I AM interested in sports...culture.

5 Minutes:
When it comes to breeding sports fans, my parents have a strong batting average: 0.666. It'd be even higher if you got bonus points for creating a kid who ends up majoring in sports management and another who has several close friends on the payroll of a professional baseball team. My siblings are sports fanatics. I, on the other hand, am finding my way to sporting events mostly to be a good mom. So far, both of my kids enjoy playing sports; one REALLY seems into watching, too.

I don't dislike sports or sporting events, but I'm more interested in the people playing them—and also those watching. This afternoon, here are some of the thoughts that ran through my head as I sat in the stands of Centennial Field watching a game between the Vermont Lake Monsters and the Connecticut Tigers:

• I wonder if hearing Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" whenever he walks makes the Bennie guy (Joe Bennie, of the Lake Monsters) hate—or love—his name?
• Look at them doing those calisthenics down there—I wonder if the team exercises together all the time. Who leads them through those moves?
• That player from Santa Cruz (I forget which team): Growing up, was he all about "keeping it weird"?
• I wonder if the Lake Monsters have a marketing person who writes bios about all the players'  favorite foods and such. 
• That would be fun. 
• I think I remember a piece in The New Yorker about the marketing person for the Mets doing this. And people finding that fluffy and strange. Maybe I'm making that up. 
• Still, that would be a fun job. 
• I can't believe that Olin has never noticed that I put ketchup—not mustard and relish—on my hotdogs. In the FIFTEEN years we've been together. 
• Mustard and relish on a dog taste good.
• I think I would have made a great mascot. Dancing and acting without having to talk or sing. How awesome would that be?
• How often do seagulls often get hit with baseballs? 

This went on and on... Then we came home and watched a bit of the World Cup. My inquiring mind continued:

• Why is our goalie dressed like a banana?
• Does that yellow mean something?
• Why is their goalie wearing green?
• I'm confused. 
• I wonder if that big beard makes our goalie hot. Like warm, not attractive. But he is quite attractive. I wonder what he'd look like without that beard.  

My stream of consciousness represents one who is totally uninformed about soccer. But the comment of one of my kids suggests that we're not doing a great job of informing them about world goings-on (or perhaps they're watching too much Chima). Upon learning that Portugal's goal meant that we had not won, he said, "That's REALLY bad."

"No, it's OK. It's really disappointing, but that's how these things go," I told him.

"But wasn't this the war to see if we keep our country?"

Um... no. But wouldn't that be such a better way? 

5 Snaps: 

5/5 Creative Challenge: Day 3

It's my Day Three of The 5/5 Creative Challenge. I'm on a streak. (And totally digging new posts by 5x5-ing friends: Amanda... Hilary. Who's next? Angela? Sarah? Another evolved "by 5" from Anna? My day today felt fleeting and fast in so many ways.

5 Snapshots: 

5 Minutes:

The hum of the dishwasher is both domestic and calm—a contradiction 'round these parts. Today, I edited a story that suggested a white noise machine in the bedroom for better rest, and also recommended stroking your man's hand or doing an activity he really likes, like watching sports, because it will make him feel good and therefore improve your relationship. I cut that part out. 

Both boys are in a flow. Jules is making a end-of-year card for his bus driver. "What comes after the 's' in vacation?"  Uhh....

What does a 16 look like? Kai talks over Jules, who gets frustrated and talks louder. "Mummmyyyy... what's next?" 

"Well, there's actually no S; a T sounds like SH," I tell him, damning the idiosyncratic spellings of the English language when his face starts to crumple. He recovers. Turns out he hadn't even gotten anything down on paper yet. Phew. "So an H comes after the T?" 

"What. Does. A. Six. Teen. Look. Like.??"

I silently draw the figures of a 1 and a 6 on the sheet in front of Kai. Satisfied, he starts to copy them, neatly but backwards. Lately, though, he's had a burst of interest and skill when it comes to scribing. It's cool. 

I spell out the rest of vacation for Jules, recognizing that a tiny mistake could throw him over the edge. He writes it all down and then proceeds to write, on his own, after "I will miss you on summer vacation," "But I will still see you." I am not so sure about that. But I don't say it. I'm trying to check my tendency of squashing magical thinking. In fact, I'm trying to do more magical thinking myself. 

Tap, tap, tap. It's Kai's pen bouncing impatiently on my shoulder. "Now what, Mama?"

My head is spinning. It's all so fast. By the time I react, they're on to the next thing. 

There's a momentum to mastery.

He comes in to J's room, from his own, wailing: "I waaaaant a piece of paper. I want to write."

"No. It's bedtime. Either go back to your room, or climb up there. I point to the top bunk.

"Well Julian has papers."

"He does. But we're reading them. Do you want to listen to Julian read equations?" I choose my words carefully, picking a sarcastic string, for the benefit of Olin, who has come in to retrieve Kai.

"whhAhhh...." Kai sorts of fake cries. Jon walks out of the room, half smiling. Jules, who is reclining with his head on my sideways knees, turns toward Kai and generously offers: "Do you want to hear math? It's so fun."  Julian has been reciting every character of every worksheet he completed in kindergarten this week (and then stapled together into a "book"). He seems to find this book enthralling. Kai, not interested, climbs up to the top bunk. His whining eventually settles into the sound of thumb-sucking.

"5 + 5 = 10. 10 + 0 = 10."

Seven or eight pages in and Julian is still immersed in this book. I, on the other hand, am immersed in his face—and its sweet, focused expression. It's a mix of curiosity and confidence, pride and passion. It strikes me that if we held all of our conversations face-to-face and truly observed others when they were speaking, we might be that much more empathetic and engaged and interested. I think about how much I distract myself with my phone, text when I should call, call when I should meet. I make a note to remember this.

Lately, the pace of Julian's mastering new milestones is sort of blowing me away: riding on two wheels; starting to swim underwater; beginning to read; hitting line drives—and not off a tee. Every time, it seems that one day something just starts to click and—BOOM—he's got it.

Kai too. Until just recently, he had no interest in writing his name. Then, Friday night, he came home from a BBQ with Jon and Jules, obsessed with writing "K's." It was 9:30 pm—but he was insistent and getting him into bed seemed like a losing battle so I just let him go. He did a bunch. And then drew some a's and i's—an a random-yet-artful pattern. He decorated an entire envelope full of "his letters." (The envelope was a card for Maria's baby shower—which made it that much sweeter.) He was so proud.

I have a theory: Summer is accelerating this milestone crushing: the bike riding, the swimming, the line-driving. Our fair weather is so fleeting here  in VT that you have to jam as much stuff as you can into the short season. And then, when you're in the practice of mastering, you just keep moving. You make letters. You calculate equations. You persevere at sounding it out. Yes, I think that must be it. Momentum.

What do you think?

Six is sweet.

"I'll just stick with fruit tonight." 

"You don't want any of your birthday cake?"

Granted, the cake was an oddly shaped remnant of a chocolate volcano leftover from yesterday's party, impaled with a blue candle that Jules had just extinguished and a icing smeared "flame" that, in its prime, flared from the top of the volcano.

"Nah... I ate too many sweets yesterday. It wouldn't be good for my tummy." 

And with that, he headed into the other end of the room and started paging through the instructions of his new Hobbit Lego set, the one designed for 9-13-year-olds. Skipping the fruit all together. He zoned into his building, while the rest of us dug into messy, second-day sweets.

"Do you think he's sick?" I ask Jon. I'm not kidding. Earlier in the evening, when Kai—newly four and newly obstinate—had whined and banged and yelled that HE wanted to help excavate the triceratops from Julian's new dinosaur dig set, Jules invitingly offered, "sure, I think I need some help brushing right here." He'd sounded more like a parent—or a patient preschool teacher—than a big brother. Minutes later, when Kai tossed the tiny Ikea table to the floor, sending the plastic (or clay) ball flying across the room (in a crazy-angry-entitled way that made me think of Leonardo DiCaprio in Celebrity) Jules calmly looked at me and said, "did you see what he did?"

I did not remain calm. I raised my voice into an almost-yell and I told Kai... well, I told him that he could not have any cake later. (Which turned out to be a total lie. But this blog post is not about my bad, weak, parenting choices; it's about Jules—and the maturity he's seemed to have developed overnight—so never mind.)

Fast-forward past the dinosaur-dig-ransack, past dinner and no-cake, past the Lego-making and the showers. Now Jules decides that he would, indeed, like some birthday cake—a bit of chocolate and a bit of vanilla. "Tiny, tiny," he says, like a 40-year-old woman. I serve it up, set it on the table and sit across from him. With my phone. Because I'm going to interview him. On his 6th birthday. Because that's what a whole bunch of posts on Pinterest suggest that a good parent should do. And conducting interviews is something in my wheelhouse, unlike most other things suggested on Pinterest. 

"Can I interview you?"

"No." 

"Why?"

"Because it's annoying." And so it begins... But he doesn't actually sound annoyed—just honest, and mostly kind. And so I keep going.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"A dinosaur digger," he tells me.

"A paleontologist?"

"Yes." 

"You don't want to be a cake maker?" It's my attempt at a lame joke because I can't think of a next question. And because I'm looking at him eating cake.

"Mom. That's called a baker." 

"Ahh... yes."

"What do you want to be when you grow up, Mom?"

"Um, a mom?"

"No, what do you want to BE?"

I tell him that a mom is most definitely a thing to be, all by itself, but that I guess I could also say a writer. He likes that answer. So then I go on to tell him that this is what writers do—or what some writers, the ones who are also called journalists, do. They interview people. 

"What if you don't want to be interviewed?" he asks.

"Well you just decline. You say, no thank you."

Julian nods and continues to savor his cake, silently, while watch him—so big and so little and, to me, so beautiful—silently. Olin comes around the corner. "Julian just declined an interview," I tell him. "Oh, I always decline her interviews," Jon tells him, laughing. 

"Well some people find my interviews charming." I say this feigning that I am offended—and am pleased that Jules picks up on this nuance. He knows I'm kidding. As for the charming part, I'm not actually sure this is true. 

"What's 'charming'?"

I love that he asks when he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Every time. 

"It means nice... fun." I'm not actually even sure if this is the most accurate definition. 

"Oh, I think they're fun. But sometimes I just don't feel like talking, Mom."

Well played, Jules. Well played. You're growing into a pretty cool little-big dude, my boy. 

They can't wait to be bigger... and bigger... and bigger.

"Mama!"

Kai yells to me from upstairs, from the top bunk. It's 9:30, long past the time he should have gone to sleep. I rush up, not-so-secretly thrilled that he's summoning me. I've observed that boys in this house—at age three—tend not to prefer me. They want Olin. All the time. The first time around, the rejection was unbearable. Physically painful. But after seeing Jules circle back to me in the last year, I'm handling the Mama-disses better. Taking them (slightly) less personally. Still, when Kai calls for me, there is a joy-surge. No matter the time. Even if it's because he's peed the bed. But that wasn't the case tonight.

Turns out, Kai called me up to tell me that he's going to be four. On his birthday—which is this Friday, May 2. Blows my mind. (Cliche.) I want to freeze time. (Super cliche). In part because when I snuggle in close with him like I did tonight, he wiggles his little chicken-wing shoulders in an exaggerated show of contentment. In part because he tells me—slurring, thanks to the left thumb he sleepily still sucks: "You're the best mamma in the whole, wide world."

But mostly because he says funny shit all the time. Like today in the car when I ask what he wanted for his special birthday dinner and he answered, "Broccoli. And water. And cauliflower." This from the kid who loves dessert. And starchy carbs. And, well, it's true: vegetables and water.

Or like yesterday, when I returned home from a friend's baby shower, and he greeted me at the door.

"Mama, you're not wet."
"Huh?"
"What?" 

"You said you were taking a baby shower."

OMG. It's the stuff you read on the back pages of parenting magazines—but even funnier, live in the moment.

Jules, who will be six on Monday, has been cracking my shit up lately too. I'd almost go so far as to call his comebacks witty. (Six-year-old "witty.") And eavesdropping on his conversations with Kai are the BEST. Tonight in the tub:

"Kai." [He's very bossy. Read all of the punctuation properly to understand his delivery.]
"KAI. You can't drink the bath water."
[Kai says nothing.]
"KAI. You've been sitting in it. With your butt. [pause] Crack. [pause] That's where poop comes out. [pause] So don't drink that water." 

Perhaps I shouldn't admit it in the context of that just-shared convo, but I totally want these days to keep repeating again and again forever and forever (cliche, cliche, cliche). Do all parents approach every birthday with feelings of bittersweet that parallel the kids' party-pinata-and-cake excitement? And do all kids just "want to get bigger and bigger and bigger"—as Kai told me was his wish, as I nostalgically tucked him in tonight?

I'm gonna guess yes.

Take them to the grocery store, just don't call it an efficient shopping trip.

Here's what my list reads: avocados, snap peas, clementines, tomatoes, strawberries, ground turkey, milk, cheese, almond milk, almonds, coffee, mac 'n cheese, canned peaches, granola bars

Here's what my receipt shows: Smart Puffs, fifteen bucks' worth of granola bars (3 boxes), Sea Salt Talenti gelato, frozen broccoli, cheese, almond milk, a Cucina Antica frozen pizza (for another night like this), whole-wheat English muffins, a green Camel-Bak water bottle, a $5.95 magazine that I bought because it had MC Yogi on the cover, a discount for remembering my bags, a $2 donation to the Humane Society.

Why the discrepency? These two:

It's been a hectic week so I told myself that was I going to take the easy way out tonight—by heading to Healthy Living for a healthy dinner, bribing the kids with the promise of some ice cream as a take-home treat (see above: Talenti) and then doing a short bit of efficient grocery shopping with two gratefully obedient helpers. This is actually how I explained the plan to a friend, who'd suggested that the three of us join her and her son (the boys' good pal) in grabbing a bite for dinner. 

How soon we forget. What happened was this*: 

5:58 pm: Arrive at store

5:58 - 6:02 pm: Cart shuffling and shouting about who will push the cart; we grab two carts

6:02 - 6:04 pm: Two small boys push two mini carts in two different directions, both of which include glass bottles

6:04 pm: One cart is returned (as close to the "do not enter" [from this way] automatic doors as possible); sorry to whoever had to actually return it... but, trust me, the alternative would have been worse

6:05 - 6:09 pm: I chat with an old friend in the gadget aisle; Kai becomes obsessed with a green Camel-bak water bottle

6:10 pm: Too weak to deal with an all-out tantrum, I tell Kai he can carry the water bottle through the store

6:11 - 6:15 pm: Bathroom break #1 (chronologically and otherwise)

6:15 - 6:20 pm: Select dinner - chicken and rice, carrots and corn + fruit salad for the boys; tofu, kale and roasted beets/turnips for me. 

6:20 - 6:35 pm: Pay for and eat dinner (Jules and Nicci)

6:35 - 6:50 pm: Nicci and Jules play number-guessing games while watching Kai finish his dinner, more slowly than anyone has ever eaten 7 grains of rice before

6:50 - 6:55 pm: Bakery selections made (both include chocolate + peanut butter)

6:55 pm - 7:00 pm: Jules finishes half of his Magic Bar; bags the second half to save for dad

7:00 pm - 7:15 pm: Kai licks layers of peanut butter and chocolate icing, then continues to smash and smear chocolate cupcake all over his face, the table and the chair

7:15 - 7:20 pm: Clean up! Compost, recycle, trash review. 

7:20 - 7:30 pm: Bathroom break #2 (chronologically and otherwise). Over the stall door, Kai yells, "I love you, Mom!" no fewer than four times. 

7:30 - 7:42 pm: Haphazard and hurried shopping, with me saying yes to 40% of items proposed, 99% of which are unnecessary. 

7:42 - 7:45 pm: Checkout. I pay for all items, including the surprises (the green water bottle I thought we'd put back, the extra two boxes of granola bars) and yoga mag I tossed in the bag as a relaxing reward for not losing my shit while shopping. We donate $2 to the Humane Society after Julian shuffles the lot of cards with cute cats on them. 

En route home, Jules says, "what a fun adventure!" Kai agrees: "Yeah, that was an adVENTURE! And we must almost be to Grandma's house because it feels like a long trip. It's mostly dark outside."

Yup.  

*All times approximate

Living in the future is sometimes a matter of survival.

Most of this cold, windy and rainy weekend, we spent trying not to kill each other—literally exerting great effort to not bark or yell (often unsuccessfully), push, shove, kick or kinesphere-invade (often unsuccessfully). Yesterday, I did a long muddy run (with three fantastic women). Jon and Kai did a T25 workout. Jules wrote a book about it—and, by that, I mean, yes, he recorded the details of Jon and Kai's exercise session in his field "diary."  In which all notes are spelled phonetically. (It's pretty awesome.) Both boys escaped out a birthday party sidedoor. It was not cool—but I get it: they had anxious energy to burn. They were quickly captured. Shortly after, both boys fit in some training runs for the Yam Scram—through the aisles of Gardener's Supply. The employees were very kind. We quickly rounded up the track team, paid for our purchases and left for home. Where we forced the boys to do jumping jacks and lift weights.

Olin's shirt fashion credit: Valerie Kiser Design

This morning, the boys swam at their lesson with Annie. Then, with two friends, they did some more Yam Scram training sprints, down the long hallway of the office building that houses the pool (and my office). Screaming like wild men. Straight past the yoga studio where a Kundalini class was just beginning. They were ushered home. Where they prompted began a game of evading kinesphere-invasions. A game that involves much tattling and crying. One kid was directed to the basement for a private yoga session. Then Jon did a T25 workout. Or maybe two. Then everyone geared up in snow gear and headed out for a sleet hike. (Yes, it was sleeting.) We spent almost an hour striding through slush and ice (me, in slippery rainboots) in an attempt to—I'll say it again—not kill each other. One kid, one adult and one dog loved this. One kid and one adult did not. The not-liking-hiking kid cried—understandably, because his boots and socks were soaked through. The liking-hiking adult carried him piggy-back for the rest of the hike. The liking-hiking kid asked the not-liking-hiking adult for a piggy-back ride, too, because "IT'S NOT FAIR" for only the soaking, sobbing kid to get carried. She obliged, in her slick and slippery rain boots, gingerly stepping over slush and ice and snow, miraculously not biting the mud.

Upon arriving home, cocoa was serving and the formerly crying kid soaked in a lavender-scented jet tub, which turned his attitude right around. For 15 minutes. The not-liking-hiking adult was instructed to go to yoga—at the same studio the shrieking kids sprinted past earlier in the morning. She gratefully obliged, as there was much swirling energy to be tamed.

In other news, we got a bunch of seeds and a new grow light. We are so excited that it's March 30. Officially spring!

He wasted all of his money.

I scan the tables where kids are painting swirls of pink, white and red, looking for his dirty-blonde head and colorful plaid shirt (which he's actually not wearing). He's not there—nor is he on the floor playing cards. Then I see him, huddled, head-down, with four little buddies. They whisper as I approach, and he quietly gets up, tucking a big book under his arm. He walks over and pushes the tome toward me.

"Look what I got." He pauses, looking proud and slightly tentative. "It was 19 dollars."

 It is Lego Minifigures: Character Encyclopedia. Which is, essentially, a glorified 203-page hardcover catalogue. Which, apparently, purchased on Amazon, costs $10.55.

"Wow," I say. "So that's what you decided to get?" 

After much discussion about the school book fair, Jon and I had somehow come to the decision that we would let him spend the $20 he had saved on whatever books he wanted. Initially, I'd preferred that one of us supervise his purchases at the fair on Thursday night—but we talked it through and decided that we'd go ahead and let him take his money and make the buy during his class "field trip" to the fair (a class activity that I think is crazy) today. The deal was this: First, Jules had to do some comparison shopping with me online last night. He agreed to this happily and we took the list of 8 books (6 of them came with toys) that he'd made when he'd visited the fair with his class the day before (!!!). We looked at them one by one—evaluating the pros and cons of each, and he actually crossed off 6 books, leaving only the two most expensive choices: both came with toys; one was the book he actually purchased.

"Yes!!!" He is so excited he's shouting (louder than normal). "I wasted all of my money on this one book!"

Not quite grasping the nuances of similar words is one of my favorite traits of five-year-olds. Clearly he meant that he "spent" all of his money on his choice, and I quickly explain the difference. Which he appreciates. "Oh, yes, spent!" He laughs heartily at his mistake as if we're old friends. He's in a spectacular mood. Even more so when he pulls out his backpack to show me the other prizes he "got" (read: bought)—erasers in various shapes—after finding another $1.25 in his wallet. Ironically, one is in the form of a miniature $50 bill.

Our evening centers solidly around his purchase: while I make black-bean quesadillas and cut strawberries, he assembles the toy soldier that came with the guide and lets Kai play with the koala and lion prizes (which might be erasers or might not, I realize upon closer inspection). After a shower, he flips through the pages, "reading" about the characters to Kai. He requests that we read this story—which is not at all a story—before bed. Kai's into it too. And so we do: covering ho-hum characters like Cheerleader girl and Skater boy but also discovering Tribal Hunter, an intriguing shy-guy who apparently has a talent for finding lost objects and an obsession with dancing when nobody's looking. As the "story" goes, he's got mad moves. This guy, I'd like to meet.

When it's time for bed, Jules carefully places his new bible on the shelf next to his scrolling animal nightlight and crawls under his covers, patting down a place for me. The moment I lay down my head next to his, he asks earnestly, in a whisper: "Do you think my book was a good choice?"

I deflect the question: "Do you?"

"Yes," he says confidently.

"Me too," I whisper back. And I'm not even totally lying.

My kid is into gamification.

"Maybe we can use these for training."
Huh? I'm unloading the dishwasher and have no idea what Jules is talking about. When I swing around to face him, I see that he's waving a plastic tube of mini M&Ms branded with a Valentine's Day theme. They arrived the other day—in a big brown box, along with chocolate mustaches, superhero shirts and various marginally healthy snacks, all from Aunt Kate. The most thoughtful aunt/sister/friend ever. (Seriously. It's sort of insane.)

"What do you mean, Jules?"
To me, training means preparing to run a 1/2 marathon or, after a long meeting yesterday, using an iPad to teach salespeople about a product. I don't think he means either of these things. Maybe he means potty training? Right or wrong, we used to reward BMs with M&Ms, I'll admit it. But there's no one here to train. Except perhaps the cat (is it Olive or Tina?) who periodically shits on the floor seemingly out of spite

"I mean you do an exercise and you get a candy. And then you get up to Level 10 and then Level 13. You can skip around."

My first thought: What a gamified world we live in. This kid is five. My second: Shit. Has he heard me say something mildly disordered about eating—like I don't get to have dessert, or wine, if I don't run? I try hard not to stay stuff like that. Did it slip?

Turns out, I did not. Or if I did, it doesn't seem to have made a big impression, because when I probe further about the origin of his idea, asking "did you play a game like this in gym class?" he tells me this:

"No, it's just my idea. I made it up after I saw the seals getting food for doing special tricks." [Note: His kindergarten class is in the middle of a Sea Creatures unit.] "So I thought we could do gymnastics and get these M&Ms. Use them for training. Is that a good idea?"

Sure, dude. I'm always up for a handstand contest. Game on.

I've got a new mantra.

It all started with a bit of crooked cutting. His goal was to follow the perfectly framed edge of the catfish photo but his scissored slipped, the edge frayed and he flipped out. "I messed up! I can't do this. Mommy, you do it."

"I can't do your homework, Jules. And it doesn't have to be perfect," I told him calmly, offering the very advice I so often can't seem to accept myself. "Plus, we're making a collage [with Mod Podge - and I could barely contain my excitement]. Sometimes it actually looks cooler if the pictures don't all have straight edges."

That he wasn't buying. Jules is a guy with an affinity for angles, straight lines and squares, just like his dad. Maybe it's those engineer genes. But he calmed down and settled back into striving for straight lines. Which went mostly almost perfectly. Lucky for us.

Then he started writing the words. The task was to capture two facts about electric eels and he was pleased by those he picked: 1) an electric eel is not really an eel—it's a fish, and related to a catfish; and 2) an electric eel can put out enough voltage to light up a Christmas tree. Fascinating really. But that "r" starting off "related" somehow made its way to the paper facing the wrong way, the mirror image of a right-facing R. He screamed and threw the crayon. "It's a stupid R. I hate this." Two short sentences containing two words that are off-limits at our house. (Those who know how I speak in the company of adults might find this amusing but I'm pretty strict on this point.)

I showed him another superb benefit of collages: You can just cut off that part. If you want, you can cut all the words apart and glue them down separately. And sometimes that's just the right art effect you're going for. He bought it. We kept going. To great success. From his determined expression, and the chatter-box commentary that accompanied the sketching of Christmas tree clearly illuminated with lots of eel-powered voltage, I could tell he was  proud. And I felt proud, too: I hadn't intervened with his vision, hadn't reached more than once for the sponge-brush to help him smooth the Mod Podge, hadn't pushed him to paint the white parts of his poster with watercolors as I'd envisioned, hadn't suggested, a second time, that he might want to find one more fact—because Ms. E had assigned them to report on "two or three" things.

Pushing "perfect" (unattainable, of course) might be the number-one thing I want to avoid as a parent. Of course, I want to encourage the boys to reach—within reason. But I also want them to feel that they that they can create, or conceptualize something, and feel confident enough to share it with someone else, or lots of someone elses, before they feel like that something is fully figured out. That's how you learn, that's how you grow. That's how you get awesome. And have fun.

But I struggle with insecurity of sharing semi-shaped stuff. A lot. I spent more than a dozen years in a world where things are supposed to be edited to perfection before they leave your desk. Now, I work in a role where things have to be iterative. It's empowering. It's liberating. History aside, it's the way I actually prefer to work: with creative input from all sorts of smart collaborators. But I often need to be reminded to let go. To route what I've got right now. And, on that front, I appreciate the encouragement, the coaching.

Today, I told this to my boss when he told me not to overthink part of a project. "Often, I totally need that reminder and love that you help me with that," I'd said. "But not this time. You'd be proud of me. I'm really keeping things moving, even if it feels like I'm just throwing shit on the walls." He loved that. Truly. He even stopped by my office later to suggest a "Throw Shit" sign for my wall.

I'm thinking about it.

I have an interesting way of evaluating risk.

Newsflash—You shouldn't give this to your kid:

The glass. (Seriously? C'mon now.)

YOU go ahead and drink your wine out of a Ball jar (wine enthusiast friends: you might feel a little better to know what's in there is Three Buck Chuck). And you go ahead and use that photo-ready, budget-friendly juice jar to pack your yogurt parfait or that perfect portion of oats to make at work (both brilliant ideas of friends). Or screw on a Cuppow! and call it a trendy vessel for your green smoothie or iced latte. Bake preciously presented sweets in your Ball jars. But don't hand them to your 3 or 5-year-old who suffers restless leg-and-arm-and-hell-it's-the-whole-body syndrome. 

The first time I become aware of the dangers of Ball jars was via email—a note from Julian's teacher informing me that the 4 oz. glass jar in which I'd sent grapes, possibly even halved so he wouldn't choke (the ridiculous irony - he's FIVE), had broken. Jules was devastated because he thought I'd be mad. She'd sent the note so I'd make sure he knew I wasn't upset with him (man, I'd better lighten up if this is what he thinks). Really, what I think she'd really meant to say was this: "What the f*ck is wrong with you, sending glass jars in backpacks with a kindergartener?" But she's a super-nice person so she sent what she sent. With a smiley face—to make me feel better. Thing is, the dangers of glass shards hadn't even occurred to me. I've produced two magazine features on how BPA kills (or something like that) and, thus, have a complicated relationship with plastic. I shared this story with a (kidless but apparently far more sensible) colleague who nodded knowingly and, a few days, later handed me some stainless-steel canisters. (Thanks again, B!)

You'd think I would have learned from this lesson. But no. I've continued to give my children beverages in Ball jars, "tightly supervised," of course. So when Kai carried his water cup (glass Ball jar) with him from the table to the bathroom to brush his teeth last night, I thought nothing of it. When he set it on the back of the toilet so he could stand on the seat to look in the mirror while he brushed, I thought "gross." And when got into a tiff with Jules over who got to squeeze the toothpaste first and swept the glass to the floor with a flailing limb, I was all "oh SHIT" (silently and for that I give myself much credit) and whisked them both out of the room so I could clean up the scattered, shattered glass. I did a thorough job, I thought, with wet paper towels and all. I meant to go back to double vacuum after bedtime. I forgot.

Tonight, Kai, refusing to be corralled for bed, ran into the bathroom and wedged himself between the toilet and the wall (again... gross!)—then pulled out a bloody foot. Slashed, with a shard. We bandaged him up and he seems to be just fine. I'm a tad traumatized. Guilt-ridden.

So if you see my kids in the next few weeks, or months, or years, out, sitting at a fancy table sipping from stainless-steel water bottles, eating their halved grapes, you'll know what's going on: I'm overcompensating. 

They care.

It started as I would expect Halloween eve to start: I encouraged bites of burritoes and broccoli while Jon rushed around setting up the candy station for the trick or trickers and looking for the various glow devices grandparents had gifted for the occasion. When we finally located the luminescent accessories in a random drawer with dish towels, placed there "so I wouldn't lose them," we cut our losses and hit the road.


Jules was dressed in the awesome werewolf costume my mom designed for him but refused face paint. "I look cuter this way—not scary—so I'll get more candy." Kai had already dissed his werewolf on his way out the door this morning.

*** 

"I want to be Wolverine," Kai had pouted, tossing the furry hat to the floor. 
"Werewolves have big claws too," I reasoned.
"NO!" 
Knowing how important it is for three-year-olds to be dressed like all of the other superhero three-year-olds at school, I quickly located the Batman costume. In the laundry room. Soiled with something that I hope to be chocolate (good chance: it was on the chest). Batman's cape/mask was missing but I managed to find some Spiderman headwear.  Kai was thrilled. Success. 

It was windy and rainy. I missed our old hood: Ri stopping by to see the boys, the sidewalks, the streetlights, the Jastatts. But the boys' excitement was contagious. They wanted candy—loads and loads of it. I'd expected this. What I didn't expect was everything else. 

Jules would charge up to each new door and shout: "Trick or Treat for Unicef!" and push the tiny cardboard collection box out for quarters, often before taking a piece of candy.

And Kai... Kai was just taking in the night. I'm pretty sure that strolling the (dark, dark) streets with Kai, aged 3 1/2, will remain in my top ten cherished-moments memories of our "young family" days.

About halfway through our trick-or-tricking, we caught up with some friends. Jules would run with the pack up to a door and I'd hang back with Kai, who continued to mosey along at his own pace. As the other kids were already racing up to the next house, he'd climb the stairs of the one everyone else had just left, carefully keeping his balance as he clutched his plastic pumpkin in one hand and glow sword with the other. 

When the door swung open, he'd shout "trick or treat!" and leisurely select a piece of candy. Often he would drop his glow-sword and his bucket to grasp the new treat with both hands and make a very theatrical (but sincere) show of smelling it. "It's peach," he told one neighbor, of the lollipop he'd plucked from her bowl. At another house, he told a Skittles-proffering woman that he "LOVED SKITTLES" and he'd already gotten some... and started digging around to find it as evidence. "But I like to have two." At the next home, he insisted on showing the man giving him a Reese's Cup a box of candy he'd received it because "the superhero on the box turns into a rock." At every stop, he made sure to wish everyone a "Happy Halloween," sometimes following that up with a "and have a good night." He took plenty of time to admire the Halloween decorations. Each and every one. 

And as we rounded the corner for home, Kai slipped his tiny hand into mine and whispered, "those last candies - there's two in there - I saw the picture on the box. One for you and one for me." My heart exploded. 

Back at the ranch (converted into a contemporary home with no categorical style), 5-year-old Jules engaged in the expected candy counting. Moving at a productive pace, he'd managed to accumulate more than twice the loot of his younger brother but was acting relatively generous about it all. On a quick FaceTime with my parents he even promised save some candy to share with them when we visit at Thanksgiving. But Jules' tear-jerker moment came later, when I was hounding him to brush his teeth "after all that candy." (Cliche parent, I have become.)

The kid was sitting at the table shoving coins and dollars from his little wallet into the Unicef box. Jon joined us at the table and Jules asked him, and then me, for more dollars. Carefully folding a five-dollar bill into the slot, Julian explained: 

"We need to get lots of money so we can help people. Look at the things we can get for them with this money..." He pointed to the illustrations on back of the box. "You can get fruit bars." (Protein bars.) "Or soccer balls. And they die early. So you can survive them if you get them shots. But I want to get all the way to the water. They have to walk REALLY far to get water." His eyes were wide. His face was flushed. "They have to walk as far as it is to get to my school," he said. "And when they get there it is MUD. They drink mud. I want to get them clean water." 

I get teary—again—writing this. That kid is getting an extra piece of candy tomorrow. 

It's time to put down the coffee.

It's not like I was checking Facebook. It happened while I was attending to the little guy—who was shouting through the window to shut the door "so mosquitoes wouldn't get in." Mosquitoes only would have gotten into the mudroom, plus it was 7:30 am, but that's besides the point. I wanted him to feel he was being heard. (And I wanted reinforce this way of thinking, in a house that typically has at least one door totally ajar.) I stood up and shut the door.

It was an awkward half lounge/left-handed door shove, and I was gripping a canary-yellow coffee mug (that I don't even like very much) in my right hand. And what happened as a result was that drops of my cafe au lait showered down onto Julian's Fossils of Lake Champlain coloring page.  My heart skipped a beat. But Jules started laughing (an automatic reaction, it now seems) so I thought we were good. I expected bad—after all, my autopilot coffee-sloshing had ruined his work—but all seemed good.

So I said this: "Let it dry. You'll have tan spots but it will be okay. I'm sorry. It was accident. It was my bad - but totally an accident." 

It was the apology that seemed to stoke the reaction I'd first expected: cry, following by rubbing (which ripped a hole into a yet-to-be colored coral creature of some sort), followed by accusations and demands that we go to back to the museum to get another page to color RIGHT NOW.

We couldn't go now -  the bus was 2 minutes away. He had school. I had work. We would go on Friday when I was taking the day off, when he was off of school. The promise did not placate. Jules was pissed. With good right. I mean we all make mistakes but it doesn't seem okay that a careless coffee-splashing door-slammer should be able to get away with ruining your art in a single sloppy lunge. And without any apparent consequences.

It was a wake up and smell the, um, coffee moment. I move mindlessly from moment to moment of my day, coffee cup in hand. It's sort of ridiculous when you think about it. So I'm imposing a penance: Only 2 cups of coffee today. Sitting and savored. I'm sorry, Jules.

Bull sharks live on land.

I was the kind of kid who spent many gorgeous summer days lying on the glider with a book. A biography of  Helen Keller or Babe Ruth, another installment of Sweet Valley High. Didn't matter. If I started it, I didn't want to stop until I finished. On these days, I didn't care who was playing baseball, racing bikes, swimming at the quarry or selling lemonade to fund the acquisition of GI Joe guys. I just wanted to read. 

So you can imagine how excited I am now that my boys love books and that Julian, ever since starting kindergarten some weeks ago, has stopped pushing away my finger when I drag it along the words of the books he's picked out at the library. The boy has taken a serious interest in learning to read.

He asks what the letters spell and now, each night, it's become our routine to have him "read" a book to me and Kai. For about a week that book has been about Star Wars Heroes and Villians. Eh. But tonight, that hero/villian book could not be found. And so I suggested my recent and fantastic Goodwill find, a book about sharks and rays. If you know me at all, you know that this equals awesome.

Pittsburgh Zoo, Fall 2009

But it gets even awesomer. Because when Julian reads, I mostly just listen to whatever story he gleans from the page. (Right... wrong, I don't know—but I'm going with right because it seems to be a great confidence builder.) Anyway, these are the fantastic things I learned about sharks today:

• Great white sharks have really big, big teeth, which makes them FIERCE. And they have pink tongues and they are white. And great.
• "Hammer sharks" (I couldn't resist correcting this one) have eyes on the the end of their heads.  Hammer sharks, I mean hammerhead sharks, are really FIERCE and they like to bang their eyes. Hmm....
• Bull sharks are really FIERCE and they have really big teeth. And they eat bulls. (There was a illustration of a bull on the page, people. This was a logical conclusion.) And that's why bull sharks live on land some of the time.  

I love age 5. So, so much. 

Sales goals start early.

"Mom! I gotta show you something."

He is so excited and, in turn, I'm eager to see what he's got to share. These last eight days (he's so precise about quantifying how long he's been a kindergartener), getting information out of him hasn't been easily. I'd been warned this would happen. That's OK. I respect that he's got a life of his own. But I'm so curious. I try not to bombard him with questions but I'm trained as a journalist. I probe: Who did you sit next to on the bus? Did you play with new friends? Did you have art class today? He's actually quite generous in his answers. But offering unsolicited info about his time at school has been rare.

So this "something" had to be good. He's shuffling his backpack, his lunchbox, trying to find what he's looking for—and here it is:

A pamphlet full of prizes—we're talking Jelly Eyeball Flashing Rings, Sneaker Key Chains (for his all of his keys, natch). Prizes you win for asking relatives to give you money in exchange for expensive cheap-looking wrapping paper and "fancy" bad-for-you packaged foods and magazines that you can get for free because you work for them. (Yes, yes...  I am a bad parent. I promise I'll make up for it by happily baking cookies for soccer tournaments and handing out water at fundraiser runs.) 

"You show this paper to everyone you know," he tells me, waving the prize pamphlet. "Like your Grandma and your Papa and everyone. And then they get things and you get things." 

"Oh?"

"Yes, a special guest came to our classroom and told us all about it." 

At this point, Julian's stuff is all over the floor. He's talking with his hands, excited, waving the paper under my nose. I try not to rush him—he's really into this—but I'm getting antsy. Jon's stuck at a job site, so I am on (unexpected) double pick-up duty. If we don't leave, um, now, Kai will be standing solo on the playground with the preschool's director. Even though I left the office half an hour early—rushing out of of a meeting, ironically, about how to meet next year's aggressive sales goals—I am somehow late. 

We hurry to the car and I try to see it all through his eyes: it's a win, win. You get this, and I get this. I really should adopt a good attitude: I mean, who doesn't need a mini sandwich maker set, or a peanut butter and jelly spreader? But I can't get past that the fact there's someone—a special guest—out there who's selling my kid, age 5, on selling. I can't quite nail down, in words, just how I feel about that. 

The boys had Lucky Charms and donuts for breakfast.

I don't want any more of my ice cream, says the big little man, pushing his dish—not the one pictured below, that's Jon's—away.

I smile inside, thinking: what a smart, self-regulating young man we've got going on here. (This one. The little little man, still at Grandma and Papa's, licks the bowl and then reaches for his big brother's leftovers. Every. Time.)

Then he explains why he isn't going to finish his Phish Food: He had Lucky Charms—and a donut—for breakfast. My teeth suddenly feel filmy. My mind flashes to snippets of all the peer-reviewed journal articles I've read in the last 15 years, the studies suggesting that sugar is rotting our kids' teeth, their bodies, their brains.

As I kid, I was not allowed to have Lucky Charms for breakfast. Or Sugar Smacks. Or even Honey Nut Cheerios. At the Micco household, the breakfast cereal choices were limited to four options: regular Cheerios, Chex, Rice Crispies and Kix (Kid Tested, Mother Approved indeed). I'm pretty sure Jon wasn't offered cereal-candy for breakfast either. But his mom is a Grandma now (a good, fun, loving one, I should add)—and when her grandkids say they are hungry for breakfast, sometimes Lucky Charms are on the table. And, really, what kid can resist?

What's wrong with this photo? 

Much as it makes my nutrition-degreed self crazy to think of consuming such a product for a proper meal (dessert, offered in an appropriate context, is an entirely different story), I've accepted that my in-laws consider "spoiling kids" (their words, not mine) with sugary treats at all hours of the day a bona fide accountability in their grandparent job description. It's fine. It's occasional. It's all good.

I say this... but at some point I must have projected my knee-jerk discomfort with the nutrient-deficient diet the boys consume at the Adirondack cabin. This is obvious because he delivers this breakfast report in sing-song. The kid is taunting me. The cereal-and-pastry confession is followed with this: "... and I bet Kai is gonna be up SO late tonight. Grandma and Papa let us stay up so, so late... like till 9 o'clock." Suspicion confirmed.

I don't react. I see what's going on here.

"... past 9 o'clock. Till 10 o'clock." 

I maintain a normal face. A smiley one.

"No, no! Past 10 o'clock. They let us stay up till 11 o'clock!" 

He's searching, waiting for a reaction. Jackpot. Jon and I are both cracking up. But mostly we're impressed that Jules seems to have developed a pretty solid understanding of time. Which flies far too quickly to be concerned with quarterly sugary cereal splurges.

I have lots to learn about schools today.

"Did you like homework when you were a little girl, Mama?" I love the way he says girl—his R's are still the little-kid kind, articulated in a way that's not quite right but entirely age-appropriate, according to my sis, the speech-language pathologist.

Under my watch (read: restoring him to a seated position every time he cartwheels off the chair) he's completing his first homework assignment, one that prompts him to write in little squares things about himself: what he's good at (digging rocks), what are his hobbies (puzzles, museums and hiking), what kind of ice cream is his favorite (maple and vanilla) and what places he's visited (Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Cape Cod). His responses to this assignment seem to lend evidence to my theory that this  little guy is going to dig school.

What sort of makes sense. I did. And so did his dad.

"Yes, Jules, I liked homework. I still like homework. Learning things is super fun, don't you think?"

"Yes!"

What I didn't always like was sitting in a chair, still. What I didn't like was being quiet. Memorizing and regurgitating facts whose importance I couldn't really place in the real world. Focusing on information that felt static. Having to try to concentrate in a silent space. I still struggle with these things. And I think someone else might too.

I've heard amazing things about our community school—and I hope they're all true. I think it's important to know things, a lot of things. But I think it's even more important to be curious enough to explore the space all around the stuff that's known and imagine how you might fill in what's missing, to seek out the synergies that allow for evolution—and to know when it's time to shut the books and play music in your underpants.

The backpack shipped.

A brown pack with dinosaur bones. Lunch box to match. Monogrammed. "Do you really want your name?" I asked. Yes. "Really?" Yesssss, Mom... My first thought was that kidnappers would call after him, tricking him away. My second: When you grow bored of this backpack, or think it too babyish, we can't hand it off. What a waste of material.

But he wanted his name. Why not? The transition to kindergarten has been weighing on him. This was something special that might help cushion the jump. Plus, I'd started to imagine... the mom of another, younger Julian finding a personalized dino pack in decent condition at the Goodwill. Total score!

So today, the personalized pack and lunch sack shipped—an email told me so. Kindergarten starts into two weeks. "Are you ready?" a friend whose little girl is about to turn one, asked me today. Yes - he's going to love it. He's interested and eager to learn. School will suit him, I said. But it is sort of sad. My kid is school-aged. Hard to believe. Cliche, yes. For a reason.

I teared up on and off for a week last year, watching—via Facebook—friends' kids sitting on stoops, waiting for the bus, heading off to kindergarten.  But this year, I'm actually mostly excited to see my big little guy off to his next stage. It's time. Lately, he's seeming more like a tiny man: with real pecs and sound theories, smart questions and a burgeoning set of admirable ethics. Between his brother-bullying and potty jokes are glimmering glimpses of a maturing, kind and cool big kid. It's exciting. It's bittersweet. It's sorta awesome.