A drawing my son, Reeve, did in kindergarten.
I love how jubilant Mary is here. Anyone who’s given birth knows that feeling. . . WOOHOO! (And Merry Christmas, y’all!)
Laura Egley Taylor
Then a miracle occurs . . .
Best nativity scene ever!
December 24th, 2011Tags: baby, birth, christmas=, drawing, Jesus, joy, jubilation, kindergarten, manger, Mary, nativity, reeve
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A friendly reminder
August 28th, 2011
…to hang on to at least some of the many thousands of drawings and paintings your child will make over the next few years. Right now it might seem like the artwork is no big deal, there’s so much of it—but I’m over here in your future, telling you that these drawings will become real treasures for you down the road!
And a tip: After a drawing is finished, ask your child to tell you what’s happening in the picture and write it on the artwork itself. Then date it. And put it somewhere safe (after some time on the fridge, of course!).
Above: A drawing 5-year-old Reeve made of a chimneysweep (I’m guessing we had recently had our chimney cleaned? or had just seen Mary Poppins?) on top of Megutasaurus, a fictional Godzilla-type monster he made up based on a toy dinosaur he had gotten at the New Mexico Natural History Museum. There’s no way I would have remembered any of this if Tim hadn’t written it down.
Tags: archive, artwork, childhood, chimneysweep, drawing, history, illustration, reeve
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waaaay back to school
August 11th, 2011
Conversation today in the office-supplies aisle of a local store:
Reeve (our almost-22-year-old son who has been home from college for the summer): “I miss getting the lists of school supplies we used to get at the beginning of school each year. It was kinda festive . . . I remember I used to scan the list, looking for some new, exciting item which would indicate that this teacher was going to be interesting and this school year was going to be different.”
Me: “Interesting? Like what?”
Reeve: “Oh, you know. . . swords!”
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Photo (above): Reeve, at age 5. He adored Pippi Longstocking and, despite all our efforts to the contrary, was completely fascinated by any kind of weaponry. At right: These days, despite our early fears that he might grow up to be a vigilante, Reeve is a gentle, compassionate, peaceable . . . opera singer. (Albeit one who still apparently has a soft spot in his heart for swords.) (That’s him with his girlfriend, Eliza, also a loving—and lovely—opera singer.)
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Tags: back to school, boys, guns, office supplies, reeve, swords, toy guns
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birthday buddies and a not-so-empty nest
May 27th, 2011
I was born one minute after Christmas, and I’ve always felt special because of it.* So when, on my birthday six months after Tim and I got married, our nephew Nick was born, I suddenly had my own birthday buddy—somebody with whom I could share this specialness—as well as ensuing birthday celebrations.
That was 24 birthdays ago, many of which Nick and I have celebrated together. The last two Decembers, though, he’s been on the other side of the planet in a tiny third-world village in Mali, and I’ve wondered when we’ll be in the same room for a birthday again.
Life, of course, is full of surprises. After finishing up with the Peace Corps and returning to the U.S., Nick has moved to Santa Fe and will be staying with us before heading off to med school next year. Kind of a rest stop between adventures.
When I was a kid, my grandparents, worried that I’d feel left out since my bro and sis both had summer birthdays, used to send me “half-birthday happies.” I’m thinking maybe it’s time to revisit that idea and do some summer celebrating. Happy Half-Birthday, Y’all!**
*Gotta chalk this one up to my mom, I realize now. The power of the positive pitch. Some people might think of a post-Christmas birthday as a pain: a day that gets lost in the holiday shuffle, a day for Christmas leftovers as birthday presents, an afterthought, etc. But not me. I grew up thinking of MY day as a reason for everybody to keep celebrating even after Christmas had passed. “The fun’s not over yet, people!”
**Yeah, yeah, I know that technically our half-birthday isn’t until next month. But with all of life’s uncertainties, why wait to celebrate?
Photos: 1) A birthday bagel shared across the miles when Nick was in Mali. (The photos were actually taken in the spring in Santa Fe, when he and I were just across the table from one another. But it was fun to send him this as a birthday greeting last year when he was far, far away from anything remotely bagel-like.) 2) Birthday buddies in 1987.
Tags: Africa, birthdays, half-birthday, mali, nick, Peace Corps
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This, too—whatever it is!—shall pass
April 28th, 2011
Another one-two punch for your parenting arsenal: perspective and gratitude.
While fretting over my 21-year-old’s announcement that he might fail a class because of all the time he missed due to rehearsals and performances (Oh, come on! How hard is it to get to class?! and if you have to miss, how hard can it be to check in with your teacher about absences?), I was hit with a completely unrelated realization that just about took off the top of my head.
He’s potty trained!
Back in the summer of 1993, this seemed as remote a possibility as a Black president in the White House. Reeve was rounding the corner toward 4 and still adamantly refused—kicked, screamed, yelled, fell into a heap on the floor, the works!—to use the toilet. Extremely well-developed verbally, able to talk to his dad and me about aircraft of World War II and which whales are carnivores, yet unable to explain to us why he was being so stubborn about not using the potty. . .
This was one area where Tim and I had felt like complete failures for years. We had begun putting him on the “big boy chair-potty” when he was 2 or so, sitting with him and talking, trying to keep it low-key and comfortable. We had a success here or there, but nothing seemed to last. I guess he must’ve been 3 when we moved to Pull-ups, thinking that they might make the transition to underwear go more smoothly. Not so.
We were so uncertain what to do. (Unfortunately, we didn’t know about Mothering magazine until much later, when we moved to Santa Fe.) By all appearances, our boy was doing great—intelligent, curious, well-adjusted, easygoing, etc.—except for this one issue which was not apparent to those around us. It was our private shame and it seemed it would never get resolved.*
I bring this up not to relive desperate days but to remind myself how easy it is to get wrapped up in the problem of the hour—and to forget that these difficulties don’t last. I also forget, as time passes, to be thankful for the solutions that eventually came along and made the problems of the day disappear.
All those worries we have while pregnant (including my own deep-seated How will this baby EVER get OUT?) . . . worries that the new baby will never get the hang of breastfeeding. . . or that she isn’t getting enough nutrients . . . or that the toddler will never learn to play nicely with others . . . or that the five-year-old will still be sleeping with us when he’s a teenager. . . All are concerns which won’t last forever—and which, once resolved, we owe it to ourselves to take time out and celebrate a little.
Gratitude is holy, I believe. And luckily, it has no expiration date.
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*But it did! When Reeve turned 4, we threw away the Pull-ups and went through seven pairs of underpants in one day, a really difficult, emotional day for all of us. But by that night, the just-turned 4-year-old was proud that he was a potty-user. (And when we asked him why he had been so reluctant before, he said “I don’t know. Maybe I was just scared.”)
Photo: Reeve and me, circa 1992. Back when I was worried about all kinds of now long-resolved and forgotten things.
P.S. Oh, and by the way, the college student did indeed email his teacher about his absences—and all is well. Go figure!
Tags: gratitude, potty-training, problems, solutions, toddler
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How to be creative and other inadvertent parenting advice
April 26th, 2011
All advice is autobiographical.
This thought for the day, is appropriately enough, stolen from Austin Kleon, author of “How to Steal Like an Artist and 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me,” a highly recommended smart and charmingly inspirational pictorial for creative people.
The quote is included as a kind of disclaimer, but I was struck by the wisdom of it. Whether giving or taking, it might behoove us to remember where advice comes from: we can speak with real authority only about what we have experienced, ourselves. Which may or may not apply to the situation of another.
While Kleon’s post isn’t intended to be about parenting, many of his insights can apply there nicely—as well as to writing or drawing. After all, parenting is the original creative act, right?
Some more of his gems:
“It’s in the act of making things that we figure out who we are.”
“You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, ‘We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.’”
“Step 1: Wonder at something. Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you.”
“Creativity isn’t just the things we chose to put in, it’s also the things we chose to leave out.”
Photo: “Well, son, when I was your age. . . ” Tim and Reeve get in some father-and-son wondering (while I lag behind, as usual, taking photos) on our early morning hike in the southern New Mexico’s Organ Mountains last weekend.
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Tags: advice, Austin Kleon, creativity, desert, father, hike, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Organ Mountains, reeve, son, tim
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Mama Ache
March 24th, 2011
Wee-hour anxiety. Pretty sure you know what I’m talking about—it comes with parenting.
Our 21-year-old son, Reeve, was home for a couple of nights this week. It’s Spring Break, and he and friends are on their way up to Estes Park, Colorado, where their mentor is getting married Saturday. Since nobody has any money, and Reeve’s car (a hand-me- down from his cousin Nick) is in better shape at 19 years old and 190,000 miles than anyone else’s, he’s driving.
Last night, knowing Reeve was hitting the road today—in his stalwart but ancient car— driving for 9 hours loaded down with friends and luggage and homemade cookies, I was overcome with that familiar late-night / early-morning anxiety. He’s an excellent driver and remarkably responsible (compared to me at his age, anyway), but still I worry—even as I know that this road trip is merely an excuse for all the many things a mother can worry about.
I couldn’t help but look in on him as he slept (the layout of our goofy apartment is such that we have to go through his room to get to the bathroom anyway)—stopping by his bed to listen to his breathing, finding comfort in the quiet rhythm of his breath and remembering other times over the years when I’ve done this.
I thought of my very first incident of wee-hour mama ache, a little more than 22 years ago. Tim and I had just discovered that I was pregnant. We hadn’t thought we wanted be parents (didn’t think we had what it takes), so this news was huge and scary. On this particular night, sick with a respiratory bug (unable, of course, to take cold medicine—I was terrified by the realization that, just two months in, I already held the well-being of this brand new tiny person in my ridiculously inept hands!), I sat through the night, propped up, mouth-breathing, rubbing my belly, and worrying about the future.
(For the record, I listened all night that night to Steve Roach’s Structures from Silence, the soothing strains of which can now immediately take me back to that feeling of impending scary newness.)
Odd feeling to think back so far in my “parenting career” and to realize how much I’ve learned (and worried!) over the years, growing along with Reeve. I was good at worrying then—but I somehow managed to trust (myself? God? life?) through the fear. And somehow got to this place where I find myself worrying—and marveling!—over our baby, a grown man. And trying to continue to trust.
Photo: I know, I know. YOU look at this photo and see a young MAN. Intelligent, responsible, capable, etc. It’s a cliché, of course—and as sappy as they come—but when I look at this, I see the vulnerable being Tim and I were entrusted with. Mother vision?
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Tags: anxiety, Estes Park, late night, mother vision, reeve, road trip, Spring Break, Steve Roach, Structures from Silence
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the village
March 10th, 2011
My son, Reeve, saw his first opera when he was 5. I didn’t take him—I had never really paid any attention to opera. Neither had my husband, Tim.
No, it was Paula, the mother of one of Reeve’s classmates, who took him to see a Santa Fe Opera youth night performance of “The Marriage of Figaro.”
If it had been up to me, Reeve would never have seen an opera. I was not an opera-goer. I’ve been many times in the years since, but that’s because he got me interested, not the other way around. I’m grateful to Paula for sharing something with Reeve that I would not have thought to.
It takes a village to raise a child—that old African proverb made popular by Hillary Clinton in the 1990s. It may be overused, but there’s still substance there. Paula was one of those people in Reeve’s village. And there have been many, many more:
His best friend’s aunt who taught him to swim
Three adult friends who gave him their old guitars, one who taught him to play
My sister, who early on taught him the art of conversation: “I’ll ask you a question, and you answer; then you ask me a question, and I answer; then I ask you a question. . . Got it?”
A little less socially valuable but no less fun for Reeve, my brother, who put Reeve to bed one night and instead of reading a bedtime story, told him a bunch of “Yo Mama” jokes
The preschool teacher who gave him his very own child-size pitcher and taught him to pour his own water or juice or milk from it
Austin’s mom, Barb, who, when Reeve was too fearful to sleep during his very first sleepover, brought in a sleeping bag and lay down on the floor next to him til he fell asleep
The 6th-grade teacher who invited him to synagogue; the poet who shared what she knew about Buddhism
The Shakespeare play-reading group of adults who welcomed the 13-year-old Reeve with love and respect and supported his growth and learning over the years
The voice teacher who told him he could sing
I could go on and on. So many villagers. So much love. All my gratitude.
Photo: Reeve as Figaro in New Mexico State’s production of “The Marriage of Figaro” last weekend.
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Tags: Marriage of Figaro, opera, reeve, takes a village
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empty ness
January 13th, 2011
College Boy Reeve headed back to school yesterday after a really wonderful 4-week winter holiday with us, thereby reminding me that
1. The so-called Empty Nest Syndrome—which you would think I’d be O-VER—is not just a one-time thing one goes through and then moves on from. It appears that one can experience it again and again! and
2. Separation anxiety is not just for babies. (I know I worry about Reeve when he’s away more than I need to—but it’s impossible not to, so I try to keep it to myself. It’s my own little closet hobby.)
On a brighter note, I’m thrilled that
1. Our 21-year-old has his own life to return to (and that he’s excited about it!);
2. I like who Reeve has become and am proud of the way he moves about in the world; and
3. I enjoy his company so much that I grieve when he’s gone. (How awful it would be to wish one’s own child out the door whenever he or she came home for a visit. . .)
So, here we go again. Ouch and ouch. Meanwhile, I try to keep in mind words a wiser me said to Reeve when he left for school in Scotland a couple of years ago:
Longing is a privilege.
Ouch.
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Late-night photo of the empty office hallway last night was taken on my iPhone with my favorite new toy: Hipstamatic—an app which essentially makes every shot stunning.
Tags: empty nest syndrome, longing is a privilege, reeve, separation anxiety
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words of wisdom from my mom
January 5th, 2011
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I don’t like January. But in these cold, dark, back-to-business days after the holidays, I find myself falling back on something my mother taught me: I don’t have to like it. Which, oddly enough, helps, somehow.
My family likes to tease my mom about things she used to say when my brother and sister and I were growing up. Even my son, Reeve, (who obviously wasn’t there back in the day) gets it: “You know what Nonna would say,” he said to me once as I was complaining about something trivial. “Get over it.”
Born in the midst of the Great Depression—to eastern-European immigrants who were made of tough stuff—my mom’s now famous take on many things when we were kids was a kinder/gentler variation on “Oh, don’t be such a baby.” This philosophy showed up in all aspects of family life: at the dinner table (“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it—but that’s what we’re having.”); on camping trips (“A little ______ [take your pick: humidity/heat/mosquito bite/dirt-bug-dog drool in your food/rain/cramped family "togetherness" in the camper in the rain] never hurt anyone.”); regarding chores and schoolwork (“It won’t take long to clean your room/do your homework. Just do it and get it over with.”) . . .
Don’t waste time complaining; just get going.
We may have complained (under our breaths, of course) back then, but over the years I’ve seen how helpful—and practical—it was, this confidence Mama had (still has) in our capability. We grew up knowing we could deal with these things, if for no other reason than the alternative just wasn’t an option.
So I hate January? Sure, fine. That’s OK. I don’t have to like it. February’s on the way, and, meanwhile, I’ll deal.
Tags: advice, childhood, growing up, mom, mother's advice, stoicism
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