I ate a beetle by mistake today

I did. The kids were riding their bikes down towards some friends' house and we stopped to pick golden raspberries at the home of a friendly neighbor. Despite the sun's abrupt disappearance at the end of August, these people's berries are actually still ripening. We were happily picking and eating when suddenly I noticed this horrible taste in my mouth. It was part raspberry, part just WRONG. I spit it out on the ground and there it was - a beetle that I had partially eaten. I put it out of its misery and will never look at that group of raspberry bushes the same way again! Luckily, the kids didn't notice and I didn't say anything. I did notice after that that the raspberry canes were crawling with beetles, so I guess I'm lucky I only ate one!

In other news, we had a nice family morning this morning. We had a friend over for dinner last night (this was big for us - we have no social life in the evenings anymore). We had spaghetti with homemade tofu nut balls - like meatballs without the meat and soooo good - and salad and bread and all that good stuff. We had lots of yummy sourdough bread left over this morning, so we decided to make it into french toast. Good move. Yum. The kids even ate most of it, which was impressive because it was new and therefore deserving of much suspicion.

Then we went out to a new nature park in an industrial area of Portland. Apparently it was a garbage dump in the 90s and has been cleaned up and turned into a nature area. It was literally in the middle of factories and run down houses, so, shall we say, it didn't really fit the neighborhood, but it was still fun. We checked out the lake there and had a snack and wandered around the short trail there.

Seriously, Portland, what is UP with the gray weather? Nonetheless, the lake was pretty and boy, the algae was blooming!

Then, we hit a nearby park to do some more playing. Mateo showed off his skills at sliding down the fire pole and was very proud.

Then, we came home and I took the kids out on their bikes and then came that unfortunate beetle.

Here's hoping this afternoon is mellow and free of any more accidental insect ingestions. I'm thinking I might take the kids to the library and then I'm gonna dunk them in the bath. Maybe we'll make cookies. It's raining, again, again, again, so cookie making might be just what the doctor ordered. In the meantime, Portland, you need to get your act together and give us the gorgeous autumn that we so richly deserve after such a pathetic excuse for a summer!

Progress and a farewell

I have a confession to make.  I am an inappropriate laugher.  I laugh in situations that call for sobriety, sadness, paying respects, or just when things are awkward.   I don't know why I do it, but it's like getting a coughing jag in the middle of church - once it starts, you just can't stop it! 

In fact, at my own grandmother's funeral, who I loved dearly and still think of all the time, I couldn't stop giggling.  Perhaps it was the fact that my dad had the organist playing Cal fight songs that set me up (it was brilliant, because my grandma was a big Cal fan and the organist played them so slowly that none of us even realized it wasn't funeral music for a long time), but when the service concluded with an unbalanced relative leading us in every single off-key verse of Amazing Grace, I couldn't hold it in any longer.  I tried to pretend I was sobbing uncontrollably, but I don't know how well I pulled that off.

I felt guilty about this for a long time, but finally accepted that it's just how I am and there's not much to be done.  And, in fact, today, at the age of 32, I miraculously converted from a guilt-ridden funeral laugher to a funeral crier.  I went to the funeral of the wife of a man who manages part of my family's company.  She died suddenly last week and tomorrow would have been her 60th birthday.  It was a beautiful service and my eyes just kept welling up.  I felt so bad for her husband and their daughter, who is about my age, I think.  I don't know if I've reached a higher level of emotional maturity or if becoming a mom has just made me cry at everything, but I was extremely relieved not to descend into a laughing jag in that setting.  I hope this means that I'm cured forever!  I've got my fingers crossed.

PS:  Of course, it goes without saying that I hugged my kids and my wife a little tighter today after I got home.  And, that I'm thinking of this poor man and his daughter and everything they're going to have to go through.  It just all seems so unfair, and yet I know these things happen all the time.  The funeral was a strong nudge to appreciate everything I have today, because today is all we really ever have.

PPS:  This should be the topic for another post, but the funeral brought up the whole issue of death again with Mateo.   He really wanted to know what had happened to the deceased woman and was she in heaven like our cat, Lucy.  I've found myself telling him that people go to heaven after they die.  It's funny, because I don't believe in the traditional view of heaven, and I certainly don't believe in hell, but I do believe in God in some way and I do believe that there's something after this life. 

Sacha and I both feel strongly that we don't want to tell our kids that we don't know for sure what happens after we die, for various reasons.  It's been easier to say that people die and go to heaven to answer his questions, but that word is pretty charged and I wish there was a better way to explain things.  This seems to be the theme of the week!

All done with mommy's milk

Since I started working, Natalia has stopped nursing. For a lot of the summer she was just nursing once or twice a day. Sometimes she would want milk in the morning. Other days she would go for both the morning and after nap feeding, but the nursing time started getting shorter and shorter. And frequently, she would just want one side, and then say, "All done. Milk cup. Wanna milk cup." So, I knew that my days were probably limited.

Then I started work. For whatever reason, my starting work seems to have coincided with her saying that she no longer wants any milk from me. Honestly, although I feel a bit sad about it, she was getting to be quite the rambunctious nurser. I would rather just have cuddle time than having her kick around while somewhat nursing for 3 minutes. On the other hand, I have loved nursing her and I feel a bit sad about it ending. I thought she would nurse for a bit longer, but I guess that is not what was in store.

I think my favorite way of nursing her was in the early morning when she would cuddle up next to me in bed. On those days before school, it was a moment of feeling calm and just so happy. More than anything else, I think I will miss the early morning nursing sessions.

Out

At Mateo's preschool, in his group, there is a little girl who is onto us.

It all started last spring, when Sacha and I went away for the weekend and Apa stayed with the kids. One of Mateo's preschool classmates was having a birthday party that weekend and Mateo really wanted to go, so we asked Apa if he would take the kids and he said yes. I don't know if the other three-year-olds in the group had any idea that Mateo had two moms or not, but having his dad show up at the party really got their attention!

Since then, every day, and I mean EVERY DAY, that I pick Mateo up from preschool, this one little girl has questions for me. Lots of them. They're always eating lunch when I get there, so she's got me as a captive audience while Mateo finishes eating. Why does Mateo have two moms? Where's his dad? Where's his other mom? Are you a boy or a girl? Well, you look like a boy. (This last one is hilarious, because this kid's straight mother's hair is shorter than mine).

When we've explained our family structure to Mateo (and Natalia, but she's really too young to understand anything like this) we say that Mommy and Mama are his parents and that he also has a daddy, Apa. He's been experimenting with calling Apa Daddy instead, and then looking to see what kind of reaction he gets. We, in our typical way, did a ton of reading before having kids and learned that it's very common for kids with two moms to go through a big daddy phase at some point, so we've been expecting it. We count ourselves happy that our kid has a dad to build a relationship with, regardless of what he's called.

Anyway, I digress. Explaining our family to our own kid is one thing, but explaining it to a preschool classmate is something completely different. What the heck do I say to this girl? I've been mostly just answering her questions as they come up, but it's easy for that to get kind of mixed up. For example: Are you a boy or a girl? A girl. Are you Mateo's mom? Yes. Does Mateo have a daddy? Yes. Where's Mateo's daddy? He's at work. Does Mateo have two moms? Yes. Where's Mateo's other mom? At work. What do we have now? A confused preschooler!

Having talked to her mom briefly this summer, I don't think this kid's family has any problem with lesbian moms, but I still find myself mentally flailing about during these interactions. I don't want to give her too much information, because that's really for her parents to do, but I don't want to lie either.

And, our family situation is relatively uncommon for both the gay and straight ends of the spectrum. We know quite a few other lesbian families and only one of them has a known donor that they refer to as Dad. We also know lots of straight families of various configurations. Don't get me wrong - we're absolutely clear that Sacha and I are the kids' parents, legally and in every other way. And, luckily for all of us, Apa is an important part of our lives and the relationship he has with the kids is important to all of us. It's just that we don't fit easily into any box, even the alternative ones.

In fact, Mateo's preschool friend is clearly onto us now, because she threw in a new curveball this morning. Well, she said accusingly, after she'd finished her normal questions, my friend "Jane" has two moms and NO DAD! Like, what are you going to say to that, lady? Clearly, this girl is going to be a lawyer or a judge or something. But it does remind me that questions about our family aren't going to start off in the nebulous future - they're here now. I just never imagined that they would first come from a three-year-old! And such a very curious one, at that.

This afternoon = epic fail

Mateo's on an every other day nap schedule, which needs to be adjusted.  He really needs to nap on preschool days (Tues and Thurs) or he becomes possessed as if by a demon by mid-afternoon.   However, as we're still working out the kinks, he didn't nap today.  After Tali got up, we went to preschool swim time as a local indoor pool/community center.  We'd been warned that the water was on the cool side and it was.  Teo would have been happy to stay for hours, while his sister just wanted to sit on the edge and shiver.  He had a great time roaming the shallow end and having me catch him going down the slide.

After about half an hour, she said she was all done, and thus commenced the rest of our afternoon and evening of tantrum-ing children.  First, Mateo yelled and screamed about leaving the pool, then about getting into the car, and then just about life in general.  Talia threw in a huge fit about exactly which room she would use her potty in.  By the time Sacha got home, I was ready to jump out the window.  Luckily, she sent me off for a little alone time and, despite the fact that the kids were still acting beasty when I got back, we all made it to bedtime in one piece.  Barely.  Let's hope tomorrow will be better!

In the meantime, here are the kids before all the trouble started, in their swim suits.  Tali is very proud to have a rash guard as part of her new swim suit, just like her big brother.

Ancestry

I've noted before that my family has deep roots on the west coast, and in the pacific northwest in particular.  On my mom's side, one set of my grandmother's grandparents came out to Oregon on the Oregon Trail.  Her grandfather, who was a toddler at the time, lost both his parents on the journey to Oregon and was lucky to have about 8 siblings who banded together to keep the family together and housed and fed.  In fact, at my grandma's house, she has a chair that came across the country on the covered wagon.  Its legs are sawed off to prevent tipping as the wagon jerked along.  Amazing.  On my dad's side, we have an ancestor named Patrick Gass who was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  He kept a journal which I haven't read, but which my dad has a copy of. 

One of my mom's brothers, my uncle Terry, has become our resident geneologist.  He's found that we're part of the line descended from William Bradford, who was a governor of the Plymouth colony, and recently sent out a fascinating email.  In it, he said that he's been doing a lot of research on a geneology website and discovered that one of our ancestors was Native American.  Her name, ultimately, although I doubt this was her original name, was Anne Philip.  She went on to have a son named John Stanton, presumably with a white man.  Her parents were the Pokanoket chief, Metacom, and his wife, Wootonckusake Metacomet.  During the time of Anne Philip's childhood, relations between the colonists and the Native Americans were reported to be good, but by the time her grandson, Samuel Stanton, was born, things had soured into all-out war.  Samuel Stanton seems to have fought on the side of the colonists.  The war, known as "Metacom's Revolt," ultimately ended up in massacres on both sides and the colonists ultimately decimating the Pokanoket tribe.

As it happens, I just started reading A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.  I certainly should have read it before now, but now I am reading it and it's fascinating.  In the first chapter, on relations between Native Americans and colonists, Zinn mentions the outrageous amount of bloodshed provoked by the colonists, and one of the battles he mentions is Metacom's Revolt.  In the first place, it's crazy to think that my family is related in a very distant way to both sides of this war.   Secondly, it makes me wonder how it all went down, back in the day.  Did Anne Philip fall in love with a white man?  Did they have a relationship or marry?  It seems like she may have, since she has an English-sounding last name.  Or was it a less pleasant encounter?  Did she keep contact with her son and grandson, who clearly allied themselves with the colonists?   Did she have other children?   I wish I could go back in time and see how it all played out.

I can't do that, though, so I guess this is about as far as I can go with this.  I've always felt a certain amount of white guilt, for all the things Europeans inflicted on Native Americans and African Americans and pretty much any other people of color they came across.  This is the first time I've ever known about a connection with a Native American in my family, and the fact that the situation was so complicated makes me unsure how to feel about it all.  I just wanted to write down my thoughts before they float out of my head.  And, I'm really grateful to my uncle for doing all that research.  I've always been fascinated by people and their stories, and learning more about the story of my own family is powerful for me. 

Variations on a theme

We had a simply lovely morning this morning - it was sunny and the kids and I went to the farmer's market.  Then, we dropped by a friend's house right across the street and got to see them AND hold their new baby bunnies and feed their chickens.  The kids were in heaven.  I tried to soak up the sun and fun for all it was worth, because who knows how long it will last?

Anyway, it was a no-nap day for Mateo, so after I put Talia down and went for a quick run (an aside:  I had hurt my knee and hadn't run for a couple of weeks, so I just went really easy and it felt fine.  Whew!), I asked Mateo if he wanted to have some special Mama time.  Talia and I have time alone together all the time when he's at preschool, but he and I almost never do.  He said yes, so I took our big boy to our favorite coffee shop and then to Powell's downtown. 

Man, that kid is growing up!  It seems like he's taken some kind of leap from three-and-a-half to almost-four.  And he continually amazes us with what he can do.  As we were walking to the coffee shop, we passed a small fancy brewing store and he said "Mama, what does Bridgetown Beerhouse mean?"  He reads anything and everything, or at least that's the way it seems.  His one hangup is abbreviations like Mrs. or Dr., which he insists on reading as "Durr."  I have a shirt that says Dr. Seuss on it and he always says "Durr Suess," which never fails to crack me up.

We had a really nice time just hanging out together.  I'm making a mental note to make this happen more often. 

Then, we capped off the day with a delicious dinner with Apa.  We had heirloom tomatoes from our neighbor's garden, amazing Yukon Gold potatoes that we just harvested from our garden, sauteed beet greens, hot rolls, and burgers.  YUM.  I can't believe tomorrow's Monday already.  It felt like we got to go back to summer for a minute, but it was so short.  I guess that's how it's going to be!  Here's hoping that this week will go well for all involved.  Poor Sacha has a cold already from her new fifth graders and we're crossing our fingers that we don't all get it.  Happy end of the weekend!