It mine London...

I'd say I was romanticizing except the water still tastes like crap. If I remember correctly the journal entry on day one of the London house hunting 2008 trip read something like: It smells horrible and the water tastes like crap. Ah how times and hearts change.

All jetlag aside there are is permagrin on at least 4 faces as we disembark at Heathrow. "THIS is my FAVORITE airport in the WORLD!" Middlest exclaims. I love that he has been to enough worldwide airports that this does not seem like an outrageous statement. I love even more that Wanderer's reply is, "So far..."

Cigarettes, factory smoke, and freshly mown grass. That is how London smells. I fill my lungs and let out a long sigh. "Home. It smells like home." "It is," Wanderer says. "One of 'em anyway."

Their favorite (or is it favourite?) playground, Peter Pan Park --aka the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Playground--is less than a 5 minute walk away, but they have commandeered a willow tree. Branches that bend all the way to the ground. Providing shelter, transportation, and of course--weaponry. It's a cave. Or a ship? I can't tell. I know that there are swords and a secret language. English accents (hilarious). Robots, and I've heard the word "bad guy" several times--the English version "baddie" never having been incorporated into the boy's lexicon.

It's pure magic to watch them. Lost, as they were yesterday as well, in a world that defies boundaries. It apparently defies arguments as well. Most days 2:30 pm has seen me break up about a gazillion of these. Physical and verbal. Today I've only heard one. One that they worked out without intervention. All the while including and looking after Littlest. What in the world?

How is this possible? I'd say it was the glory of summer vacation except school ended a over a week ago and last week found me counting down the seconds til school started again. I know it's not the food. Not only has everything been the stereotypical British bland, but Middlest's eczema is flaring and Biggest's sound effects are constant--a sure sign of too much gluten and dairy after only 3 days.

Maybe it's the same air that makes my hair awesome. Seriously. I haven't washed it for days and yet somehow the jetlagged bedhead helps. My hair freakin' loves London.

Whatever it is, I'll take it. This crazy concoction that infuses every moment with magic and as Biggest pointed out yesterday evening, makes the boys "the best behaved we've maybe ever been in our whole lives!"

Grass stained covered shorts, honey-sticky shirts, and a toddler so sleepy he looks as though he might start hallucinating any moment. Any happy moment.

Yesterday we did The Museum of Natural History, Kensington Garden deck chairs, half an hour at Peter Pan Park then Mexican food at Wahaca in Covent Garden. Which cracks me up. Arguably, Denver, where we live for the moment, is one of the best Mexican food cities North of the border of Mexico. London of course being one of the worst. But for nostalgia's sake it had to be Covent Garden Mexican food.

Today was supposed to be the Science Museum, Kensington Palace, Peter Pan Park, and a picnic with Dad. Instead we are following the supreme rule of travel with children (or perhaps just of travel, period): Roll with it. When one finds the perfect tree under which to adventure one MUST NOT pass it by. Plans be damned. Even Littlest seems to understand this. He's not too fussed with the tree, but the un-mown tufts of grass beneath? Little boy perfection. Littlest loves this English park feature of leaving grass long so much that he keeps bending down to touch it and exclaiming, "It mine grass, Mommy!"

And maybe it is. Maybe that's the magic. That here in this far away but so close to our hearts land there is something "mine" all around.

Our hearts perhaps?

Flying

"WHOA!!!!" His enthusiasm was annoying the we're-3-and-a-half-hours-late-out-of-the-gate passengers. Loud. Uncensored. Pure delight. It was totally cheering me up. "OH! WHOA!!!! LOOK!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Oh my gosh!!!! LOOK! We're up in the CLOUDS!!!! Look! Oh! Oh! Oh! Look!!!" Six-ish, and down-in-his-soul digging it. A vehicle the size of a fricken school bus had just lifted off the ground, and it was blowing his mind.

Mine were digging it too. Biggest nearly made himself puke at home this morning. Checking in at 15 minute intervals with the report on how long til we got on the plane. Littlest didn't even need the plane. He thought Hasabo's taxi was the best car he'd ever ridden in. When it finally arrived he declared take-off "fan-tas-ic!" Middlest though. The change was visible. His whole body relaxed. His shoulders slung back. This was not just familiar territory. This was TURF. His turf. Halfway down the escalator from security the change took over his entire countenance. He was on his way to an airplane. To an adventure. Hells yeah. There was a lot of fist bumping.

It took me a minute. A few minutes. Okay--it took some smoother sailing at 30K feet, a 15 minute nap, and 2 gin and tonics. But now I'm delighting too. Delighting in the magic that makes 2 wild men absolutely cool, calm, and collected once the fasten seat belt sign turns on. Delighted at the wonder of the six year old one row back. Delighted at the two year old's fascinated "Look at the fields, Mommy!" (Don't even get me started on how amazed I am that he knows he's looking at fields below us let alone that that is the word for it).

Delight. Wonder. Amazement. It's so easy to lose sight of that. Especially in the face of delays, and grumpy children, and grumpier fellow adult passengers. It's no use getting grumpy now though. Not this early into the game. There's school done. One week of swim team. And now Leg One. Denver to Washington, Dulles. Dulles to London, Heathrow. Heathrow to the Southbank. The Southbank to Warlingham. Warlingham to Devon. The Sea. Our friends. The places that feel like friends. Home. Home in the far-away place. Then Woking. Then home again. Though my educated guess says it will feel less so than it did this morning. Swim team again. A few meets. Perhaps packing and shipping? Perhaps preparing to store everything? Playing with the cousins. Happy Hours with our friends. The 4th of July fireworks and pool festivities and decorated bike-parade. Then Leg Two. A drive to Montana. Maybe take in a National Park on the way. Friends. Family. Friends who feel like family. Then Leg Three. Or is it Four or Five or Six or One Thousand Seventy? Wanderer and I off to Sydney. To find a house. A school. A new place to call home. Then a return to Denver--will it feel like home by late July? Some swimming at the pool. Some Grammie and Grandpa and aunts and uncles time. Some Rockies baseball. As much Mexican food as we can consume. Then the Final Leg of the summer. The biggest adventure. The one that takes us to a new land. Terra nova.

 What will I choose? The grumpy bog of deadlines and timeframes and do-lists and delays and...and...and...the in-my-face demands of all the ANDS. Or the pure delight of adventures that take me off the ground, up into the clouds, body relaxed, shoulders slung back..."WHOA!" on my lips and a lot of hells-yeah fist pounding.

A Toddler's Meditation

“Whoa! Buddy, look. The ants are making their hills. See? They dig some dirt, bring it above ground and set it down. Isn’t that cool?” 

How can I have never noticed that? How can I have missed that the hills are made from the insides of the tunnels? I probably knew, but somehow I never noticed. Coolness. Today I am cherishing this parenting gig.

Shoes laced and tied. Sports bra on. I thought we were going running. Drop the bigs at school, hit the trail.

“Play park little while, Mommy? Play park little while?” I love his two year old rhetoric. Quite persuasive. “Absolutely. We’ve got time, friend.” Round and round on the tire swing we go. Back and forth on the “motorcycles.” Up and down the steps and the slides until the slides are deemed “too hot!” and he rubs his sleepy nap-time eyes and I plan our run home. 

“I walk, Mommy? I walk?” and he climbs the steep hill while I push the empty stroller. We stop to watch the men mow the grass. Discussing each implement. The mower, the weed eater, the sunglasses the men wear. “What that, Mommy?” he asks and somehow I don’t mind explaining over and over. Each explanation a calm and gentle mantra lulling me into a toddler state of mind. 

His little hand feels so squishy and warm in my big one. Tugging to be let go just before the sidewalk, not after we are safely aboard. He is that type of child and I chuckle at his push for independence. “That water, Mommy!” he squeals as he splashes through the puddle. “I wet! Uh oh. Socks. Wet.” He’s delighted that he made them wet, but doesn’t particularly like the way it feels. I’m wishing I had other shoes. I love to splash in puddles, but I don’t have on the right shoes either. I skip that one. 

We kick the gravel that has escaped the school yard. We run our hands, then fists, then elbows along the chain link fence. It feels nice. More lulling. Until soon the run is forgotten, and I am on two-year-old time. Noticing. Stopping. Walking very, very slow. So slowly that the 15 minute walk home becomes an hour long one. A stop and smell every flower one. An examine every anthill one. A slow, steady meditation. I am completely present. Only in this moment. With this child. With this environment. To-do lists and runs and heaps of laundry forgotten in the spring sunshine with my precious boy. 

I learned when one takes an hour to walk that walk one must put a beanie on in the shade because the change in temperature is quite noticeable. That the breeze actually feels cold, not cool, when your skin isn’t rushing through it walking fast. Also that there are a LOT of pick-up trucks and Toyotas in our neighborhood. Littlest loves vehicles. 

Many have suggested lately that I learn to meditate. To help with stress. Clear my mind. Rest my heart. I agree. It would be helpful. How do I know? I took an hour to walk with a two year old .8 miles. One of the most pleasant meditative states I know.

off we go again...

I pull out the flour for banana bread and wonder how many weeks it will last me. Should I have bought a smaller size? Measuring out the ingredients I wonder, is it worth it to order the almond flour online? It’s such a better deal, but five pounds is an awful lot to use in 3 1/2 months. Especially since we’ll be gone for 3 weeks in June. I did the same thing at Costco with the olive oil, and the toilet paper, and the laundry detergent. Deciding ‘no’ on all three.

Laundry is a funny wash and organize process. Many things don’t make it back upstairs. They go straight into the blue Ikea bag to be donated. I can’t decide whether to be uber-motivated to finally finish the office so I can USE it already after months of it being full of boxes or to just tape back up the boxes and leave the door shut. Lots of the toys get thrown in the crate in the garage when I tidy up. No sense putting them back on the shelves when they’re not getting played with that often anyway. 

Towels, clothes, kitchen gadgets. I’m in full on sorting mode. Perhaps it’s a little early, but it seems each item I touch gets put through the same interrogation process: Are you worth shipping? Worth storing? Will Ash be big enough to play with you when we’re back? Will he want it while we’re away? Would it be easier to just replace you when we get there? 

In some ways it’s exhausting to be doing this again just one short year since the last time. In others I am absolutely elated and cannot wait to begin another chapter in our grand global adventure. Plus hey, looks like my house will be quite organized and tidy before we go! 

Yep, we’re hitting the road again. On our way to Sydney, Australia, at the end of the summer for a two year assignment. Seems sort of crazy and cool to move somewhere I’ve never been. The big boys are hoping to learn to surf. I’m hoping the littlest picks up an Australian accent! 

Should be lots to write about. Watch this space!

My mojo finds its feet...

I found my parenting mojo back tonight. I wasn’t really aware I had lost it. I mean, I knew things weren’t going well in that department. I just figured it was the fog of depression and total exhaustion I’ve found myself in for the last several months. Now I know that on top of those things, the mojo had gone MIA.

The minimal windows in this house are the bane of my existence. Even with this handicap however, the Colorado sunset peaked in where it could and beckoned. Loud. It was a little coldish and already after dinner and Scott was at a business meeting. So I had dinner cleanup, getting them motivated, and bedtime still stretching ahead of me. All by myself. And it was already 7 o’clock. That’s some loud beckoning. I’m still not sure what possessed me really, but I ran down the stairs, “Boys! Let’s take a walk and go look at the sunset!” I knew by B’s tone I’d struck gold, “GREAT idea, Mom!” Add in Ash’s gleeful, “ME!! ME!!” and Caid’s faster-than-snail-pace cleaning off of the dining room table and the whole thing was a success before we’d even set out. Not to mention the approving “Wow, Mom! You can load the dishwasher fast!”

Then there we were. Ash in the backpack insisting I hold his hands. Caid running ahead, ever the leader, calling, “Just over the horizon guys! Just over the horizon and the view will be great!” Bridger processing the larger things of life. “It’s hard with friends. You have to decide to either say goodbye to them and let them go, or do the hard work of staying in touch. But it’s like, if you’ll say goodbye you can open up to a whole new set of friends. Not goodbye forever. Just goodbye to sort of...move on.”

Asher thought the sunset was “beauful! beauful mountains! beauful sunset!” He’s right. Those Rocky Mountain sunsets sure don’t suck. Even with buildings and lights and houses obstructing the view it’s still magnificent.

As we walked along I felt it. My feet finally hit the ground. I’ve been waiting for that moment for months. To feel HERE. I’m not sure in Colorado was what I needed. Inside the comfort of my role as those three’s mama--that’s a pretty good place to start. Go figure we’d find it on a walk. “Just like old times!” Bridger noted. I agreed. Except it was just like new times too. 

Walks were how we landed in England too. We finally quit staying inside when it rained. Bought wellies and buttoned up our jackets and walked. We discovered all kinds of things. Paths here and there. The vast hidden tree gardens right behind St. Mary’s. Then we moved to the village and the paths of discovery were nearly overwhelming there were so many. Paths through horse pastures and woods. Along centuries old farms-turned-golf courses. Ancient rights of way. Parks. Churchyards. All around in our wellies we traipsed. I thought we were discovering England, but now I’m not so sure. I think it was each other. Our own rhythm. Caid needs to hold hands and run ahead and lag behind. Bridge wants to talk. And talk. And talk. He rights the world, and his own heart, one footstep at a time. Ash snuggles down in and grows calm and quiet--the only time of day he’s ever like that unless he’s asleep. And there I am. Leading the way. Listening. Talking. Holding hands. Holding the space. Carrying the littlest boy. Challenging the biggest. Reaching out to the middlest. Right there. With my feet on the ground. 

There’s my mojo. Phew. I thought I’d lost it for good. Turns out all it needed was to take a walk.

When your toddler’s favorite word is ‘fart’...

...you know that one of a number of things may be at play. It could mean that he’s growing up in a household of all boys. Big boys who think it’s hilarious when he says it. Hence the fact that he’s heard it a lot. The word. I mean. Or well...

When a 21 months old starts gleefully shouting that word hundreds of times a day I laugh. I roll my eyes a bit. I also take stock. That much farting does not signal healthy guts. That much farting is an indication that, as we say around here, "I got somethin' bad inside of me!" The holistic, slightly-crunchy mindful eater and food-intolerance aware mama in me starts to take a look at all the contributing factors. Factors like a flare up of Caid’s eczema that has left little clumps of bleeding itchy rash-patches on both legs and around his nose and mouth and won’t go away no matter what cream I put on it. Factors like raging mood swings from all three boys. What‘s that you say? Raging mood swings from Mama? No! Factors like Caid’s crying, writhing-on-the-floor fits whilst holding his belly and crying, “My WAIST! My waist!” Factors like Mama’s serious bout of depression and constantly recurring yeast infections and general feeling of malaise. Then there’s the constant farting. From all five concerned parties. Cue gleeful toddler shouting “FART! FART!”

We had already looked into some of this late this summer. Caid and I both went on an elimination diet. Eating loads of veggies and meat and a tiny bit of fruit. It started helping, but then school started and things went steadily downhill from there until voila! We found ourselves subsisting on a diet of Pamela’s cupcakes and buckwheat chocolate chip cookies. WHAT?! They’re gluten and dairy free! Okay, so I’m exaggerating a bit. However when you add in the number of Dr Peppers per week and the bi-weekly trip to Carl’s Jr. for a low-carb burger (they have lettuce instead of a bun--brilliantly gluten free!) things were perhaps a tiny bit out of control. 

The thing is, the sugar made me feel better! For about 30 minutes I’d feel like a million bucks. Then, not so much. A mama’s gotta have more than 30 minutes. So this mama was eating a lot of sugar. So apparently were my children. Because after 4 days of an elimination diet designed to heal up our guts and help us begin to identify the culprits, Bridger had a total flip out. He ran up to his room yelling, “I just need to let out some anger!” When I went to check on him he grabbed two fist fulls hair and explained wild-eyed, “It’s just that, I realized I got completely addicted to sugar. I don’t know how it happened, and I’m really mad at myself for letting it get so out of control. But when we’re having just like, meat and veggies, it’s really hard. Because all I want is sugar! And it’s REALLY hard at school because all the other kids are having all KINDS of sugar in their lunches!”  Yeah. He’s nine. Wise little man.

Asher had two days of meltdown-centrals at meals. It got so bad last Thursday (yep, same day B freaked out. They were tag-teaming that night.) that I finally put him in the bath as a last resort. Which didn’t work. So I climbed in with him. Which didn’t work. He was screaming and crying. Finally I fed him his dinner, whilst holding him, in the tub. Not so pleasant to clean up afterward, but I figure I got an avocado-skin treatment out of the deal and it did finally help him calm down. Was it withdrawals? Two-year molars? A battle of the will over what he wanted to eat and what I had to offer? No idea. But dude, I will say this: that kid puts the ‘melt’ in ‘meltdown!’ Poor Bridger asked me, “Mama, do you think that Ash is getting teeth or something? or is he kind of always going to be like this?”

we're eating a lot more of this these days

Tantrums and freak outs aside the elimination diet is going really well. It’d be faster to tell you what we CAN eat. Fish, poultry, lean beef, lamb, non-starchy and low glycemic veggies (except nightshades like peppers and tomatoes), low-glycemic fruits, coconut milk or oil, olive oil, and fermented foods like kombucha, fermented veggies, etc. We’re also taking a supplement before meals that seals up our guts and lets them heal up a bit. 

The report so far? I feel GREAT! My mood has been happier and more even than it has in MONTHS. The boys moods are evening out. The skin on Caid’s mouth looks better. Scott reports feeling more clear-headed and well than he has in months. Plus, there are definitely fewer toddler call-and-response sessions of “FART!” 

Ever done an elimination diet or cleanse yourself? With your kiddos? Any helpful tips to offer?

Releasing "The Sads"

“Anger,” Dad says, “is blocked expectations.” I notice myself listening from that deep place. The place that is filled with a little too much darkness and remembers light and longs for it. I notice the grown up girl in me that does not shy away from a father’s admonition and advice, but instead grabs hold--a rope of wisdom thrown into the pit. He says more wise and kind things. He talks about how it’s okay to not be who I was when I left 3 1/2 years ago. Permission is granted to try it out amongst those who love me. Warm hearts are promised as I work out how to be this me--not that me.

I try to believe that. This is the same man that chided me many a time in my growing up years for too high of expectations. I’ve spent a lot of denial on having them at all. Having expectations means the potential of facing disappointment. One of the most painful emotions of all. If I were to work through the “blocked” expectations I would have to admit I had them. Maybe lots of them. For the way things would be. For how I’d be. For how things wouldn’t be. For how I wouldn’t be. Wouldn’t have to be. I’d have to sort them out. Damn. 

“The problem,” a best friend writes, “with suppressing this is that this anger turns into depression and it is bloody hard to pull ourselves out of it, to be able to express how we feel and understand what is going on and be able to release it in some way. You have taken great steps to re-adjust to a lifestyle you left long ago, and also the realisation that you are no longer that person who left all that time ago. It can feel suffocating. You have changed, have grown, but now have a feeling of being forced to change again.” Then she throws a rope in too: start writing again. She reminds me how important it is. How much I work through on the page.

I am swimming in a sea of army green file folders. Three boxes and four chock-a-bloc drawers worth. Some things are kept. Cards & printed emails from Scott’s surgery. A few favorite theatre scripts. Some poetry Scott wrote. Photographs and inky prints of Bridger’s feet. Most are tossed. White Costco-sized bag after white bag. Boxes of recycling. The boys gleefully running things through the shredder. Layers and layers of relief washing over me as the receipts and bills and contracts and notes of an old life turn to confetti. “We’re breaking the ties.” Scott explains, when I ask why it feels so good. “We’re cutting loose.”

I sit in my green chair. I sit here a lot these days. Pondering all of this wisdom. What is it I am “cutting loose” from? Why do I so often feel trapped? Suffocated? What is the antidote to all of this anger? I grasp daily for gratefulness and a thankful heart and daily I feel the weight of my failure to hold on to either of these things for very long. Am I a spoiled rotten brat? That actually might be part of it. I do however, feel so acutely the need to “release it in some way.” 

Release--excellent word. It goes in and sticks. Deep in that despair place. Release. Like releasing a prisoner. Ah ha. There it is. A little clue. The way out is illuminated a further few steps. The prisoner inside all this anger is me. Releasing the anger is releasing myself. 

I posted this on facebook the other day. She talks about her little girl having “the sads” and not being able to let them out. She explains about “emotional throw up” and just letting kids let it out. I thought it was fantastic. For my kids. But here I sit with loads of my own “sads” that need to come out, and the only person not giving me permission to do so is me. 

Release, Cori. Release. 

Then maybe throw a party and toss all that confetti.