the opposite of fancy

From indoor hopscotch to homemade multiplication flash cards, 

these photos reflect where we are right now...

He knows a lot.

Hank is very three, and as such refuses help as a rule. But he is, fortunately, often open to "teamwork."
He can buckle his carseat, brush his teeth and read a book all by himself. Until he can't.
We are all learning to ask him to let us know when he's ready for more teamwork.

turn-taking

I took another walk this weekend, despite the drizzle. I threw on a ball cap and grabbed my earbuds and tagged Andy for breakfast duty. I listened to a podcast, Everything Happens, and the interviewee talked about the importance of community, the way it provides something we can't always provide ourselves. In a community we can all take turns being disappointing and sharing grace.

Last week we discovered a bag of dress clothes on our front porch, outgrown by the boys one block over. We left a set of new greeting cards near their door a few days later. We cut up fruit for eighty for family literacy night, and let another father run talent show rehearsal without us.
Let it be clear, Mr. Rogers did not adequately prepare us for all the people in our neighborhood. But he did show us how to share grace. And more often than not everything works out, all of us pitching in when we can, taking turns meeting expectations and falling short, catching each other when we can.

look around, look around

The boys tend to play in ways that are both wonderfully beneficial and inherently dangerous.
Sticks rank high on their list of favorite toys, for use as wands and bats and shovels and fishing poles. We uprooted the family and moved closer to the woods so the boys could engage in more of that kind of imaginative play. We try to be careful with our Be careful!s, to not let the warning mean “Put that stick down.” But sticks need lots of space.
At some point, in the middle of a concrete jungle, the boys managed to find a large stick. Tolliver used it first to reach a coin that was wedged way under the bean. And then Hank swung it around in ways that risked skewering a stranger's eyeball. Instead of making him put it down we reminded him to look around, to be sure the stick had enough space to be safe.

tired as a mother

noun: mother
verb: mom so hard

one definition: a person who does many small tasks, all the things that might only draw attention if they didn't happen

see also : sherpa, chauffeur, trash holder, referee, injury kisser, dance partner, story teller, appointment scheduler, short order chef, finder of all things lost, lie detector, kiss stealer, cheerleader

Sometimes I bring something back from a trip, maybe a little husk of confidence, a tendril of compassion, enough energy looping round to resume the lunch-packing routine.
Sometimes, though, I am tired. Sometimes I have to travel deep inside myself to find the strength to unpack suitcases and wash and fold and put away all the laundry.

Motherhood is lovely. It is exhausting. It is both.

Blow us all away

We visited the windy city over spring break, primarily to cash in the boys' Christmas tickets to see Hamilton. We sat in the same stage right dress circle box as Andy and I did when we saw the original Broadway cast in 2015. It's actually a really good thing we'd seen the show because this time around I caught myself staring at the boys faces instead of the stage. They laughed and cried and clapped and cheered, and I have a feeling they may be talking about the room where it happened for years to come.

Tuck devoured the playbill, and counted the number of times certain words were used in the lyrics. He also read nearly every single sign at every single museum. We visited the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry. Hank identified every H in the city, loved the giant slide at Maggie Daley park, and laid down on the ground everywhere - to watch the dolphins, to stare at the bean, to hear the waves, to make me crazy. We were in Chicago on St. Patrick's day, with a bright green river and boisterous streets. Tolliver spent most of the trip looking up, or looking for historical information, or looking for an ice cream shop. Or looking for us to explain what the phrase on someone's green shirt meant. His favorite part of the trip may have been the tour of a German submarine.

We enjoyed deep dish pizza and gelato and fish tacos and time with Aunt Kate and Uncle Kevin. We walked along the waterfront and had a Trader Joe's picnic with friends, the weather gloriously sunshiny. We kept the boys off the subway tracks and out of the water and hopefully lessened the distance between what they know and don't know yet, hopefully helped them see the world is wide enough...

finding out

The boys are basically full blast from dawn to dark, no chill at all. They fill the day with magic and mischief and mayhem. And questions. So many questions.
Most mornings they don't even finish a bowl of cereal before they begin interrogating the world. Often their queries startle us with their unanswerableness. We've gotten pretty good at saying I don't know. Let's find out. And they've gotten pretty good at finding out.

This year, for Brain Blast, Tucker dove into Addiction and Tolliver studied Animal Architecture: