All he Wants for Christmas

Eliot's absolute, hands-down favorite part of the holidays is candy canes. This morning, Toby bribed our son into going to the hardware store on the promise of a visit to the decorating aisle for a candy cane ornament. Last year, we had to remove every candy cane from the tree because Eliot learned to stack a stool on the coffee table in order to reach the ones hanging from the highest branches.

My son doesn't quite understand that his favorite treat's name is made up of two distinct words. Instead, like Pooh and his "hum-de-hum," Eliot sings out a repetition with an extra syllable in between. He calls them "CANE-dee-canes."

Yesterday, we picked up Eliot's friend and headed over to the Fort Edward historic Amtrak station to visit a certain Christmas celebrity. The little guys are, of course, only three. A strange old dude in white gloves beckoning them to his lap? No, thanks. The boys averted their eyes and headed right past St. Nick to the model train village in the back. The teeny-tiny Santa on one teeny-tiny roof with an electric train cruising past was much more appealing.

On our way out, we had to pass the peculiar Claus family again. This time, Eliot noticed something that gave him pause. Old Mrs. Claus was holding a basket. Once he realized what was inside, he walked right over to Santa and clambered up, unassisted, onto that big, red lap. It didn't take long for Eliot's little buddy to overcome his reluctance and join his friend.



When Santa asked Eliot what he wanted for Christmas, Eliot asked for just one thing. "CANE-dee-cane," he said, pointing to the basket. Mr.and Mrs. Claus were able to fulfill that request on the spot.

Making Do

Back in 2002, I celebrated the holidays in Lindsay, Oklahoma with my Gramma Francis. It was the last Christmas she would live to see. My sister was there, along with Mom and Dad and the two men who would eventually resign themselves to marrying the troublesome Williams sisters. We scrapped and staked out territory as we each attempted to fashion a down-home Christmas according to our private stockpile of childhood ideals. From the safety of her powder blue recliner, Gramma alternated between the agitation of directing traffic and the blissful calm of watching all her chicks peck around her.

To pretty up the tree, we hauled out the boxes and bubble-wrapped parcels of ornaments from the storage closet. As many of her contemporaries did, my grandmother favored a holiday motif of turquoise and sea-green. We slung the tree with aquamarine garland and blue lights, then dug in vain for the tree topper.

Each of us remembered something different. A silvery glass tower? A twinkling star? A praying angel? Gramma rubbed her head and tried to recall when she had last seen whatever was supposed to be up there. It was Christmas Eve, no one wanted to trudge to the Wal Mart yet again just to buy a cheap plastic tree topper, and did we really need one anyway? Oh, YES WE DID!

So, with tin foil, a cereal box, and several strips of green and blue ribbon, I went to work. Bravely withstanding the derision of my so-called loved ones, I fashioned a workable Christmas star that sat proudly, if a little tilted, atop the tree that year.

After my grandmother passed away, we began the bittersweet process of gutting her closets and puzzling over what to do with dozens of porcelain cherubs and glass perfume atomizers and size-6 dress shoes. Toby and I gathered up an assortment of the Christmas ornaments and carried them home to add a little 1950's flare to our home at the holidays.

Every year since, we have draped our tree with aquamarine and finished the top with that sorry cardboard star. This year, however, it was just too sad. It bent in the middle and flopped over in defeat. "Maybe it's time," Toby said. I sighed. It's hard to advocate for a thing when it won't even stand up for itself.

I've thought about purchasing something glittery and perfect for up there. I really have. But our budget only has room for the kind of ornaments the underpaid Chinese factory workers can't even afford on the wages they earn making them. I'm not sure this is the sentiment I want staring me down from the highest point in my house for the better part of a month. Besides, I'm halfway through Carolyn Chute's The School on Heart's Content Road, and I'm ready for a little grit and dirt on the clean, plastic aspirations of my life.

So. I poked around online. Found a template here for an angel made from a soda bottle. While I don't have any lace or doll's hair on hand, I do have about 150 scarves unearthed from a steamer trunk at Gramma Francis' house. I did a little cutting, a little hot-gluing, a little sewing. A few burns and curses later, I finished our latest handmade tree-topper.

Maybe she's not a perfect angel. But who is?

Pink Haze

We have lived fifteen minutes from the Adirondack Outlet Mall for nearly a year, yet I have not once set foot in that consumer mecca. Until today. With Gramma Genie visiting just weeks before Christmas, the holes in Eliot's wardrobe have became painfully evident. Hand-me-downs and Goodwill are adequate most of the time, but sometimes a kid needs snow pants and fleece in his size in December, not May. So, off to the madhouse we went.

A sale rack of snowsuits greeted us just inside the doors of Osh Kosh. Sixty percent off the already reasonable price. I started pawing through the colors. For boys, the choices were black, a blackish navy blue, and poop brown. For girls, I could choose salmon, magenta, or sherbert-colored psychedelic flowers. I sighed. No neutral green or sunny yellow or even plain old red. If I let Eliot see the rack, he would immediately go for the floral neon. So, I did not give him that option. Instead, I grabbed a brown and a magenta (could be purple, right?) and let him choose. "Purple," he said, barely glancing. Of course.

Mom tried to steer me gently towards the navy blue. Maybe if it were the blue of ocean or sky, Eliot would go for it. But this was the blue of discount office furniture. Dung beetles. Chemical spills. I tried again, offering Eliot the choices. He didn't even bother speaking. He just jutted his chin towards the magenta. "As if," his jut seemed to say, "the question is even worth asking."

We approached the checkout. The clerk chuckled as Eliot, posing before a display case, tried on a sequined tiara, pink sunglasses, and a fuschia patent-leather pocketbook. She rung up our clothing and it somehow came up that I was buying the snowsuit for Eliot. "This?" Her eyes grew wide. "Is for him?"

"My little princess," I laughed. The woman's lip curled. She dropped her gaze, but I could see her eyes rolling as she shoved the snowsuit in the bag. She may have kept her mouth shut, but she certainly did not keep her opinion to herself. I wanted to reach across the counter and smack that sneer of her face. What does it matter to anyone which color my little boy has chosen as his favorite? I can't quite grasp how Eliot tromping around the snow in magenta pants upsets the balance of the universe.

I thought we wanted our sons to learn that there is more to manhood than defending and providing, that there is great meaning in caring for their homes and the people inside them. Don't we want them to learn the value of tenderness? Our daughters can be pilots and firefighters, so it should be fine for our sons be dancers and divas. Doesn't Eliot's ability to plant a tulip bulb as well as he wields a hammer make him more of a boy, not less of one?

When we came home and dumped our purchases on the kitchen table. "Wow," said my mom. "That's really pink." She was right. The fluorescents at the store had fooled my eyes into seeing purple, but afternoon daylight told a different story. "Are you sure you don't want to consider exchanging it?"

"It's not like I'm dressing him in eyelet blouses," I said. "There's no glitter on it. It's just a color. Why can't pink be boy?"

"It can be," my mom said. "But why stop there? Why not ruffles and lace, if he likes them?"

She has a point. But it is going to be hard enough sending Eliot to preschool with a pink snowsuit for playground time. I worry as much about what people will think of me as a mother as the flak my son might get from his classmates. Am I a better parent if I caution him not to trust his preferences and desires? If I push him toward the choices everyone around him thinks he should make? The world is going to come down on him soon enough. Wouldn't it be nice if this little boy could have a few, sweet years to like what he likes?

Come to think of it, perhaps I will return the snowsuit. Take it back, tell that clerk I want to exchange it for the neon flowers. Let Eliot know I'm delighted with my wonderful little boy, just exactly as he is.

The African Queen

On this, the fourth day of my son's full-body rash, we have taken to ending every day with a gooey colloidal oatmeal marinade. Tonight, Eliot wanted to help sprinkle the packet of powder into his bathwater. We looked around for something to stir the big cauldron of comfort. A bubble wand was too flimsy, a mermaid doll too bendy. I poked around the bottomless kitchen utensil drawer until I happened up a thick wooden spoon with a flat bowl. I had forgotten I still had this monster, a stirring stick brought back from my travels in Zimbabwe 15 years ago.

"What's that?" Eliot asked.

"A mugoti," I replied. Stunned. From somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, I had retained this piece of Shona vocabulary. During my stay with host families, I had used a mugoti several times. Poorly. Most nights, I watched my sisters and mother draw and slam the flat, round end against the increasing thickness of the sadza in the cooking pot. The mealy-meal sadza, a mash made from milled, white maize, boiled and popped menacingly as it approached the consistency of roofing spackle. Most Zimbabwean women could put a rhino in a headlock with their upper arms alone.

Eliot stepped into his bath and chased the chunks of oatmeal with his wooden baton, mashing them against the porcelain edge of the tub. "I like this mugoti," he said to me.

"You do?"

"Yes. But let's go to the store and get a pink one."

Quarantine

Sick, sick, sick. Around and around, up and down, all one, two, three of us.

This week, I figured I had contracted the dreaded hinny, and had Toby call his fabulous physician sister to find out if it is possible to get the killer flu without a fever. "Oh, not only possible. Totally likely." Great.

Fatigued and unable to get a breath on Sunday night, I cooked myself in the hottest shower I could stand till the tank ran dry. We had only one humidifier in the house. While I longed for the steam in my room, the motherly instincts nagged at me to bestow that singular comfort on my wheezing child. Toby suggested we all sleep together. Maternal, perhaps. Masochist? No. I plugged the bubbling wonder into Eliot's room and sank, into my own too-dry flannel sheets. I figured I would survive the night, and anyway, Toby knows how to run a hot shower and call 911.

Now, another humidifier happier, the pain in my chest has moved downward and my fear of a 2am visit to urgent care has abated. Eliot, true to his nature, has only grown more demanding and unstoppable as I have grown sleepier. Toby has been a saint. The past few mornings, he has risen at the now 6:00 wakeup time (preschoolers don't understand the concept of Daylight Savings Time) to entertain our energizer bunny while I grump and languish in steamy splendor behind a latched door. My dear husband has donated his lunch hour to the cause, running Eliot ragged around the backyard, leaping into piles of leaves and returning endless, errant pop flies. I have slept.

Today, a nausea-inducing dizziness gave my brain, as well as my sense of balance, a free ride on the tilt-a-whirl anytime I stood. When Eliot finally woke up from his nap, I was still horizontal on the couch, as I had been when he'd gone down two hours earlier. I decided to forgo the wheedling call to my husband to save me. I could tough out the afternoon on the couch.

I directed Eliot to get his doctor kit, and he did a full workup, testing my blood pressure, temperature, and reflexes, and finding something in my ears that shouldn't be there. "A kitty," the wise doctor concluded. He applied a bandage and declared me healed. Then he combed and trimmed my hair with play-doh scissors, provided a rousing round of karaoke on his battery-operated tape microphone ("Look at this stuff! Isn't it neat!"), and played several versions of Candy Land on my stomach. Somehow, we made it through till Toby's late return from the trenches without me ever having to rise from the sofa or summon our pal, Walt Disney, to take over.

Dinner consisted, as all meals have for several days, of things like jarred baby food, cold turkey, and sliced apples. Even while I slept through both breakfast and lunch today, Toby managed to feed himself and Eliot relatively healthy things ("He ate his broccoli, sweetie!"), wash up the dishes, wipe noses, and arrange magnificently expensive car repairs with the mechanic.

Maybe the bathroom sink is unrecognizable under a layer of old washcloths and toothpaste scuzz, and perhaps I haven't returned a phonecall or written my daily pages or set foot in the Y in days, but Eliot ate his broccoli. No one in the house is running a fever of 102. And my kid is managing to play his way through this bout of illness as if it is just an awesome game his mommy and daddy have worked out just for him.

Scraps in the Kitchen

Driving into town for our morning at the Y last week, I heard an NPR story about composting. Okay. So if the good people of San Francisco can do it because it's the law, I should be able to manage it voluntarily. A hundred years ago, when I lived in Vermont, composting was easy peasy. I either had a backyard garden myself or I could take any food scraps I accumulated to the section of the Intervale dedicated entirely to compost. It didn't hurt that I knew half the people working at any of the farms or businesses scattered throughout the Intervale, that it is a beautiful place with a path snaking down along the river, and that it is right within the city limits of Burlington.

Since leaving Vermont, I have given up on composting food waste. First, suburban living, then apartment living, then bear-country living provided me with an ample supply of excuses. Then, we moved to Camp Chingachgook.

Several years ago, our camp invested in the Earth Tub, an industrial green machine that stews and chews kitchen waste into rich, delicious nourishment for the beautiful things camp grows. It sits right outside the dining hall, closer even than the dumpsters. All acceptable scraps and the special biodegradable napkins used for camp meals go into the tub. Campers collect and weigh their food waste, separating out the compostables into tubs at the cleanup station.

Whenever our little family eats at the dining hall, I feel a little glow of pride as we toss our modest heap of apple cores and half-chewed carrots into the bin.

Of course, most meals are consumed at home. And prepared at home. The cabbage middles, pumpkin guts, watermelon rinds and slimy spinach all end up in the trash. Why, you ask, with such a fabulous composting opportunity just a short walk through the woods, would you glut a landfill with such things?

While we have avoided most of the pitfalls of the sub-prime mortgage mess, not having ever taken out a mortgage, the answer can be found in our own real estate crisis. It takes place in our kitchen. This delightful little room, the smallest in the house with the exception of the bathroom, happens to work several full-time jobs. It is our foyer and parlor, as the front door opens right into its counter-space. It is our mudroom, our coat closet, our mail dump, our dog-leash storage area. It houses flashlights for evening walks, stacking bins for scarves and mittens, and hooks for a wide variety of headgear.

Because our camp has a dumpster for every kind of reusable material and because New York has a bottle law, our kitchen is also our recycling headquarters. This means each odd corner serves as one of six distinct recycling areas. The seventh, for beer bottles, is in the stairway, because, really, it's just too much.

On occasion, I actually cook in the kitchen, too.

The thought of adding a compost corner to this jumbled mess makes my brain hurt. Not a single inch of counter goes unused. Toby installed extra shelf space on the high walls for cereal and bread, and the few inches of space under our island shelters shoes. No tub the Container Store sells will mash into the narrow gap between the stove and sink. I keep wondering how others with small kitchens and small children have solved the compost conundrum.

Hearing that NPR story made me realize that if some hidden pantry has not magically revealed itself in the past 10 months, I'm probably out of luck. So, just yesterday, I hauled out a big plastic bowl, set it on my counter, and topped it with a dinner plate. Into it I dumped the breakfast eggshells, the lunchtime pear cores, and the dinner stems. It's in the way, sure, but it is also right in my workspace where I will actully use it. I figure I can trot over to the compost bin once a day and dump it before the fruit flies discover its bounty.

In just two days, I have filled the mixing bowl twice to the brim with kitchen waste. The sheer quantity of what goes uneaten is stunning. The weight of the bowl under my arm as I cross the bridge and approach the dining hall is enough to remind me how important it is I keep feeding the camp garden and not the landfill. Perhaps the next task, however, is learning how to feed my family more efficiently so we are not wasting so much to begin with.

Sick Day Souffle

A second round of bronchial distress forced me to keep Eliot home from preschool yesterday. He stayed with Toby in the morning while I dragged myself to my first ever mammogram. Toby headed back to work after I returned, Eliot and mommy both took too-short naps, and we grumped and dragged through the afternoon. Cough, hack, blow, fuss. We hauled ourselves out into the blustery afternoon to force a few scouring breaths of autumn air through clogged lungs. By dinnertime, I was feeling dizzy and listless, itchy-throated and headachy. As we put on jammies and settled down to read, Eliot looked at me and said, "Let's have a sick day again tomorrow."

My boy got his wish. We stayed home for the second day, and he was ecstatic. No school, no swim lessons, no supermarket, no car seat. He stayed in his underpants, jammie top, and fleece slippers till 3:30 in the afternoon. We piled up blocks, made ferryboats travel around the living room rug, forced Snow White into a string harness to rock climb up a 3-foot dowel balanced in a flowerpot. We read at least 15 books before lunch. We dug through a small mountain of French Toast at 10:00 in the morning. We napped until nearly dinnertime.

Toby walked into the wreckage at 5:30. My big plans for a Canadian split pea soup supper had long since been abandoned. I had barely managed to clean up from lunch, let alone start scrubbing potatoes and mincing garlic for yet another meal. We considered heading over to the dining hall -- always a nice backup -- but really, how awful would it be to spare Eliot's classmates his germs, only to inflict them on our fellow staff members and the kids from a visiting school? We figured we could just heat up something from a can for dinner. Same as we did for lunch.

But Toby had a package under his arm. A belated birthday gift from Aunt Nancy and Uncle John in Dallas. Eliot tore it open, and found one of the greatest sick-day birthday presents a boy and his mom could wish for. Silicone baking cups! A kid-friendly cookbook! A project! "Let's cook dinner," Eliot said. It's on, baby.

We dug out eggs, some frozen chunks of ham I had put in the freezer for just such an occasion, and a little wilted spinach. Eliot was a champ, whisking his eggs and asking, "Are they all mixed up?" He made sure every cup had an fair number of ham bites, and included himself in the rotation. "I am testing them to make sure they are good for cooking."

With a steady hand, he poured the egg mixture into the cups. I was amazed at the care he took to do this job well. With the addition of a few slices of apple and toast, dinner was on the table in twenty minutes. The mini fritattas barely lasted five. Eliot finished all three of the ones he had grabbed and started making covetous glances towards Toby's plate.

Of course, no culinary task with a three-year-old ends smoothly. The mixing bowl and apron reminded him of baking, which made him crave something sweet, and the rest is history. For the allergy-inflicted, even the simple act of baking cookies takes an added degree of artistry. Oat flour, almond butter, coconut oil melted in the microwave, and vegan chocolate chips. No recipe. We've had enough practice by now to be able to whip up something delicious without too much effort, and thank goodness for that. Because, by this point in the evening, I was feeling ready to fall over, and the dishes were piling up, and, needless to say, I was a little sick of the kitchen. But I stuck with it, Eliot mixed and poured some more, and a fabulous bedtime snack greeted us with the beep of the oven timer.

We all may be sick around here, but that hasn't slowed down our appetites. I can guarantee you these cookies won't last the night.

Wetlands Hike

On a whim, we met up with our 11-year-old neighbor on Sunday afternoon at the center green. A scattering of girl scouts wandered around with compasses to finish up their badge day activities, but otherwise, camp was quiet. Blustery fall in the Adirondacks. It was a year ago this month that George Painter brought Toby and me out to interview, and wooed us with the rusty golden tapestry draped over the hills surrounding camp.

After a few turns on the bike, Eliot grew bored and Fenway needed to run. So, with Eliot's big buddy in the lead, we ducked into the woods. A trail between the staff row and the horse's paddock leads into a damp, muddy wedtland made up of the beaver-dammed waters of Butternut Brook. Soon after the trail begins, it narrows and becomes navigable only by a track of boards built up above the swamp. Through the cattails and marsh grasses we clomped.

Behind me and ahead of Toby, Eliot hopped easily up on the thin boards and began to hike, his walking stick tapping along beside him. Never mind the slippery footprints, the angles and occasional yawning gaps between 2x6's. He refused a hand and walked with nearly as much confidence as any of us, barring the four-footed Fenway. On one particularly nerve-wracking bridge over a leg of the creek, Eliot shooed away my offer to help. There, suspended on a few open boards several feet above murky water, my son simply grabbed hold of a drooping rope handrail and sauntered right across. He never even hesitated. Never, like his mama, looked down at that water too far below and felt his knees go wobbly.

Past the thick, wet brush which probably houses any number of mallards, turtles, frogs, and insects, our little hiking party tromped. We made our way to a plywood platform jutting out into the center of a small pond. On all sides, beavers have built up thin ridges of mud and sticks to contain the water. Eliot scooted down on his tummy and lay with his stick swishing in the water, the ripples catching and reflecting flashes of bright autumn sunlight. A lone dragonfly hovered near for a moment before dipping and rising again, off into the tall grass.

A Reason to Celebrate

Last week's fret-fest over my son's possible descent into juvenile deliquency consumed as much of this family as the virus we were hosting. On the back of the school reports came the necessity of cancelling Eliot's birthday party due to the particularly tenacious chest cold that took up residence at Casa Hettler.

Lest my son succumb to some self-fulfilling prophecy, I decided it was time to turn my sour mood around. Having already bought a wide selection of finger foods, hung crepe paper in three shades of pink, and crafted 50 paper flowers, it seemed a shame not to celebrate. So, once Eliot was feeling better, we called on our camp pals to show up for an impromptu, soggy-day, indoor soiree.

On just a few hours notice, a vivacious assemblage of camp neighbors clad in fabrics of fuschia and bubble-gum descended. We munched on fruit and cake, blew out candles, and played a round of pin-the-crown-on-the-princess. Decked out in his fancy tutu and pink socks, Eliot hopped onto his new, oversized train and tooted it around the living room. Everyone applauded. He basked, for that one, brief afternoon, in the combined attention of a half-dozen adoring friends.

Then, on Friday, Teacher greeted me at the playground gate with the announcement, "Eliot was our bell-ringer today. He was a great helper." As Eliot flung himself in my arms, Teacher said, "Great job today, Eliot. I am so proud of you."

That is four whole sentences of praise, all spoken in the general vicinity of my son. Hooray! Just today, Teacher thanked me for the snacks and made sure Eliot remembered his birthday crown. Seems things are settling down in the land of preschool. On this beginning of our camp kid's fourth year, I am looking forward to enjoying the friends who live right through the woods, the new skills our son is practicing, and the countless ways we can celebrate this funky little home called camp.

Any Little Thing

The first day, it was, "Eliot will not join us at the table for activities. We need to work on that."

The second day, it was, "Eliot refuses to keep his shoes on, which caused several conflicts today."

The third day, it was, "Eliot is doing better. But his pants are too big and they keep falling down. He needs a belt or different pants."

Today, it was an actual "Come With Me, We Need to Talk" talk. Teacher begins. "Eliot is really having a hard time participating." Then, Teacher begins her list. Eliot will not accept help from adults. He will not acknowledge or listen when spoken to. He will only engage in activities that interest him, and does not, for example, want to clean up toys or sit down for crafts. Oh, and that cold that kept him out of school the first 2/3 of the week? His cough is awful and his nose is running, and he seems to be falling down a lot.

I creep up to the playground at preschool for pick-up time now, cringing like a whipped dog. School has only been going on for a little over two weeks, and already, I live in dread of what I will be told he is (I am) doing wrong. I don't hear Teacher offering other parents and kids anything but praise during those five minutes outside the gate. The munchkins come running, Teacher guides them out, beaming. "Great day today!" And "Oh, he was such a good little helper." And "Look at the sticker she got! She remembered something yellow today!"

Not Eliot. He comes racing to the gate, cheeks flushed and face lit up from the sheer joy of the monkey bars. Without fail, the teacher looks at me with an expression between pity and exhasperation. "Eliot had some trouble today." Of course he did.

Apparently, we need to follow through more effectively on what we tell Eliot is going to happen and the activities we plan. Like a good mom, I gulp back the impulse to enumerate every battle we are fighting in this particular arena. Instead, I ask what we should be doing better. Boy, Teacher is ready for that question. She starts ticking off her list on her fingers. "When you say something is going to happen, you make it happen." Talk to him about what's coming next, she tells me. Stick with things, she tells me. Structure, she tells me.

I hear her. Honest to God, I do. But what am I doing already? Time outs several times a day for ignoring my repeated direction. Clear consequences for every expectation. Wrangling over puzzles and coloring, cleanup and books. Every outing to the slide or dining hall is an endless stream of attempted negotiations, even when I am not negotiating. Am I too firm? Am I not firm enough? Do I cave too easily? Not offer good choices? Maybe I allow him too much independence. Maybe not enough.

Isn't this why we pay money we can barely afford to a preschool half an hour from home? How else will he swallow his spoonful of forced cooperation? As a small camp kid with no other small camp kids around, our little prince has had limited opportunities to function in the world of line-ups and sit-downs and hold-hands and wait-your-turns. It would be nice, as I stand outside the playground gate, to know that my son is getting better at being a member of a community. That he is a good kid in some way. Pick something about him, lady. Any little success will do. Please take a moment to tell me about that, too.

And it's One, Two, Three. . .

I tried to ignore the fact that it was Women's Weekend at Camp Chingachgook. Several times a year, our home camp hosts these fabulous retreat weekend for ladies only, complete with themed parties, boating, rock climbing, hiking, and arts and crafts. It's summer camp for grownups. In a cruel twist of fate, Toby inevitably has to work. With Eliot attached to my side, the best I can do is show up at the dining hall for mealtimes and listen with longing to the raucous female laughter while I negotiate carrots for french fries with a bull-headed toddler.


This weekend, I pretended I did not know that the sun was shining through the crisp morning onto Lake George, and that gaggles of women dipped paddles from kayaks or hiked in garrulous clusters up the trails past our house. I blocked out the knowledge that the weekend's theme was Woodstock, and that in the arts and crafts area, women were stringing glass and wooden beads to wear to the evening's love-child extravaganza. Toby had to head down to Wa Wa Segowea for a volunteer work weekend. Eliot and I made our own fun on Saturday morning, attending the Apple Festival at the Glens Falls Farmer's Market, sampling cider, jumping in the bounce house.


So, I was thrilled beyond measure when Irish Michael came knocking around 5:30 on Saturday. He announced he had a couple hours off, and I was free to be free. Michael is a burly, bearded fellow who likes to toss Eliot over his shoulder and bellow, "Come on, little man, we're going on an adventure." Eliot immediately began to climb his friend's sturdy trunk. I donned voluminous orange bell-bottoms and my mood ring and strolled on through the woods with nary a backward glance.


Dinner in the dining hall was some delightful combination of breaded fish and steak and almond-crusted green beans and heaps of young lettuces. I savored my carrot cake. I did not have to share a single crumb from my plate with anyone. I did not have to get up once to retrieve ketchup of a clean fork. All I needed to do was sit with my flower-bedecked new friends and talk about any old thing that struck my fancy. And not be interrupted.


After the lazy, delicious dinner, we wandered over to the Rotary Lodge for dancing. A woman who calls line dances at local Senior Centers had adapted her repertoire to the music of 1969. For a few precious moments, I forgot that somewhere else in camp, Eliot and and Irishman were donning deer antlers and stomping around in the woods. I grooved in a kind of giddy ignorance, kind rainbow sisters all around draped in love beads and crocheted accessories. We whooped and giggled in unison while doing the grapevine to Janis Joplin and Country Joe McDonald. Kick, stomp, kick, turn, Whoopee! We're all gonna die.

The Baby's Just a Little Bigger

Last summer, as I hovered over Eliot and tried to keep him from roasting himself in an active campfire or falling head-first into the creek, a number of people told me, "He'll be easier next year." I watched three- and four-year olds sitting quietly, playing with game-boys or scribbling in coloring books, and ached for easier.

This summer, he wasn't. We would stroll on down to the Fort Ann Beach with sand toys and sunglasses. That's me, forever hopeful. While other kids Eliot's age plopped down with shovels and set to work constructing castles and coves, Eliot wanted to run into the water. And out. And in and out. Around the edges. Near the road. He wanted to practice swimming. And throw stuff. And climb. On me. I would gaze longingly at the other mothers sprawled out on their towels reading cheap paperbacks and keeping a lazy eye on their docile children while Eliot turned crazy circles in the water, hollering, "We are doing ballet, mommy!"

Then, over Labor Day Weekend, we went down to Virginia for the annual pilgrimage to the grandparents' suburban oasis. Backyard pool, old friends, a Panera just eight minutes away. That first sunny afternoon, we wandered out back with Gramma Genie. I prepared myself for hovering around the concrete edges of the chlorinated abyss, nagging Eliot to walk. Don't splash. Keep back.

But Eliot surprised me. He hung back, all on his own. He took care when dipping in his toes, sitting all the way down near the steps. He lay flat on his belly to splash a plastic boat in the water. He walked. He swerved wide around the deep parts.

This was a two-for-one developmental windfall. My little boy acquired the ability to measure risk at the same moment he figured out how to amuse himself. I found myself sitting in a lawn chair drinking a Fresca and carrying on a conversation with my own mother. For a long time. With minimul requests for help. Okay, so I still had to give him a time-out for throwing in rocks, and had to yank him back when the net he was using to fish out a noodle knocked him off balance, but still. I was a woman to be envied. I could have finished a popsicle between one "help, please" and the next.

I'm beginning to understand that Eliot can actually do more than he lets on. I'm sure he finds it more satisfying to keep his on-call entertainment service hopping for him. What if he can actually pedal his trike just fine over the dirt road, and he only grunts in frustration because he knows it will get him a free push? What if he actually can soap and lather and rinse and dry his own hands well enough to keep him from getting swine flu? What if I'm the sucker, becaue I'm letting him act two when he is just weeks away from being three?

Today, on the ride home from the playground, this child in the back seat asked me, "Are those the mountains, mommy?" He was pointing across the lake at the greenish streak of trees. I reminded him that the mountains are all around us. "Can we go up in them?" He asked.

"Absolutely," I said. Rather vaguely.

"How? How would we go up in them? Would we take a helicopter?"

As much fun as that would be, I explained about the roads that go into mountains, and the trails, and how we have done some hiking with him in the past. Mostly with the jog stroller. To waterfalls.

"Can we go into the mountains today?"

Okay, so it was almost lunchtime, the kid was inches from sleep as I tried to beat the nap home, I had to get the dog walked before turkey and tootbrushing, and I didn't feel like wrestling the jog stroller on my own. So, sure, we'll go, baby, later, tomorrow, sometime.

But after Eliot woke up from his nap (and I from mine), I asked him if he still wanted to go up in the mountains.

"Sure!" He perked right up. Began looking for his boots.

We took the jog stroller up to the fork in the trail. I parked it. I told him that we were going to hike up the mountain. Together. And he was going to walk all the way to the top. He only asked once to stay in the stroller, and twice to be carried. I ignored both requests, unstrapped him, and started walking. So did he. With no lollipop or bouncy-house or bag of potato chips waiting at the top, he walked. With his only motivation being the mountain itself, its presence all around and above him, he walked. Without me cajoling or threatening or even reminding him to stay on the trail, my little boy walked. One rock, one root, one steep step at a time. Up, up, up. Up around the switchback. Up to the ridge. And, when we arrived at a point I figured was up enough to be the summit, Eliot wanted to go on. All the way to the big rock. The one that looks over a big slice of Lake George.

He did it. He hiked all the way up the mountain, to the lookout on the sun-warmed rock of Stewart's Ledges. Stayed up there, lazing with me and staring up at clouds. Not falling off. Then, with only two or three whines, he hiked all the way back down. On his own two feet. His two, growing, big-boy, almost-three-year-old feet.

"You did it, buddy!" I gave him a squeeze, a high five, a bottle of water. "You hiked all the way up and back down! You hiked up a mountain, kiddo." I gushed and wowed and sang down the trail.

As we arrived home, he called out, "Let's do it again!"

Well, that's one thing you can be sure of, little man. Hikes are in your future. Next time, no stroller at all. Now I know. You're tougher than you let on. So just get ready.

My To-Be List

A girl in my position has to be careful. Nine days of freedom. Nine days! And not a single responsibility other than the occasional outing with the mutt.

It is tempting to over-plan these small spaces in our lives. A few days out from Toby and Eliot's trip to Wisconsin, I began a list of all the projects I would tackle in their absence. Clean out the cars! Organize the study! Move the furniture and mop the house! Toby asked me if I would be willing to stain the deck. And maybe the porch, and, oh yeah, how about the shed? My mother invited me to Virginia. I bought 50 Hikes in the Adirondacks, dusted off my boots, and began mapping out how much ground I could cover.

Before leaving for the airport, I made plans to have dinner and drinks with a girlfriend in Glens Falls that same night. This would follow an afternoon of shopping in Albany, going home to walk Fenway, and heading back to pump it up at the Y. Armed with directions to a number of thrift stores near the airport, I had the urge to dump my boys and flee.

But then. There we were, up in the airport observation gallery looking out over a sunny, 180-degree view of the landing strip and gates. Only two aircraft sat on the tarmac. One was a tiny plane with propellers just starting to whirl. Eliot stood on the bench, watching in sheer fascination as one plane landed, another took off. His daddy pointed out the jet that would take them as far as Detroit. A bee buzzed outside the glass. Two helicopters squatted across the airfield, still and quiet. As much as I have hungered for a furlough from all things family, I was unaccountably content just to hang there with my fellas.

I said goodbye at security but could not make myself leave. Don't get me wrong. I'm not remotely sentimental about this, or any, separation from my child. I have been counting the minutes till this day for the past three months. When friends ask me, in a kind of wonderment, "What will you do when they're gone?" I look at them like they're crazy. "Anything? Nothing? Whatever the hell I want?" But even I could not resist watching through the third floor windows overlooking security as Eliot sat down to rip the velcro straps off his shoes. Like a pro, he plunked them in a bin and marched through the metal detector. My miniature jet-setter. Peering over the top of the conveyer belt, Eliot followed his red ladybug suitcase. It popped out of the x-ray machine and he reached up to wrestle it down. As Toby helped him return shoes to their proper feet, my boys looked up at me. I waved goodbye. Eliot, grinning, blew me kisses. One, two, ten. Then, before I was finished kissing back, he grabbed hold of his ladybug on wheels and strode off towards his plane, his grandpa, his camping trip, his time to be a guy without his mommy.

I stopped at exactly two stores before I was shopped out. I headed home early, napped hard after walking the dog. Zumba rocked, but I re-scheduled my girls' night out. Today, after sleeping till the ungodly hour of 9:00am, I wrote seven pages of fiction and read at least twice that, swam in the brisk waters of Lake George, made eggs florentine and whipped my wilting basil into pesto. Not a single one of these items appeared on my to-do list. In fact, I made the command decision about that menacing list. I capped it at nine projects. One for each day. Everything else is just going to have to wait till I'm a mom again. The time in between is for anything. Nothing. Whatever the hell I want.

This small sliver of freedom from responsibility should not become a burden of its own. One of the things parents forget is how to be still in their own skin. Uninterrupted, unscheduled. Unlisted. Pleased simply to make their own acquaintance all over again. Happy with that company and no other.

When All Else Fails

Too many days of rain. It doesn't help that the front entrance of our house faces northeast. The only thing that grows in the root-tangled and rock-pocked patch of earth are uneven spots of scraggly moss. The grayish fur appears to be some alien life-form, slithering over the porch steps and creeping up the walls of our house. In the side garden and along the back, the peas and lilies are equally drunk on the moisture. Their glimmer of southern exposure gives them license to sprawl, languid and shameless, in the faint afternoon light. Out front, however, the barren earth every visitor to our house must pass looks like a molded date loaf.

Sometime about mid-July, it seems every inhabitant of the cloudy north country comes to the dawning awareness of summer's failure to fulfill. We hunger all winter for it, storing our boats and gazing longingly at our swimsuits tucked in the bottom drawer. We itch for barbeques on the lake, kite-flying in a grassy field, biking along mountain trails with our kids pedaling feverishly behind us.

But then comes June. It rains. It rains for hours, then days. It rains for weeks. The lake is too choppy to take the canoe out, and do we want to risk hauling everything to the beach when another downpour is forecast? Then comes July. We grab at murky rays of sun, hang on tight, run with the kite and the kids up the hill, determined, hopeful. We catch summer on the days in between. Not even days. No, in the moments in between.

It appears I have reached that point of realization. Toto, I don't believe we're in Colorado anymore. Summer is not going to come to me, magical, unbidden, warming. Alas, I am simply going to have to fashion a summer out of whatever scraps of color and slivers of light I can find.

So, I decided I'd had it with wilted moss. I mean, I didn't even know moss could wilt, but it appears it does. "Rot" is probably the more accurate term. But whatever it's doing, I have to trudge past and over its feeble attempt at life every time I take the dog for a leak or convey Eliot to the swings or slog groceries into the kitchen. I can't help but wrinkle my nose and try to just get past it. Move quickly. Don't look down.

Tuesday was July 7. Summer, whatever it will be, had arrived and was, in fact, zipping by without a backward glance. So, on yet another gray afternoon, I hauled Eliot out to the car, tried to keep my eyes up, and made a beeline for the local nursery. I asked the helpful fellow who was wandering, aimless and customer-less, among his overgrown annuals, what I could buy to spruce up a shady patch. He pointed me to a clutter of plants without name tags, jostling and expectant, under a tarp tent. They all appeared far too excited to be there. I let Eliot choose whatever drew his attention. He had a difficult time closing in on his preferred shade of pink, but we finally slid a flat of purpley somethings into the back end of the Subaru. We added mulch and a few perennials. As I was packing topsoil into the trunk, Eliot appeared from between the rows holding a single gerbera daisy so astonishingly yellow, I couldn't help but catch my breath. "Can we get this, mommy?" Of course, I told him. It would be criminal not to.

Back at home, we gathered one mud-encrusted Radio Flyer wagon, two pairs of gardening gloves, and several digging implements. Eliot and I picked through the supply of stones the soil here squeezes forth endlessly, maddeningly. We made a soft shape, an oval, a ring of stones. No rectangles or sharp corners for our front yard. We filled it with fresh topsoil, Eliot grabbing up the rich blackness by the fistful and squishing it into our bed. We dug holes. Eliot carried each flower to me in its pot. He held it with two hands, took mincing steps, then plopped it, without any sense of delicacy, onto the earth. We gave those little clumps of roots and petals a new home and a new set of responsibilities in our family. Together, they must remind us to pause when we walk past. To look. They must help us be thankful for the fleeting glories of summer, for rain and light, for this fertile place.

This afternoon, as we packed our gym bags and snacks in the car for a trip to the Glens Falls Y, Eliot strode out on the porch and gasped, "Look at our beautiful garden!" Yes, of course. Look at it!

On the Go

Eleven days (and nights) without a diaper. Today, Eliot received the big grand prize for crossing the underpants finish line: a gleaming, new Thomas bicycle with pedals he can reach.

After a few failed attempts to wheel over the ruts in our gravel driveway left by yesterday's downpour, Gramma Lolly hefted Eliot onto her hip and I dragged the bike into camp. We made our way onto the center green. In the middle of camp is a paved rectangle painted a faded kelly green. It serves as a hockey rink in the winter, a gigantic four-square court in the summer, and a training ground for Eliot's future NASCAR career whenever he feels the need for speed. Two tricycles live under a nearby cabin, and now, a little blue bike resides there, too.

It took the kid about 30 seconds to figure out how to make the bike move. The first few attempts were jerky, of course, as every slight backwards slip of the foot made the wheels stop short. But he kept at it. After a few gentle shoves and a lot of cheering, Eliot was rolling steadily through the giant puddles left by the deluge. He then steered himself around a loopy U-turn, and splashed right back through.

Our Little Princess

Sprinkle glitter on it, stick on a mermaid fin, and top it with a crown. Whatever the object -- bicycle, book, cup, car -- Eliot likes it better if it sparkles. Any old color is just fine most of the time for your average bubble wand, straw, or backpack, but if it comes in pink, all other colors are suddenly unacceptable. If it lives in the checkout aisle and wears fairy wings, I know I'm probably not going to buy it. But I might start carrying earplugs to share with my cashiers and fellow shoppers because the squall at my refusal is unavoidable.

I have known for some time my son was drawn to pink and ruffled. Who can blame him? Most of us can't help but look twice at someone passing us on the street if they have accesorized with sequins. But this kid's affection borders on obsession. Potty training has illuminated the depth of Eliot's love for all things princess. Searching for rewards for success in the WC took us to the toy store where I wheeled Eliot up and down the robot aisles, the digger aisles, the book and art supply sections. He looked quietly but showed about as much interest as passing the pickles and vinegar at the supermarket.

Then we passed pink aisle. You know the one. Floor-to-ceiling gemstones and dollhouses, taffeta and lace. And there Eliot found his appetite. Pointing every which way, begging, reaching. And now that Eliot has managed to rack up four days without a diaper, he has become the proud owner of an Ariel bathtub barbie, a Dora-mermaid-princess sippie cup, a pair of Cinderella heels glammed out with feathers and beads, hot pink swim goggles, and a trio of mermaid underpants. And, of course, every inch of arm along with a good chunk of leg is now adorned with tinkerbell tattoos.

I have to say that Eliot is just as much boy as he is girl. Yesterday, on a walk to the lake, the kid froze in his tracks for a good 15 minutes just to watch an excavator claw boulders from the beach and wheel them over to a rock pile. He'd still just as happily bash a stick repeatedly against the picnic table as wave it around in the air singing "bippity boppity boo." He has no problem reaching out to pet a toad or a snake, and our living room dance parties often devolve into bouts of body-slamming off the couch onto a pile of cushions shouting "Rahr!"

Isn't this what most parents want? A kid that's as comfortable singing lullabies to a doll as scaling a heap of gravel? A child who can practice caring and adventure in equal measure? Who can delight in the effervesence of sparkles and tuille, then roar in joy when stomping in a mud puddle? I suppose this is what I would hope for my child. For myself, even. That I am some boy, some girl, and a little of whatever is neither. That I am willing to let in the next marvel, this unexamined color or hobby or cuisine or friend. That I am ready to give it a whirl and forget whatever prejudices or preferences I imagine I have already formed. I want both Eliot and myself to notice what is right here within our reach, waiting for our our eyes, our skin and ears, to notice, to explore it, to take it in and say, "Wow, isn't this something!"

Swamp Walk

We stroll across the low bridge crossing camp's swampy wetlands. The water shimmers even though the air is still. We bend closer. Below the surface, we see a flash. Then another. Our footsteps on the wooden planks set of a flurry of motion. Tiny, bubbly, black bodies scatter and scurry in a crazy matrix of seemingly choreographed movement. "Polliwogs!" I cry.

Eliot gets down on his belly and hangs his head uncomfortably close to the fetid water. Murky leaves and moss-furred sticks carpet the bottom, just inches below the surface. First, we see dozens of the tiny critters. Then hundreds. Then thousands. They shoot forward, freeze, shoot again, all seeming to know how to avoid their neighbors, how to scoot under and over the rocky mud.

"There's one!" Eliot says, inhaling sharply. "There's another one!" He points, almost touching the water. Its surface dances with their movement. "Is it ice, Mommy?" he asks. He has walked over this boardwalk through two seasons, and now a third. He has crossed its crust of snow, and has soaked his feet up to his ankles when the brige was submerged under the rushing flow of wintery runoff. And now it dips into a muddy morass teeming with life.

"No, it's not ice, honey," I tell him. "It's algae." I think. The surface of the water appears oily, greenish. And it stinks. As we sit still looking over the side, the black, tic-shaped critters with the wiggling tails poke up to the surface, grab bits of green dust, and scoot away.

"Look mommy!" Eliot shouts. "A mosquito!" Sure enough, a mosquito, in the company of a few other thin-legged insects, dart across the surface of the water. Still too big a mouthful for the teensy polliwogs. I tell Eliot those little black critters will be froggies someday soon. And they will eat all these mosquitos.

As we head back up to dry land, I see a welt already swelling on Eliot's temple, and I scratch two on my ankle. Eliot asks, "What you scratching, Mommy?" He is not even aware of his own itching bump. "A mosquito bite, honey," I tell him. As we plod on past the stable and the new farm, we say, "Hurry up, froggies! Grow up, froggies! Eat these mosquitos!"

Attention Seeking

A few months shy of three, Eliot can slip open the sliding door onto the deck, scoot a stool to any forbidden corner of the house, unlatch the porch lock, turn on the bathroom faucet, and open car doors. He knows how to manipulate keys, zippers, snaps, lids, and most so-called child-proof locks. He can't, of course, maintain any kind of awareness of his immediate environment. If the dog didn't woof a warning bark, he wouldn't even know when his own daddy had walked through the door.

If you are put in charge of Eliot, you learn pretty fast not to let your attention wane. If you have enough time to finish that article in Time magazine, Eliot's had enough time to slither into the back room and start scooping cat litter into the laundry basket.

I do not finish thoughts. Instead, I set a single, manageable task for the day and complete it in a staccato series of steps. This morning's plan to strip and re-make the guest bed required several breaks in order to repair a train track, free the dog's tail from Eliot's death grip, put on cowboy boots, take off cowboy boots, fill the bubble dispenser, clean up spilled bubble stuff, kiss an owie, and cuddle on the couch.

It should come as no surprise that I do not negotiate when it comes to exercise and the afternoon siesta. Walks and naps together form a brief but critical respite from my state of constant alert. Huffing the jog stroller along the state forest trail in the cool morning, I let my vision blur out and my attention wander. Eliot asks me an endless stream of questions, some of which I answer, many of which I ignore. I figure if a gentle observation of the green canopy and scuttling wildlife is good for my spirit, it is probably good for his. Usually, Eliot quiets down after a few minutes and relaxes into the bumping rhythm of the ride. As do I.

About two weeks back, as I tooled back along one trail in the general direction of our house, I heard Eliot say something. I half mm-hmmed in response, but his tone grew a little more urgent. I bent down, and I noticed him pointing back along the trail. "That way, mommy," he said. I glanced back, my knee-jerk dismissal of his latest caprice already on my lips. Then I noticed. In my zoned-out reverie, I had ambled right on past the fork in the trail leading us back home. I stopped. In this sun-dappled, leaf-carpeted, twisting tangle of tree trunks and ferns, Eliot had discerned the subtle change in the trail when I had not. Somehow, he could see the way the path opened up in two directions, one of which stretched forward up the mountain, the other, bending past three large rocks and leading on to our house. He was paying attention. Even when I was not.

Since that day, I have begun to notice Eliot's capacity for attending to the tasks of our shared days. When we go out in the yard to play, he often asks, "Can we put on gloves and go in the garden?" Without my prompting, he will move to fill his watering can then sprinkle water over our delphinium and lilies. He checks the peas to see how they are growing.

On a day when I said we needed to run some errands, he asked, "Can we go do the recycling?" He knows the painted box by our front door needs to be emptied eventually. He delights in feeding cans and bottles into the machine at the supermarket, retrieving our ticket and exchanging it for some small item from the store shelves. Another afternoon, when casting about for activities to fill a gray stretch of inside time, he said, "Let's do some baking!" It was a great idea, and I probably would not have thought of it. Then he reminded me we needed to don aprons before we could get started.

This morning, I brought the sheets up from the dryer and dumped them out on the couch so Eliot could bury his face in them. He calls the laundry "warm and toasty," as in, "Can we go downstairs to get the warm and toasty?" I left him there to roll around in the warm and toasty while I went in to finish the dishes. When I came back, I found Eliot happily playing with his trains on the floor. The now-cooled laundry was stuffed neatly back in the basket on the couch, waiting for me.

As any parent will tell you, these moments of toddler attention are rare and fleeting. They are also impossible to anticipate, which makes their occasional appearance such a pleasure. Each unexpected flash of politeness or thoroughness give me a glimpse of Eliot as a responsible person. A person with a repetoire of skills to build and choices to make outside of the reach of my care. Someone able to look up himself before crossing the street, able to engage in small kindnesses without prompting. Able to pick up where I leave off, so that I can finish that magazine article. Or that conversation with my husband. Or that single, rambling thought all my own, its route a hidden path onto which I can veer unseen and lose myself completely.

The Great Potty War

Don't go head-to-head with a toddler. This is advice I frequently fail to remember. Like yesterday, when I spent the afternooon engaged in a protracted, ultimately unsuccessful campaign to convince Eliot to pee.

For an insentient organ, a two-year-old's bladder has a remarkable facility for demoralizing a grown woman. The child even slept for two hours in the midst of battle, woke dry, and managed to continue to hold back long into the evening. I called upon every weapon in my arsenal. Cookies, temporary tattoos, verses of "Darling Clementine" repeated ad nauseum, organic lollipops, juice/water cocktails, stickers, threats, a promise of a mall excursion to procure big-boy underpants. Even pulling up a stool alongside the potty so my son could nurse failed to elicit even one squirt of urine. This kid's determination rivals that of Tibetan hunger strikers and Earth Firsters u-locked to giant redwoods. How does he manage to keep in all of his day's accumulated beverages for ELEVEN HOURS?

As for me, I kept plunging ever deeper into my well of patience and creativity. Until about 8:00pm, when I could dredge up nothing but sludge and dead crayfish. The kid kept returning to the potty -- this in itself was incredible -- and just sitting there. Dry. I have to assume the myopic attention his mommy is paying his bodily functions is too delicious to resist. I sidled up next to him on the floor, entertained him endlessly, and offered him copious amounts of sugar. Occasionally, I stared with longing out the living room windows at the spring sun, the impatiens wininking pinkly from the garden, the soft brown path into the woods undulating its call to my hiking boots. But I tore my gaze away and settled in for the long wait.

I am nothing if not an agent in my own undoing. I understand how parties to a conflict become more deeply entrenched in their positions the longer the face-off lasts, no matter how irrational and ultimately self-destructive that entrenchment. Yet there I sat, sore-assed and growling, on the hardwood floor while my son hummed and sucked juice boxes and held gleefully onto his excrement. Did I win by keeping Eliot out of the sun? Did anyone? He wet a diaper just before bed. Today, his tush is cusioned once again and we are ambulatory. I need to re-think my strategy.

So, what's the urgency here? Wouldn't it make more sense just to let this whole potty process unfold in its own time, to let Eliot have a vote in his own development? Sure, I like to believe my son will simply learn what he needs to know through osmosis. But I also know some skills require a parent's unwavering decision and consistent follow-through. Eliot would still be sleeping in our bed, biting us at his leisure, and regularly unpacking the contents of the refrigerator if we, his frazzled but ultimately better-resourced parents, had not directed a change in behavior.

Let me add that this kid is ready. He has gone in his potty enough to show us he can. He understands when he is doing it, and he can even sometimes let us know before it happens. But you know what else? I'm ready. The loosey-goosey approach to potty learning does not take into account a kid whose laundry list of food sensitivities inspires bowel movements of epic proportion and monstrous consistency. I love this child, everything from his flirty eye-cutting to his unstoppable compulsion to scale my back every time I squat down to remove a wad of lint from the rug. But I don't have to love rinsing diapers whose contents resemble a masticated carnival hot dog. With an orange julius mixed in.

Any Little Corner

Thanks to my industrious husband, we now have a fence around our yard, a sandbox in the middle of it, and a lawn cleared of last fall's leaves. Our little family has already nestled down in the comforting confines of chicken wire. We are staking out a corner of upstate springtime. In a small garden patch bordered by rocks picked from the endless underground supply, perennials chosen from the nursery shelves by Eliot pop pinks and purples into the fresh brownish-green. Along the fenceline, a few gladiola bulbs and creekbed lilies offered up by a camp neighbor promise a splash of light in summer.


After four years of living in high desert, I was a giddy about the move to a deciduous forest. I'd had it with fried sage, mullen orgies and invasive thistle. The possibility of a garden made my heart gallop. I entertained wild, slightly naughty fantasies about pole beans. Knowing we would start jumping back and forth between our New York camp and another camp in Massachusetts in 2010, I figured this summer would be my first and last chance. Oh, visions of glossy spinach unfurling from luscious brown soil. Pulling a trellis a green bean slighly furred and glistening with dew. Goosebumps.


We hauled ourselves across the country and into our new home right in the heart of winter. Snow fell in heaps. Who knew what lay beneath? We shoveled. Crossed our fingers. Chipped ice from the porch. Bit our nails. Raked snowy clods of leaves away. Then, we dug.


Sadly, the soil around our house is mostly sand. Anthills abound. A dense skeleton of rock holds up the earth here, just inches below the soft skin. Life, however, finds its way. A little grass pokes up in patches, and the hostas with their legendary local reputation begin to curl open along unexpected corners of the foundation. I dug up my little patch. Made room for flox. And who, with a toddler, a dog, a cat, a deer convention in the neighborhood, and a fleet of Tonka trucks can expect to keep lettuce safe in the backyard?


But what I had not counted on was the wall. Around the base of our house, extending back behind the foundation of the main floor, is a stone wall. It stretches fifteen feet or so below the deck as the hillside drops off into anthills and, eventually, a creekbed. Then it jogs and stretches another fifteen feet or so along the back of the house. Above this stone wall and below the deck is a huge patch of scary-looking dirt. I assumed this dirt sat atop a stone foundation of the house. But, now cleared of soggy leaves and an old canoe, I have discovered the wall is simply that: a wall. It holds up a lot of really soft, squishy, deliciously chocolatey soil. Safely separated from the rest of the yard by a stretch of chicken wire, neither dog nor toddler can reach it. And, six feet off the ground, no deer will likely try.


So, today, with my onion starts and seed packets, I scaled a stepladder and dug trenches in freshly raked soil. My garden is just a teeny stretch about ten feet long and two feet wide. And I had to balance along atop crumbling stone wall to drop my seeds in their waiting furrows. But I will gladly clamber and wobble up there with my watering can and my spade if it means the possibility of tearing lettuce fresh from the earth into a salad bowl for my family.

In My Hands

Despair is tedious. Any step outside of it has to be easier than the effort involved in staying bitter.

After a long stomp in the cool shade of the forest, I shook off my shellack and started flexing my creative powers. I tracked down the only woman working at camp with a toddler, and asked her to come by on Saturday for a playdate. She and her daughter showed up ready to romp. The two little ones threw rocks in the creek, chased each other around the bouldering wall, and rode trikes fresh from winter storage over the center green. The two moms pried and revealed, a little at a time. Not all pals become friends, but some do.

Then I turned my sights on the diaper dilemma. My neighbors listened patiently to my rambling request about using the shared washer for laundering Eliot's pre-folds.

Over the past few years, I've learned camp draws many kinds of folks. The vets who hunt and fish on their days off. The executive leadership devotees driven by the latest organizational craze. The environmentalists who take on composting dining hall scraps. The teambuilders. The teachers. The former campers for whom camp is a terrible professional fit but have no idea what else to do. The sports enthusiasts, mountain men, hikers, water junkies, jugglers, and equestrians who love their thing enough to do it and teach it and live it summer after summer for measly pay and cramped housing.

But I am also coming to understand that for all their differences, most camp people share some basic commonalities. One of these is an underlying conservative approach to their relationship with the land. Living simply, walking lightly, consuming only as much as necessary.
So, when I proposed washing messy diapers in their machine, my neighbors were more concerned about my occasional capful of bleach than poop in the Maytag. Eliot's tush has been happily padded in cotton for the past three days.

As for the preschool moms and their not-so-subtle dismissal? How nice it would be to harumph away, "Who wants them for friends, anyway?" Because, well, I do.

It's all new-girl karma, I'm sure. I cannot know how many times I have mindlessly turned my back on the new chick at the party or in the fitness class while I was busy chattering away with my already-friends. How often does any of us think, "Hmm, I wonder if there is some new fabulous person in my town looking to connect? Maybe I'll go track her down!"

I have to take this fate into my own hands. So, with my hands, I crafted little "happy spring" packages for each kid in Eliot's class. Into the hand-decorated envelope went seed-packets of sunflowers, organic fruit leather, stickers, and an brazen yellow notecard with our family's name and number. Maybe no one will get an urge to call. Maybe some kids will just enjoy their stickers from Eliot. But if anyone does notice just a hint of my fabulous-ness, they have my number.

A Sticky Situation

The house is ours but it also belongs to camp. We are tenants but we don't pay rent. We can dig up the yard for a garden but not for a shed. And our basement is not our basement.
Back in Colorado, we invested in (with generous assistance from the parental units) a brand new washer/dryer combo for the sole purpose of scrubbing out Eliot's smelly pants. The question of cloth vs. disposables was never even on the table. When I was pregnant, I ordered nine dozen Chinese pre-folds from an outfit in Vermont. From the beginning, we held our noses and sprayed down the cotton, soaked, sanitized, and dried them on the line in the warm, relentless Rocky Mountain sun.
We hauled those still sparkling white appliances all the way to upstate New York, loaded them into not-really-our basement, and crossed our fingers. The facilities director assured us he would be able to hook up the lines. His assistant director started puzzling out ways to get two outflow pipes and enough power to juice the monsters.
That was in January.
Now, mind you, we aren't without clothes washing facilities. In that very same not-our basement sits a cute, perfectly functional pair of laundry machines. A teeny little washer with a mini drum and a matched dryer. It's just that they are not ours. They are, as many a renter will understand, shared. We have neighbors on two sides with no laundry facilities who schlep across not-our backyard to do their washing a few times a week. So, I suppose I should be thankful the machines are just down a set of stairs from my hallway.
Our neighbors are all perfectly polite and flexible about each other's unscheduled washings. If someone leaves a load in the washer or dryer, it just gets moved on top, no problem. However, I do not want to assume it is acceptable to wash diapers in a shared machine. Especially one that is not mine.
For the past three months, waiting as we have been for a new pipe and an approved outlet, we have been dumping money and diapers in the garbage. Wal Mart has been seeing its stock rise as our supply of homemade flannel wipes and cotton nappies has been pushed aside by the throaway variety.
This is not a situation we can remedy with our own trip to Lowe's. Projects of this nature must be approved and usually completed by Camp Chingachgook's facilities guys. Fingers aching from the months of waiting, crossed and expectant, I suddenly notice we have reached the end of April. Camp is already seeing increased school group traffic. Summer sessions are just a flip of the calendar away. And the facilities guys? Well. With dozens of camper cabins, a dining hall, a waterfront full of boats, bath houses, program areas, and fifteen other staff houses to care for, you can imagine where our little home falls on the priority list. Eliot's poopy pants just don't make the cut.
Am I dedicated enough to the righness of cloth to track down an antique scrub board of my very own and just dive in, hands first?

New Kid

When I dropped Eliot off at preschool this morning, one of the moms made her son apologize to mine for his evil treatment on Monday. This was the first I'd heard of it. She told me her little boy had tormented Eliot, and that she'd had a long talk with him about it. I looked at my son dancing down the hallway. He suddenly looked different to me. No one had yet invited Eliot to any birthday parties. When we escorted the kids on field trips, all the other kids gravitated towards buddies, holding hands as they toddled down the sidewalk. But none of them would hold Eliot's hand.


Is it because he's the youngest in the class? Because he's the new kid? Because we live twenty miles out to hell-and-gone, and no one remembers him because we never go to any events in town? Or is he the weird kid? Is he done for, that reputation for oddness or outsider-ness determined in a preschool class following him into gradeschool, then his adolescent years?


I soothed myself quickly. He's two years old, for God's sake. He still has T-ball and swim lessons at the Y to look forward to. Day camp when he turns five. The kids in his preschool class will scatter to kindergartens in three different school districts. Nothing about Eliot is pre-determined. His likeability is still boundless. His capacity for friendship is limited only by his geography. He'll be someone's friend. He'll be fine. Chill, mama.


Then I went to pick up Eliot. I stood by the playground gate waiting with the other moms. Three of them stood in a little huddle next to me. Chatting. Making a plan. A plan to get together. Coffee, one offered. The kids can play on the swingset out back, another one said. And there it was. A playdate planned. And little ol' me, three feet away, completely and obviously not invited.


Really? Me, the new girl? The one who has mentioned her desire to make friends and find her way around here? Three months straight, twice a week, twice each day. I stand in the hallway or in the parking lot with these moms, pulling off boots or dropping off snacks. We chat. Granted, they all have gleaming hair and SUV's next to my frizz and dust, but they know where I'm at. They know I'm trying to make a home here. And there they are, all cake and coffee and kids on the slide. And me, still trying to find one friend. One single friend here that I can call, just one who can listed to me bitch to about this kind of cliquiness. And still. Nada.


Is this going to be life in upstate New York? A lovely, sun-kissed waterfront lapping endlessly across camp? Those crotchety, old mountains looming up over me and grumbling their disinterest in my petty complaints? The unrelenting sensation of loneliness, a desperate little flutter of need? And, of course, there is no quality more attractive in a person than desperation. And isn't this the kick in the ass? The loneliner I get, the more awkward my conversations and urgent my attempts to connect, the less appealing I become.


So, I tried to remember all the comforting little promises I made myself this morning. Zumba at the Y and summer work weekends at camp await. Someone, somewhere is a pal waiting to become mine. She doesn't know it yet, but I'll find her. I'll be fine. Chill, mama. As if.