Capable

Do you know the book by George Saunders, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip? The story is terrific, especially if you’re an adult or child who doesn’t mind imaginary things that are a little dark and awfully wonderful. The heroine is named Capable, and lately I’ve been wondering if she was about seven-and-a-half in that story. After all, seven and a half is many things, and sometimes, like I experienced yesterday, it’s just incredible capable.

Yesterday evening, after I brought Wyatt home from his sewing club, he went by our neighbor’s house to drop off a piece of cake, a holiday card, and a holiday gift bag of caramel corn. Then, he assembled our dinner (our version of spring rolls). He remarked I could just make the sauce which shouldn’t take that long, and then I could relax. I happily offered to set the table, too.

Eventually, we sat down to dinner, and about half-way through , Wyatt found he had a lot to say.

Mom. So we’re reading this book and learning about Jane Goodall. She spent TWO WHOLE YEARS watching chimpanzees! And she always wore the same kind of clothes. Tan shorts and a tan t-shirt, to blend in. And she got cut and she didn’t care. And she got scrapes and she didn’t care. She went to this one spot because she was there to dig for fossils, and she was like, ‘I’m going to dig for fossils and watch chimpanzees,’ and then I guess maybe she stopped paying attention to the fossils? I don’t know. But she was the first person to NOTICE that chimpanzees use TOOLS, like a blade of grass to pick out termites and eat them. All these other scientists had gone and looked and been like, ‘Those are chimpanzees doing regular chimpanzee things,’ but they didn’t stay to watch for TWO YEARS like she did, so they never saw them using tools.

Also? She’s still alive. I know you were wondering about that. And we saw two National Geographic videos of her. She’s old, with white hair and wrinkly skin, she always wears a ponytail, but she doesn’t move like an old person AT ALL. She said one time a Japanese woman came running to her with tears streaming down her face saying how much her work inspired her to go observe polar bears, WHICH SHE DID, she WENT and watched polar bears, and it became her work! Someone asked Jane Goodall what advice she’d give to kids, and she said that her mother always told her—haha, she’s British, right? So she says ‘motor car,’ and they didn’t have enough money for one, so they were really poor—her mother always told her if she wanted something she had to work hard for it. She had to read, and do the math, and do all the other things and work hard. She wasn’t even a trained scientist but she did all this work with chimpanzees! Also? When she came back home? SOME STUPID men [with a dismissive hand wave plus eye roll] didn’t believe she saw what she said she did. So she had to come back with some souvenirs to prove it to them. And then those STUPID MEN finally believed her.

She was eight during World War II. Her family knew war was coming so they moved to the countryside, but they still worried about being bombed. That would be so hard, spending all that energy every day worrying you’d be bombed at any time. How do you even LIVE like that? How old is she now? [I checked Wikipedia, and told him 84.] 84? So if she was 8 during World War II, that tells me World War II was . . . 84 minus 10, then add 2 . . . 75, 76 years ago. That was NOT very long ago. Not very long ago at all.

There’s some “progressive education” for you. Feminism, reslience, history, math, empathy, science, scientific methods, patience, and storytelling, to name some of the big concepts that jumped out at me from this glimpse into school on Monday.

I told Wyatt we learned about Jane Goodall when I was in school, too, and I agreed she did some great work. I added that now, scientists go out of their way not to interact with the animals the way Goodall did, because science has taught us we should give the animals their space. He looked at me as if I had mortally wounded his mother, and said, “She wasn’t HURTING them, and she wasn’t feeding them, like CEREAL or something. She was feeding them TERMITES. And the chimpanzees put their arms around HER. She wasn’t chasing them or something.” You know, like, pigeons and squirrels, I guess. I agreed, and I added that one of the best parts of science is that we’re always learning and then we can do even better at things. He changed the subject.

“Mom. I would really like to meet Jane Goodall.”

“I know, right? She’s pretty amazing. What would you want to ask her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe what it felt like to be there with the chimpanzees for TWO YEARS? Really, I’d just like to meet her.”

Just in case one of the important ingredients to having such a fabulous dinner conversation was the food, I’ll share the recipe with you.

The rolls Wyatt assembled were inspired by the recipes on the back of Happy Pho brown rice wrappers. We like the larger size wrappers because we can fit more in them. We used tofu (that I had pan fried, sprinkled with salt and sliced into strips), rice noodles (boil for about 2 minutes then drain and cool under running water), shredded cabbage, chopped mint, chives, and slivered cucumber. The dipping sauce is 1/4 cup each of water, rice vinegar, and soy sauce, 1/2 cup of nut (or sunflower) butter, a garlic clove, and 1/2 tablespoon of fresh ginger. Blitz all the ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Puzzling Situations

I hate doing puzzles.

Wyatt also hates doing them.

Marc, on the other hand, loves doing puzzles. Wyatt and I have tried doing puzzles with Marc, and his puzzle love has not rubbed-off on us. We’ve tried puzzling with Marc individually and together, and at no time was the activity fun. I mean, Marc had fun, but I think that’s because he loves doing puzzles and enjoys spending time with us.

After one of my attempts at working on a puzzle with Marc (it ended in my reading my phone and doing a couple of rounds of knitting), he suggested that maybe I didn’t really like doing puzzles. I admitted to him that I didn’t. I also told him that I knew it was weird, because I’m supposed to like doing puzzles. After all, it’s an easy, fun, low-tech, classic activity where you can visit with people and work on a project together. Despite (because of?) all those charming qualities, I found them kind of annoying. He basically gave me a slightly sad shrug as he fitted in another piece, and I gave myself a pass to stop pretending to do puzzles anymore.

This weekend, though, Wyatt discovered that St. Nicholas had brought him a 100-piece magnetic puzzle of the world. You’d think St. Nick would have known better than to give that kind of gift. “I have NO IDEA why St. Nicholas gave me this annoying present. He should know I HATE DOING PUZZLES,” Wyatt groaned as he flopped onto the sofa. The things I could say in response ran through my head in quick succession. Things along the lines of, “You should be grateful you got anything!” Or, “Maybe St. Nicholas lost track of the date until he was at Whole Foods and did his best under the circumstances!” Or even the totally optimistic lie, “You’ll grow to like puzzles if you keep trying them!” But instead, I said, “You know, I bet he gave you that puzzle because you’re working on continents at school, and when you’re done with the puzzle, you’ll have a MAP!” “He could have just given me a MAP INSTEAD,” Wyatt retorted.

Right. And what was I thinking foisting my wish for puzzle love on a kid who hates them, too? It occurred to me that he would have preferred the ugly cactus Christmas tree ornament on the “Last Minute Gifts!” table instead of a map that required assembly.

I sighed, “Yeah, I totally know what you mean. I hate doing puzzles, too.” Wyatt was still frowning deeply, as he did his best to become one with the sofa. I went on, sort of distracted as I cleaned-up the lunch dishes, “I have an idea. We both hate doing puzzles, right? I wonder what would happen if we did this puzzle together. Do you think two people hating doing puzzles would mean we’d extra hate doing this one? Or would the outcome be different? I have no idea. Should we find out?” He said, “Two people hating puzzles would mean they extra hate it doing it together. That’s OBVIOUS.” “Maybe,” I said, “or maybe not.”

Later in the afternoon, when Wyatt and Marc had returned from getting their hair cut, Wyatt called to me from the kitchen. “Hey, Mom. Do you want to help separate these puzzle pieces into edges and middle pieces?”

How could I decline an invitation from my fellow puzzle hater to start working on a puzzle? “I’ll be right there,” I said.

We did the puzzle without stopping. The whole time, we talked about how IN GENERAL, we HATE doing puzzles. They’re so annoying and boring! But this one? We hated it less. Why? Who knows! Maybe because it stuck to the side of the refrigerator? We pieced together South America, Africa, ocean, and we mused some more. Maybe we didn’t hate doing puzzles with each other? Maybe we LIKED doing puzzles with each other. Maybe it was too early to tell? Wyatt remarked how sorry he was he had said “the mean things” about the puzzle earlier, because they weren’t actually true. I gave him one of those verbal shrugs as we kept working, and then I said, “I think this project is just one of those things that reminds us we always have a chance to change our mind, any day, any time.”

Sometimes it’s best to embrace the fickle. 

In Praise of Friends Without Kids

I love spending time with friends who don't have kids. It makes me feel outrageously happy and ridiculously special. We made our schedules work! We are guaranteed to talk about Interesting Non-Kid Things for the majority of our time together! I revel in the joy of a friendship we chose, as opposed to one that's simply convenient.

And let's be honest--thank goodness for friendships of convenience! Friends at work, neighbor friends, and school friends are how we get through the day. Family friends with kids around the same age as your own? Pure magic.

But here's the thing. Those of us with a child (or more) can get lured into thinking that we should only be friends with other people with children. We can even get lulled into the idea we should find families like our own, with children of similar ages and abilities, and just hang around with them. Don't be fooled! A strong sense of humor, kindness, and an adventurous spirit matter way more than age, ability, or whether someone has a child. Everyone was a kid once, and the fact that someone doesn't have kids does not mean they dislike them, or that they even vaguely dislike you for having one (or more). Your friends without kids might even welcome the chance to revisit some of the fun parts of childhood.

The "fun parts of childhood" vary from person to person. What you did as a kid may be different from what your friends did. And these differences are so good. They mean that you don't have to know or learn everything as a parent! You just need friends.

If you're lucky, you've got friends like Susan and Wayne. They don't have kids, and they are so funny, incredibly kind and up for just about anything at least once. Even better? They know so many things we don't, including everything important about skateboarding (they'd downplay their expertise, but that's another reason we like them). Marc and I just had to mention to them that Wyatt was interested in taking up skateboarding. Suddenly, it didn't matter that we knew nothing about it. They introduced us to their friend and his skate shop, and they took Wyatt shopping for his first board. They even bought it for him. And then? Wayne got him started with the basics in the skate park.

More skate meet-ups have followed. One of those days also involved a post-skate LEGO building session.

There's every reason to share this kind of fun with friends, regardless of whether those friends have kids. Or maybe even especially if those friends don't have kids.

Weird & Wonderful

Mom. What are those fat white or pink skinned babies that shoot arrows at nothing called again? For Valentine’s Day? They look like a church thing. We had them on the wall in kindergarten. It was this picture where there were two of them and they looked like this.

Wyatt arranged his arms and put his chin on them.

They are SO WEIRD.

He's not wrong. Cupids are pretty weird.

And let's be honest. Valentine’s Day is pretty weird. I mean, it's a mid-winter pagan fertility festival the Catholic Church co-opted to celebrate St. Valentine, during which many adults celebrate romance while children all over the United States give out cards to every single person in their class and eat more candy.

I think if you're lucky, you'll experience a Valentine's Day sweet spot at least once during your life. One where, if you want to be in a romantic relationship, you're part of one, and in your bliss and joy, you'll agree on how you want to celebrate the day and each other. Otherwise, Valentine's Day is, as one of my friends has always called it, "Single Awareness Day." And if you're a parent of an elementary school child (or an actual elementary school child), it can also be "Annoying Annual School Project Day."

For the last two years, Wyatt has had no interest in giving out valentines at school. Some kids did, and he was happy to receive them, but that was as far as it went. This year, however, Wyatt came home from school towards the end of January and announced they would be having a Valentine's Day celebration in their classroom. I barely suppressed a groan. I knew the drill--everyone needs to get a valentine, which is fair enough, but there are over 30 kids in his class. Sitting down to write cards and envelopes was going to be torture, even if we did only three a day. He went on, "My teacher says that if we make anything, we have to make something for everyone. And nothing can be store bought." While I wanted nothing to do with the project or the extra “homemade” challenge, I didn't want him to know that. So I asked, offering as much happy, light hearted empowerment as I could, "So, what's your plan?" He replied, "I'm going to make everyone a heart necklace. I have the supplies I need, because I have clay and yarn. But can I please borrow your heart cookie cutter? I don't need your help. I can do it myself." Hell yes, I thought. "That sounds terrific," I said.

Wyatt set to work that afternoon. And he worked on the project most days for the next week. He had probably made 50 hearts by the time he got to stringing the 30th necklace. Why? Because he initially made the stringing holes too small, and the hearts broke when it was time to push the darning needle through with the yarn. He revised his production methods along the way, ditching the toothpick and using a clay knife to make a bigger hole in the new and improved hearts. At one point, I assisted in making a few new hearts because he was so aggravated by the constant breakage, and I know how much it sucks to work on something and feel like you will never, ever finish it.

By the 30th necklace, though? He’d had enough. The last heart was perfect. The hole was just the right size! But he just couldn't bear to push the needle through and tie the last knot. "MOM," he announced, "I'M DONE WITH THIS PROJECT. I should have NEVER thought of it. It was a TERRIBLE idea. I am NOT stringing this last necklace. I don't even CARE. No one will get anything. I'm going to put them ALL IN THE TRASH."

We've all been there, right?

I tried cajoling him. "Come on. There's only one more! You're so CLOSE! You can do it. You've worked so HARD! And they’re so GREAT!" He wasn't having it. He yelled, "I DON'T CARE," and threw himself dramatically onto the sofa. Annoyed at his short-sightedness and unable to accept that it was okay for him to trash hours of work, I said in a serious voice, "I need to go switch the laundry. While I'm away, I want you string that last necklace. I want it to be done when I come back in here."

Much to my surprise, he did it. With that impasse behind him, over the next several days, he went on to wrap and sign all thirty little packages by himself.

If there is a moral to this story, I think it is this: Valentine's Day is flawed, and thanks to that, it's full of learning opportunities. For example, Wyatt learned that determination can require digging deep, and practicing generosity can be hard. I learned it's as important to step back as it is to lend a hand. Also? It's okay to want to throw everything away, but don't actually do it in a fit of rage. Finally, planning ahead is smart. All in all, solid life and love lessons, courtesy of a pretty weird holiday.

Ikea and Memory

Do you remember the first time you went to Ikea? I do. I was in high school, and I was on a summer exchange program in Oslo, Norway. My Ikea guides were two young Norwegian women who had befriended me and were shopping for furniture for their new apartment. I remember being totally bowled over by the size of Ikea, its blue exterior, the clean lines of all the designs, and how comfortable I felt trying everything out.

My memory of the shopping trip is still so vivid. It made such an impression on me that I thought for sure I had taken photos of it. But I looked back at my album, and there’s no sign of Ikea anywhere. In fact, there’s only one photo of my two friends, and it is of them with their new sofa(?), in a shop that’s not Ikea. I suppose at the time, the photo mattered because they had maybe accomplished their mission. Decades later, though, I can’t help but notice that I was really into taking photos of unremarkable things that were only worthy of forgetting. That is, except for the farty street signs (and you know the photo of the flowers is terrible if you have to label it "flowers.").

The second time I went to Ikea was when I went to college. I was with friends looking for bookshelves when I suddenly realized I had been there before, only in Oslo. I hadn’t bothered to remember “Ikea” because I thought the store was a Scandanavian thing I’d never see again. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Memory is such a funny thing. Some memories are so vivid, some just disappear, and there are the hazy ones where you know you were there because there’s a photo of it. There is also all the science that tells us that every time we retrieve a memory, it changes, so we can’t really trust that we remember everything exactly as it happened. Right? Maybe. But for the purposes of real life, getting hung-up on the very specific details is to miss the bigger picture. I mean, if your boss jerked-off in front of you, his aiming into a potted plant is a good detail, but totally not the point.  I’m so glad that, this week, from my perspective, people seem to be believing more victims’ accounts than usual. As I read all the #MeToo statuses on social media and reflect on my own #MeToo, I realize that I’ve always assumed that every woman I have ever met has been, at the very least, sexually harassed during her life, and likely worse. We’ve all learned to deal with it. “Dealing” takes many forms, including tolerating, ignoring, avoiding, and getting therapy. Consider all that daily effort by so many women, while the perpetrators carry on as usual with the patriarchy’s support. Do you remember the first time you experienced or witnessed harassing behavior? It starts early. I remember in second grade being told to “grow a tougher skin” so the daily, stomach-churning harassment of a boy could continue but wouldn’t bother me. After all, the refrain of the grown-ups was, “Aww. It's fine. He just likes you!” Unchecked, bad behavior of course only gets worse. Like in seventh grade wood shop when the boys would surround me, the only girl, to taunt me with talk and gestures of blow-jobs while the teacher hid in his office. I eventually transferred into an art class. And then there's what we deal with as high schoolers, and as grown-ups. We must raise better boys, and we must also hold accountable the grown-ups who are behaving terribly.

But let me get back to Ikea. Memories of Ikea. And the reality of Ikea today! I hadn’t been to Ikea in years, but we took Wyatt this weekend. As far as I can tell, Ikea has only changed for the better since I was there last. The small living spaces with perfectly arranged, just colorful enough furniture and accessories make me feel like I could totally move in. I mean, there are even clothes hanging in the closets.

We weren’t shopping, but we did buy hangers and dishtowels (I dare you to go to Ikea and buy nothing), and Wyatt got a stubby pencil and catalog as souvenirs. More importantly, though, Wyatt left with context for Catherine Newman's One Mixed-Up Night, which he has now heard twice. I read it to him the first time and Marc the second time. “Didn’t you love it?” I asked Marc. “It’s one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. But yes, it’s great,” he responded. While I didn’t find it that sad, I do understand where Marc’s coming from. No spoilers here, so you’ll have to read and decide for yourself.

This trip to Ikea, I didn’t forget to take photos.

And in further recognition of Catherine Newman's work, and my own need to not spend a moment more in the kitchen than absolutely necessary, we ate nachos for dinner on Sunday. Her nacho cheese sauce is really good. Our somewhat unconventional toppings included tomatoes, chopped fermented dill green beans, hearts of palm, lettuce, pepperoncini, and black beans. Weird salad on chips. With nacho cheese sauce! You know you want to try it.

Fruit Butter, Misunderstandings, and Awkwardness

This week, I'm turning my post format upside-down. Trust me. Fruit butter takes a long time to simmer, so we'll start with it first. 

First, you get the Concord Grape Butter. I got the idea from Food In Jars' Instagram feed. These preserves taste and smell more like grapes than anything I've ever had. They are the grape soda (or gum) of your childhood, only way better.

Basically, we took all the grapes, washed them, cooked them on their stems until the fruit was soft, pulled out the stems (they were hot! and the juice stained my fingers for days! good thing I'm so selfless!), Wyatt put the grapes through the food mill to get rid of seeds and skins, and then I cooked down the puree until it was fruit butter consistency. I added a couple of tablespoons of sugar until it tasted right. We funneled the butter into jars and then processed the jars in the water bath. (The basic formula for fruit butter is here, and I've got plum butter simmering in the slow cooker as I type.)

Now that you know about grape butter (I mean, I had no idea, did you?), I feel like it's fair to share my recent thoughts on showing up in life.

I'm realizing that talking with Wyatt about race, justice, and fairness is, on one hand, completely necessary, and on the other hand, impossible for me to get right all the time. (And who doesn't like to get things right?) For example, last weekend, we were making dinner and Wyatt was, for the first time in his life, in charge of frying fritters. He was focused and attentive, and there was a lot of frying to do, so he was there for awhile. Over the sizzling pans and the whirring exhaust fan, we were discussing fairness and classmates being kind (or not so kind) at school, and I was trying to make the point that we (and he) should always be ready to help others. As I was saying something like, "...so Wyatt, if we see someone being hurt, or treated badly, it's our job to check in with the person so we can help them, stick up for them..." he cut me off and declared with a degree of solemnity I didn't know was possible, "Yes. I know. Stand up for them. And I could get killed for it."

Marc and I looked at each other, not sure how to react. I did a quick mental sift and suddenly realized Wyatt must have been referring to the (totally inspiring) profiles in Rad Women Worldwide where women had (1) stood up for their beliefs and (2) had been killed for it. Doing our best on-the-fly-repair-job, Marc and I went on to talk about how getting killed for your beliefs can be an outcome (I mean, obviously), but it's a very unusual outcome in our community. Most importantly, getting killed for standing up for his beliefs and for others is not a thing Wyatt needs to worry about, at all. I wonder how much of all this he grasped. Marc and I later agreed that we'd pay better attention to and talk with Wyatt about examples we noticed where we, or someone else, supported others in the course of everyday life.

But that wasn't the only misunderstanding that weekend. On Saturday, Wyatt was listening on the kitchen speakers to his beloved cassette where Diana Ross sings "Workin' Overtime." He asked, "Mom. Diana Ross has brown skin, right? Was she enslaved?" I said, "No, slavery was over before her time, but her..." He cut me off, "Her ancestors probably were enslaved?" "Yes," I said, "You've got it. Why do you ask?" He responded, "Well, because she's singing, 'I'm working ALL THE TIME.' So it made me think she was enslaved.'" Of course it did. Everything and everyone is impossibly old when you're six; 1863 was a long, long time ago, but so was 1989. I explained the words were actually "working overtime," and we discussed how that was different from "all the time," and from slavery.

And then this weekend? I got the awkward-over-thinker award. We were headed to a baseball game! I realized after we had invited Wyatt's big-kid-buddy from school to join us that we might be at the park in time for the national anthem, and since we'd have someone else's child with us, I had better find out where his family was on the anthem protest issue. So I texted his mom. I felt a super awkward, and in the end, we missed the anthem anyway.

What's my point? My point is that we have to actually show up in life. And part of showing up is feeling awkward (ugh), getting stuff wrong (which sucks), learning to do better (yay), and then showing up again, and again (no, it doesn't end). Humanity needs me, and it needs you. Just these last few weeks have shown this fact over and over again, from devastating hurricanes, to the United States' failure adequately to aid Puerto Rico, to the terrorism in Las Vegas, to the United States' continued preference for the Second Amendment over human lives.

Yes, it's a lot. And this week? I didn't feel like volunteering in the garden like Wyatt and I usually do. But as Wyatt said, "Of course I want to go. Why wouldn't we go?" So we showed up and did our work. As always, it was worth it.

How To Stand Up For Yourself

"Mom. Did those people just get arrested? Oh wait. Yes, they did. I see the handcuffs on them. They must have done something REALLY BAD. Hang on. I mean, the police must THINK they did something really bad. But WHY is that police officer taking stuff out of their car? Is he looking for something? What on EARTH is he looking for?"

As we left the beach today following a short (but soul restoring) sandcastle building session, we arrived at our car only to find ourselves crime-scene-adjacent. And because a police car was blocking my only way out of the parking space, Wyatt got a good, long look at everything that was happening. Fortunately, he didn't notice the collection of drug paraphernalia that had been placed on the roof of the suspects' car, so I didn't have to explain that. He did, however, watch one officer meticulously searching the car, another officer minding and questioning the two morose, handcuffed suspects seated on the curb, and he saw more officers arriving to assist. Shortly after help arrived, one of the officers moved their car and I was able to leave.

Here's an excerpt of my conversation with Wyatt on the ride home. WHAT DO THE OFFICERS THINK THOSE PEOPLE DID? I have no idea. WHY DO THEY GET TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING IN THEIR CAR? That's one of the things police officers can do when they arrest you--search your pockets, your car, your bags, that kind of thing. WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING FOR? Stuff you're not supposed to have. LIKE WHAT COULD THAT POSSIBLY BE? Ohhh, I don't know. Stuff you're not supposed to have. LIKE WHAT? Ummm. LIKE WHAT? Maybe you have a gun you're not supposed to have. A GUN? WHY WOULD YOU HAVE THAT IN YOUR CAR? Okay, good point, forget that. Remember when we flew on the airplane and there was that list of stuff you can't bring in your luggage? Like fireworks? Maybe they're looking for fireworks that people aren't supposed to have. WHY CAN'T YOU HAVE FIREWORKS? Because in some places, they're considered too dangerous. LIKE BECAUSE PEOPLE DON'T MAKE GOOD DECISIONS WITH THEM AND THEY LIGHT STUFF ON FIRE? Yes--exactly. BUT WHAT IF THE PEOPLE IN HANDCUFFS DIDN'T DO WHAT THE POLICE THINK THEY DID? OH WAIT! I KNOW. THEY STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES. THEY CAN BE LIKE ROSA PARKS AND SAY THEY SHOULD GO AHEAD AND ARREST THEM.  No. That's a different situation. It's called civil disobedience. But I can see why you're thinking about that. If you get arrested, you do your best to be respectful of the officers without saying much, even if you know you didn't do anything wrong. WHY? For two reasons. First, we respect other people. Second, you should really only be talking to the officers to ask to call your lawyer. HOW DO YOU GET A LAWYER? HOW WOULD I GET A LAWYER? I am your lawyer. Do you know my phone number?

It was really hard for me to make the concepts involved in this conversation age-appropriate. It was especially hard today because the killing of Jordan Edwards was very much on my mind. I mean, a kid can be doing his best, including leaving a party before the cops show up, and if he's black, the police still might shoot him in the head (and lie about it). 

After Wyatt reassured himself that he knows my phone number, I reassured him that he wouldn't have any chance of being arrested for a long time. I also told him it's great to know my number in case of an emergency. (LIKE WHAT KIND OF EMERGENCY? Like if you're out somewhere and you can't find me, but you see another parent, you could ask them to call me. OKAY.)

Ultimately, our conversation about criminal law came down to trying to answer the question, "How do you stand up for yourself?" We talked about how Rosa Parks stood up to the bus driver who told her to move. And we talked about how if you're arrested, you can stand up for yourself by insisting you need to talk to a lawyer. I also raised a question about what it might be like to stand up for a friend when you notice something isn't right, like the time a stranger started patting Wyatt's friend's hair. Wyatt remarked, "She was white, right? Why did she think she could touch his hair? Is it because his skin is darker than hers or because he uses a wheelchair?" "Maybe both," I said.

I suggested that how exactly you stand up for yourself or for your friends can change depending on the situation, and after thinking for a little bit, Wyatt agreed.

Watching police work was not the way I would have chosen to end our sweet little beach visit today, but I couldn't be more pleased to have stumbled on such a useful way to frame discussions around justice of all kinds.

Stepping Up (and Snacks)

The election this week left me sad, angry, frustrated, and broken-hearted. Our president-elect is someone who has shown us through his words and actions that he is someone who believes people who are immigrants, minorities, disabled, Muslim, LGBTQ, female, or otherwise different, are not equal to him, should not be treated with respect, and should not be afforded the protections of our laws. He also thinks global warming isn't real. More than ever, those of us who value equality, tolerance, civil rights, the environment, and frankly, personal decency, need to act and lead by example from wherever we are.

I was inspired this past week by a post that author Catherine Newman wrote: "Service is the road to happiness...we can support the most vulnerable people in our communities, either in established ways—volunteering with organizations that serve youth and queers and the poor and the elderly and other people in need who need our time; involving ourselves in local politics and issues; donating money to local causes we believe in—or in creative ones." She went on to explain how her friend, Kate Schatz, delivered flowers to the Islamic Center of Alameda. I read Catherine's post while I waited for Wyatt to finish chasing the pigeons at the Ferry Building on Friday. I thought to myself, we could do that.

Before heading back to the muni station, I Googled Islamic organizations and mosques, and I found a mosque in the Tenderloin. Wyatt and I stopped to buy some flowers from a woman outside the Embarcadero subway entrance on Market Street. I didn't ask, but Helena, the florist, shared with us that she is from Poland and has lived and worked in this country for many years. (I suspect she might have been having a terrible election week, too.) She carefully boxed the arrangement we had chosen so it would survive the trip on the train, and I wrote a little card.

Because Wyatt prefers to use all forms of public transit whenever possible, he insisted we take BART to Civic Center. Once at Civic Center, he complained bitterly about the ride being too short, but the busker crooning Carole King's "It's Too Late" took his mind off it. We began to make our way up Market Street. Along the way, we watched a police officer fall off the the back of his mountain bike as he tried to perfect a wheelie ("Someday I'll get it!" he said cheerfully) while his partner shook his head and rode on, we saw some homeless people sleeping, some asking for money, and a variety of "activity" as we walked up Jones Street.

Once we had arrived at the address, I realized I didn't know how to deliver flowers to a mosque. It was time for prayer, and there were men hurrying in, removing their shoes, and washing their hands. Wyatt and I were definitely out of place. I said to the man closest to me at the entrance, "We have these flowers to give to the community." He looked at me and said, "But I don't know any of these people." Me neither. So I said, "Well, I don't want to interrupt...would it be okay if I left them here by the sink?" And he replied, "Yes. I think that would be fine." So that's what we did.

On our way out, Wyatt noticed some mothers wearing headscarves sitting on the sidewalk with children in their laps. They were holding signs asking for money. "Are those KIDS homeless?" he asked me once we were down the block. "Maybe," I said, and I could feel Wyatt's little hand tighten in mine it as the weight of their reality hit him. Does empathy start when we notice an aspect of ourselves in someone who is suffering? I can't know for sure, but we have been discussing homelessness off and on ever since.

There is a lot of work ahead of us. And as Wyatt's and my Friday flower delivery showed, sometimes we won't know what we're doing and we'll feel awkward, but we will do our best, and we will learn. I realize that dropping off flowers isn't the only answer, but it felt good to offer a small kindness directly to people who, as I told Wyatt, "are probably even more upset about the election than we are." Marc and I are also looking at how we can better impact our community and country in terms of volunteering our time and donating money to established organizations. We will also be vigilant in contacting our representatives in an effort to hold them accountable.

Meanwhile, I've been a terrible cook this week. Awful news affects me on pretty much every level, and this week I lost interest in eating anything other than pretzels, which is bad news for the people I live with. But we have been muddling through thanks in part to some homemade Lara-esque bars Wyatt and I made last on Sunday while the cookies for the Hillary volunteers were baking. It seems like a lifetime ago. Here's the recipe in case you want to make the bars, too.

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces of dried apricots
• 16 ounces of cashews
• 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• 2 oz raw hemp seeds

Directions:

Put all of the ingredients into a food processor and let it run for several minutes, until everything is in tiny pieces and has come together. Line a rimmed baking pan with waxed paper (or parchment) and press the mixture down evenly into the pan. These are yours to make whatever shape you want, so however thick you want them, go for it. Cut them in whatever shapes you like. Refrigerate the pan, and eat up once they're firm. You do need to keep the bars refrigerated, or they get smushy.

Democracy and Cookies

"S-O-P-E! Come join our DEMOCRACY!"

This was Wyatt's chant most of the way home on Sunday, as he proudly marched down the sidewalk holding up his new sign. He got smiles, waves, thumbs-up, and all the responses you'd expect to get in San Francisco from a sign picturing Nancy Pelosi as Rosie the Riveter saying "WE CAN DO IT!" After several blocks, though, I gently suggested, "Why don't you use an 'H' instead of 'S,' that way you can spell "HOPE," because "SOPE," even though it sounds like "SOAP," doesn't mean anything." He looked at me quizzically, took a beat, and then resumed his original chant until he had placed the sign in a window of our house.

One question I've been asking myself during this presidential election year (ha! as if it has been only a year!) is: How do I engage a five-year old in electoral politics without totally ruining his innocence (and sounding to him like the useless grown-ups on Charlie Brown)? Until yesterday, I had no answer other than taking him to vote with us. We otherwise keep quiet about the election around him, except when he asks a question about cartoons on the cover of the New Yorker, remarks on the poll one of his classmates keeps trying to take during recess, or mentions the Trump Trap they have been building in the play yard. "Voting" is a solid answer, to be sure, but I was hoping to come up with more.

On Saturday, I phone-banked from home, and I dedicated hours to figuring out my votes for the longest ballot in the country. (Oh, California! Sometimes, I don't even know where to begin with you.) On Sunday, our original plans had been for book club (we're reading The Buried Giant—it's wonderful!), but the meeting was postponed. Then Marc was sidelined because he finally came down with The Horrible Cold. As the Primary Sunday Parent, I didn't feel like I could phone-bank again. But Wyatt and I could bake and deliver Cacao Nib Cookies for the volunteers at Hillary Headquarters. So we did that.

Overall, baking went very well. And the whole delivery would have gone really smoothly if I had paid better attention to the address: 1001 Van Ness Avenue (Hillary Headquarters) is nowhere near 1001 S. Van Ness Avenue (Limón Rotisserie Restaurant). I took us to Limón. Upon our arrival, Wyatt made it clear he was not impressed. My mistake would have been no big deal if I had been driving, but it was a by-public-transit-and-foot kind of day. So we took a deep breath and regrouped. As we walked to the 16th Street BART station, we ran into a small parade of demonstrators in favor of San Francisco Propositions A and N (which would expand voting rights in local elections). The demonstrators' chant was a little bit muddled, but "DEMOCRACY!" came through loud and clear, and Wyatt had some questions. "Mom. What's democracy?" I did my level best to answer that one, and he said "Mmm," while nodding knowingly.

Once we were finally at Headquarters, we got to make ourselves name tags, and the greeter explained that we could deliver our cookies to the person in charge of "the café" on the third floor. She also said that we should check out the phone-banking rooms and texting rooms, and maybe, just maybe, they'd have a sign or something Wyatt could have. His ears perked up and his step quickened as we headed for the elevator. "Mom. Remember she said maybe they'd have a sign for me. Can you ask? PLEASE?" The third floor was buzzing with lots of voices, palpable excitement, and a flurry of activity. We looked into the texting room (it's boring watching people text, as I'm sure you have experienced, and get-out-the-vote texting looks the same), and then we went to the phone-banking room. We heard a volunteer reach a voter in Ohio, thank them for their vote and support, and then ring the bell. We left on that high note.

We were at Headquarters for 10 minutes at the most, which is hilarious considering how long it took us to get there. We picked up Wyatt's sign on the way out, and he had me read it to him a few times. He carried it down Van Ness as we headed to the Muni station, turning positively pink as people gave him smiles and fist-bumps .

"Mom! People really like my sign. It's a really nice sign, isn't it? And it's the same on both sides, right?" Emboldened, he said loudly for the first time, "S-O-P-E! Come join our DEMOCRACY!" then paused and asked with an ear-to-ear smile, "Right, mom? Isn't that what those people with the signs were saying?" I laughed and said the democracy part was right, but I wasn't sure about the rest of it. He responded with conviction, "It was S-O-P-E! I just know it."

And so he continued, as well he should have. Details (like political platforms, policies, and spelling) matter, but they only matter in the context of our democracy. It's our democracy that really matters.

Please be sure to vote!

Pop-Up Toy Sale

This photo of Wyatt's formerly beloved toy toolbox, tool belt, hard hat, and cooktop basically represents his first five years. I hope I will forever remember him playing, for hours on end, construction worker, chef, and worker-in-the-cherrypicker-bucket. But it's now time for new adventures. First up: Fishing. After all, there is no more logical choice for a city kid, right?

We can thank Golden Gate Park for this inspiration. The first time Wyatt and I rounded the end of the par course at Golden Gate Park, he noticed the casting pools down the hill. Once I had explained what the pools were and what the two people were doing with "those sticks and strings," Wyatt exclaimed, "I REALLY want to get a fishing rod. When can we do that!?" I told him I would look into fishing rods, and then I forgot to do any looking whatsoever, even after he reminded me.

Meanwhile, Marc and I had been asking Wyatt for months to identify the toys he didn't use anymore so that we could consign them or give them away. He kept telling us he would think about it, but he never got around to identifying any toys, and we pretty much stopped asking.

Our mutual procrastination evaporated last week when Wyatt said, "Mom. I REALLY want to get a fishing rod so we can go practice casting soon. I think I'm ready to get rid of all of these toys. Should we take them to Chloe's Closet to have them sell them and then we can order me a fishing rod?"

In a split second, I swallowed my surprise and calculated that we might, if we were very lucky, get $10 from a consignment of all the toys. I also knew we wouldn't see any money for at least six weeks. And how would I explain "consignment?" "Weeelll," I said, "I'm not sure Chloe's is the way to go for this. Do you want to have a pop-up toy shop this weekend and see if you can sell these yourself?"

"YES!" he beamed. "I'm going to go see what else I can find!"

I have no experience with garage sales, and neither does Marc (who was out of town for work when we hatched the plan and fortunately said "YES!" to the plan, even though I didn't check with him first, like a thoughtful partner should). But the pop-up toy shop was worth a try. I figured the worst case would be that we'd sell nothing and head to Chloe's.

Wyatt gathered toys and one book. On Saturday, we laid everything out and organized items into price groups: $1, $5 and $10. Marc and Wyatt put price stickers on everything. I made some signs, and Wyatt and Marc stapled them to telephone poles around the neighborhood. I wrote posts about our sale on our neighborhood online groups. I also got some coffee, stirrers, half-and half, and the ingredients for watermelon agua fresca because why not sell drinks? Fortunately, I also remembered to get some change in case everyone showed up with a $20.

Sunday morning, we were open by 9:00 am, as advertised, and we had brisk business for the first fifteen minutes. Then, much to Wyatt's dismay, the long lulls began. He had no idea that keeping shop could mean a lot of waiting around. We were supposed to close at 11:00 am, but when that time came, Wyatt flatly refused to go inside. So Marc went around with a sharpie and changed the end time on all the signs to 12:00 pm. But we stayed out even longer than noon. We ate lunch outside, and with every passing hour, until almost 3:00 pm, we sold more items.

As the hours passed, Wyatt made improvements to the shop. He wanted to do some advertising himself, so I made him a sign to hold. And once many of the toys were gone, he concluded the table needed to be more beautiful, so he covered it with play silks.

We sold toys and drinks to our nearest neighbors (some of whom we had never met), as well as to people from further away who had seen our advertisements. We got to visit with dogs while their families shopped. And we heard from our favorite neighbors about how in the 1970s and 1980s, the whole street would pool together and have garage sales on the corner, or in each others' garages. We heard about how the best garage sales used to be out in The Avenues. One neighbor suggested we turn our table 90 degrees so people down the road could see what we were selling. I remarked that we hadn't done that because we wanted to be sure that pedestrians could easily pass by. His eyes twinkled as he said, "People always find a way by. And, you know people who sell stuff on the sidewalk are no good anyway, right?"

In total, we sold $55 worth of drinks and toys. Our favorite neighbors also donated $5 to the fishing pole fund after Wyatt helped with some gardening during one of the long lulls in the shop. We were left with only six toys, and Wyatt seemed to have no pangs of regret as he demonstrated the most wonderful aspects of each toy before selling it.

At the end of the day, as Wyatt and I quietly watched a beaming brother and sister carry his hard hat and tool box back to their house, I took a deep breath. And for once, instead of wishing I could freeze time, I thought: Bass Pro Shop, here we come.

Watermelon Agua Fresca

I do not pretend to be an expert on agua fresca, but we love this drink. I combined a few of the recipes I found online and arrived at this refreshing combination. I hope you like it, too!

• One small seedless watermelon (mine had about 8 cups of melon in it)
• 12 mint leaves
• 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
• 2 cups cold water
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup, honey or sugar (or more or less to taste)

Scoop out the flesh of the watermelon. Put all the ingredients in a blender (in batches, if necessary) and blend until very smooth. Drink up!

Hitting the Fitness Trail

"Sweaty! Sweaty! Half the fun of exercise is [beat] getting sweaty!"

(Just make up a tune and go with it—that's what we do.)

I am one of those people who is intolerable if I don't exercise. Without exercise, I get antsy, snappish, and grumpy. My knees start to ache dreadfully—like they are rusty and creaky from inactivity. I lose patience with everyone and everything. It's a bad scene, as Marc can tell you. The only cure is a workout.

When Wyatt is in school, I lift weights at the gym a couple of times a week, and the other days, I do a workout at home (on a suspension trainer, with a heavy kettlebell, or on a pull-up bar in the garage), or run stair intervals outside, or hike the steep inclines around San Francisco. But summer is different. There are more full days of "together time," and call me crazy, but I don't always relish getting up two hours earlier to fit in a workout on my own before settling in for a full day of mothering.

More than that, I feel like I shouldn't have to compartmentalize every day that way. Kids are active, and there's every reason to integrate fitness with everyday life. Of course it's not always possible to get a good workout with a young child around, and a lot of times, if I'm honest, I'd rather it be MY time than together time. But ever since Wyatt was a baby, I've exercised a day or two a week with him: walking with him in a front carrier, pushing him up hills in the jogging stroller, hiking hills with him in the frame backpack, doing calisthenics while he played on the floor, and most recently, teaching him a little circuit at home so I could do one myself.* Despite all of these activities, though, I think the whole concept of fitness only clicked for him after the Saturday morning I took him with me to a personal training session (Marc was deathly ill and couldn't look after him). Ever since that morning, Wyatt has been very interested in exercise and being strong enough to lift very heavy things all by himself.

The other weekend, Wyatt asked me, "When can we go back to the exercise course?" He meant the Perrier Parcourse at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park. We had tried it a couple of times last year, but he wasn't yet old enough to (a) make it around without being carried part of the way or (b) let me do my reps while he waited. Frustration ensued for both of us, so I gave it a rest. But after he asked about it, I figured it was worth another attempt. Good thing we tried again, because this may be the Summer of the Perrier Parcourse. We went twice last week and we both found exercises we want to work on (for me the vault; for him, the hand walk).

Notice the oversized running water bottle Wyatt is wearing. You know how new workout gear can make you want to get to the gym or go for a run? Same is true for the 5 year-old set, only in this case, I just had to loan him my old training gear. He loves it, and I love not having to schlep his water.

It's tough to beat a fitness trail. We get to be outside (and as loud and silly as we want), go at our own pace, work as hard as we want separately, work together, count, race, find flowers, climb log piles, goof around, and get stronger. It's basically playing in the park, but with a little bit of structure and some goals.

It's so much fun. You want to try it, too, don't you? A list of Fitness Trails throughout the world is here. If you find another list, or another trail, please leave it in the comments!

*All of these ideas, the progression of them, and my ability to do any of them, are thanks to my inimitable trainer, Doug Norris.

Father's Day

"Is tomorrow Father's Day? Dad. We are definitely not doing ANYTHING special for you for breakfast tomorrow."

Wyatt has almost moved on from sharing surprises the moment he hears them. Lately, he's into the (very obvious) "misleading" statements that reveal the surprise.

But who cares about the "surprise" part, right? We don't. Wyatt and I got up on Sunday and prepared a lovely breakfast. He snipped a big bunch of lavender flowers from the garden while I made blueberry pancakes. At breakfast, he gave Marc the mug he had painted the week before (saying as we left for the ceramics studio, "Dad. We are are NOT leaving right now to work on a surprise for you for Father's Day.")

After breakfast, we headed down the street to see the aftermath of the terrible fire that Wyatt and Marc had witnessed Saturday afternoon. On Saturday, Marc and Wyatt had gone out to the park, but soon after, they noticed a lot of smoke coming from down the road. They followed the smoke and commotion to a five-alarm fire where flames were pouring out the top story of what turned out to be six burning buildings. According to news reports I have read, no one was hurt. But the whole scene was intense and sad. Wyatt announced when they got home, "Mom. I haven't gotten enough snuggles from you today," and he proceeded to sit on my lap for over an hour while peppering me with questions about fires and firefighters. On Sunday, the devastation was still very much on Wyatt's mind, so Marc suggested we revisit the scene. Nearly 24 hours later, the buildings were still smoldering in places. And, now, more than two days after the fire, Wyatt is still processing what it means to be a firefighter. He thought he knew, but now he understands that he truly had NO IDEA what it entails. The combination of flames coming out of buildings and his beloved Cole Hardware, gutted and unrecognizable, was sobering.

We spent a long time on the sidewalk watching all the activity. Eventually, we headed home.

Later in the day, we picked up giant sandwiches from Ike's and ate them at home in our garden on lawn chairs. Then, we lounged on the lawn chairs. Next, we walked (and some of us also used our kick-scooters) to get ice cream. I should note that all of these activities were aspects of Wyatt's dream day, and he suggested all of them. Fortunately, Wyatt and Marc like many of the same things, so this plan worked well for Father's Day.

On our way back from ice cream, a fire engine drove by. As the firefighters rang the bell, Wyatt stopped and looked. Without even a hint of a smile, he waved earnestly, reflecting his new and deep respect.

I thought to myself as I saw him wave, "The kid's growing up." But the truth is, all of us are offered opportunities all the time to grow-up. As adults, if we're present and ready for it, we can gain new perspectives and work to become our best selves. Children, on the other hand, aren't ready to author their own stories in the same way. It's our responsibility to help them. As I reflected on the big and small things that had punctuated Father's Day, I found myself especially grateful that Marc is Wyatt's father. I can't think of a better person to help him write his story. 

Spring Cleaning

"Mom. We have cleaned out all of the kitchen. So what will we clean out today?"

"The dining room is next."

"Maybe we should first have a cup of tea."

This conversation happened about a week into our 40 days of cleaning out our house. Was Wyatt starting to feel like it might never end? Or is that just how I feel about it? Either way, this is the third year of our annual clearing out, or as some people call it, purging. We started this practice in 2014 after I read a friend's Facebook post about the "40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge." The idea is that for the 40 days of lent, you get rid of one large lawn and leaf-sized garbage bag of stuff. I interpreted "get rid of" as meaning you throw it out, recycle, donate or sell the stuff, but the stuff doesn't actually have to leave your house every day. It can sit in the bags until you're ready to take it wherever it needs to go, but all of it has to be gone by Easter. That first year, we cleared out over four hundred of pounds of stuff, including lots of old books and magazines (I promise, we aren't hoarders—that stuff is just heavy), furniture we never used, old clothes, as well as standard clutter. I was so impressed/horrified by what we discarded that I kept a photo of a receipt for what we brought to Recology. When Easter came, I felt ridiculously virtuous for all we had accomplished, and I gleeflully shredded our progress chart detailing the areas we had cleared. I thought to myself, "Well! We won't have to do THAT again for a long time."

I was wrong, wrong, wrong. We are not Marie Kondo, and as hard as we try to keep things to a minimum, clutter happens and stuff finds its way into our house. Also, after that first massive clear out in 2014, I noticed the following spring that we hadn't touched some of the things we had decided to keep. So, when Ash Wednesday rolled around again, we started again. I let go of the one-giant-bag-per-day requirement, though, and just addressed one area of the house every day. If there was more time, I handled a bigger area. If there was hardly any time, I dealt with a drawer. And we got rid of probably about half as much stuff as we did the year before. Because two years amounts to a tradition, we're at it again this year, in the same way we approached the process in 2015.

We are not a religious family. But the period of lent really is perfect for taking stock of what we have versus what we need or want, and engaging in the giant, unenviable task of clearing things out. As a child, I was taught that lent was a time for reflection, and a time to give up something (like sweets), take on a charitable responsibility, or maybe be just a bit nicer to my little brother. Because "never" is not a reasonable option, I can't think of a better time than lent for clearing out stuff. With lent, you get a definitive start date, end date, and a good, long 40 days to complete the project.

But it's not an easy project. Marc and I have had more than a few grumbly words with each other about the whole process. We did the easy stuff two years ago. This year, we are moving through the entire house, area by area, looking at every item critically. If the stuff is mine, I ask myself a smattering of questions that help me to decide whether to keep an item: "Do I need it?" "Do I want it?" "Does it spark joy?" If the answer is yes to any of those, I keep the item. If the answer is no to all of those, it's out. If the answer is "no" to only one or two of the questions, sometimes I'll keep the item, and sometimes I'll toss it. And if the stuff is Marc's, he gets to decide what to do with it. The best part, though, is when I cross-examine Marc or he cross-examines me about a decision to keep an item. Like I said, this project isn't easy.

One of the reasons I hate this annual clear out is because it makes me face how my life has changed and how little progress I have made in reconciling myself to those changes. For example, I have innumerable pairs of fun and fancy shoes that I never, ever wear anymore, as well as lots of blank canvases and tubes of paint I haven't touched since 2011. And then there are well-crafted items I can't use but feel a bizarre responsibility to somehow repurpose, like ill-fitting hand knits and outdated cashmere sweaters from my grandmothers. I think it may be finally time to move on from some of this stuff.

A heartening aspect of this clearing out, though, is how Wyatt is taking to the process. For his stuff, he and I walk through his toys and books, one by one, and sometimes, he finds things he doesn't need or want anymore, which is great. He's also there as I clear out my own stuff. He loves discovering items he has never seen, and he's delighted that Marc and I are having to make decisions about what to keep. Lately, Wyatt has been going into my closet (which I have yet to address this year) to pull something out, like a handbag he has never seen me use. He'll ask, "Is this on your list to go out?" Sometimes, he asks because he hopes I'll keep it, and sometimes he asks because he sees no reason for me to have it.  Either way, it's wonderful to see that he has enthusiasm for a task I loathe so much, and that he's thinking critically about what we have, what we need, and what we don't.

Waking Up

"Mom. I don't like it when you put my rain pants on top of my lunch bag in my backpack...We go outside to play before lunch, but we have snack before that. When I take my placemat and napkin out for snack, I have to pull out my rain pants, and I don't like having to do that."

It is really remarkable to watch a very young person become more autonomous, thoughtful, and engaged in the day-to-day rhythms of life. When Wyatt told me about the rain pants, we were hurrying to get out the door for school. Fortunately, his comment caught me so off guard that I stopped for a moment and thought before responding. "Oh," I said after a beat, "I didn't know. I thought I was helping by putting them on top. Let's move the pants to the bottom so it's better organized for you." My reward for that moment of parental awareness was Wyatt's pleased expression of satisfaction as he helped me repack his bag.

Even though I know there's a lot more to it, I often feel like my "conscious parenting" amounts to whether I'm able to timely and lovingly manage the rhythm of our days. Some days are better than others. When I shout in exasperation, "I SAID HURRY UP! WE ARE SO LATE!" I know it helps no one, and yet, I still do it more often than I'd like. Things also run less smoothly when Marc is out of town. This past week was no exception. One day I overslept, by a lot. Another day, I noticed Wyatt's jacket was missing just as it was time to leave for school. The futile, frantic hunt around the house for the jacket resulted in our forgetting the broccoli we were supposed to bring for soup day. But thanks to a swiftness and focus I have never before witnessed in my child, we were on time for school the day I overslept. And thanks to his gracious teacher, we were immediately forgiven for forgetting our soup day vegetable. As she said, "The broccoli probably just wanted to stay home."

Maybe another way to describe the new autonomy I'm witnessing is to say that I'm watching Wyatt wake up to the world. Just this week, we have had conversations about life, death, peoples' battles with cancer vs. knights' battles with dragons, artistic expression, freedom, fairness, differences, and equality. These are the topics that arise when David Bowie dies of cancer and we prepare to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day within the same week.

After I told Wyatt that school would be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he did not give me his usual, "Yay! Three-day weekend!" cheer. Instead, he asked, "Why is there a holiday? Who is Martin Luther King Jr.?" I gave him a (hopefully) age-appropriate explanation about Dr. King's importance to the Civil Rights Movement and how Dr. King dedicated his life to achieving freedom and equality through nonviolence. Wyatt's question then became, "How will we celebrate Dr. King?" I wasn't sure.

I started researching children's books on Dr. King (this list and this list were helpful).  I decided to order A Sweet Smell of Roses, which presents the leadership of Dr. King through the eyes of children. In the story, two elementary school-aged sisters sneak out of their home early one morning to join Dr. King on a march. The children experience community with their fellow marchers, and they experience hate from white bystanders who tell them they do not deserve to be treated equally. The illustrations are strikingly beautiful and full of emotion, and the words of the story are easy to understand and wonderfully lyrical. The story ends when the girls return home to their (understandably) worried mother who hugs them and lets them tell her all about the march.

The day the book arrived, Wyatt snatched it out of the box, snuggled next to me on the sofa and insisted that we read it over and over again. We discussed the pictures, including the races of the people in the pictures, and the story. He announced, "This is a great book. I love it except for that page where those people are mean and say that Dr. King and the other people aren't equal. That's REALLY not good."

In addition to books, I researched service projects and marches that we could join on the holiday itself. But none of the activities I found seemed exactly right for a child who's still shy of five years old. In the end, we opted to spend the morning working to beautify our community by picking up trash. Because activities with kids are so often improved by accessories (and because trash is gross), I wore disposable gloves and Wyatt wore disposable mitts.  I mostly carried the big trash bag, because as Wyatt said, if he carried it, it would drag on the ground. While we walked through our neighborhood and into the next, we picked up everything we found--from cigarette butts and candy wrappers, to yogurt containers and coffee cups, to clumps of paper towels and cardboard cartons. We also said hello to everyone we passed, none of whom we knew. Three people thanked us for cleaning up, and with each "thank you," Wyatt stood a little taller. One of the people who thanked us was a shopkeeper who came out to give us drinks and new disposable gloves because, as he said, he saw how hard we were working.

At the end of our walk, about a block from home, Wyatt looked at the bag of trash we had accumulated and said, "Mom! That bag must be so heavy for you! Let me carry it." At that moment, we were within earshot of a couple of construction workers. Wyatt's comment was just too much for them to handle with a straight face. They tried to stifle giggles, said a few words in Spanish to each other and went on to commend Wyatt's efforts loudly in English, "Look! Such a strong, strong boy!"

Fueled by those compliments, Wyatt walked with the trash bag over his shoulder for about a half a block before giving the bag back to me. As we stuffed the bag into a trash can, I told Wyatt how happy I was with our good work. I felt satisfied that, in our own little way, we had contributed to creating a Beloved Community, thereby honoring a great man who dedicated his life to achieving freedom and equality.

Small Kindnesses

Sitting among hundreds of little humans at the Davies Symphony Hall Concert for Kids this morning, waiting for the concert to begin, I started to think about climate change, refugees, mass shootings, and what being an American may mean today. I thought about how we all need to do so much better, in so many big ways. And I realized that my sphere of influence had never felt smaller.

As we left the concert, Marc (who was still in Cincinnati) called to say that our elderly neighbor, Ed,* fell in the bathtub today, and his wife, Helen, couldn't help him up. I immediately called Helen. She explained that in addition to calling Marc, she had gone across the street to a neighbor she saw was home, but who didn't answer the door. Helen said she continued down the street to another neighbor who fortunately came right over, with his tiny daughter in tow. He helped a shaken and exhausted, but seemingly unhurt, Ed out of the tub and into bed to rest. As Helen said, "It was really scary. It has been an awful morning."

Wyatt overheard my end of the conversation, and he became visibly concerned about Ed. I explained what had happened, and that Ed seemed okay now, just tired. Wyatt supposed, based on his own experience, that Ed had been standing up and playing around in a wet bathtub with the water running when he fell. I put on my best serious face and opined that it was probably just an accident.

On our Muni ride home this afternoon, Wyatt and I talked about Ed and how we hoped he was feeling better. Somehow during this discussion, we decided to bake Helen and Ed an apple pie. Maybe it would improve their day. Or maybe they would just have pie. Either way, we figured it was worth doing. The pie turned out beautifully. We carried it over while it was still hot. Helen beamed at us when she opened the door, and she said the pie would really brighten up the instant chicken soup she was having for dinner. Ed was still resting and didn't feel like eating. She mentioned how lonely she had felt during the day, so we promised to stop by tomorrow, too.

Wyatt and I walked back home and after dinner, as Wyatt dug into his own slice of pie (yes, we made two pies), I noticed a missed call and voicemail on my phone. It was Helen, calling to say how much she and Ed had enjoyed the pie and had eaten the whole thing. Just kidding! They only ate some of it, and "Kelly and Wyatt, you did a great job!" Wyatt grinned, made me play the message three times and asked me to save it so he could listen again. We talked about how it feels when you do something kind for someone and then hear a message like Helen's, and the answer is "REALLY GOOD."

I think the kid's heart grew at least one size today. And while our neighborly pie baking and delivery is a very small thing, especially in light of all the big things that need doing in the world, it's something.

I can't be the only one who feels like she affects so little. But it doesn't mean I shouldn't try. Perhaps all of our small kindnesses in all of our communities could add up to something big. In the worst case, there will be more kindness. Or more pie. Either way, we win.

*Neighbors' names have been changed, because if I fell in the bathtub, I might not be thrilled about someone writing about my mishap on her blog.

It's Not About the Pancakes

This morning we had our first school day breakfast meltdown: "No, Dad. I don't want yogurt or Bircher muësli. I want pancakes! Why can't I have pancakes? We have some in the freezer."

I was getting dressed as I listened to all of this begin to go down. Why no pancakes? Good question, I thought to myself. Pancakes are delicious. We had them for breakfast on Sunday, and there are indeed some in the freezer. But that's the thing. They are in the freezer and not ready to eat. And more than that, we don't have pancakes for breakfast on weekdays. 

I cheered silently for Marc as I listened to him stay firm and steady. He said to Wyatt, "I hear you. You want pancakes. You really want pancakes. And I totally get that they would taste really good. But it is a school day, and we are not having them. You may have yogurt or Bircher muësli. I'll put both in your bowl so you can choose." 

As Marc returned from carrying breakfast to the table, I joined him and Wyatt in the kitchen. Wyatt was wailing on the floor, and it looked like there was a decent chance that he wasn't going to touch his breakfast before we had to leave for school. But Marc and I stayed calm, relatively unruffled, and pretty empathetic (for 7:00 am on a school day) because we were prepared for this flare-up. We consciously do things the same way every day with Wyatt. Keeping a strong rhythm (or routine) makes it very easy for us to spot when something is off-balance, and it gives us the confidence to stay firm and on track when big emotions overwhelm our little kid. This morning, we didn't know what Wyatt's "sads" were about, but we could tell they definitely weren't about the pancakes. 

Our family would be lost without a daily rhythm, and this morning, I was so unbelievably thankful for Christina Perez, Wyatt's teacher and our parent coach, for helping us to establish ours. I remember, when Wyatt was much younger, how we struggled with the feeling of losing our autonomy and independence once we tied ourselves to a "schedule." But immersing ourselves in a daily rhythm was one of the smartest things we ever did as parents because we all know what's coming next and roughly when it will happen. It just makes everything so much easier. On a Sunday, for example, Wyatt (with less and less assistance) gets up, gets dressed, makes his bed, and brushes his teeth. There's a little time for him to play while Marc or I prepare breakfast. After breakfast, we clean up, and then there's time to play or have an adventure, and a midmorning snack. Lunch happens around 12-12:30 pm. After lunch, if we eat at home, there's a short period of quiet time, and then there is more free time until snack around 3:00 pm. Dinner happens around 5-5:30 pm, and then we slide into Wyatt's bedtime routine.

By now, we are so used to this routine, that when we deviate from it occasionally, we all recognize the change as something special, and it's very easy to get right back on track.

Wyatt eventually ate his yogurt and Bircher muësli for breakfast, and we confirmed it wasn't about the pancakes when we learned that he wasn't excited to go to school this morning. We were 7 minutes late leaving the house, but that's a pretty good recovery considering our original 20-minute delay to the start of breakfast. 

Finding freedom through routine sounds crazy, but that's where we are right now. And thank goodness for all of that.

Just Plane Fun

"Mom. Why does everyone keep asking me if my clownfish wheelie bag is called 'Nemo?'"

Wyatt has a terrific little wheelie bag that is shaped like a clownfish, and it always draws remarks at the airport. This year, the first to comment on the bag was a TSA Security Guard, who asked, "Is that Nemo?" Had he instead said, "Hey, buddy! That's a great bag. Is that a clownfish?" Wyatt would probably enthusiastically responded that yes, it was, and he would have shown him the zipper and the retractable handle. Instead, Wyatt looked at him like he was insane. 

Two more people asked "Hey! Is that Nemo?" as we waited for our plane. Wyatt gave them both the same quizzical look, as I explained, "No, it's just a clownfish." They followed-up with an incredulous, "Really?" So I assured them, "Yes, really. It's just a clownfish,"

These are the kind of exchanges that happen to us regularly, because Wyatt doesn't watch television or movies, and he doesn't play video games. Connecting with Wyatt over pop-culture doesn't work at this point in his life.

Our decision to wait to expose Wyatt to media has been a very conscious decision, and it has proven challenging at times. Our decision is based on many of the reasons discussed in this great post and thought-provoking podcast episode, and we're incredibly glad we have taken this approach. But when people find out that we're "those no-media people," we usually get one of three reactions. The first is, "You're crazy!" The second is, "So what are you saying? I'm ruining my kids by letting them watch their favorite programs?" And the third is a sort of sheepish, "Oh. We don't let ours watch THAT much..."

We are not crazy. This approach is working for us, and we feel that we're reaping the benefits of having a child with a rich imagination who enjoys independent play. And our choice has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing with their own kids. The statement, "Wyatt doesn't watch TV or videos," when offered to explain his blank stare at a pop-culture reference, is not a judgment of anyone. But it's no wonder that people sometimes take it negatively. Media in childhood is a hot button issue. At least a few times a year, there's another article telling parents that children should have less media exposure. And infuriatingly, those reports usually offer exactly zero suggestions on how to cut back. (If you're interested in cutting back on media for young children, there is a helpful post from Janet Lansbury that you can check out here.)

Anyway. Long flights are challenging for everyone, but especially young children and the parents traveling with them. And it's easy to assume that entertainment in a confined space like an airplane requires screens. But it didn't for us. The low-tech stuff still works. 

This year, Wyatt was old enough to help decide what to put in his wheelie bag to pass the time on the plane. Here's how we amused ourselves on our flights:

Aside from the mandatory safety video, the only thing we watched on a screen was the map showing the plane's progress across the country. On our flight to Boston, a child was seated in front of Wyatt and the poor kid kept dropping his toys. So Wyatt spent a lot of time retrieving the toys for him, trading toys through the crack between the seats, or playing on his own with his cars or other things on the tray table. He also listened to some music on his headphones plugged into my 12-year old iPod, until the device finally died, giving us a terribly sad face on its big grey screen. I built him into a fort with an old swaddle blanket we always travel with. And I tried doing a couple of string figure games with him, but they weren't that fun--maybe in a few more years. On the flight back from Boston, Wyatt did some drawing, reading, resting, and listened to a couple of audio stories from Sparkle Stories (which I managed from my phone, since the old iPod was dead). I didn't get to read a book (or watch anything myself, obviously), but I did end up getting a short nap and I made a lot of progress on a knitting project. I also had some pretty fun conversations with my kid.

We brought and ate healthy, delicious snacks we rarely get at home. Plane snacks!

And we spent lots of time looking out the window, especially on take-off and landing.

Sending Love

"Can you believe that your baby girl is nearly eleven weeks old? Congratulations! Enclosed are Goodfood Chocolate Ginger Date cookies to help celebrate." 

I like to think I'm a good friend, but if I'm honest, I'm a lot more unreliable and inconsistent than I was before I became a parent. Fortunately, people seem understanding about these shortcomings (or at least they pretend to be). But the fact remains that I see a lot fewer people a lot less often than I used to, and getting together with dear friends seems unbelievably and unacceptably challenging most of the time.

With one good and very likable post, however, social media can help soothe that "I never see anyone!" feeling and give me the impression that I'm maintaining many relationships. It's a good illusion. And even though I know that status updates and photos of my dinner are no substitute for actual communication with people I care about, I will probably continue to rely on the shortcuts that social media offers because they are so easy and fun.

But what about people who aren't on social media? Two of my best friends aren't. Until they had a baby three months ago, I was terrible about keeping up with them because, as I mentioned, they don't exist on social media (and I have become a less-attentive friend). But sometime over the last 15 years of our friendship, these people became family, and I was so overjoyed when they texted to say their baby had been born. I was also frustrated that most of the length of California separates me from them. I couldn't just show up and bring them food on a whim. And I found myself wondering when I'd see the next photo of that adorable baby.

Obviously, these two issues aren't problems. Lucky for me, I pretty quickly snapped out of that way of thinking and recognized these "problems" as opportunities to become a better friend. By making a giant pest of myself by text and email, I get almost all the photos and funny baby anecdotes I could wish for. And by sending care packages, I have managed to supply my friends with snacks over many weeks. 

When I started sending packages, I had no plan for how long I would continue. I just needed to send them love. And snacks. After all, sometimes snacks are love.

For the first package, I baked and sent granola bars that would arrive for the baby's second week birthday. The text I received from my friend when the box arrived was all the encouragement I needed to send another package: "Thank you so much for the granola bars! I just ate 2. Our biggest miscalculation has been how difficult it is to feed us. These literally came in the nick of time...."

Over the next couple of months, I kept sending one package per week. Some snacks were healthier than others. I chose what to send based on what I felt like baking, what we had in the house (like zucchini, or the ingredients for granola), and what I thought my friends would enjoy. I baked all of the recipes gluten-free, because that's how we bake at our house. 

I can hardly express the expansive joy I've gotten from baking (and waiting in line so I can send the boxes)--activities I normally tolerate or even loathe. I'm not quitting social media anytime soon, but all this real life making, sending and connecting has been a refreshing reminder of what friendship can be.

Here are the snacks I sent, including links and my personal recipe notes or substitutions.

Smitten Kitchen Thick, Chewy Granola Bars -- I use hemp seeds, chocolate chips, dried cherries, and pumpkin seeds. These bars are even better with coconut oil substituted for the butter. I skip the corn syrup and add a bit more maple syrup or honey instead.

Elana's Pantry Blueberry Mini-Muffins -- I use 2 tablespoons of honey instead of 1/4 cup of honey or agave, and 1/4 cup melted butter or coconut oil instead of grapeseed oil.

Anytime Cookies -- So good just they way they are.

Cacao Nib Cookies -- I add one egg and 2 tablespoons of coconut flour, and I use plain cacao nibs instead of chocolate chips. As Wyatt says, cacao nibs don't taste very yummy on their own, but they are delicious as an ingredient IN something.

Chocolate Zucchini Mini-Muffins -- I baked this bread recipe in mini-muffin pans. I use vanilla extract, not vanilla stevia.

Everyday Granola -- I use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

Real Chocolate Chip Cookies -- I use sweet rice flour instead of oat flour, melted butter, and added 2 tablespoons of milk to the batter. I let the batter rest in the fridge for about 45 minutes to give the gluten-free flour an opportunity to hydrate and lose its graininess.

Bulk Bin Snacks from Rainbow Coop -- I was short on time. Wyatt scooped them some of his faves: cashews, pistachios, and dried organic California apricots

Week 11: Goodfood Chocolate Ginger Date Cookies/Biscuits Get out your cooking scale because this recipe is written mostly in grams, and it's fantastic. I substituted an equal amount of my gluten-free flour blend for the all-purpose flour, added 2 tablespoons of milk, and before baking, I let the dough rest for 45 minutes in the refrigerator to give the gluten-free flours an opportunity to hydrate and lose their graininess.

The Special Momma Day

About a week ago at dinner, Wyatt said to me, "Mom. I have a great idea! On the next Momma Day, let's visit Andy at Rainbow and make that special smoothie we like, but let's have it in the morning so that I'm not so full at dinner. And then when it's quiet time, we can get lawn chairs and blankets and lots of books and have quiet time outside. And when quiet time is over, let's just keep reading! For snack, we can have bagels and cream cheese, and stay outside until it is time for dinner." I agreed that this sounded like an excellent plan, but suggested that we could have the smoothie for lunch--can you imagine? drinking your lunch?--instead of in the morning. Wyatt agreed with a satisfied grin, and he asked me to put the entire plan in the calendar.

Every day or so, for the next week, he asked if the Special Momma Day was in the calendar and if the plan was still on. It was. And then finally, Special Momma Day, otherwise known as Thursday, July 30th, was upon us. 

As things turned out, Special Momma Day was made even more special (and slightly more complicated) by the delivery of Wyatt's big boy bed. We got going early so that we could head to Rainbow Coop to visit with Andy, sample some cheese, and get our shopping done. We headed home just in time to meet our bed delivery guy, Jeremy.

Jeremy was so gracious. He had an attentive audience while he assembled every single peg, screw, board and wheel to the new bed, and it seemed not to bother him at all. When something didn't go exactly as he had originally planned, he went out of his way to explain how he would move forward and how the minor change he was about to make would cause no problems whatsoever, and might even improve things. In spite of (or perhaps because of) his thinking out loud, I felt self-conscious "supervising" the assembly. For a moment, I considered leaving Wyatt so he could watch the process on his own. But then I realized that if I left, it would be worse, because I would be that lady who expected the delivery guy to watch her kid while he assembled furniture. So I matched my mental discomfort with physical discomfort, smushed myself next to Wyatt in his toddler bed, and settled in to watch.

Wyatt reveled in and marveled at the entire hour-long process, but he particularly loved tightening the last bolt and drilling in the final screw. As for me, my self-consciousness lifted somewhat after lending Jeremy an Allen key, and it disappeared once I had given him a tip.

Because of the bed delivery, smoothie lunch was an hour late. And because there were no gluten-free bagels at either of the grocery stores I had visited during the week, we opted for pretzel sticks with cream cheese-as-dip for snack. These adjustments did nothing to disrupt a perfectly planned and executed afternoon of smoothies, lawn chairs, books, snacks, a game of catch, and butterfly, bird and plane watching in the garden.

It would have never occurred to me that such a "boring" afternoon could be so anticipated and so special. We didn't go anywhere, we did nothing new, and everything we did was within the normal rhythm of our day. Minor tweaks and changes elevated things from normal to utterly amazing. 

As you might guess, it was challenging to transition from such an epic afternoon to dinnertime: "NOOOOOOOOO! I WANT TO PLAY FOR A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MORE MINUTES! NOT FIVE!" But my suggestion that we go inside to make a minty melon salad for dinner that we could eat with cottage cheese was just bizarre enough of a dinner suggestion to be an easy sell. A bonus for me was getting to use the three melons that had somehow managed to accumulate in our refrigerator.

Smoothie Recipe:

Lite Bite on Union Street in San Francisco makes the most amazing Omega Smoothie. Even though I am a regular customer, they won't give me the recipe. Fair enough. But it hasn't stopped me from attempting to recreate it on my own. I'm getting very close. Here's what I put in the blender yesterday, and it made two smoothies.

• About 12 oz of unsweetened cashew milk, frozen in ice cube trays
• 8 pitted Medjool dates
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons of almond butter
• 1 small banana
• a splash of vanilla extract 
• About a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• About 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 2-3 tablespoons cacao nibs