Madmartigan, 5 Years Old | bee vomit sandwiches

I can only save so many little scraps of paper. I wish I could save them all. I wish, actually, that he wouldn't draw on little scraps of paper at all but use the primary composition notebook decorated and designated as his journal (my one effort at making him too much like me, I admit freely and without shame). But, no. He can't be boxed in by the constraints of a bound notebook. When he has an idea, he must scribble it immediately, on whatever medium is nearest--including the whiteboard where we write grocery lists and the little Melissa & Doug easel slate board. I can't save those masterpieces at all except to take pictures. Actually, he prefers the whiteboard and slate because he can so easily erase that which does not fit his vision. I worry sometimes about his erasing habit and gently remind him, "Don't worry about perfection; nothing is perfect," especially when he expresses frustration before erasing--with his fingers or the felt brick that looks transported directly from my elementary classrooms. Without pausing for anguish or reflection he just says, "It's not very...as I planned it to be," and continues.

He draws mostly at the kitchen table, sometimes in the car and so we keep a tote bag of spiral notebooks and art supplies there next to his seat. Sometimes, he begins drawing the moment he wakes, his eyes barely open against the yellow kitchen light. More often it happens mid-morning, after breakfast, after Scooby Doo or Rescue Bots, before our morning walk as a way to pass the time while we clean breakfast dishes and get ready to leave the house. Sometimes, he does not pick up a pencil (or pen, crayon, marker, chalk--he does not seem particular, really) until the evening in that quiet space of time Wolfman designates for art and music and conversation.

What does he draw? I've mentioned his "weather reports" taped to my walls. He draws maps. Lots of maps and mazes. He draws intricate designs for implements and tools, "for help," based on things he's seen out in the world, like the lifts used to stack high shelves at home improvement stores. (Often, I have not even realized these objects and machines have made such an impression on him until they show up on his paper, a version of them drawn by his hand.) He drew elaborate plans for Halloween costumes in September and October (at one point, his cardboard and paper mâché Hulk Buster armor half-way complete, he decided he wanted to be "No Noggin," from Curious George's Halloween Boofest, and Wolfman gamely discussed with him practical ways to accomplish the headless effect while trick-or-treating, all of which Mads drew). In one of those quiet morning art sessions, he set down to the slate board and without saying a word began drawing something that Wolfman pointed out upon completion looked like a rune casting circle, spookily so.

What I collect and save of his drawings are not family portraits or landscapes of our homes and trees and flowers with a grinning sunshine overhead, no horses or dogs or mermaids, none of the things I drew as a child. I collect what appears to be Pollockian blue prints, and I awe at this mind.

On the Seaboard caboose in pjs made by Granmommie

NCMA

selfie!

DJ's Berry Pumpkin Patch

Dance Party at the Cary Arts Center

About Mads, 5 Years & 3 Months Old:

• Mads sometimes requests that I read books backwards, particularly the ones we've read to memorization, and when I do, he belly laughs.
• At Tinkergarten, when Mads would not focus on the class activities because he was too intent on spraying things with the class-provided spray bottles I told him, "Martigan, I'm feeling a little exasperated about the water botle. Do you care?" He answered honestly and without malice, "No," and so what could I do but let it go.
• Mads gets bored quickly with the little kindergarten workbooks we sometimes use and will begin creating his own lessons. For example, on a shape-recognition page in which he is meant to trace all the diamonds, he does just that but alternating between his left and right hands, then using both hands at once, practicing his ambidextrousness and coordination.
• Mads says, "When I get too scared, by heart turns into a bat."
• He refers to honey as "bee vomit" (accurate, if crude) and requests a "butter and bee vomit" sandwich daily.
• Lately at bed time when I ask what or who he wishes to be before singing our version of Que Sera Sera instead of Batman or Flash, his old stand-bys ("will I be Batman, will I be cool?"), Mads requests "the lover," and then crawls into my lap for snuggles while I sing/ruminate about his future and all the hugs and kisses he will get and give.
• When he overhears an innocuous cuss word in conversation between his dad and granmommie, Mads interjects, "Oh yeah, I know a lot of badass words."
• In October, Mads attended his first yoga class and now refers to himself as a yogi and, if we ask, he'll lead Wolfman and me in morning sun salutations.
• With a little organizational help from his dad, Mads created a board game called, "Something's Near," the object of which is to move through a frightening land filled with ghosts, zombies, a banshee and other dread creatures to do battle at a castle with either a giant spider
• Mads favorite shows/movies lately: Power Rangers (especially Mighty Morphin and Ninja Steel), Scooby Doo (especially Aloha Scooby Doo), Transformers: Rescue Bots, Goosebumps (especially Night of the Living Dummy)
• Mads favorite books lately: Bruce Hale & Guy Francis' Clark the Shark books, Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men & Little Miss books, Sick Simon by Dan Krall, anything we can find by Ben Hatke

Madmartigan, 5 Years Old | he says he doesn't want to grow up but already tells me stories about leaving me

As Martigan splashed in his bathtub the other night and I sat with him,  he told me this story (which I have elaborated only in language, not detail):

Mads and I are on a walk one day when he falls into a puddle. But the puddle is deep, a hole, a well. As he splashes around, he turns into a fish. I scoop him up and run home with him. Once home, I set up the biggest fish bowl I can find and place him inside, fretting, begging him to become a boy once again. He grows bigger every day and soon, I must release him into the sea. Every morning, I sit in a boat, not far from the shore, drinking coffee, reading, hoping to catch a glimpse of my sonfish. (I know him by the pattern of scales on his belly spelling out his name.) Not every day, but occasionally, he swims close to the boat and lets me pet him, and I plead with him to turn back into a boy and come home with me. The sea is big; there are sharks in its depths. One day in my boat, I see not my sonfish, but my fear, a shark, who swims close to my boat. I am afraid and distraught until the shark leaps out of the water and I see the scales on his belly--M.A.D.S. But now my sonfish is too big and powerful to live so close to the shore. After petting him and speaking to him one last time, I tow him out to the deep, dark sea, the Mariana Trench. I cut him loose and watch him swim away. He leaps out of the water one last time in goodbye, and now he is a whale.

5 years old & 34 years old

4 years old & 33 years old

3 years old & 32 years old

2 years old & 31 years old

1 year old & 30 years old

Shelly's 29th birthday, with her greatest birthday gift

Home & Konmari, pt. 1 | The Life-Stalling Habit of Worshipping Stuff

Marie Kondo is a witch. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is truly that--magic(k). I read both her books in the beginning of the year (though I'm barely able to finish reading anything these days). I get Marie Kondo. She speaks to me, and I find I am often disappointed with the way people talk about Konmari. People, in the fashion of people, tend to focus on the practical and ignore (or openly disparage) the woo woo. People pretend this method has only to do with the tidying, when Marie Kondo herself describes it as "magic." Like she recommends, I really do say thank you to my dirty socks (and to my spoon after stirring honey into my tea, and to my computer after I type clumsily on it, and to my car after she settles safely into my drive way at the end of the day once more), and my relationship with all these things (all the things) is better because of it. 

I love that Marie Kondo's methods are based in animism. She says that each object in our life has a desire to be utilized and, therefore, loved by us. Each object in our life desires to serve us.  Okay, so maybe you're reading this and thinking to yourself, "my toothbrush is inanimate and this whole 'desires to serve me' thing is bogus." Fair enough. But. It does serve you, doesn't it? And therefore, isn't its purpose in being created to serve you? How far did that thing travel, through how many hands, across how many oceans and state lines, just to sit on your bathroom counter waiting to be held between your fingers and clean your teeth, an intimate job, twice daily. When we sit down to meals as a family, I paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh aloud for my husband and child, "In this plate of food I see the Universe supports my existence." I believe the same about my copper tongue scraper, the mason jars I drink water from and store leftovers in, that little stool that sits beside my reading chair painted black and white with the pink wooden utters hanging underneath it. These things are manifestations of the Universe supporting me, healing me, quenching my thirst, making me laugh. 

I don't think I'd even finished Life Changing Magic... when I cleaned out my wardrobe. In my years of thrifting and working at my beloved little second-hand store, I'd accumulated quite a lot of clothing. I defended my overstuffed drawers and racks by telling my husband (and myself) that I was a collector. And yet, after throwing myself into a new job where I am frequently hucking forty-pound bags of cat litter and down on all fours wrangling dogs into harnesses, my daily wear became much more stream-lined, much more practical. The Type 4 of me puts up such a fight against practicality, but you're hard-pressed to find me wearing a dress these days, even on my days off work. So, I cleaned out my closet. I thought this would be the hardest part, but actually the process moved along swiftly once I got going. In the end, I culled my wardrobe by 50%. And though I still step into thrift stores about once a month, it is only once a month, and I am so much more discerning when I go. Often, I walk out with not a thing in my hands.

Like the wardrobe, I also had no problem cleaning out my old writing suitcase. In a tacky decorative suitcase, I had saved every single piece of writing I'd ever worked on--finished and unfinished--since high school. I thought I'd return to those pieces one day, edit them, spiff them up, or take bits and pieces of them to form something else--single lines, descriptions, pieces of dialogue. Instead, it went untouched in a corner of my room, and I actually fretted over the thought of dying and my husband and family sifting through all that nonsense. I chucked all but a couple pages--literally: two pages. Then, I donated the suit case.

Household objects--tchotchkes, mugs, wall hangings--have been the most difficult for me to sift through. I've been inspired by maximalist decorating my entire life. My grandmother keeps a proper Witchy Cottage, stuffed to the brim with books, plants, fish bowls, gargoyles, dolls, all the instruments Dumbledore kept in his office (I think my grandma inherited them after Dumbledore died), framed photos, unframed photos sticking out of the pages of books and tucked into the corners of mirrors, mirrors, ornate boxes and cabinets with tiny little drawers (all occupied), musical instruments, glass bottles in rainbow hues, specimen vials, rubber novelty bats hanging in the hall closet, faux butterflies and spiders and lizards and caterpillars and slugs pinned and glued to the walls and windows. I could go on. I love her house, every corner a surprise. I love her pink polka-dotted toaster and turquoise coffee maker. I love that the rainbow elephant I colored in kindergarten, the one the other kids made fun of me for, is still taped up in her kitchen. 

For a long time, I thought my house would look like this, but I didn't find my version of it as charming. Nor did my husband. I've gone through several declutterings--moving five years ago was one, then cleaning out the storage shed a year after moving--but we were still surrounded by an increasing amount of clutter. We have lived with so many things in corners gathering dust! The past couple years, the impermanence of our current living situation has been nagging at me and the amount of things I've accumulated in my adult life weighing me down. At the start of this year, I was ready to toss every single thing into garbage bags and start over, completely, radical minimalist style.

But, I know me. I know I am sentimental and animistic and place high value on objects. I know that if I were to get rid of everything without discernment, I would regret it later. Enter Marie Kondo and her ritualized tidying.

I am a seeker and collector of joy. I have already trained my mind and spirit to recognize moments of pure joy as I encounter them in my life--fleeting, small, winged things that are difficult to butterfly net. I have studied and practiced the art and sport of recognizing joy, savoring it, scribbling it down so I can return to it later. I know what joy feels like in the heart. I know what joy feels like in the body. I know what Marie Kondo means when she instructs to hold a garment in your hands and wait for your body's cues. Honestly, while reading her book, I couldn't help thinking her philosophy so easy and obvious, I should have already thought of it.

So, it should be done, right? Six months after reading her books and beginning my own Konmari, I should be sitting smug enlightened on the other side. Spoiler: I am not.

Watch this space for Pt. 2, Lessons Learned & Stumbled Over.

Gratitude | wasting time

I was in the car the other day, driving home into the five o'clock sun (the most yolky, rich of suns), and "The Dock of the Bay," came on the radio. The kids were in the car with me, both quietly staring out their respective windows, a sure sign that sleep was over-taking them--a little early for that this afternoon, but they'd just spent an hour bouncing around, literally, at the trampoline park. I turned the radio up. I sang along. I told them, though I knew they weren't listening, "This is one of my favorite songs." I'd never thought about it before, but, yes: this is one of my favorite songs. This song that almost wasn't released, and then was only released because Otis Redding died young, and his label needed something to offer people who were sad. I did not know about this while I sang along in the car the other day, but I have since learned that Otis Redding had had a throat surgery that left him worried for his voice and future, and "Dock of the Bay" was quiet, poetic, soft--and easy for someone like me to sing along to, someone whose voice is only what it is because she sings to children, tucking them into bed at night, and because she sings to herself, in her car, though not a natural singer at all.

When I heard the song in the car, I thought about my life. How happy I am singing along to songs on the radio in cars--two minutes of bliss. How I told my co-workers the other day that drinking beer by a pool is one of the greatest pleasures to be had on this planet, in this life. How a day spent fixing good, simple meals with my menfolk, pruning plants, walking in the yard barefoot--this is perfection, this is my personal joy. I beat myself up sometimes. I am hard on myself for not being more or doing more, but the truth is that while, yes, at some point I think I'd like to travel, I'm more happy in my own backyard than anywhere else. And when I worry I'm not doing enough, not being enough, isn't most of that worry based on comparing myself to others and what I believe the expectations of others to be? That has nothing to do with me and my path and my heart. 

I live a modest life, and I like it. This is the life I've carved for myself; I have created this from nothing. I have lived with chaos and despair, yet here I am: in love with a good man, my life's companion, as we raise our son together, this beautiful, healthy, smart, charismatic kid. We don't have much, but we have each other, and we know how to be quiet, and we know how to laugh, and we work hard, and we know how to laze around like it's an art.

I Am Greatful:

• I am grateful for the way Ella does not fight bed time, but leans into it, like every part of our night time ritual is a luxury.
• I am grateful for my husband, who makes me sushi for lunch and draws little sriracha smiley faces on them.
• I am grateful for the photo on the front page of the Sunday News & Observer, of a lovely and lovey lady pit bull comforting a grieving mother.
• I am grateful when Mads says, "Look, Mom," and I respond, "Uh huh," and he tells me firmly but without anger, "You're not even looking, Mom," and I am snapped out of my head and into the present moment; I am grateful for these reminders of mindfulness from my guru son.
• I am grateful for the soft way my husband kisses my cheek and thanks me, everything else pausing, his hands on my arms.
• I am grateful for weather reports broadcast on the radio on stormy nights.
• I am grateful for the adult courage to peek under beds and into closets after dark.
• I am grateful for Grandma telling me, with admiration and approval, that I am so patient with my son.
• I am grateful for the last gritty sip of French Press coffee.
• I am grateful for a few minutes to zone out, looking at the Instagram accounts of yogis on tropical islands while eating chips and guac, without feeling bad about myself--just letting my mind rest, looking at something beautiful while eating something tasty.

Madmartigan, 4 Years Old | seaweed salad & smudge

There’s that Phyllis Diller joke, “Cleaning the house while your children are growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” The first time I heard it, Mads was barely walking yet somehow getting his hands on board game pieces and Apples-to-Apples cards and scattering them all over the kitchen floor every time I had my back turned. Now, I feel like I need that joke inscribed on a plaque and hanging on my wall, a bit of household wisdom to ease my mind and a warning to visitors--this is where we’re at right now . That, or the Someecards update, “Cleaning with kids in your house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.” (That one is filed under “Cry For Help Memes” on the Someecards website.)

All this is to say, my house is a disaster, and I don’t want any shame over it. I’ve got a full-on kid at home. The living room is a chaos of cardboard. Blue electrical tape holds up scraps of construction paper all over my walls with my son’s interpretive “weather reports.” I’m trying my damndest to teach him to put his things away, because I think it will make not only my life easier but his as well (how many mornings screech to a halt when we must search for The Other Croc before leaving the house), yet there are still Legos on every surface, in every corner of the house--both Duplo-sized and “Big Boy” sized (as we confusingly call the impossibly tiny ones, to which Mads has graduated this Spring).

The state of my home is partly my fault. I’m an enabler. I bring cardboard boxes home from work and store cracker boxes, egg cartons, and the paper grocery bags my grandmother sends home with me in a corner of our dining room designated, loosely, for “art supplies”. And, I encourage my little boy to bring home odd scraps of plastic and paper he finds when we’re out and about, more things to reuse; since reading Lois Elhert’s Rain Fish (an instant favorite, which Mads and I refer to as Garbage Fish), we’re constantly on the look-out for, well, garbage.

I suppose a mechanic’s workshop or an artists studio is also constantly in a state of muddlement and flux--it’s part of the process. With a nearly five-year-old boy, our home is both workshop and studio, as well as discotheque, test kitchen, laboratory, and about a hundred other things, depending on the day.

As far as the cleaning goes, Wolfman and I are doing the best we can.

About Mads, 4 Years & 10 Months Old:

• Mads is finally beginning to share my love of Labyrinth. He recognizes David Bowie as "The Goblin King," and his favorite part of the movie is the Fireys. However, Mads has also begun wailing, "That's not fair!" whenever he doesn't immediately get his way.
• One evening, while we sit in the back yard eating grilled pineapple and the juices run down Martigan's naked chest, I light a stick of citronella incense, and Mads uses it to invoke Odin and cast spells for health and longevity. He announces he is a wizard, and he runs around the yard naked in a cloud of perfumed smoke. (He repeated the same indoors only once--we had to put a kibosh on the baby shamanism after he pressed the red tip of the incense into the covers of his bed and burnt a little hole in his duvet.)
• Wolfman and Mads often utilize our community center's open gym hours, especially on hot days or rainy days; Wolfman reports that though he's tried to teach the basics of basketball and volleyball as he remembers them, Mads prefers to invent his own games (and he is rather bossy about it).
• Wolfman and Mads also spend many an evening in the community center game room playing air hockey, and Mads is legitimately, without any parental stacking of the odds, pretty good at it (and getting better).
• Mads uses my tablet to scroll The Dogist Instagram feed.
• Mads loves seaweed salad and Bubbies sauerkraut.
• When I'm feeling cranky one morning, Mads makes the effort to soothe me by requesting I read him a book, which he knows I love, and choosing a particularly dreamy one (Kim Krans' 1,2,3 Dream).
• When Wolfman has The Classical Station on in the car, Mads informs him, "Daddy, I don't like this music. I only like Rock n' Roll."
• Preparing to read Curious George to Mads and Ella one night, the one where George gets on the wrong subway train, (one of Mads' favorites), Mads informs his cousin in preamble, "The subway is a train that goes underground in New York City. That's far away from North Carolina."
• Mads went through an entire box of Paw Patrol bandages, wrapping them around his fingers when he should have been brushing his teeth. Now all bandages in our house are plain and kept in the parents' bathroom.
• As I tuck him into bed each night, Mads gets squirrely and wild, fighting sleep, and tells me, "I want to hug you with my legs!"
• Mads writes his name--M.A.D.S. (in all caps, and the 's' is almost always backwards). He asks us how to spell words (words like "octopus," "zebra," "berry," or "bear") so that he can write them or construct them on the refrigerator with magnet letters. He spells "Mama" completely on his own, without help, much like the first word he spoke was "Mama."
• Mads calls fudge and brownies "smudge," though he knows that's incorrect. He always shakes his head and asks, "Wait. What's that stuff called?" Maybe it's because I giggle when he says it, though I try hard not to. His baby words are dwindling--"cunchtable" for comfortable, "titar" for guitar, and smudge.
• Mads says, "Mom, you know, every once in a while I get a spit storm in my mouth."
• As I tease Atalanta one morning, nuzzling my face into her neck and asking, "When are you going to learn you're not the boss; I'm the boss." Mads pipes up and says, "You're not the boss, Mommy. Daddy's the boss." I ask, "Oh? Why do you say that?" He answers without pause, "Because Daddy's the grumpiest."
• Martigan attended a pre-k class in the Spring. He was smart and social and a natural leader, and Wolfman and I often arrived early to pick him up so we could watch him from the door window of his classroom, in awe of his ease.
• In May, after watching several of his cousin's ballet classes, Mads requested to join her. He took to the class immediately, as if he'd always been there. He wears all black, like a ninja. After his first performance this month, he informed us that he wants to do that again, and soon.
• Martigan's favorite books lately: Shark Detective by Jessica Olien; Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds and Paulette Bogan; Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown; Here Comes Destructosaurus by Aaron Reynolds and Jeremy Tankard
• Martigan's favorite shows and movies lately: PJ Masks, Transformers: Rescue Bots, Super Wings, all things Power Rangers, all things Scooby Doo

Madmartigan, 4 Years Old | it's only fair to tell you, I'm absolutely cuckoo

I never used this space to really explore and write about my breast-feeding experience. Breast-feeding was just a thing I did. It wasn't, alone, an incredibly important or emotional experience for me. I follow many breast-feeding moms on Instagram who frequently post photos of themselves nursing their babes and write long-form captions about the emotional weavings of the breast-feeding experience, and it makes me feel like I missed something. I remember nursing a barely 1-year-old Mads at a friend's wedding, in an effort to keep him from wiggling and running about and interrupting the ceremony more than anything. At the reception, the mother of the bride, whom I've known since I was 11 and is a member of the La Leche League, took the time to pause her revelry (and the general soaking-in of her beautiful daughter's beautiful wedding) to tell me she'd seen me nursing my baby during the ceremony and it had made her so incredibly happy. I was touched, and I was glad she was touched (I was touched by her touchedness, and by her expression of her touchedness), but, also, breast-feeding was just a thing I was doing back then. You know? I wasn't shy about it (I had no qualms about nursing my baby sans cover in many public places), but I wasn't precious about it either. Sometimes Mads and I gazed lovingly into each other's eyes, and sometimes I swatted his diapered butt and told him not to lizard crawl all over my lap, and sometimes he'd get squirted in the face with milk when I'd unclasp my nursing bra, and I'd have a giggle fit for many minutes afterward, and sometimes I nursed him just to get him to pass out milk-drunk so I could sneak off and make out with his dad. I breast-fed my son, mostly on demand, for two years. We also co-slept, and while he would not stand for being held close to me in a sling or carrier, he demanded to be held close to me in my arms and on my body in his every waking and sleeping moment. In short, my baby was touching me, feeding from me, laying on me or against me, held in my arms, for two years. That is the big, important, emotional experience, altogether--the constant physical contact. Breast-feeding was just part of it. 

Martigan was weaned out of necessity. An opportunity opened for me, to work full-time for a business I was excited about, and off I went in my prettiest hippie duds. I became a full-time working mom. At that point, Mads was nursing before his afternoon naps and before bed. The first little step toward weaning I'd taken when he turned a year old, which was to stop those public feedings--not because I was embarrassed, but because I needed boundaries, and I needed to decide (at least a little) when and how my body was available to him. We'd stopped night feedings shortly before he turned 2, because up to that point he spent most of the night literally attached to my breast, and my hips were beginning to ache from sleeping on my side for two years straight. We'd experimented a little with weaning those before-nap feedings, but he wailed and carried on as if his world was crashing around him, and it hurt my heart, and I didn't know what to do. Then, I went to work and was saved from the hard choices. For the first week, I would nurse him as soon as I got home. But those honey-I'm-home feeding sessions got pushed back later and later as we settled into a new rhythm, and soon, he didn't ask to be nursed at all. He only asked to be held.

Which brings me to my point: At fast-approaching-five, Mads still asks to be held. There's no more "wan-nur!" (which was, by the way, how he asked for boob, as in, "wanna nurse"), but at about the same  intervals as breast-feeding occurred during his infant days, he wants to be hugged close. He wants to sit my lap. In the mornings, first thing, Mads gets into bed with us. He must start the day with snuggles, pressing his little cheek against my chest and announcing sleepily, "You're so warm. I love you so much." After breakfast, before I've even finished what's on my plate, he wants to sit in my lap. At lunch he wants to hold my hand. He still wants to be picked up periodically through the day and carried on my hip, though he's quickly becoming too big for me. Essentially, our days of nursing ended abruptly and are far behind us, but he still comes to my body for comfort and nourishment. I know one day, he won't climb into our bed in the morning. One day he will be too big to pick up. One day he won't want to rest his face in the crook of my neck. On days when I'm feeling touched-out, I think about this, like I did when he was an infant on my breast--these days are not forever. They'll be over before I know it, and I'll wonder how time moves so fast, and what happened to this boy who was practically an appendage of my body, he was so close and so constant.

About Mads, 4 Years & 7 Months Old:

• When his dad gives him instructions, Mads responds, "At your service!"
• Wolfman and Mads have started their first Dungeons & Dragons campaign. (Mads is a wizard who can burn and freeze things with his hands.)
• A sleigh bell hangs from the handlebars of his bike, and a joker card rattles against the spokes of the back wheel (Get it? A Joker card on a Batman bike?)
• According to Mads: Mom is sweet as watermelon. Dad is sweet as pickles (bread and butter pickles, that is).
• Mads can set up the Rube Goldberg game "Mouse Trap" completely on his own (and his dad is so proud and tells everyone, even complete strangers).
• Parenting win: when we started turning reggae music on to calm our dog when she seemed particularly antsy (studies have shown shelter dogs respond positively to easy listening and reggae), we discovered reggae also calms a particularly antsy Martigan.
• Martigan, accepting my stick figure drawings of our family but never once attempting to draw a stick figure of his own, has finally begun drawing humanoid shapes (see above).  He starts with the legs and moves up.
• Officially, Martigan's first musical (as in, the first musical he's watched and musical soundtrack he's listened to on repeat) is Little Shop of Horrors.
• Mads tells me he's going to use "ballet pink" in his painting and holds up the soft baby pink bottle of acrylic paint. I ask, "how did you know that's ballet pink?" He answers, "It's the color of a ballet shoe; it's ballet pink!" 
• Here and there, Mads has been getting dressed on his own in the mornings, without prompting, without help. Getting dressed and undressed have always been big struggles for us, so this is HUGE.
• We introduced Mads to Car Talk. I skipped to the end of that first episode so he could hear the, "Don't drive like my brother" bit, and he recognized Click and Clack's voices as Rusty and Dusty from Cars. Later that same day, while he was playing independently in the living room, he asked to listen to more "Rusty and Dusty." 
• Mads has been taking a theatre class for the past month, and he loves it. He insists on showing up early each week. He loves his class, loves wandering the halls of the Cary Art Center before class, and maybe also he loves that this is his first class where I drop him off, wave good bye, the door closes, and he gets to experience something that is totally his own, without me. 
• After his theatre class, Mads likes to go to Firehouse Subs with Grandma and me. He's obsessed with Firehouse Subs.
• Mads builds transformers with his duplo blocks, making robot transformation noises with his mouth as he switches up their bodies, removing wings and etc.
• Sometimes Mads announces that he's not Martigan, he's "Martigod." Martigod is very stinky, and often we respond to this announcement, "Oh, no, not that guy; he's the worst!" Mads then reassures us, "Oh, guys, I'm just joking! I'm Martigan!"
• He says, "I love ya, Mom. I love ya, Dad," at least five times a day.
• Martigan's favorite books this month: Valensteins by Ethan Long, Creepy Pair of Underwear! by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown, Naked! by Michael Ian Black and Debbie Ridpath Ohi, all the Curious George we can get our hands on
• Martigan's favorite shows and movies this month: Transformers: Rescue Bots, Super Wings!, Scooby-Doo

"Absolutely Cuckoo," Magnetic Fields

Thankful Thursday | a matchbox of our own, a fence of real chain link

I love describing my husband to people who don't know him. Or, rather, I love attempting to describe my husband to people. He is enigmatic and my stories of him, the things he says, the way he is, sound, surely, full of contradictions. Is he kind or is he surly? Is he serious or is he absurd? Is he crazy-eyed intense or is he even-keeled and steadfast? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and always. He is all of the things (and none of them, or at least, none of the things succeed at summing him). He is the man I love yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and always. I love him when times are good, and we are laughing--I can say aloud any crazy non sequitur that pops into my head, and he will respond in kind, and our talk becomes a layered babble of nonsense, like we're orating R-rated Seussian poetry. I love him when times are hard, like this past year, and I need to tell someone my pain because telling takes some of the burden away, and he is there for me, listening, warm and strong, his body made to hold mine, and his mere presence in a room is enough to lift me up and keep me moving. I love this man. I heard on inspirational talk radio once that the most important thing you can say to your partner isn't 'I love you,' but, 'thank you,' and I felt so proud of myself for getting something right for once. Not a day goes by that I don't thank this man in my life, for making coffee, for teaching our son, for loving me so good. I am so grateful to him and for him yes, yes, yes, yes, and always.

• I am grateful for the joy on Attie's face--her grinning gob, the sparkle in her eyes, the lift of her chin--as she chews on a bully ring.
• I am grateful for the way Ella mimics Martigan's affections with me--somewhat awkwardly, but so precious because of that awkwardness.
• I am grateful for sticky monkey bread, shared at a bakery with my husband, at a table too little for our gangly legs, on a date morning.
• I am grateful when Wolfman plays guitar and grins and thanks me for the wau pedal I bought him for his birthday; I am grateful to have given him something he loves and can use; I am grateful for his joy.
• I am grateful for the pride with which Wolfman shares an audio recording of weird improvisational music he and Mads created during the day (Wolfman playing an out-of-tune acoustic kiddie guitar and jingle bells, Mads playing harmonica and drum); I am grateful so much of Martigan's (un)schooling has fallen to my husband, who is so naturally inventive, smart, irreverent; I am grateful the musical instruments I've been collecting since Martigan's birth are getting use.
• I am grateful when Wolfman whispers to me, "I've always loved that song," as "Somewhere That's Green," ends in the Raleigh Little Theatre's production of Little Shop of Horrors.
• I am grateful for the wave of relief that comes after clearing off surfaces whose clutter seemed immovable and permanent, going willfully unnoticed and untouched for years--like the top of the fridge and the shelf in our laundry cabinet; I am grateful for my resolve; I am grateful for Marie Kondo, who taught me something that makes sense and is helpful and speaks to my woo woo, animistic inclination.
• I am grateful to put my healthy, funny, smart, good-looking boy to rest at night; I'm grateful we've been granted another day together in this chaotic, sometimes brutal, often beautiful, very strange world.
• I am grateful when Mads tells me he wants to grow his hair long again.

"Somewhere That's Green", Ellen Greene

Thankful Thursday | when you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart

I Am Grateful:

• I am grateful for the Duplo blocks that quiet Mads and capture his interest.
• I am grateful for every part of my body that jiggles because I'm made of flesh not paper.
• I am grateful when I hear sirens, for the people who make livings of helping others.
• I am grateful for my grandpa, steady and good and full of love.
• I am grateful to come home to a house full of good cooking smells after a long day at work.
• I am grateful for little gifts left in my cubby at work from co-workers.
• I am grateful to Grandma for picking us up and taking us to dinner at Martigan's favorite, Firehouse Subs, and I am grateful to her for her good humor when Mads eats only chips and does not touch his sandwich.
• I am grateful for citrus-scented dish soap.
• I am grateful for the jingling tinkle of my many charm bracelets (Christmas gifts from Grandma this year) against china coffee mugs as I put them away in the cabinet.
• I am grateful for the way salt patterns swirl on roads and look like some ancient magic runes, and like snow, impervious to sun and heat.
• I am grateful for the competing morning sounds of Uriah Heep on the turn table on one side of me (in the living room) and Wolfman tuning up his guitar on the other (in the bedroom).
• I am grateful for the tradition of wearing my husband's boots and coat (so much more practical than my own) to tromp around in the snow.

"La Vie En Rose," Louis Armstrong

Madmartigan, 4 Years Old | I'm a man you don't meet everyday

My guy, he hates the snow. He hates the cold. He wants to watch the same episode of Rescue Bots over and over (the first episode; he loves watching the autobots choosing their earth disguises). He tells me, "I just love toys! That's the thing I really love." Some days he's not much interested in food and meal time is a struggle; other days he is ravenous and eats two adult sized sandwiches for lunch. He talks, from the moment he wakes up in the morning until he falls asleep at night. I know him by his little voice, his chatter, his questions, his games, the songs he sings. He also tells jokes. He also lets the people he loves know he loves them. I worry I let him eat too many sweets, and I worry that he is a little soft (see the last photo, of my supposedly wild boy wailing his dismay at the existence of weather), but he is articulate and hilarious and so full of love, so I'm doing something right.

About Mads, 4 Years & 5 Months Old:

• When he plays with transformers and action figures, his Big Bad is "The Nothing" (from Neverending Story).
• While sick, he woke suddenly one night crying out, "I ran out of batteries!" then fell back asleep.
• We've done away with television in the mornings, and instead, to much objection and with many failed attempts at negotiation from Mads, we listen to music, play games, and I read from magazines and books of fairy tales. Mads objects the least and engages the most when I read recipes. And, in fact, once or twice he has even requested we flip through recipe books together. We have big plans to make pretzels this week.
• As his dad and I giggle together in the kitchen, Mads demands, "You tell me your secrets or you're fired!"  
• His big Christmas gift this year was a bike, from his grandmommie, Sandra (a Batman bike and an Iron Man helmet). He got sick almost immediately after Christmas, and then we had record low temperatures the following week, so he hasn't done much riding yet.
• He can draw a perfect circle.
• He is not a fan of Dim Sum.
• Favorite books: Sam's Sandwich, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Little Blue Truck
• Favorite shows & movies: Transformers: Rescue Bots, Boss Baby

"I'm a Man You Don't Meet Everyday," The Pogues