How do you really want to spend your time? Do you want to be angry and walking with clenched fists and a chip? Do you want to be living in fear of what’s to come and resentment of what has already passed? Or maybe, just maybe do you want to try and apply some measure of wisdom from things like the Purpose Fairy and begin to reclaim your moments? Sunday Sean, the girls and I did a little reclaiming. We’d spent an ambitious Saturday working out, visiting the market and exploring the lake and islands. Sunday morning we didn’t go to the school to do the Fun Run. We didn’t dash to the lake. We didn’t do project after project.

We hooked up a sprinkler.

We had a tea party.

We rolled around on the grass with our dog.

We napped.

We made dinner together.

We danced.

We talked.

We remembered.

We dreamed.

We forgave.

We let go.

And then we found ourselves with more space in our arms to embrace all that it is we have.

Choices. Love. Friendship. Family. Support.

Sweet, precious time.

How are you spending yours?

Never quite in step.

Last night, after a flurry of cookie baking so that Avery would have cookies to take to school today, her 6th birthday, I was heading up to bed. I walked quietly upstairs with no intention other than to kiss the brow of each daughter. Ave’s room is at the top of the stairs, so I slipped in there first. I scanned the bed for her form, lately she has been a dark-tressed tangle of limbs and eyelashes. That coltish thing that happens in the instant you realize that the little girl fullness has somehow melted away is everywhere. Her eyes have come to the fore and whether they are filling with tears, flashing with anger, or sparkling with laughter, they bore into me.

I perched on the side of her bed looking at the way her dark lashes curl away from her ivory skin. The unexpected enormity of this next birthday hit me. Six. She is reading without a hitch, throwing a softball, and pulling the garbage cans up our long driveway. She is pushing back and demanding her way, all the while demonstrating an extraordinary capacity to empathize. Then there are the quirks—she wears her headbands in a way that pushes her hair up in huge bubble, no matter how I adjust it, back it goes. I used to twitch, until it settled over me that it simply feels right to her. Her favorite pair of shoes are dark brown, faux leather, fleece lined boots with gold laces and zippers up the back. They are, in a word, hideous. She picked them out herself and has literally worn them into the ground. When I pick her up at school I watch the feet, so many little feet, saltwater sandals, patent leather wedges, neon Mary Janes, pink tennis shoes, she parts the predictable sea with her scuffed, misshapen brown boots. I crack up every time.

Today, likely sporting her boots, she’ll take a basket of blue and yellow sprinkle covered moustache cookies into school. Tonight we’ll celebrate her birthday in a restaurant/brewery. Rather than a traditional party, the five of us will play hookey on Thursday in order to go and see a matinee of the theatrical production of Beaty & the Beast at Proctors Theatre. There is a part of me feeling guilty that she won’t have the traditional party at the germ-ridden, but beloved-by-children place that so many classmates hold their parties. I suspect that in the birthdays to come, we’ll move closer to what the other kids do, but on this birthday, with her quirky brown boots still her shoe of choice in 80 degree weather, I am grateful for what we have.

Still cuddly.

Undeniably herself.

Gently rebellious.

Eminently capable.

Happy birthday VaVa.

]]> http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/boots-of-a-different-color/feed/ 4 http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/for-mothers-day/ http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/for-mothers-day/#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 01:09:43 +0000 amandamagee http://amandamagee.com/?p=3412 This Mother’s Day, if I could make one request, it would be this: one of my childhood friends, a girl who peppers most of the happiest memories of my youth, needs something, I’d like to help deliver it to her.

We fell out of touch as people do, and then reconnected through Facebook. I’ve often chuckled at her pictures, her three rough and tumble boys a stark contrast against my three squealing, boa-loving girls. She in Oklahoma, me in Upstate NY, both so very far from Eugene, Oregon.

During movie time in school we used to take her Swatch watch and take turns running it up and down one another’s forearm to pass the time. The watch smelled funny, rubbery and sweaty, and the motion tickled. We’d play together, all knees and elbows. She became a serious distance runner, I ran hurdles. We drifted apart, but I think we always kept a little seedling of our friendship going. At least I did. Finding her again was the tenderest of gifts.

Not long ago it became clear that something serious was amiss with her youngest boy, Ransom. His eyes are so big, and while his face is not a carbon copy of hers, the wide open kindness that I remember of Aimee leaps from the screen each time I see him. I reel from the awesome reality that she has children, that she made more Aimees, boy versions though they may be. I don’t anticipate any trips to Oklahoma and I am not on the reunion lists for the Eugene schools after having moved in 8th grade. So we have Facebook.

The other day she posted this on Facebook:

A Request for Prayer

Many of our friends have very graciously been praying for and thinking about Ransom throughout these last several months. A big thank you to all of you!

This SUNDAY (MAY 13) we would like to ask anyone who can to pray a Novena for Ransom’s healing. For anyone unfamiliar with a Novena, it is simply a prayer that is prayed for 9 consecutive days. We are asking those participating to pray through Psalm 20 and ask for Ransom’s healing. If there is anyone that you know that might be willing to participate we welcome any and all prayers.

I will post more later, I just wanted to give anyone interested a heads up. Thanks so much.

PS He’s still in the hospital and will probably be there at least through the weekend. His levels are very low (nearing zero) and so it’s hard for his body to fight infection. Hopefully they will start going up tomorrow.

Her son Ransom is in the OU Children’s Hospital and has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer for someone his age. He has two older brothers and a face that will make you melt. I can’t quite wrap my mind around how he is just that kid your eyes would follow on the playground—the eyes a little twinklier, the smile a little wider, all in all irresistible in a way that just makes you feel happier. Aimee was like that, maybe a little more timid. Maybe he is too.

Aimee lost her dad last October and has shown incredible grace throughout what has to have been the hardest season of her life. Today she posted this:

“A fort/tent for his hospital bed. (His cousin Alex helped build it.)”

She has used words like neutropenia and she has talked about the second round of chemo being harder than the first. I get overwhelmed by the details and the gravity of it all, but when she made her request I thought I had finally found something to latch on to. A way through, or at least to—a way to send her love, energy and the swelling of support I know lives in this blogging community. I am writing to ask you to help Aimee and Ransom and the rest of their family.

I believe I have eliminated all the hurdles of commenting. No need for a blog. No need for an email adress. No need for a real name. I am just asking that you leave words of encouragement, however they come to you, that I can direct her to. Maybe it can diffuse some tiny measure of her anguish and give Ransom a little boost.

It is, as a mom, my only wish.

I thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

Murphy’s Law Parental edition states that it is in this moment, that someone gets thirsty, someone gets hurt, someone has to pee and “THERE’S NO TOILET PAPER!” and the dog grabs a precious something or other and trots past the bathroom smugly as a dripping heiny fidgets indignantly. Nothing you can do about it.

I tried to bite back the tears until after bedtime.

Sean said to Avery, “Honey, go grab your tap shoes.”

She looked at him quizzically, “Tap shoes?”

He smiled, “Yes, tap shoes, so you can tap on mommy’s last nerve.” I didn’t think I was wearing it quite so plainly, I felt immediately and entirely naked.

Did what he said to Avery hurt her? Did she think I was mad? How would I fix it? I looked toward her with physical pain.

She was laughing. She literally skipped off giggling, “Tap shoes,” snort, “Daddy!” I shook my head and dropped the panic and overwhelming sense of failure. Of course, any parent worth their salt knows that on a night like this, with dinner yet to be made and kids already fussing, the cloak comes back like a face-diving black fly. After dinner, Sean headed back into work and I began bath time. It was complicated, Finley wanted alone time in the bath, Avery wanted a shower and Briar wanted to not be alone. We worked it out, but it involved 7 or 8 trips up and down the stairs, a complete soaking of my pants and resigning myself to the fact that no one would be in bed before 9pm. Resentment and failure swirled, I tried to keep it out of my voice.

I tucked each girl in, performing the distinct ministrations required by each to sleep, and immediately upon reaching the foot of the stairs, fielded the first of many requests for “just one more thing.” Eventually they tired and drifted off to sleep. I tidied up the kitchen, contemplated dealing with the lunches or folding the laundry or finishing the writing projects I had. I did none of them. I sat for a long while just listening to the wind.

I replayed moments in the day and tallied the things I accomplished and the things that I hadn’t. I waited for the sediment of the day to stop feeling like a massive rock in my gut, I leaned back into the couch. I heard a cry. I waited, when another came I dashed upstairs. Finley was the foot of her bed, crouched and confused, her tear stained face locked on my own. “Are you ok, honey? What happened?” I climbed into her bed and took her in my arms.

She was inconsolable and completely disoriented. I shushed and murmured with my lips pressed against the skin beside her ear. Her body started to relax and we burrowed into the covers and each other. My eyes were scratchy and my body was completely ready for the day to end. She stirred and I pressed my cheek against the crown of her head. Her hair was a soft tangle of still-damp, lavender scented ringlets. I cuddled up against my last baby, the vestiges of a bath done exactly as she’d hoped and a nightmare removed, and the quiet of her sisters sleeping. It might have been with whisper thin margins, but there in the soft glow of the nightlight, I held a shimmering wisp of that elusive finish line.

We picked a site.

We drew up some plans.

We purchased supplies.

We built into the space. Literally.

Finley kept the wood hydrated.

We got sentimental as we planned to use a window from our first house.

It began to take shape.

Briar took a test run.

The girls helped.

I helped too.

Helping can be fun.

I kept Sean slightly annoyed.

It began to rain. It rained a lot.

The sun came back. It was perfect in every way.

The surroundings were spectacular.

The window and clear roof came together.

The girls and Beso gave it a thorough inspection.

They decorated.

When fall came it got the full house test with the neighbor kids.

All winter long we worshipped it from across the yard.

I cannot wait to see where their imaginations take them this summer—inside, outside and all around their parent-built club house.

]]> http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/parent-built/feed/ 3 http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/staring-it-down/ http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/staring-it-down/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 02:11:04 +0000 amandamagee http://amandamagee.com/?p=3337 “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Last weekend we took a family hike. It was absolutely gorgeous and required just enough of me physically and mentally that I found myself completely engrossed in the task at hand. We trekked through terrain that alternated between rocky, muddy and icy until we hit the summit of Goodnow Mountain. We had just overcome a bit of doubt that we would ever find the firetower when we saw it.

“There it is, straight ahead,” Sean said to the girls. I could hear the relief in his voice. It was nearly 4 o’clock and the ascent had grown colder and colder. He didn’t want to have to turn back, but he’d been ready to do so to keep us all safe. We scampered the last hundred yards and plopped down for a triumphant picnic. Everyone was chattering and gasping at the view when I took a moment to really look at this landmark we’d been working toward. I knew in theory what a firetower was, but standing at the base of it and suddenly contemplating what it mean to scale the vertical finish line, I balked.

There was no need to go up. We made it to the summit, saw the view, give me my stamp and let me go. Except we weren’t done, the girls were looking up in wonder and every fiber of their little beings screamed, “I get to go up that?! SCORE!” I quickly made myself busy with cleaning up lunch and giving the dog water. “Mom, can we go up now?” Finley asked me. She was squatting in front of me, face flushed from the hike, cheeks chapped from the wind. I sighed, “I don’t know…”

“Please mom? Please can we go?” she asked. I said no, explaining that I just couldn’t do it, that I was too scared. “But I’m not mama. I want to go up there.” her lip began to tremble and I knew tears were coming. Hers and mine. Resigned, I dusted myself off and walked over to the base. I looked up. Damnit. I insisted that she hold my hand as we made our way up.

One flight; I was ok. The second flight Finley started to pull away from me, “Wait up, honey, hold my hand.” We moved up the second flight and then halfway up the third I began to shake. I tried not to look out the cyclone fence, tried not to focus on how open it felt, how high we were and how completely out of control I felt. “C’mon mom,” she said. I moved toward the next flight and the wind took hold of me. It was so strong. I was stuck. My hands were plastered to the step and I couldn’t move up or down. She started to move up and I screamed, “No!”

I couldn’t let her go and I couldn’t move. Something in her softened and she came back to me. She stayed with me as I crawl-slithered back down. I tried to keep myself from getting dizzy and panicky as I moved down. I apologized over and over as I moved. Sean came to me with Avery beside him. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” I said. He moved past shushing me, “It’s ok, babe.” He took Ave up as I took a spot on the massive rock summit. Fin sat beside me and waited. After my fear subsided she told me how much she wished we could go up.

I told her how scared I was and explained that I just couldn’t make it up and that it was ok. “We made it all the way up the mountain, we don’t have to go up there. We did a great thing and that’s enough.” She walked over to the bottom step and sat, looking up wistfully at Sean and Ave. I heard Sean and Ave up top, taking photos, looking out at the spectacle of the sweeping Adirondack view. I thought about how hard the girls had worked to make it up to the top. I considered explaining to people that I made it to the top but never went up the fire tower. I cringed.

I had to go up. I had to do it for Finley, for Briar, but most of all I needed to do it for me. Then I thought, “Amanda, you are out of your f*cking mind. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Ok,” I said.

“Ok, what?” Finley asked.

I swallowed, “Ok, let’s go up.”

She squealed and we moved to the first flight of stairs. “You have to stay with me, though. Ok, Fin?” She nodded, aware that if she wasn’t careful I’d change my mind. I went step by step. I kept my eyes on the step ahead of me and my hands on Finley. Every so often I’d have to tell her to slow down. The fences on either side of us seemed too low to have any hope of stopping us if we fell. “Honey, we could fall,” I got dizzy. I told myself to look at the steps.

As we hit the fifth flight of stairs the wind kicked in again and I think I gasped audibly. Sean called out, “Man? What are you doing?” I laughed violently, “I’m just coming up.” We kept moving, eventually passing Sean and Avery as they moved down the tower. When we got to the opening at the top I moaned. I placed both palms on the floor and literally pulled my body through. Finely started to move toward the windows, which to me, in that moment, looked like wide chasms through which she would fall. “Baby, stay here,” I yelped.

I took a deep breath of air and focused everything I had on a square of ply-wood that kept me from seeing how high we’d climbed. “I just need you to give me a minute and stay with me.” I scooted toward her and we met in a hug. “Here, let me take our picture.” I struggled to hold the phone up. I tried not to let my fear mar her experience. “Isn’t it great that we did it? We made it to the top!” She beamed and then melted into me. We were tired. I snapped a picture and then looked back at the opening. I asked her to stay with me. I went down backwards the whole way.

“Just look at the steps, Man. One, two, just keeping watching the steps.” I told myself. We went through the wind, we went through two, three, four flights of stairs and I caught sight of the rock. She was pulling away from me on the last run of stairs. “Slow,” I called. My feet finally touched the stone floor and I slumped to the ground. I smiled at Fin and then at Briar. I’d done it.

I leaned again the stairs and swiped to the camera on my phone. I flipped to the last picture and stared at the proof that I had moved past my fear and made it to the top.

I shake just looking at it, but instead of just fear, I also feel the rush of having endured the fear to get to the other side.

Watching the girls now, I wonder what their secret scars might be. What are the things that they roll around in their minds, or absentmindedly trace fingers along as they sit alone. Does Briar turn her back in the mirror and look at the constellation of three freckles that dance from arm, to torso to underarm when she stands just so? Or does she see something else, is it the way one finger tilts inward? Does Avery tense her legs and watch the way her musculature flexes, snapping to attention and burning with a strength that has always belied her age? And Fin, does she ponder how with just the wrinkle of her nose or tilt of her head she can play each one of us?

These past months I’ve been growing increasingly aware of the shift in what we share. The echoes of my own childhood, whether I listen to them with the sentimental ears of an adult child or the yearning-for-knowledge searching of a mom on ever more unfamiliar terrain, I recognize they are my own. Clues about how I was parented or how I interpreted things as a kid—they are a part of where I come from and an important part of who I am, but they are not my daughters’ childhood.

If I listen, really listen, my girls don’t want what I had, they aren’t licking the wounds of what may have hurt me, they just want me. They will not point out the things that they wonder about in private, that is theirs, and for it to be truly theirs, I have to allow that everything about them is not mine to discover.

My scar today, as faint as it was then, still soft to my fingers and still completely without concrete explanation. It is a precious, potent memory of my mind then. It speaks to me of imagination and confidence. Looking up from my scar I think about my life with these amazing girls and I allow my imagination run with the whispers they will hear so many years from now as they think back to when they were little girls.

*This post was written in response to Momalom’s Five for Five topic: Listening.

It’s become clear that she loves it. These hours in her day are separate from life with her sisters. She is her own little person, not vying for the spotlight, not struggling to keep up or demanding to do it her way. My guilt slipped away as she so proudly boasted about what she’d done. “We went to Celia’s Table.” or “We walked down to the field and decorated the tree,” then she giggled and covered her mouth, “No one will ever know who was doing those decorations on the tree.” Some times she’ll talk to me about Betty.

“Betty and I were watching a show, but then we were just talking. Betty was letting me teach her signs and she was teaching them to me too.” Betty is not an imaginary friend, Betty is a dear family friend who moved into Nana’s house a few months ago. The signs are bits of sign language, a holdover from when Betty was a teacher. For as long as the girls have known her, Betty has just been the lady with the little finger. She is missing the tip of one finger and this little thing has enchanted and awed the girls since their first meeting.

Now, just like the finger, the girls recognize and talk openly about Betty’s oxygen, about Betty’s weakness and, about Betty dying.

“Mom, Betty is going to die.” Fin said one day.

“I know baby.” I whispered softly.

“Why do people have to die?” she watched me as she said it.

“Well, we get tired. It usually takes a long time. Betty has been living for a really, long time, more than 90 years. Her body is getting tired,” I said.

We rode in silence. She chatters on but this and that, gazes out the window and sings along to the song playing on the radio. I watch her in the rearview mirror, my mind flirts with fretting, with filling the silence, but I don’t. The rest of the night and the next day passes without more talk of Betty. Thursday as we pull out of the driveway she says, “Mama, will Betty still be here on Monday or will she be died?” I don’t know how to answer and my instinct to fix things, protect, shield, explain away sputters. She’s watching me.

“Well, honey, I don’t know.”

“But she’s going to die, just maybe not this time yet, right?” her little face is scrunched up and her head is tilted to the side as she tries to work it out in her mind.

“That’s right, but you know what?” I ask.

“What?” She asks sitting forward in her seat.

“Betty has had some special times with you. Coming to Nana’s has meant that Betty has gotten to watch you and to play with you.”

“And to teach me about signing,” she chirped.

“And to teach you about signing, yes. I think that this time has been very special for Betty. I don’t know when she will die, but I am so glad that we’ve been having this time to be with her. She loves you girls.” Tears pricked at my eyes.

“Yeah, we have lots of love with Betty.” She turned back to the window. Little girl and old soul dance. Her independence has come in these hours with Nana, and with it a deep compassion.

Today we stood in the room with Betty as she slept. Her breathing was labored and her skin quite dark. She looked tiny in the bed, her special finger tucked beneath the blankets. I wanted to wake her, wanted to hear her raspy voice and watch her face light up at Finley. I longed to hear her say, “Well, Amanda, you and Sean sure have done a fantastic job with these girls,” and then she’d shake her head, do a soft whistle and say, “Oh, boy, that’s right.” But she was still. Her face turned toward the wall and eyes tight. As I scooped Finley into my arms, I tenderly moved the oxygen tube away from the little rocker. I smiled as Finley moved a strand of hair from my face and said, “There, that was nice mom. It won’t be so hard for Betty to breathe when we go.”

I can’t control it.

I can only impact how I choose to deal with it, which doesn’t make it hurt or infuriate me any less, but there it is. Sean and I talked about what to do, or really, he gently moved to and fro sweeping away any responsibilities I might normally have and every so often saying in a gentle voice, “If you need a run, a walk or just some time, you tell me, ok?” I felt gratitude that neither showed in my eyes, nor traveled to my lips in any intelligible way. The enormity of my lack of authority in what will come rocked me, finally, the girls in the tub and Sean tending to the yard, I stopped.

I was halfway down the stairs and I just leaned back against the wall and slid until I was slumped in a defenseless heap on the landing. I looked out through our screen door and let my eyes blur somewhere between our trees and my fifteenth year. As the tears began to course down my face, cleansing the anger and hurt; I could hear the sounds of a baseball game being played 20+ years ago; words written five years ago hovered before me. Choices, opportunities and new paths all swirled as I let go of wishing I could change things. The girls laughter curled around me, their splashing and negotiating bringing me home. I resolved to be with them, present in yet another thing I cannot control, but can certainly participate in with everything I have.

Today, we did. We played. We imagined. We explored. We delighted. We slept. And they we got up and did it all again.

My heart is still achy, my ego is still tender, but I do know that I have so much to be grateful for and even the hurt that I have has spring from even more blessings.

This day that I was given and these people that I love and who love me back, they make me weep happier tears.

It’s also a sacrifice.

I find myself feeling like a sham at work and at home as I take this week that so many parents are spending with their kids, and I work. We started this business when my belly was just beginning to grow with Briar inside of me. Our family grew along with our business. I have spent late nights, endless weekends and white-knuckle days building this business, and then a second. I have also spent afternoons I might otherwise have missed, playing with my girls and enjoying swaths of sunlight. Even as I have cut back some time, I struggle with whether I work too much. I am needed here at work and I am making the most of my time. I also want to be here.

Monday the girls went shopping, Tuesday they went horseback riding. Wednesday they went bowling. Today they were planning Between each activity I have no doubt that I suppose I am not really needed, yet I struggle to shake the feeling that this isn’t just unloading my kids. They are having the time of their lives, all five of them. Yet a part of me feels furtive, waiting, tensed, for some sort of strike. A look? An aside? From strangers or the girls, I’m not even sure. My idea of succeeding as a mom is certainly different from theirs. I need to stop focusing so much on how I am doing compared to how I thought I would do or how I think people think I should do.

I try not to get in the middle of political disputes, but I think in the same way that the media has adopted a very voyeuristic and accusatory bent, people have become cruelly uncensored in their non-stop judging of one another and themselves. Our appetite to measure success and failure as well as the relentless comparison of one way of doing things to another, is bottomless. Except that I have hit bottom.

I don’t want to parent as if I am in a contest. I don’t want to rationalize what I do as if I am on trial. I cannot continue to second guess and falter because I worry that things might not be just right.

I want to parent remembering to be flexible and forgiving. And when I fail at the former, lean on the latter. I wish for all parents and all children this same license to live your life without worrying about the naysayers and the strength to not be one yourself.