All

If I had to show you innocence, I would show you smocking on a dress. A cup of milk. Frost on a jack-o-lantern. A dandelion in a plastic cup. Sidewalk art made with chalk. The way a baby’s lips move while he sleeps. A toddler hanging an ornament on a Christmas tree.

I think of innocence as a gift given to the new, the young. It’s a gift all three of my children are clinging to right know, though they don’t know it. And I know the knowledge that life holds bigger travesties than time-out and hunger for milk is coming.

I was not yet 5, catching lightning bugs with neighborhood friends, when the world became a bigger—and meaner—place to me. Up until that day I considered fireflies magical insects, fairness to be a given, and humans as beings who at least tried to be good. And then I watched as a little boy caught a lightning bug, ripped it apart and wiped the firefly’s softly glowing abdomen across his cheek, like primitive war paint. He laughed about it. No one scolded him. The lightning bug died, not in a Mason jar filled with grass but by the hands of someone who could have—and should have—simply cradled it and then let it fly away.

I was horrified.

Daily I’m amazed at what Sophie knows and yet, grateful for what she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know war. Illness, to her, is on the level of a skinned knee—not, say, cancer. She knows of death, in that two of her favorite dogs—Molly and Droopy—are no longer with us—but she doesn’t really know death, the absolute makes-you-want-to-cry permanence of it. She doesn’t know poverty. She gets upset when we’re out of milk—she has no idea the lengths many human beings go just to get clean water. She loves going places—she has no idea our car could crash. I believe she truly believes all people love her, respect her, are out for her best interest and that the worst people can do is not share their toys or scold or demand baths.

As a mother who holds innocence dear, and is OK with a white lie for the young, I love this season. I love telling my children that a plump, jolly, old Santa dressed in red and tarnished with soot is going to drive a reindeer-driven sleigh to our house on Christmas Eve, land on our roof, come down our chimney, fill our stockings, put presents under our tree, go back up our chimney, and then visit millions of other children’s houses—all in a single night. I love that they believe this.

I know life will slowly chip away at my children’s innocence. Or, something terrible may happen and their innocence may be gone in an instance. I don’t know how it will happen, I don’t know the horrors—and beauty—they’ll witness. And as much as I love their innocence I know it would be a disservice to never reveal life’s truths, both good and bad. They need to know them to grow. They need to know them in order to (I hope) become people who can change them, for the better.

Still, for now, I relish soft, white onesies. Well-worn picture books. Dolls that have been put down for naps. Angel imprints in backyard snow. Squeals of laughter. Hands that smell like clementines. And a plate filled with cookies and carrots, and a glass of milk, left by the fireplace on Christmas Eve.

“The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.” —William Butler Yeats

(recorded while in Baltimore for Thanksgiving)

“The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.” —James Fenton

“Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.” —Susan Scarf Merrell

“No day is so bad it can’t be fixed with a nap.” —Carrie Snow

Her self-made princess costume includes a tutu, Amish bonnet, fake jewels, Mardi Gras beads, dinosaur hands and water shoes. She also has a blue, sequin, star-shaped wand, which she runs around the house waving while saying, “magical! magical!”.

Sometimes she mixes it up with a black silk cat tail and sunglasses.

“Just around the corner in every woman’s mind – is a lovely dress, a wonderful suit, or entire costume which will make an enchanting new creature of her.” —Wilhela Cushman

This year we drove to Baltimore for Thanksgiving, to spend it with Andy’s parents, Liz and Aunt Fran. What should have been an eight-hour drive one way took us 12. But if you think about it—that’s not that bad, considering every stop required feeding two adults and a toddler, bottle feeding two babies, changing three diapers (which usually meant taking the kids, one by one, into a public bathroom) and then convincing three children who simply wanted to play and stretch to get back into their car seats. Things that made the drive more bearable: I had a small bag of “treats” (stickers, books, small dolls, etc.) to give to Sophie when she started getting antsy. (Thanks to my Aunt Alise for this idea!) To save time I used a battery-powered breast pump, while riding in the car, with a nursing cover to hide myself from passing semi trucks. We caved and bought Sophie a portable DVD player—however we’ve limited it to long trips only.

The drive there was great. The drive back was much more difficult because of toll roads (lack of exits) and traffic. Still, it was worth it to spend a great holiday with family.

table set for Thanksgiving dinner

Sophie, unfortunately, fell asleep minutes before dinner. Therefore she wasn’t the happiest of children when it came time to wake her up to eat.

Liz, Jill, Andy, Owen and Sophie

Marty and Fran

holding baby James

Grandma and Owen

Sophie modeling the adorable apron Great Aunt Fran made for her

Sophie riding a tricycle—with pedals!—for the first time

Sophie loved playing soccer in the large entry

the boys enjoying their first fire

matching fathers and sons

We had a very nice dinner with Marty’s cousin, his wife, Sandra, and their beautiful daughter, Rachel (Sophie loved having a girl close to her age to play with that night).

the boys, not sleeping (I think it’s close to midnight in this picture)

We visited the National Aquarium—Sophie loved the dolphin show.

Sophie opening a present—They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science CD and DVD—from Aunt Lizzie

James napping

“This is the finest measure of thanksgiving: a thankfulness that springs from love.” —William C. Skeath

 

Thanks to Megan Wysocki for these amazing photos. It was so great seeing everyone—my only wish is that we all lived closer to one another.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” —Thornton Wilder

Sophie helping Nini ice the cake …

and lick the spoon.

Lighting the candles …

and blowing out the candles! Yes, Sophie’s pant-less. (Mom forgot a change of clothes.)

a birthday kiss

Presents! Sophie initially insisted on getting Pop Pop a snow globe (her gift of choice for everyone) but upon learning that his favorite animal is the giraffe, she picked out a cute beaded one instead.

Happy birthday, Dad! And thank you, for never giving up that role, no matter how old I get. (I’m thinking about today how, even before setting foot in our front door to help us out with the kids, you scraped our snow-covered car, not because we asked but because you simply saw that it needed to be done.)

“He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” —Clarence Budington Kelland

Today has been a at-one-point-I-was-curled-up-in-a-tight-ball-on-the-bathroom-rug-with-my-face-buried-in-my-hands-out-of-sheer-frustration day. I have a cold. Sophie may or may not have a cold—but she’s coughing constantly. Owen has a runny nose and is teething.

Despite the many holiday and just-general-life related things I have on my to-do list at the moment, I only gave myself three goals for today: Visit friends who recently had a baby, start (and finish) a freelance editing assignment, and clean up/decorate the outside of the house for Christmas.

We couldn’t visit our friends because of the colds and cough. The editing work is taking forever because I tried to do it at home, in my bed, instead of at a coffee shop (interruptions included crying babies; requests to watch computer/bounce on the bed/play hide-and-seek/use my red pen to help me “draw”; demands for more pumped milk (the boys eat so much now!); and a cat who loves to rub her entire body across my face while I’m trying to read). Finally, we couldn’t find our six huge garbage bags filled with pre-lit fake garland for our front porch (we checked the entire house, basement to attic, several times) so decorating the outside of the house also involved an expensive to trip to Lowes. (And by the time I came back with the lights it was getting too dark to put them all up so right now we have big, ceramic lights wrapped around our porch railing only and half of them, for some reason, don’t work. Oh, and we still have our pumpkins on the porch from Halloween—classy.)

So I’m frustrated. And cranky. And stuffy and germy and hungry and annoyed and, at times, acting very much like a baby.

But I’m back in bed, editing. Hoping to make progress with something today.

And then Sophie yells, “Mom-umm!”

It’s 10:30pm.

Her bedtime is 8pm.

I too-aggressively throw down my editing work and, in the process, manage to mark up our sheets with my red pen. I walk over to the gate in front of her bedroom door.

“What, Sophie?” I say not-at-all pleasantly.

“Can you do ABCs on my back?”

I soften. My body softens. My brain softens. My whole being softens. (How do kids do that?)

“One time,” I say. “I mean it. Just one time and then you have to go to sleep. It’s way past your bedtime.”

She smiles and skitters back into bed. And then she looks at me, eyes huge and says, “Can you do it through the hole in my back?”

And that’s when I melt. That’s when I cave. That’s when I transform from on-the-verge-of-having-a-mental-breakdown mother to normal, loving, should-be-wearing-an-apron-and-have-chocolate-chip-cookies-baking-in-the-oven mother.

The hole that she’s referring to is the neckline of her footed pajamas. She insists I trace the alphabet on her bare skin instead of over the thick flannel fabric covering her back. And there’s just something about that that’s so sweet to me, so simple and innocent and easy to provide.

And so I trace. The whole alphabet, while singing the letters, slowly. I pull my hand out of the “hole in her back” and rub her entire back, over the thick, flannel fabric, and sing the little song at the end.

I tuck her in.

And the moment is over.

She’s mad because while tucking her in, I moved one of her picture books from the left side of the bed to the right. And she wanted to pull her sheet and quilt up over her feet. How dare I do it for her! And when I pull the sheet and quilt back down so she can do it herself she’s upset because it’s not exactly as it was before. She’s yelling, “Like this, Mommy! Like this!” while stretching and pulling and shoving folds of fabric here and there. I try to fix it. But of course I’m doing it all wrong. I stop. Straighten. Take a deep breath. I give her Knuffle Bunny to sleep with. She throws him aside. I say goodnight. She plops her head on her pillow and squeezes her eyelids shut, clearly irritated with me. I say “I love you,” reattach her gate and close her door.

It’s now after 1am. Twenty minutes ago Owen woke up crying, which woke up James. I bounced Owen around the living room while James screamed in the pack-n-play while Andy made bottles with the little bit of milk we still had in the fridge. Andy then fed both boys while I pumped more milk. I ran downstairs with the fresh milk; James had fallen asleep, Owen was still hungry. I just put James to bed, although he woke up while being transported (I still haven’t learned where all the floor creaks are in our new house) so who knows what will happen in the next 10 minutes. Oh, and I’m still not done with my editing assignment, which is due tomorrow.

I know, though, when I look back on this time, I won’t immediately think of my face buried into my hands or the surprising amount of anger I felt upon hearing my daughter call me at 10:30pm or the frustration with not getting anything accomplished before 2am today. Instead, I’ll think of tracing the alphabet on Sophie’s back. And how happy that made her.

I know this to be true because it’s how I remember Sophie a year-and-a-half ago. When I think of Sophie as a baby I don’t immediately think of the three-hour bedtime routines or the demands to nurse constantly or the refusal to eat jarred baby food. Instead, I remember the zerberts and resulting laughter, the weight of her body on my chest, the way she could stare so long at wind-blown leaves.

So I’ll take our little ABC moment and hold it dear as I go back to blowing my nose, as I go back to editing, as I go back to staring at the monitor and thinking, Please don’t wake up. Because not only was that ABC moment a moment I know I’ll remember years from now, it’s also a moment that got me through today—kept me from losing my mind, my self, entirely. I rely on moments like that daily. I suspect most parents do.

“Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.” —Ogden Nash

It’s a problem.

“If we don’t change our direction we’re likely to end up where we’re headed.” —Chinese proverb