the dog days are (almost) over

 Joshua and I have always had a sort of an obsession with light. Natural, artificial, too much or too little, we are very conscious of the role light plays in our life. And since we've been together now for over ten years and we've watched the seasons fade into each other approximately forty-twoish times, you might think we would stop mentioning the changing light each year. But we never do. I can't think of a summer where I haven't said a dozen times that this is my absolute favorite time of day. This happens most frequently around 8pm on clear days in July, when we're passing by fields or even an empty overgrown lot that's lit up in the evening sun, and I am all, "look at those amber of waves of grain! I love it here in America!" because the light makes me feel this strange mix of childhood nostalgia and patriotism (other things that make me feel this way: dogs playing fetch in the backyard, every version of Don't Stop Believin' ever made, anything involving football).

Tonight Helo and I wandered through the neighborhood, well before 8pm, and the light had already settled into a just-before-sunset bronze. It's this time of day at this time of year that makes me run right home and tell Joshua that fall is right around the corner, I can SENSE IT! As can anyone else who calls planet earth their home, or owns a calendar, but it feels like a personal and bittersweet epiphany each and every year. 

Despite all that I love about summer; the evening light, the smell of sunscreen slicked into Matilda's curls, the way that it takes thirty seconds to throw her in a dress and sandals and run out the door, I'm practically clapping for every brittle and fallen leaf I see these days. A change will do you good, and all that. I'm not usually the one who takes Helo out in the evenings, and it felt serendipitous that I decided to spend this fading part of tonight outside. It's going to be scorching all week, but it's not really the heat that makes it summer for me. It's the light.

I could not love this adorably threatening sidewalk chalk barricade any more. I was a little worried that tiny children were going to jump out at me as I went ahead and strode into their sacred space, but I think they had been hauled off to homework and bedtimes so....Do Not Pas this Lin, summer! We are moving on to crisper and brisker things.

This Has To Be A Record for Posts In One Week Written By Me

Joshua is home from the summer of productivity/doom and he is ready to party!

yeah...

That was approximately two hours after he arrived home and exactly 34 minutes into an episode of the West Wing, which I will no doubt recap for him when we start the next one and he has no idea what's going on. His exhaustion was completely legitimate, but now that I'm thinking about it, Joshua stays awake for approximately 75% of anything we are watching. He's lucky that I haven't exploited this entertainment narcolepsy. (Such a bummer how Dwight brutally killed Michael in a fit of rage as part of Steve Carrell's exit from The Office, right? I'm going to try this one.)

The house was pristine when Joshua arrived last night, because I'm really good at shoving things in closets and drawers and lighting candles and creating the illusion that our home life is nothing if not a well-curated Pinterest board. I do not just survive my solo parenting weekends, I thrive!

However, this morning I was reminded that toddlers are little vortexes of destruction, hell bent on ruining your dreams of catalog living. If the work of childhood is play, the work of parenthood is not punching yourself in the face after picking up the same blocks and beads and crayons a zillion and one times a day. And we weren't particularly neat or fastidious people to begin with, so you can imagine that when our powers combine, the outcome is that on mornings like this one we are one dead cat away from a hoarders episode. 

In the picture above, Matilda was explaining in no uncertain terms to Joshua that her beads needed to come out of the whale tub (which is still kicking it in her closet as a toy) and he was politely but firmly declining her request on the basis that we had reached our limit of Items Underfoot.

We decided the best thing to do when faced with a major clean up project would be to leave.

And now for a quick and not very cohesive report on life outside our chaos-littered condo...

We are on the cusp of fall, people. See above! For every luscious heirloom tomato someone picked today in the community garden, ten chlorophyll-depleted leaves hit the ground. 

Matilda apparently loves hats and was especially fond of this jaunty herringbone number. Also, to my great shame, I'm wearing sunglasses inside in that picture and I apologize for falling victim to one of my own pet peeves. It was just so bright that I forgot to take them off. Joshua was literally turning into a sunbeam at the exact moment I snapped that shot, so...I promise it's not a thing I do regularly.

Chicago is so gorgeous in every season, and we couldn't possibly see enough of it these days. We are so grateful that this is our city. I'm thankful that we can walk outside and feel a sense of relief that we are 1) not as likely to slip on a pile of crayons and break something as we are indoors and 2) that we are most certainly living our lives in the place we are meant to be right now. Days that we are all together exploring and wandering and being a "really nice family!" (Matilda's words, and the sweetest ones since the last phrase I deemed the sweetest) are just so precious.

She is gentle! She is wild!

She's a riddle! She's a child!

She's a headache! She's an angel!

She's a girl!

now with a picture AND a video

Joshua travels for at least one big work event every summer, sometimes more. This year he had two, plus the frequent weekend trips he took for his new business and it made this summer long and often lonely and not exactly filled with the same kind of golden memories as summers past. He knows I am extremely proud of his hard work, so with great affection and support for his endeavors I say: thank God this summer is over. Joshua's arrival home from California tomorrow marks the official end to the traveling circus and there are no more trips planned other than ones we are taking together. There is some kind of intense emotion that I feel about this, a mixture of joy and relief and despite my best efforts, a lingering sadness over how stressful it was. Kind of like the way a dog feels right after a bath, I imagine. I am the wet dog, and this summer was my bath.

I'm not sure how to recover from that analogy (I'm clean now? this is going badly), so I will move on to the fact that these summer trips have gotten so much easier now that Matilda is older. The stressful part of the trips is the part where I work 56 hours in 6 days in order to be off the entire time Joshua is gone -not the part where we are home together sans Daddy. I really look forward to having time just with her - especially now that we can just chatter away to each other and paint our toenails and go on long walks where she demands to sip my coffee every few blocks and I let her because hello, antioxidants.

I loved Matilda's babyhood because she was so happy and content and squishy but this age is far and beyond my favorite (I did not love 18-24ish months. There was a lot of climbing furniture and falling off furniture and rageful head banging and rigor mortis tantrums and not a lot of talking. We are verbose people, Joshua and I. We needed this child to speak and voila! She also sings). She has strong opinions on what she wants to wear and where she wants to go and what she wants to eat and do and play with and it is incredibly hilarious and more seriously, incredibly satisfying for the part of my soul that wanted to be a mother above anything else in the world. Today I took Matilda to get custard and as I was buckling her into her carseat for the ride home, she said, "thank you for the treat, Mama." (Naturally, I cried right there on Belmont outside Scooters). She also says the things we've always told her about herself, "I am really smart! I am really strong!" and I feel like if I literally did not accomplish one more thing in my lifetime other than for her to keep saying that into adulthood, that would be more than enough.

(She also says, "I am really cute!" and I'm going to check it off in the positive self-esteem column as opposed to in the reinforcing shallow stereotypes for girls column. For now).

Of course, this morning a sweet older woman was passing us as I navigated the sidewalk of our busy street with the dog and Matilda, who insists on walking "by myself. No help, Mama", and the woman made the mistake of saying hello to Matilda in the middle of one of her declarations of stroller independence. My really smart and really strong daughter told her, "STOP IT! I'm not talking to you", and then I died on the inside/passed out from embarrassment/disciplined her promptly/choose your own adventure, mine was shame. Parenting is humbling, in a literal scrape yourself off the sidewalk way. 

And then we have this video, taken moments before the sweetest thank you she's ever given me - I apologize in advance for how loudly Eleanor Rigby was playing and for the fact that I laugh like someone who has recently hit the sidewalk.




There are no pictures

Whenever I return from my regularly scheduled three to sixth month blogging absence, I usually feel like I need to make excuses for my absence (because the three of you reading this missed my self-deprecating quarterly family updates so much? I don't know).

But I am not going to do that because the year two thousand and thirteen has left me in a space where I really don't need to make any excuses. I wasn't here blogging because I was out in the real world dealing with all sorts of (insert four letter word here. and here. and here. and I'm only describing the things that happened between February and May. Are there five letter words I could use for June and July? I'm the mother of a toddler. I'm rusty).

Just to sum up, things about this year that were awesome:

....
....
....
....I've thought of a few.

Joshua started a media production company. I could not be more proud of him, and also a little jealous because now I want to start something and be flooded with work from day one and suddenly have Fedex dropping off business cards and promotional sunglasses. Matilda continues to be the reason we all get up in the morning - first because she's screaming, "I NEED TO GET OUT NOWWWWWWW", and secondly because she is the walking, talking, breathing embodiment of all those well-worn parenting cliches. Light of our life. Center of our world. Hope for the future. The sun we revolve around. The lamest thing about those phrases is that they don't even come close to expressing the bittersweet joy of watching a child grow up, but since this has been a Four Letter Word Year, I'm going to allow it for now.

When Joshua started a company but still kept the day job that he very much enjoys and is also fairly important to our mortgage company, he started working on the weekends. And since I was already saving lives on the nights and weekends (I have to make it sound as dramatic as possible, now that he gets promotional sunglasses), that meant everyone suddenly became very, very, very tired all the time. I think we stopped making our bed in April, right around the time that someone was sleeping in it alone approximately twenty two hours a day. We have been extremely blessed by Matilda's amazing grandparents helping us through this - in fact, Joshua's dad retired just in time for us to start shipping her off to them for weekends at a time. In order of Amount of Fun Achieved, we use these breaks to 1) work, 2) sleep, and 3) drink to excess (please don't tell the grandparents, they're such wholesome people). Also, 4) watch the West Wing, which is our summer Netflix obsession.

Side note: unfortunately, we just got to season five. We recently discovered after googling "why are all the characters acting ridiculous in West Wing season five", that it is the first season where Aaron Sorkin stepped away from the show. Dear Aaron Sorkin circa 2003, 10 years from now an overtired and tipsy Chicago couple will be really bitter with your decision. THEY FIXED SOCIAL SECURITY IN 43 MINUTES AND DECIDED NOT TO TAKE ANY CREDIT FOR IT?? I know all the four letter words, and I'm saying them to your 10-year-younger-self.

Can you tell that the year two thousand and thirteen has derailed us a little? It's true. And if you know me in real life, I also know that you are all, "she needs to shut up about the West Wing," and believe me, I should listen to you. It's just that this year has created a deep need for escapism and we decided to wrap that up into staggeringly idealistic televised politics. But don't worry, this former political science major has also rediscovered the fervency of my interest in actual politics, and that has led to deep soul searching regarding my career choices. And the less lofty pursuit of draining away the time that I do have reading Politico, which is where idealism goes to die in the face of realities like the New York City mayoral race.

How did I end up here? I think the downward spiral occurred because the entire time I've been writing this, my sweet, spirited daughter has been screaming that she needs to GET OUT (see above). Unfortunately, it's nap time and I am the boss of her, but still...the high pitched demands wear on a person.

Lastly, I apologize for the vagueness with which I am approaching What Has Happened Since I Last Blogged. It is a combination of little annoyances and vast griefs that run the gamut from unspeakably boring to just unspeakable, and I'm sure everyone has suffered through months or years of trials that feel similar to ours. Maybe someday, this year will be something I put into written words, but for now you get diatribes on decades old TV and absolutely no pictures of us whatsoever. Matilda has ringlets and does somersaults and I'm depriving my vast readership of photographic evidence of this, but if we are all lucky, I will blog again before she goes off to preschool.

(Social security in 43 minutes, I mean really...) 

West Coast

Even though I keep writing 2012 on everything that requires a date, they tell me it really is 2013. And its not even the giddy, fresh resolutions days of the year anymore. It's that slogging, post-Christmas pre-spring stretch that everyone who lives in a four season climate knows so well. Which is why I'm thrilled to say that I'm writing this from San Diego, where Matilda and I strolled along the beach without jackets today. And we ate fish tacos outside in the sunshine and managed to stop at not one, but two playgrounds, mostly because we just left a midwestern deep freeze that makes going to the grocery store feel like an expedition worthy of the Discovery Channel. Joshua and I said to each other (like we always say when we are traveling), why don't we live somewhere a little bit warmer and a lot more beautiful?

Don't worry, Chicago, we still love you (and our stable jobs and wonderful friends and family) and you are looking really pretty on facebook and instagram right now with your glittery new snow. But oh you are so cold and so FLAT and getting away at this time of year is a very, very good idea. And also, no, I don't think this slide was designed for the toddler crowd, but it was the highlight of the park experience for both her and Joshua.

We're here because Joshua is on a business trip, and the majority of that business happens in the evening. I'm tied to a toddler schedule, which means paaartayyyyyy in the hotel room starting at 7pm. And by party, I mean I'm sitting here writing this blog post while Matilda sleeps across the room. I have big plans for my solo evenings, including but not limited to, painting my nails, trolling the internet, intermittent napping, and not feeling the slightest bit guilty about my total lack of productivity. Our flight home from our after-Christmas visit to my family in Massachusetts landed exactly 32 days before our flight to California took off, and in that time we pretty much ran flat out, physically and emotionally. To be honest, 2013 started off on the wrong foot with us Havi - more hurdles to jump than harbors to rest in, so to speak. There have been Capital C Challenges, and it is only the first week of February! I'm unimpressed, which is possibly why I keep reverting back to 2012 in my addled brain.

It hasn't been all bad since New Years Day. Matilda turned two this week, and after a trip to the childrens museum, a tiny celebration with her beloved Cal, and passing out in a cupcake coma, we crept into her room at exactly 11:30, the time she was finally born. Joshua and I looked at her sprawled out, taking up so much of the crib these days, and we agreed that even after two years dedicated to her surviving and thriving, the element of oh! she is really ours! still lingers. 

She is constantly in motion, constantly saying something brand new or surprising us with knowing something today that eluded her yesterday. Today, after google maps failed me as we were meandering around the southern Cali highways (meandering = I was driving 70mph in a 65mph zone looking for an exit and everyone around me going 80mph didn't approve), Matilda shouted, "You are kidding me!" I'm just so thankful that she chose to repeat that phrase over a few others that may have slipped out as I got on and off I-5 repeatedly. 

After we visit Joshua's aunts in northern California later this week, we have another busy few weeks at home, Matilda's birthday party (which had to be scheduled later due to this trip), and then March and April and May are just wide open blanks in both my mind and my planner. I doubt they will stay that blank, but I'm planning to keep it that way as much as possible because we all need rest and calm and spring. A new start to the already old new year. A harbor to rest in. Perhaps not one that includes seals, but we are flexible.

all is bright

We celebrated Christmas early with Joshua's parents this past weekend, a tradition we started when they moved back to the area and we were all balancing family commitments and work over the actual holiday (hint: I was the only one with a work conflict). There was a time when I thought maybe we wouldn't be able to spend the weekend anymore after having kids, but as Matilda gets older I couldn't be more thankful for the memories we are making here and for the way she adores this place. Joshua's parents house is comfortable to the point of mild sedation - a grownup's lazy wonderland of freshly ground coffee, thick napping blankets, homemade treats, and other people who are making sure Matilda doesn't slam her fingers in doors or gleefully lunge for the stairs. And Matilda is currently just smitten with her grandparents (she stopped saying Gamma and Boppa a few days ago in favor of the oh so logical "Boppa" and "Other Boppa").

This weekend, being away from home and celebrating Christmas with our family also felt like an incredible privilege in light of the tragedy of yet another gun massacre last Friday. I have not stopped thinking about the families of the children and teachers who are now gone. The despair that I feel just imagining Matilda's life ending in a senseless, horrific way is so deep that I cannot comprehend the grief these parents and families are experiencing. I am so thankful that she is far too young to understand what kind of violent world we live in. Her biggest problems are parental blockades to both snacks on demand and unlimited access to Sesame Street, and I will fight to keep her life that way as long as possible.

This gem is the closest thing we got to a family picture this weekend, at least on our camera. And it's a few days later and I feel both grateful and selfish over my relief that the three of us are still here and living and breathing. I'm thankful for this fleeting, precious time on earth in ways that I wish I felt everyday, and not just in light of horrific news. For the big things like our faith and this season of Advent and for the little things like after-bathtime toddler curls and gifts wrapped up in glittery teal paper. We are praying desperately for all of those whose families are no longer complete and who are suffering instead of celebrating this week. 

 Donations to support the Newtown community can be directed here, through the United Way of Western CT, or here, through a fund set up by the community itself. Lastly, a group of artists on Etsy are donating a portion of their proceeds to that United Way fund - you purchase from them here.

Oh Hello

Time for a quarterly update on all the Havi happenings? Sure. Matilda felt my old choking and dying netbook needed to face just one more challenge and ripped the spacebar off a few months ago, but now I have a shiny new Mac and no excuses about how typing is so hard (you rip off your spacebar and try it).

Fall was rather lovely here in Chicago. It was warm, the foliage was as good as this New Englander could ask for from the Midwest, we managed to apple pick and pumpkin carve and dress our daughter up as Elmo for the Lincoln Square Halloween festivities. She was a little thrown off by all the other kids screaming "ELMO!" in her face, and we were a little thrown off by the adults who shoved their kids in her face while avoiding eye contact with us and saying in an odd whisper/yell,"looook! ellllmmooo!" It was neat. 

My incredibly inspiring friend Amy ran the marathon in October, and we CTA-hopped all over the city to see her at mile 10ish, 20ish, and the finish line. Matilda was awesome and only once did she actually try to run away into the street and join the marathon (true story). She helped hold up signs for Auntie Amy, did not complain when her lunch consisted of an applesauce and crab rangoons on the street in Chinatown, and appropriately fell asleep right as we saw Amy turn the corner and head up to the finish line.  

Also, I don't know if you've you ever carried a stroller with a 29 pound toddler in it up and down dozens and dozens of stairs to and from the L tracks, but 1) it was sort of the crowning achievement of our almost two years of urban parenting, and 2) Joshua and I hobbled around for a day or two like we had run the marathon instead of leisurely puttering from spectator location to spectator location.

We hosted Thanksgiving for the first time and after much late night obsessive googling and seeking constant support from friends and Alton Brown, we brined and roasted our first turkey and oh, we owned it. My facebook profile picture is still Joshua and I standing over that turkey. We celebrated on Wednesday night with Joshua's family, his sister's boyfriend, and super marathoner Amy who is all the family I'm ever going to get here in the heartland (sob!) but if I had to pick someone to spend every holiday with, it would obviously be her anyways. It was really a wonderful night. Of course we barely picked up the big camera, but we did instagram that dinner to death.

Before everyone arrived, we managed to catch some shots of Matilda eating cranberry sauce for lunch. She looks like such a grown up girl in that picture on the right, but after searching through last years Thanksgiving pics I'm happy to say that, beneath those long curls and despite those pearly chompers, she still has the same rosy baby cheeks and sweet smile as last year. Keep changing slowly, firstborn child of mine.

Joshua's parents and sister left Thursday morning to visit his brother's family in Texas, and we lazed around watching the parade and football until I left to give thanks at work with the NICU babes. I have to say that waking up on the holiday with leftovers all ready to go is actually an amazing way to celebrate the holiday. Wednesday Thanksgivings forever!

My favorite part of the year is really the weekend after Thanksgiving when you are still full and making turkey sandwiches slathered in cranberry sauce for every meal and still feeling very blessed, but you also know that you can now celebrate Christmas without feeling like you are shortchanging Thanksgiving. We don't do Black Friday, so it's the weekend when Christmas still feels sort of far away and you think you have all the time you need for wrapping and baking and creating holiday cheer (you don't). In that spirit, we have all these magical plans to go tromping through snowy fields someday and cut down our own tree, but this year in the time we had allotted (Sunday evening after I had worked three overnights in a row) and the attention span of our child (short, prone to violence with containment), we were only able to pull off the magical run-into-home-depot-and-pick-which-tree-looks-like-it-would-be-most-beautiful-without-this-netting-on-it experience. 

This festive activity culminated in a certain child being carried out of Home Depot kicking and screaming, and required Joshua to saw off the lower branches because we did not have the time or apparently, the parenting skills, to hold our family together and wait in line for that at the store. But lo! our tree is actually beautiful sans net, and there are no huge holes or birds nests or anything else terrifying and nature-ish. A Christmas miracle! 

We are still enjoying the Christmas season and thank God for jeggings and scrubs because the delicious spoils from multiple cookie exchanges keep piling up on our counter. Luckily stress is counteracting the saturated fat because this week Matilda learned how to lock herself in her room (a day that shall live in infamy because 1) it was literally Pearl Harbor Day and 2) the comedy of errors that occurred was actually unbelievable) and she also learned how to throw herself out of her crib. This made for a rough parenting weekend. Then last night she insisted on extra hugs and kisses before bed and said "Nigh nigh, I slweepy, Mama" and pulled her blanket over herself to emphasize the point so my little heart grew three sizes that day.