Kid's love movies. They also love the camera.

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Happy Birthday Finnian.

My heart. My heart.
You were sick on your birthday but we still had a grand old time being together with grandma.

man that went fast

Dear Finny. I had no idea back then that you would one day want to dress up as a transformer and make me go searching for the ALLSPARK all live long day and night.
At one time you were just thrilled with giant orange pumpkins.
Man that went fast.

like a couple of years ago I said this would never happen

hold down the future

Finn's bottom two teeth are about to fall out and I swear to god it freaks me out.
It freaks me out that he is old enough to tongue his naked gums soon.
A hole where his teeth once erupted as I rocked him back and forth across many midnights.
Across the vast canyon of babyhood that only lasted for like ten seconds when I turn my head and think about it.
When I turn my head and strain my left eye.

trying to see the past
trying to hold down the future

and I'll cry if i want to

it's not new
and to the more seasoned veterans of the asphalt jungle
it is old news

The release of the young to the others.
We stood there today and felt quite awkward just like we should have.

Standing there and really fighting back the tears
with a hand on his small shoulder
nudging him to the teacher
to the new important adult in his life
to someone else who will tell him things
and see his mouth open with amazement
tiny teeth sparkling

We stood there and it was like the adults were all struck mute-
only able to motion to their young.
like hand signals in baseball or something
Everyone was just waving and blowing kisses and acting strange.
and there was a lot of flash photography involved


We stood there and watched the ten seconds it took for the Kindergarten class
to disappear in tidy formation into the brick schoolhouse...
I looked until his blond hair snapped around the corner and he was gone from me.
We all then
deflated
and walked to our cars
and pushed our strollers towards the future.

biochemical changes are taking place in my muscles

Today we walked the route to school. Practicing. It was a sweat 14 minutes, but not all bad.
Our route takes us through the very posh Frank Lloyd Wright Mid-Century modern village near our home. It also entails a wooded staircase and a path through a tiny forest.
It is very quaint.
It is kinda charming although my ass cheeks are throbbing.

We did the whole power walk thing on the way home. Snow is going to suck.
I am strangely aware that in four days I am going to be initiated into some new society.
The playground moms.
I see them at the playground after school.
They look cool.

I am an ass throbbing misfit.

For the record-Finn is very excited about school.
I am the nervous one.

It is the only song on the album that looks forward instead of backward

and in four days he will put normal clothing on
five days and week and start school
he runs along the whole highway of my heart like this
and it is so perfect that it is almost as if Van Morrison
songs emerge from the ground and float him
inches above the green green grass
and he is just up there
and all I can do is stare
and he just walks around with this certainty
and tells me things are fine
and I believe him and all I can do is just open my eyes
and drop my gaze
settle in and look
I will look at this person
my Sugar-baby with champagne eyes


photo from my pal

"Old Spice. Phil says it's a timeless classic."

Blaise will be two in a few days and I went and took his yearly click today.
The same date as last year. (how sweet is he?)


I am taking a photograph each birthday with a prop so I will be able to watch them grow and to give them some cool photos in their adult life.
Finnian wears his dad's shirt in his yearly click and Blaise wears an amber necklace.
I wrote about birthday traditions and ideas last year here.
I did not make this idea up as I recall reading about a woman who dressed her baby girl in a vintage Pucci shift and took photos. She hung them on the staircase. It was gorgeous seeing her grow into the dress.
So you should do it too!
And don't fret if yr kid is a bit older and yr just starting.
Just think of collections.
Many of one thing is always cool.
No matter how many.

The Yearly Click:

1. Choose a prop that the child can grow into or outgrow for drama.
(like a dress or a shirt of an adult in child's life or a piece of jewelry or something fun like a clown nose even!)

2. Commit to keeping the prop in a safe place and taking a yearly shot on the child's birthday or birthday time frame.

3. Write the age and date on back of print! yes PRINT it out! My mother and grandmother told me to write the dates on everything and I laughed! Now I am screwed with several photos and it has only been 4.5 years with Finn! Seriously we do not remember all that we think we always will.
6 months old and 8 months old look the fricking same to me now!

4. Display them! (staircase/wall/nursery)

5. Have fun and guess what? Yr creating amazing memories for the future! Yr an archiver of lovely.

title post- My Girl 1991

"Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all."

Today was the first day of Finnian's introduction to The Rolling Stones.
I am slowly working him through the canon of rock and roll
(you know like Chuck Berry through the Dead Kennedy's)
and he already likes some of the Stones- but today we sat through all the best songs.
We jammed the Gimme Shelter like mad folk and did some art to Wild Horses and ate lunch to Angie and you get the picture...

My quest for the month is to watch Gimme Shelter and Shine a Light.



Just like I would love to go back in time and reject mainstream American values and be a beatnik- I would love to also venture back for one day and hang out in the 60's with these sexy beasts.

title quote- Dead Poet's Society 1989

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pics via morrisonhotelgallery.com

take a little trip with me

Finn was invited to tour the cool hot rod shop where his BFF Jack's uncle works. It totally rocked. I instantly felt cooler than I looked in large sweatshirt and athletic shoe get-up as I talked shop to the boys. My dad restores antique cars and I know some lingo. Like I could scan the room and point out a Charger and talk about chrome. I was impressed with the place- they do some cool stuff there. It made me wanna wear a coverall.

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Went up on the mountain/To see what I could see

A friend of mine gave me a new red moleskine journal last week. I have been looking at it for days, unable to crack the spine because I am not sure what I want it to become for me.(Another vessel for lists or a small wish book or a to do list or ideas for writing?)
It is always so exciting to have the clean slate of possibility.

I am thinking I may use it to record the amazing dreams that Finnian tells me about each morning. It has been a few weeks now that he has apparently started recalling his dreams in clarity or he is just now choosing to share.

He has told me with sleepy rapture of his dreams that have ranged from simple play dates with friends to giant megazord characters who roast marshmallows on their tails to assorted candies and sweets and even to sad little vignettes of death. It is fascinating. I can only wake and sorta remember a feeling of a dream. I can sense if my dream was something pleasant or not. I think my brain activates with a jarring start the moment I wake. I am jealous of Finn. He wakes peaceful and doesn't have so much shit in his head yet to take away the dreams. Lucky boy.

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Excuse me while I spell my name

I love hanging out in Finn's room.
I can never be in a bad mood when I am in there.
Never.

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Every single one of us the devil inside

I walk into the bathroom and find lovely blond hair all around my feet and stuck to the glass basin. I see it everywhere. I see my tiny scissors from my grooming kit on the floor.

I walk into his bedroom and hold my breath. O dear God. He is gorgeous still, but bald on top and his bangs are shorter than mine were during my brief but startling Parisian Pageboy year.

At least he didn't shave his eyebrows off like my friend
told me that her kid did before picture day at school.
Swear!
My mom said I cut my own hair too.
Rite of passage I suppose...

You wanna go hat shopping Finn?

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Through the years you've never let me down

It was cold enough to break out my lil baby today. My two dollar coat I got at a thrifty store many years ago. It has been all over the place and always makes me feel good. I plan on wearing it to the post office today and to other such errands.

I am teaching Finn random foreign words like bella and fili. That way he can greet me in the morning and tell me how lovely I look and ask for a kiss in Greek. I told him ladies will pull sweets from their handbags if you tell them how lovely they are. I am so naughty! But, twice this week he has complimented older woman and one gave him a quarter and one a lollipop at the copy shop. He is going to be dashing when he grows up like his dad.

I think we are going to learn how to say some French words today. I can still read a bit of French from my long ago studies, but can't speak it. I hate how the brain when fat and lazy loses information. Like I also used to know how to say "Please take off yr dress" in Russian and I just can't for the life of me remember anymore...


P.S. Mama's Village is writing again. I love her!

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have a face I cannot show/I make the rules up as I go

Conversation while walking to the bank

why do people die mom?
Well, when we get very old or very sick we can die
old granny is very old right and she is still alive right?
Well, yes this is true, but she will die someday
when you die do you see God?
Well, I think so. I think you see all the people that have died too
I think heaven is like a big party or a discotheque
when you die do you fall to pieces and then swirl up to heaven?
Well, yes sort of Finn
will you and dad die mom?
Well, someday yes, but not for a long time
why do we live if we have to die?
Well, we have our life and it is like a gift
We are on the earth to find our path and follow our happiness
To do our jobs
What is my job on earth mom?
Well, it will change and evolve but right now it is to
shake me and rock me and to ask question after question
and point yr finger at funny things and kiss and run and draw
and giggle and learn and break my heart wide open at least once a day
and teach others and
Goddamn it Finn I love you so much

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But when I’m surrounded I just can’t stop

See that small little bed in the background. That is the bed that belongs to a preschooler as of today. The bed that used to be my father's as a little boy. The bed that Finn sleeps on every night. The bed that I curled up on for an hour today and may or may not have wet with my tears at the thought of losing Finn a bit more to the outside world. It is exciting and terrifying at the same time. When I think about it too long I start to feel my chest tighten. Like all day.

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But if you try sometimes you just might find

Finn started soccer last night. Joe and his pal Will are coaching the team. It was a night we looked forward to for a long time. Finn could not stop talking about soccer and his team and the majestic wonder of it all. I feel like he is more like me than I want him to be. Sometimes I think Finn pumps up something in his mind to such a high power that it cannot ever measure up in reality. He is like me- trying to get directly to the denouement of a situation without unraveling and experimenting with the complexity of it all- without a true catharsis.

It could have been all the sugar at the birthday party prior or the little sleep or the sharing of his dad or any number of conditions that made him weep and cry and act more like a baby than a big boy across that massive soccer field last night. It could have been anything but it really embarrassed me. It broke me down a little in front of all the other families I think.

I had told my good friend Angie as we sat on the blanket in the field prior to the practice that I thought she was type A in a good way and she replied quite quickly that she thought I was rather type A as well. I think I might have huffed for a minute but then I realized that she was most likely correct in her assumption. But I wasn't always like this.


I wish she would have known me before I lost all my invincible skin and before I had kids. I hope that all my old friends can still squint there eyes and see me unafraid and charging at life. Those days are really far away sometimes. Days when not much would shake me or get me down. Days when problems were like math- not real. Days when I knew exactly who I wasn't. Days when I would think nothing of smoking a joint or spending the whole day writing one perfect poem. Days when I really didn't care what others thought. Like at all. I keep writing affirmations on my chalkboard, but they are not working.
Is there a procedure to remove this type A lesion? Anyone? Anyone?

I'll follow you/When the stars go blue

The Perseid meteor shower happens this week. I seem to come back again to a cyclical thought pattern around this time of the year. I am crap with my memory. I tend to forget large chunks of time, but luckily I am life long friends with Michelle who can tell me the color of shirt I was wearing on May 15 of 1992 if I questioned.
However, I always recall the meteor showers. It seems that no matter the state of my life during any particular late summer, the the Perseid meteor shower makes it all better. I am planning on waking up Finn this week so he can see it. I know this may or may not have a good outcome, but it is important I think. Because from what I read about next year, a last-quarter moon will be super bright and make it more difficult to see the Perseid's. I can't see him having to wait until he is 6 to see this amazing show.

Finn is announcing all sorts of facts to us lately:
A star is a large ball of gas (yes)

The Earth is our planet and it is the biggest in the universe.
(well, actually not )

I will go to space camp (oh really?)

Stars are so twinkly and tiny.(tiny?)

Sometimes he asks me questions that I have not the answers for. I don't know about Pluto apparently. I am thankful for the library. We talked lofty today at breakfast. We talked about Copernicus and the sun. It was all too much for him so we played Thomas the Tank Engine instead.
After a bit he asked how we know how big and far away these stars and planets are bc there are no maps and as hard as he tries he cannot reach up and touch one.

(Even on his red plastic chair in the backyard)

I agreed that this was tricky. I told him that there are smarty pant math people out there who make up math puzzles that tell us these things. As I was talking I realized that to Finn it all must come down to faith and believing in what I am telling him.
So, I gathered him up in my arms and explained that although there was no map that we could hold in our hands that charts the distance between or the size of our hearts...that we just knew it was a direct line and that they were massive when they beat for each other.

And even if we are very far away from each other-
although they might seem small and far away- our hearts- are really quite enormous and always within reach if you believe.

Kinda like the stars for a four year old...

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