Family is Forever

Yesterday I hosted a birthday party for three of my favorite people: my 3-year-old niece, my dad, and my dad's sister. The Aries have the rest of us outnumbered in my family. It started as an idea for a small get-together to acknowledge my dad and niece's back-to-back birthdays, and grew into a big family and friends-who-feel-like-family gathering. There were family friends that I hadn't seen in years who came, and my amazing, artistic aunt, who I hadn't seen in over five years, who is celebrating her birthday today (Happy birthday, Aunt Nancy!).

There's been plenty of family drama and the usual life trials in my family over the years, and many of us have drifted apart, but yesterday none of that showed. Hatchets were buried, bonds were renewed, and best of all, my girls got to be there to see it all. It's an amazing thing, to fill your house up with everyone you love and just bask in it for a whole day. We ate, we talked, the kids played, the musicians jammed, the kids danced, and the party lasted all day long. We're all talking about doing it again, soon.

Probably the only thing I still struggle with about separating from my husband is the guilt over not being able to keep my daughters' family intact. I know what it's like to have divorced parents, the schlepping back and forth with suitcases in hand and wanting desperately to wear the shirt you left at your dad's house and won't see again for at least a week. But watching my girls run circles around their extended family yesterday, giggling and twirling in their princess dresses, and having them ask over and over if we can do it all again next weekend, I'm letting some of the guilt go. They are loved, and they have an intact family, just as I do. My parents divorced over 30 years ago, and had plenty of years of not speaking kindly of one another, but yesterday I got to sit between them and listen as my father played his banjo and my mother sang along. That's the thing about family. They're forever, if you let them be.

Flying Solo, Together

The past year has been a steady string of firsts, none of them easy. Twelve months ago, this very week, my husband and I broached the idea of separating. It was the first time we'd discussed the idea in a calm, non-threatening way, not as hurtful words hurled to inflict pain during a fight, but as a means to end the hurting that had become a solid part of our relationship. It wasn't what I wanted, giving up on our marriage, pulling our childrens' lives in half like the clean snap of a wishbone. But it was the right thing to do. We had long talks about how to part as friends, how to set aside our anger and sadness, and focus fully on making the transition as easy as possible for our girls. We looked together for a place for my husband to move into, went to Ikea as a family to pick out furniture for his new apartment. For the first few months we called it "our house" and "our apartment" when talking to the kids, so they wouldn't hear the division, the finality, of mommy and daddy having different homes.

The kids adjusted surprisingly well. Their dad and I had been leading fairly separate lives for a while, between him traveling regularly for work, and me ducking out to a hotel for a night of recovery and writing time when he came back into town. While they were with me they continued to have the same home routine, school routine, and play dates as always. We took our time getting them used to the apartment, to sharing a room for the first time, to being without me in a new place. The apartment came with new bunk beds and a pool, two things the girls were very excited about. As soon as the warmer weather hit, they started heading over there regularly to swim with their dad, and we worked up to them spending the night there on Fridays.

It was a big change for me, being home without them, but after the initial shock of quiet, I learned to appreciate the down time. I had precious pockets of alone time to simply sit and breathe, something I hadn't had much of in years. I started going out with friends, especially other single moms, to unwind during my Friday nights off. Our new version of family fell into a rhythm that lasted through summer and into this school year.

The girls are both thriving this year, blowing me away with their reading and math skills, blossoming into confident little chatterboxes with a constant bubble of friends around them at all times. And a surprising number of their friends also have parents who are no longer together, which has helped this all feel less drastic for them. They compare notes with their friends on which toys they keep at mom's and dad's places, who takes them out to eat the most, which ones have pools to offer summer fun.

A year into it, we're still figuring out certain details. When dealing with small kids, flexibility is key. But one thing I'm most proud of is that our kids' family has not been shattered. They have a lot of love around them, on all sides. And their dad and I have kept our promise to stay friends, to stay kind, and to not put the kids in the middle of our issues. When we have family gatherings at my house, he's invited. Last Christmas we all headed back east to visit his family together. Next month his sister is accompanying the girls and me on a Hawaii trip. I feel very strongly that the girls must not lose any of their family connections as a result of the failings of their parents' marriage. It's a strange new world, this single motherhood gig balanced with a determination to keep the whole extended family in the picture. But I think we're pulling it off.

Three Good Things

String Bean can be a bit of a muller/wallower/worrier. Especially at bedtime when she's reviewing her day and getting herself too worked up to sleep over the stressful/scary/sad stuff that happened. So I started a tradition with both girls, that as I cuddle with them and tuck them in for the night, we each list three good things about our day. In the beginning, it was sometimes hard for String Bean to think of three really good things. Now she rattles off happy moments like she's been storing them up all day, just waiting to share them. Peanut rarely has a list under 10 good things, and usually ends her list with, "I just had the best day!"

It's seemed to help String Bean settle down at night, to make a point of remembering the good stuff from each day, hopefully helping her learn how to let all of the less-than-good stuff go. And there are definitely nights when this helpful reminder comes in handy for me, too.

As the year draws to a close, a year of more strife and hardship than I was expecting, full of more illness and death and divorce than I want to recount, I'd like to apply the same wisdom on a grander scale. So, my three good things for 2011 are:

(1) my beautiful brilliant little girls are thriving, reminding me every day what really matters: love, laughter, and wonder;

(2) my writing is thriving, getting some recognition here and there (a new short story published just this week!), giving me much to feel proud of and more to aspire to every day; and

(3) I have the best extended, complicated, ever-changing, but loving and supportive family and friends around. It's been a turbulent year, but I'm standing on solid ground thanks to the people standing beside me.

Happy new year everyone!

Falling Down

Today was one of those days we all fear as parents. A day when one of our little ones gets hurt. It was a typical morning. We were running late because the girls were tired and dragging and wouldn't get in the car. We made it to school with a couple of minutes to spare, and were heading down with the masses toward String Bean's class, picking up speed, when Peanut fell down.

Peanut falls down a lot. She's a rough and tumble kid, unafraid of spills, and if she's moving, she's usually going full force. Well, she went full-force to the ground, face first. I picked her up, dusted her off, and saw blood. Lots and lots of blood, pouring out of her mouth. And a tooth, her top front tooth, at a very bad angle.

I scooped Peanut up, rushed toward String Bean's class, handed String Bean off to another mother, and raced back to the car with Peanut, shoving wadded towels into her bleeding mouth. We raced straight to the dentist. X-rays showed her tooth had broken off at the root, so it couldn't be saved. Luckily it was a baby tooth, and in being knocked out it hadn't damaged the adult tooth behind it. But Peanut just turned 5, and the adult tooth is nowhere near ready to come in. The dentist said it may take a year, possibly close to 2, before the adult tooth drops down to fill the hole. The teeth on either side were knocked loose, but not beyond hope. We have weeks ahead of a soft food diet and avoiding contact with those teeth, in the hopes that they will strengthen and stop wiggling, and wait firmly in place until the adult teeth behind them are ready to make an appearance.

Peanut was a champ the whole time. She cried pretty good when it first happened, but once we got to the dentist she was completely calm. She followed the dentist's instructions perfectly and even corrected him when he was trying to be silly with her. She was all business. When she was all cleaned up, they offered her a bounty of prizes for being so good. She insisted on taking two of each, so her big sister wouldn't feel left out.

We had a long day of trying to find something, anything, that she could eat without hurting. In the end a few sips of milkshake and some yogurt was all she could manage. She's got a scraped up face, a hugely swollen lip, cuts and bruises all around the inside of her mouth, and a cute gap where her tooth should be. But she's still my smiley girl who thinks it's super cool that she's one of the first kids in her kindergarten class to lose a tooth. And she's very excited about the tooth fairy coming.

In reality, all turned out fine. The scrapes and bruises will heal, the adult teeth will come in, and someday this will just be one of those family lore stories about what a tough kid she was. But for right now, this moment at the end of that long day, it's all I can do not to stand guard next to her bed and protect her from ever being hurt again. We're never ready to see our kids get hurt.

Happy Frozen Cheese Pizza

On Monday my little Peanut will, impossibly, be turning 5. I don't know where the time went, but I can tell it's gone, because at the end of her fourth year she's suddenly sporting a new pair of longer legs and less-chubby cheeks that show off her cheekbones. She looks five, which does nothing to make it easier for me to swallow.

I have a party planned for her, set up as she requested: just a few friends here at the house. Peanut is nothing if not easy to please. I mean, she's the most stubborn human being I've ever met, which is saying a lot since previously I was the most stubborn human being I'd ever met, but that's only about 1% of the time. The rest of life, she goes easy on.

So the following weekend we're having family, about 8 kids, and cupcakes to celebrate this milestone. That's all she wants, and that's fine by me. But I keep asking what she wants to do on Monday after school, since that's her actual birthday: go somewhere fun, have a friend over, go out to dinner? And she's decided: she wants a frozen cheese pizza, here at the house, with me and her sister. That's it? That's it.

Every day I come up with a few more ideas, tantalizing little notions sure to entice her into imagining a more interesting birthday. Nope. Frozen cheese pizza, play time with her sister, and maybe a story or two before bed.

I love having an easy-to-please child, I really do. And I don't want her to feel wrong for wanting to keep it simple. I'm trying to recognize that while this milestone feels huge for me (She's in kindergarten now! She's reading! She's doing math! She has these ridiculous legs! The baby fat is all gone!), and worth celebrating in some spectacular fashion, maybe she's got enough newness going on in her life that the same old same old sounds perfect: a little familiar comfort to ring in her fifth year. Okay. Fine. I get it. But I'm still getting cake. And balloons. She'll just have to deal.

Schoolgirls

Today is the big day when both of my girls become elementary school kids. String Bean started first grade today, and Peanut started kindergarten. There were no tears, from either the kids or me. It was nice to catch up with several of the moms I haven't seen since last June, and cute to see String Bean scoping out her new class, getting excited about which girls are in it with her. Peanut has a few friends starting kindergarten at this school as well, but none of them are in her class. When I asked if that bothered her, she just shrugged: "No. I'll make new friends." I fully expect the class to be following her around like little ducklings by the end of the day. She seems to have that effect on other kids. String Bean had a moment of tearing up as I kissed her goodbye, and she turned away so I couldn't see. I got to see her again during recess when I dropped Peanut off, and she was running around the playground with a little boy right on her heels, oblivious to my presence.

While my kids are both in school five days a week, I'm going to focus on writing. Not just putting words on the page, but submissions, contest entries, revising one of my novels and getting it out to agents, building a web site, and trying to keep up with my blog and Twitter (@cassdunn) posts. In short, it's time to start treating this writing fantasy like a job. I've been able to meet some amazing local best-selling authors recently: Meg Waite Clayton, Ellen Sussman, and Ann Packer just to name a few, and one thing I'm realizing is that while I've developed fairly good discipline for writing, I'm sorely lacking in the self-promotion department. So while my girls are navigating through a new school year, I'll be feeling my way through the practical aspects of a writing career.

First on the list: a website! I'll post the link when it's done.

Heavy Stuff

String Bean has always been a bit of a serious kid. Not when she's running around in the Ariel costume she just scored for 25 cents at the garage sale down the street, singing in her shrieking high voice about the wonders of the sea, but when it's late and quiet and she has time to settle into her own mind a bit. She likes to cuddle in her bed together after I put Peanut to sleep and talk about some of her thoughts, to sort of clear her mind before sleep. I get this, as I do it, too. Only I don't talk about it, I just mull over my own thoughts as I battle it out with insomnia. Some nights, the thoughts clear and I fall asleep soon. Other nights the insomnia wins and I have lots of free time for thinking.

So, for tonight's bedtime chat String Bean wanted to discuss the horrors of slavery. She wanted to know why light-skinned people would take dark-skinned people from their homes and families. Why they were cruel to them. Why they wouldn't pay them for working for them, and why they hit them whenever they wanted. She wanted to know why there were no laws to protect them. She also asked about the Civil War, wanted the low-down on Jim Crow laws, and followed up with asking why anyone would want to shoot Martin Luther King, Jr, when he was just trying to make the world a fair place.

I like that she's a deep-thinking 6-year-old, but sometimes I worry about all the heavy stuff she's carrying on her tiny shoulders. I asked if we should change the subject, if maybe talking about all of this scary stuff would make it harder for her to fall asleep, and she said, "It's not scary, just sad." And within a few minutes of expressing her sadness about the way people will treat people sometimes, she drifted off to sleep.