Cicada

07 January, 2011

This Moment - January 7

A moment from my week, no words necessary.

05 January, 2011

Our routine does not vary wildly from night to night. Nor day to day, for that matter.

School gets out at 1:00. When I'm not working, I pick the girls up, bring them home, make lunch. Then Bela wanders off by herself to build castles out of blocks, to color rainbows, to write out all of the names of her friends, carefully, letter by letter.

Mae, on the other hand, still naps. The only way to insure she gets her midday rest, though, is for me to lie down with her. She grabs her blankie, curls up next to me in my bed, nuzzles her head in my chest, and falls asleep.

Most days, she falls asleep within minutes and I gently extract myself from her and tip toe out and join Bela. Sometimes, I fall under the heavy spell of the afternoon sun + white noise of the fan + soft bed + Mae's breathing and we nap together.

If Mae doesn't nap she's a wreck come bedtime. But when she naps, she's not ready to fall asleep at 8:00. Bela crashes immediately, worn out from her day. But Mae.... well, Mae has a secret life which plays itself out between the hours of 8 and 10:30 in the p.m., a life whose details we are hardly privy to.

What do we know about Mae's secret life? Well first there are the noises. We hear her chit chat and her sing song, which means her dolls and animals are engaged in some serious conversation. Then, there are the books in the closet. We leave their closet light on to illuminate the bedroom at night and to keep monsters at bay. There is ample room in there, bright light, and a small foot stool. Often I find between 3 and 9 books piled on the closet floor in the morning.

We find all manner of nighttime entertainment in her bed come morning: her piggy bank, Bela's piggy bank, pennies and quarters everywhere, miniature horses, mermaids, band aids.

We do know that Mae broke her collar bone because she was sneaking into Bela's bed late at night to steal stuffed animals. Now that she's all better, we find her up there often, usually engaged in undressing and re-dressing Bela's dolls, exchanging the animals on her bed for the ones on Bela's.

When I caught her up there last night, she walked right over Bela's body to get to me so I could lift her down. Bela didn't wake up. I said:

--Mae, what have you been up to? Why aren't you sleeping?

She responded:

--I made a mess. And I cleaned it up. Will you help me find my piggy? See? I put him away.

--Mae, you have to go to sleep now, ok?

--Ok. But it's taking too long. Look what I found!

She led me to her closet, where she proceeded to show me how she had gone through Bela's sock drawer and picked out all the pairs she wanted to inherit, all her favorites. I walked her back to her bed, gave that cute face a big fat kiss, and told her she had to close her eyes and go to sleep.

She sighed a sigh of resignation, grabbed her blankie and put her thumb in her mouth. I'm starting to get the feeling that these secret late night moments - where she calls the shots and doesn't have to share with Bela--are her favorite moments of the day.

04 January, 2011

Oh Christmas Tree

From: http://dsharp.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54eeecc2f883401053687d2e3970b-350w

The day we bought our tree and brought it home--sometime in very early December--was a pretty, wintry day. One of those bustling early holiday shopping days, lots of Chicago traffic, lots of things to do, crowds to fight. We brought it home and realized it was the biggest tree we had ever had since moving to Chicago. It towered over me, reaching approximately 5 feet and 4 inches into the air. We filled it with green lights, handmade ornaments, and decorations made and gathered throughout the years. It was one of those moments that you remember slowly, dreamily. I knew it would form an important part of the bundle of memories that will follow my children into adulthood.

Flash forward one month. I finally took the thing down. Lacking the foresight that usually fails me every year at this time, I had no "tree bag." Remember, its 64 inches out-heighted me by an embarrassingly handful of centimeters, and its extremely dry state made it decidedly painful to touch. I grabbed it by its sappy trunk and managed to drag it through our apartment.

If you're not familiar with the typical Chicago layout, the apartments are long and narrow. Very long, as a matter of fact. I dragged it through the living room, the dining room, down the hallway, through the kitchen, out through the back door to the porch that doubles as a play room, and down the long winding staircase.

I went about it all the wrong way. I was carrying it top first, which set me up for some humorous but messy jams in doorways, around corners. There was a lot of carnage: two broken lamps, an avalanche of junk I was injudiciously storing on the back stairs. By the time I made it to the first floor, it became surprisingly easy to manage. I later realized that this was because I lost approximately 45% of its bulk on the way down.

Now, Dyson manufactures a spectacular vacuum machine, but it can't handle the quantity of pine needles left behind in my home. I am, in fact, still pulling little green pokers out of my clothing, my waistband, my underwear (!). I carried out an entire paper grocery bag full of the sharp vestiges of our holiday celebration.

One and one half hours later, I am just now finishing the clean-up required of this monumental effort. The children were horrified. I grunted and swore and jammed that tannenbaum down the stairs and out into the garden. The better half of me has myself convinced it is there waiting for the city-wide tree recycling day. The truth of the matter is that I'm not sure how I'm going to get it there. I might have to hoist it on my head and walk it to its final destination.

In the aftermath--the girls left with their mouths hanging open, feeling the joy of the holiday season slipping quickly through their fingertips-- I started drumming up interest in Valentine's Day. Hearts to decorate and hang, valentine cards to make, glitter to sprinkle, doilies to cut. Let's just say that we are dreaming of February now, over here on Thomas Street.

01 January, 2011

This moment - Dec.31

31 December, 2010

With love, from Nashville...

Happy New Year's Eve from Hatch Show Print, one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in the country. We are here in Nashville for a show (Old Crow Medicine Show) and Chris is working on a little project with Hatch. I got a chance to walk around with my little camera phone. Very cool place. Enjoy, and have a safe and happy celebration tonight.

29 December, 2010

Looking back

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking ahead to the new year. But I'm a Libra. I like to balance my yin with my yang, my up with my down. So I thought that in these last few days of 2010 I would also take a look back at my family's year, photographically.

Winter 2010
January