To the Tree House

The Poppy family had an amazing weekend. To rip off my treasured Boz, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." It included multiple barf-in-the-car episodes, a family milestone, lots of drama and some real highs.

* I'll get the barfing out of the way first. X-Man is a champion barfer--the kid has great aim. Unfortunately, on Thursday, there was nothing to aim at but himself, the carseat and the car. We were driving to meet a friend so we could borrow a pack-n-play for the weekend away. He gave me a second of warning and then whoosh. A word of caution about the X-Man--he's a little trigger happy on the gag reflex. If he's the right combo of tired and phlegmy, he barfs. That's for your future reference.

The first time it happened on Thursday I pulled over and went into full haz-mat mode and thought (ah, pride goeth before a fall) "I am a pretty damn together Mommy. I'm working it out." After the fourth incident in less than 30 minutes, I was not feeling so hot on myself (or my kid or my car). But we finally got it all dealt with.

* Family Milestone: on Friday it all became official--The Mr., the kids, my parents and I stood before the judge and said "yes indeedy, Miss Z is our little gal forever." With her adoption finally finalized we proceeded to Il Fornaio to get foodie. How blessed we are to be the parents of our kids.

* And then--on some mistaken notion that I could manage with two children, away from home, on my own for more than a day, I had agreed to go to our church's parish weekend retreat here . There are various purposes to the weekend: fellowship with other parishioners, time spent in a really beautiful place, reflection, maybe some kind of transformative experience. And truthfully, I got all that plus lost two pounds in the process. And the kids had a blast.

There were some ferociously low moments. Those moments of feeling like the crummiest mom in the world (or at least in this group of people). Lunch on Saturday was particularly unpleasant, with the X-Man doing his best to push me over the edge--and succeeding. I had to send him off with the other families with children for the afternoon while Miss Z napped and I pulled myself back together. The sleep was not great for any of us, and that factored in. I wasn't able to stay in chapel on Sunday because I had Miss Z with me and she was way disruptive. I was embarrassed several times over the weekend by my apparent lack of control of my children--and of my own temper and internal emotional compass.

So that all sounds pretty crap, doesn't it? But you know what? It's wasn't. It was a really great weekend. This is probably going to sound really churchy, but every time I was struggling there was someone there to help me out. Pete and Lee with hot coffee when the kids were up too early. Leslie and Susan rocking Miss Z and singing their own greatest hits to her while I got X to bed. Serina and Lisa taking him off to play with Ella and the other kids. The fabulous Bolt family who let the X-Man try out their new metal detector (totally his thing) and sit at their table for lunch. Kristi telling me that she never would have left the house with her kids when they were this little. And on and on.

And somehow, being out of our usual environment, I was able to get a fresh perspective on my parenting without fully freaking out about it. I came home thinking "you know, what I'm doing is really, really not working. So I've got to try something else." And that's what I'm doing, and I like it a lot better than what I was doing before. I'm not sure it's the ultimate fix, but it's an improvement.

Tag on to all that the joy of watching Miss Z act as ring leader to a small toddler gang and charm the pants off all the grown ups. And seeing X in a pack of kids, hiking to the tree house, running up and down hills, playing fire fighter with an old hose, taking communion with this really special community of ours, TALKING, and having a blast. All that is just priceless. We'll be back for more next year.

Holy Week

As you may or may not know (depending on how religiously you follow my life here or IRL), last fall I started attending church with the kids. Miss Z actually stays in the church nursery where, big surprise, she's the belle of the ball and a clear favorite of one of the paid caregivers (who went so far as to say she would name a daughter Miss Z if she had one). I digress. The primary reason we started going to church is that The Mr. works almost every Sunday. I got tired of looking out the window at families out having fun together doing family things. Self-pity is never a pretty thing. Church seemed like a good solution--a place to go, purpose and design to the day.

Of course that wasn't the only reason. I also felt ready for religion, somehow. I was raised in a Baptist family by parents who had stopped attending church before I was born. My mother says she "feels closer to God in my garden" than at church. And there's a distinct possibility that my father turned into a non-believer somewhere along the way. So the spiritual guideposts of my childhood were something like EST called Iamathon (ponder the solipsism of that for a moment) and transcendental meditation (or TM).

The Mr., on the other hand, got enough religion for himself, me and a few friends--chapel at religious school daily, and a Catholic mass or two on Sundays.

So with almost zero church-going experience, I gave the whole thing a try in September and was really pleasantly surprised at how great it is. I think we got very lucky by choosing the closest Episcopalian church--it turned out to be a fantastic place. The rector is great--wonderful sermons. His wife leads the children's liturgy--which the X-Man really enjoys. The community is welcoming, not overbearing, but filled with really nice people. It just feels right.

Now, coming into this with almost no background, I'm not always sure what I'm doing. I figure these are muscles that haven't been worked before. In some spots I go through the motions and figure it will all sort itself out. And of course, X being who he is, he has lots of questions. I don't think I always do a good job answering them, but I give it the old college try. The evidence of his religious experience can be pretty interesting. I give you the following:

Scene--the bathtub, both kids getting bathed by ME (a job I find incredibly tedious and off-load onto The Mr. whenever I can).

Miss Z (with a pitcher of bath water): bwahahahaha (crazy new laugh she's developed) and a little splashy splashy.

X-Man: (filling an empty shampoo bottle and pouring it into Miss Z's pitcher) The body of mice, the blood of mice.