huckleberries

there is so much circling around in my head, but i don't have the appropriate words or mental capacity to get them in writing.  my mood ( attitude?) changes from second to second.  no big news here, but...school is looming.  i have two weeks left with stimson until he starts school.  i am sad, excited, sentimental, tired, hopeful, and anxious.  wondering, fretting, dreaming, questioning, and anticipating.  it feels like such a big step.  it seems so different this year because  he is going out in the big world.  he is starting his academic career.  he is going to be exposed to snacks that comes in boxes, cartoon characters, and mean kids.  and i know the day is coming where i will not be his best friend anymore.  merritt will miss having stimson around, although i am hopeful there will be less squawking during the day.  i can't say i will miss the frequent antagonizing, but i will miss many other things.  i will miss my helper, my salad eater, my chore buddy, my translator, my story reader, and my question man.  (today: mom... do ants make any noise at all?)

it is difficult and wonderful watching stimson grow up.  some things seem like they came so suddenly.  he goes in public bathrooms by himself, he is asking when he can drive, he wants to pay for things himself,
he takes care of merritt, he uses superlatives to describe everything, he can go on an airplane by himself.  still waiting on other things: not crying like he is on the verge of death every time he gets a scrape, tall enough to wash dishes, watching his sister so we can leave the house and moving on from curious george (for the life of me, i cannot understand why the man with the yellow hat is constantly leaving).

but there is a part of me that cannot wait for school to start.  my patience ran out mid-july.  my ambition ran out shortly after, and my sleep deprivation is hitting record highs.  i am tired.  i am tired of trying wishing i could get stuff done during the day.  and then doing that stuff in the evenings instead.  i am ready to have more time to work, time to breathe, time to think. i am hopeful this will happen some day.  even if it is decades from now.  i need groceries, but i need to clean the fridge before i fill it up.  and i need to make a grocery list.  i need to think about what to make before i can make a grocery list.   i need to look through recipes before i know what to make.  and i want to invite someone over to eat but i need to look at recipes so i can think about what to make so i can make a list and clean my fridge and go to the grocery store.  all of this takes minutes and i have only seconds.

in all the hectic-ness of summer, there have been many enjoyable moments.  this week i took the kids huckleberry hunting.  we headed up a trail with merritt leading the way.  at one year old, she is a fierce little hiker.  (for about ten minutes)  we searched for huckleberries and merritt kept asking about the orange berries.  it is hard to explain to a one-year old why some berries are delicious and some are destructive.  we made little progress on the trail or in our huckleberry buckets. but there were lots of rocks and sticks along the way.  normally we have a pretty lofty agenda when we are hiking concerning how far and how long we will be hiking.  but i didn't have any plan for miles today.  we climbed rocks, poked sticks in the dirt and balanced on logs.  it was nothing at all as far and hiking and huckleberries are concerned, but it was wonderful and memorable in all other respects.  we turned around at no particular place at all and headed back to the car with no rushing at all, which was really nice and really weird. (have you seen the article from the huffington post about the mom who decided to quit hurrying?  is she going to come back to earth anytime soon???)  five paces minutes from the start of the trail we found one beautiful huckleberry.  success!

there was a river near the start of the hike and we played in the water there for a long time.  peaceful.  i couldn't exactly say why this hike was so enjoyable for all of us.  and then i realized why: my phone had no reception and i had left it in the car and there were no people around to look at.  it is so funny and frustrating to me how distracting those two things are.  i don't even realize it until they are absent.  when we are back in the real world it is almost impossible to just focus on your kids and not be concerned with other people coming and going all around us.  i have tried and tried.  but it is just not happening.  there were very few people on the trail and i didn't know them anyway.  oh such freedom.

on our way back, my phone came back to life.  beep, beep, ring, beep, blood pressure escalating.  trying to balance work and play and kids and meals and house and yard and garden and friends and husbands and birthday presents and dirt is just too much sometimes.  my phone is a huge time-saver and the bane of my existence.  goodbye huckleberry and river and hello emails and texts.  here we go. two more weeks...