Bride], “people are going to say that you are too young to get married.”

At least, these were the words of [Bride’s] dad, who warned his daughter of such nay saying.

 Then, he shared his own experience of marrying early, and of the grand privilege it is to grow up with one’s partner. There is something to be said for learning life’s lessons together in young adulthood… and in every age and stage to follow.

[Groom’s] sister chose and read scripture from 1^st Peter for this service, and, [Groom and Bride,] I cannot think of more fitting words for you. These words are a call for all people of faith to discern what our God-given gifts are, and to use these gifts to uplift those around us.

 This kind of discernment is ongoing, of course, but the crash course in self-discovery happens when we are young. This means that by marrying early, you will be doing the kind of work together that many people do alone…

…We are all here to celebrate the life you are building together, your shared journey of faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. Let this be so, in young adulthood…. and in every age and stage to follow.

of course, there was much  more to it than this, but while i was delivering the homily, i had one of those rare (for me) preaching experiences where i was actually feeling the words and saying them at the same time. all weddings are supposed to be a time for all of those in partnership to celebrate their lives together but at this occasion, it was especially natural and easy for andy and me to celebrate our marriage. we were in a place where we did some growing up together, and 17 years after we chased campers around the pines, we found ourselves chasing our very own children among those same old trees.

there is no one right time to get married, but marrying young was right for us. it was right for the parents of saturday’s bride, and it seems right for the newlyweds, who are presently honeymooning in st. lucia — the same place andy and i went after our wedding 11 years ago.

the monkey fully embraced life in the mountains. he spent the month clad in silly bands, lanyard necklaces, shoes that were perpetually wet from creek walking, and a wide, sticky, ice-creamy grin. nothing spells camp like tight sweaty ringlets, the constant talk of  counselors and fellow campers, and a slew of silly songs playing on repeat inside an almost-four-year-old head.

meanwhile, the bird picked up his new favorite hobby: throwing rocks in the creek. he replaced his barely distinguishable babble with real words that actually made sense in context, and thereby joined fellow toddlers throughout time and space in demonstrating for their elders what a miracle the human grasp of language really is. he had his own pair of perpetually wet shoes and his own allotment of silly bands (thanks to the monkey). like his brother, he waltzed into clubs every day to a chorus of counselors’ welcomes.

is is possible that my children did an entire years’ worth of growing up in one month? from certain angles i took in their shaggy hair and occasional nonchalance and imagined their impending teenage years. i saw that what my friend steve says is true: “with parenting, the days go by slowly but the years go by quickly.”

or perhaps it was my own relaxed, campy persona that gave me pause to take a broader view of my children and their progress. with both children in childcare for the first time, i found myself hiking on mountain trails, practicing yoga in a local studio, and sipping coffee on the porch. this time afforded me a glimpse into a future stage, with increased spare time and possibilities.

parenting’s relentless onslaught of joy and duty seems to evoke a delayed sort of processing. there is no time to sift through the realities of one stage until the next stage is dawning. i have been a parent for almost four years now, but this recent preview of the future is the first real glimpse i have gotten of life beyond babyhood. i was able to remember what i liked to do before i had kids and imagine a life that will return me to those things someday.

but for now i am content to re-enter our memphis routine — the onslaught of  joy and duty. however, i do this with the new knowledge that though the days go by slowly, the years truly do fly by, carrying the sweet sounds of baby babble with them.

there are many common narratives in the collective story bank of motherhood, each with its own familiar plot and phrases. who hasn’t told or heard a “stuck child” story, complete with words such as

“…and then i realized that [fill in name of small child] had accidentally locked himself/herself in the bathroom.”?

and now, in an age when  modern mothers are increasingly appreciated and accomplished in the workplace, the “vocational turning point” story is becoming a collective throng. it often goes something like this:

“that day, when [insert chaotic clash of work and home life] happened, i knew i needed to change the way i was working.”

as it happens, these two prototypes converged for me last friday night. the bird was singing his own familiar tearful chorus as i showered and got ready to be the liturgist at the final montreat women’s connection worship service. after learning that it is virtually impossible to simultaneously hold a child and don a dress, i allowed him to use my leg as a teething biscuit as i hurriedly applied my makeup.

just as i was feeling smug about the fact that i would have a whole fifteen minutes to go over my part in the service after i dropped the kids off at my mom’s house, the monkey declared that he needed to tee tee. he did his business, and then, so as not to be outdone by his brother, he instantly deteriorated into a fitful rage that reportedly rendered him completely incapable of pulling up his own pants. i calmly closed the bathroom door and told them that he was welcome to come out once his pants were no longer around his ankles.

in his tornadic attempt to liberate himself from captivity, the monkey accidentally turned the tarnished brass lever above the knob on the old mountain house bathroom door. he was locked inside, and getting more panicky by the second.

my friends and temporary roommates calmed the (now hysterical) bird and hovered outside the locked bathroom door with these  necessary tools:

• a knife
• a spatula
• a phillips head screwdriver

meanwhile, i finished buttoning my dress as i walked outside and scaled a bear-proof garbage bin to get a look inside of the window. a neighbor strolled by and inquired as to why i was five feet above the ground, wearing a towel on my head, leaning at a 45 degree angle, peering into a window, and scaling the house’s exterior wall. he reported that in all of his 30 years of living across the street, he has never seen a person exhibit such behavior.

five minutes later, the monkey, who is apparently remarkably stellar at following my directions (when he feels like it), unlocked the door and waltzed out of the bathroom *with* his pants pulled up. i hopped down from my perch, shuttled the kids to my mom’s house, proceeded to the service, did my part without any major incedents, and moved on.

except that i haven’t really moved on. though i am new at telling the “stuck child” story, there are a zillion other stories that coincide with my attempts to maintain my identity as a person who works, albeit part-time, outside of the home. i’ll spare you the details of the “calling poison control” story, the “writing on the walls” story, and the “submerging daddy’s shoes in the bathtub” story. just know that all three of these plots unfolded while i was trying to fulfill obligations pertaining to my job as a minister.

i don’t know what sorts of shifts i will make in the way i structure my work life, but there will be some. and to the neighbor, who marveled at the site of a young mother living out the particulars of her own “stuck child” story, i have this to say:

if you look closely, you will find that mothers all around you are desperately trying to climb “the wall”. they can be heard pumping during conference calls. they can be found supervising third grade math homework while working on their own coursework. many are simply trying to shower for work in relative peace. women’s roles have changed during the last 30 years, but “the wall” is still there. when old challenges crumble away, they are quickly replaced by new ones.

i might be the first person you have seen shouting instructions to a three-year-old from a lofty perch. but i am by no means the first woman to employ flexibility, strength, and a sense of humor while creatively solving a problem and wearing a cute dress!