Mommy's Blog: Just thinking some thoughts...

Ivy had her 5 year checkup this week. She's just perfect in every way (which we knew already). Seventy-fifth percentile for height, fiftieth for weight, and now vaccinated appropriately to begin kindergarten.

All grown up, for sure. This five year old with the long long legs and a new short bob haircut for summer, freckles coming out on her nose and her insistent voice and her love for "family days." She had her first real reaction to her shots on Thursday, spiking a fever and sporting some impressive swollen glands, turning into a droopy cuddly thing all evening and tossing, turning and whining in bed with me all night. I have two takeaways from the experience: 1. I have NO idea how I survived my children's infancy and all those sleepless nights. NO idea. 2. I am intensely grateful that this little girl is still, sometimes, my baby; that she still needs her momma to curl up with, to make it all OK.

This weekend so far has been an odd mix of hurry-up and relax. Actually, I think all of my days recently have taken on this strange cast, a feeling that time is racing and there is too too much to fit into each moment, one event, one task piled onto another, running late at every turn... but at the end of each turn is a pause, a taste of leisure, a intimation of vacation at my fingertips. Almost there, almost there, almost there chants my heart as I rush it through the days. Hold on, slow down, what's the rush? I breathe at the same time...

Today we went to a birthday party for the 4 year old son of some good friends. They hosted the party at this delightful little beach on a man-made lake in a development in Chagrin Falls. This place, it is like something out of a movie, a fifties summer camp with spotless, groomed sand, picturesque swings, weeping willows framing the view. There is something to be said for development life, in a place like that. Peaceful, pretty, manicured and safe. The good life. Our friends, their children, some hard cider and homemade brownies-- it made for a lovely afternoon. On the drive home we speculated on whether or not we'd have to feel any guilt, if we moved out to that particular spot in the suburbs. We, in our lake-loving, friend-loving happiness, thought not.

Then when we got home I walked my dog around the block and there was something about the just-rained-on smell of the sidewalks, flowering trees going bare with wet petals dotting the ground around them, the moist air and the old houses settled in to their places behind free-form gardens... a thread of ivy growing up and then right into an unused chimney, the rise and swell of the cobblestones on Radnor, the earthy richness of the old wall on the corner of Hampshire... the leaves, wet and full and so green already! Spring has done its job and our neighborhood is suffused with life so thick and so beautiful that it took my breath away. I love this place. These old houses, the proliferation of rainbarrels, the inglorious litter along Superior, the neighbors and their gardens and their dogs and the old slate sidewalks and the way that the well-worn path around my block tells my heart hold on, slow down, what's the rush... you belong here.

I'm thinking a lot of thoughts these days, about time and life and growing older and the way the most important things are the most fleeting, and there isn't room enough in a day, a week, a lifetime, for everything that really matters, because all of it is taken up with driving and laundry and bills and paperwork, you know?

and I don't know how to fix that, even though it seems like I should, like if I just tried hard enough and shifted my priorities and simplified my clutter and streamlined my closet and used my Outlook calendar more efficiently, my life would open up and I could put the right things in the front.

and if I tried even harder I could go back and rearrange all the other moments that I rushed when I should've slowed, all the things I didn't notice, all the times I forgot to breathe in the soft air of a May evening and feel the grandness of life rush through me, all the things I haven't said, the gratitude I forgot to keep in sight.

and then sometimes I just don't care and I want to sit at soccer and make small talk, drink cider and coo at a baby, complain about work and watch my children play and let the hours slip by unnoticed and just not even think about what I did to get so lucky. Sometimes I am afraid that if I look right at all these blessings, they might disappear.

In the midst of all this thinking, six weeks have flown by and this week brought the end of ballet and soccer. The next three weeks will bring the end of Ivy's time at St. Paul's, Jack's second grade year, and another year of teaching in Solon. I am so tired sometimes, so ready to be done with 5am wakeups, and summer is like a beacon of rest, glimmering before me. The much awaited vacation will be here! So soon! The leaves are already so green, I know the end is in sight and I want to run to it as fast as I can! Almost there, almost there, almost there...

But! at the same time, I don't want ANY of it to end. The preschool, the ballet, the soccer, these routines of normal that we sink into so fast, the people and the places and the rhythm of our days and the size of my children right now, in THIS moment. I want these three weeks to hold on, slow down, slow down...

Tonight I am holding on with some photos from this beautiful week...

Observation night for Ivy's ballet class. So much cute in one little room.