Is It Really October?

Every year October catches me by surprise. I know it's coming. It's fairly predictable, and a huge majority of people I love were born in October so it's filled with important dates. I see the leaves changing color; a little here, a little there. But as if overnight, I wake up and the trees have exploded into flame, my son's birthday is a week away and I haven't planned a party, and the Christmas decorations are in the stores (that's a different blog. Disgust!) My last blog was in August, I noticed. So I'll share a brief digest (is brief digest redundant?) of what's been happening. In September, I sent the kids off to school and then just sat here looking out the window for a couple of weeks. After a summer of "Camp Mommy" I was ready for a little solitude. I listened to a lot of Iron & Wine in my melancholy mood and unpacked more books. If we ever move again, we are having a book sale...we've been accumulating books since college and with five readers in the family....we're going to be one of those pack rat families you see on Oprah. The ones who walk through narrow aisles of crap to get to the kitchen. I'm going to donate many of them to a literacy project but it's hard to let go....the titles remind me of different ideas and influences and phases of our lives. Some of them are embarrassing like Organization for Dummies. (I think Dan bought that one.)
So here are some of my favorite titles/things from this fall.

On the bedside table:
Finding Your Inner Mama, edited by Eden Steinberg
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Painting Chinese, Herbert Cole
Deep Economy, Bill McKibben
The Collected Stories, Amy Hempel
Savage Beauty, the Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Nancy Milford

In the car (c.d.'s):
Beethoven's Wig (kids love this)
Bach (because I think Bach should be part of everyone's personal soundtrack)
KEXP radio (if you have satellite, tune into this station)
(why doesn't Chicago have good radio?)
The Shins, of course
The Dead, of course

T.V.
Weeds (that show is hilarious)
MadMen (you should be watching this)
Kid Nation (my kids are fascinated)
Flight of the Conchord (HBO) so funny!

Okay...that's my 2 cents........

Kid Report:

Fifi quietly confided in me the other day. As if some deep concern had been brewing.
"Mommy?"
"Yes hun?"
"Well, it's just that...it's..well...I've never really liked the Shins."
(sigh of relief)
"Oh. That's okay. You can have your own opinions on music."
"Thanks Mom."

C-Lub turned 11 with a Zombie Pizza Party. We had a huge party with bloody legs and body parts and eyeballs and a horror movie. That was my first impression on all the new fifth grade parents and kids. Dale Carnegie here I come!

E. has become a total Star Wars freak. We've watched the entire trilogy and the other trilogy, what is that the sextology (that doesn't sound right). We watched in order of release AND in order of the narrative. I must confess that I never fully appreciated it before. I'd actually never even seen it before. But now I'm fully conversant on the matter. Ask me anything?

That's all for now.....I wish you Peace.

Silence is Golden

I'm sitting in a quiet kitchen with snoring dogs at my feet. Staring out the back window into the overgrown green that is our yard. The sugar maple has turned and the leaves look like flames. The apple tree branches are bending under the weight of our underappreciated apples. I keep asking the kids if they want to bake a pie with our very own apples but they all insist they don't like pie. (Maybe they are aliens) Do they not know about Pie Heaven?

Iron and Wine is downloading onto my phone as I type, and their melancholy sound combined with the changing season outside is making me feel reflective. The kids are off at their groovy little school, DTM is in New York, and I'm alone. There are approximately 237 things I could be doing beside staring out the window. I could do any number of domestic chores, I could unpack the china, I could clean up the breakfast dishes, I could go to yoga. I could get in a car and drive north for hours. I could get a job.

The odd thing about choosing domesticity and motherhood as your career is that when your children are babies, you are so busy you can't even think. You rock & sing, and wipe fannies. You stroll up and down the sidewalks hoping to speak with another adult. You don't even care what types of inane things you discuss. You can find yourself talking about the "pacifier fairy" and infant constipation.

And then when they are all in school...you breathe a sigh of relief that you've made it this far. But now it's the silence you crave. They can all converse now. And they have opinions. And, the great irony is, if you are doing your job well then they feel free to differ in their opinions from yours. They have agendas, ideas, and commitments. So now you aren't tucking in and kissing boo boos, you are driving and reminding and facilitating the accomplishments of somewhat independently thinking people. For those few hours that they're in school, the silence is golden.

I think I'll sit here just a little while longer savoring the silence. I hope you have a little time for peace today too.