And just like that, Huck’s using deodorant, making himself elaborate egg sandwiches most mornings, and taking nightly showers instead of the twice-a-week-kind that he always resisted.  I remember when he was two months old and suddenly developed the skill to hold a little plastic ring in his hand and I wrote on my blog “What’s next, algebra?” because that’s how amazingly grown up he seemed to me at the time.  Our standards change as time passes.  I never notice how easily he holds objects in his hands anymore.  Also when Huck was a baby Troy composed a horribly catchy song that went something like this: “I’m growing up, Dad.  I’m growing up, Mother.  I’m growing up.  I’m growing up!” and he would sing it in a nasal musical theatre baby voice whenever Huck did anything incredible to our low standards of parents-with-a-baby.  Sometimes even now Troy will start to sing this song but is almost always shut down by Huck who is finally becoming appropriately embarrassed by his parents.

A few days ago Huck very casually, so casually it was borderline formal, mentioned the possible need for deodorant.  I died on the inside but answered equally casual/formal.  The next day I let him borrow mine and actually had to show him how it works.  (He can hold objects in his hands!)  I said he was welcome to use mine any time, though there was a part of me worrying about these new smells and how they might affect my delicate little lady deodorant.  The day after that he politely and briefly mentioned, so as not to take up too much of my time, that he might want to have his own deodorant for PE.  This came after he quietly asked what “antiperspirant” meant, though he pronounced it so wrong it took me a few seconds to understand what the word was.  We went to the store together and he smelled every deodorant as if we were in the candle aisle of Target.  I was more patient than I’ve ever been, sweetly answering his questions and offering gentle advice.  I understood the importance of getting your armpit scent just right. He finally settled on Right Guard Sport Fresh Invisible Solid, and when we got home he immediately wrote his name on the lid with a black Sharpie.

We three ate pizza on the porch Friday night while Huck worked on his knitting project.  In school he’s studying World War I, and so lately he’s full of facts about Serbia, Austria-Hungary and Prince Ferdinand while knitting like all the American school-children did for the war effort.  (“We’re going to knit white bandages and send them to India,” he says.) Sitting on the porch swing with his orange yarn and eight inch needles, he suddenly gasped and said he had totally forgotten to tell us something exciting that happened at school that day. Since stories about school life are always hard to come by I stopped mid-chew, imagining what nugget of truth I was about to hear.  Something about PE?  More body changes?  Did he make the Quiz Bowl team despite his so-so tryout? Any new friends? A romance in the air?  With big eyes he announced, “We had a fire drill!” and then told us all the details.

Perhaps I need to drop my standards down again.

In Prison Stories, our poet in residence Katie inspires amazing writing from the women prisoners based on poems that she reads to them.  One of my favorite writing exercises she uses comes from the book “Find Your Way Home” by Becca Stephens and the women of Magdalene House in Nashville.  I love to create the performance script with the sometimes sweet, sometimes painful descriptions of where these women started.  Yesterday Huck showed me a similar poem he wrote in language arts class last week that was inspired by George Ella Lyon’s poem “Where I’m From.”  And while a little ten year old boy from New York City has a very different perspective than young women prisoners in Arkansas, I smiled at the memories he dwelled upon during the first few weeks of middle school.

“I am from the cedar chest,
from lemon lemon cake and holiday sugar cookies.
I am from my stomping upstairs neighbor,
a tiny little apartment.
I am from the sandy spot and
the magic tree
right outside my apartment window.
I’m from Grandma’s sugar cookie recipe and brown eyes,
from Aunt Jeni and Aunt Lori.
I’m from making the same expressions and going to events together
and from going to Kansas in the summer.
I’m from telling Uncle Ronnie, “Are you trying to be funny?”
and “Brush your teeth slower”
and “You are my sunshine.”
I’m from getting a Christmas tree.
I’m from New York City and Czechoslovakia,
cake and burritos,
from minnows in my mom’s hair,
shaking her hair out,
old little tiny baby clothes
and the cedar chest.”

I gave him 350 kisses after I read it.

We spent the last few days in Kansas celebrating our niece Kayla’s wedding to our wonderful new nephew Jamal.  It was everything a wedding weekend should be: loving family, beautiful wedding vows, 100 degree weather, cold beverages, five flavors of cake, a photo booth and a dance floor.  My sister Lori, Mother of the Bride, was radiant and supportive as always, even when my sister Jeni and I (Kayla’s very white middle aged aunts) attempted to do the whip & nae nae by copying the incredible moves of a 6 year old.  When the song ended Lori applauded and a sweet bridesmaid told us, “Good Try!”  We are literally praying her cell phone video footage never makes it to You Tube.

Uncle Troy got to officiate Kayla’s wedding, which was only fitting since she so sweetly served as our flower girl back when she was a 4 year old in a pretty little white dress.  Now she’s a 27 year old in a beautiful big white dress.  Some people from that day aren’t around anymore, and there’s a whole bunch of new faces.  All the kids are grown up and now their kids are growing up and our kids are growing up, and somehow Troy and I feel the same as we did back then.

Happy Marriage, Kayla and Jamal!  Before you know it you’ll be at Sadie’s wedding.

Here are a few remnants of summer from yesterday: Huck on the brand new front porch (which was covered in empty boxes just moments before) in his favorite t-shirt (which has a huge toothpaste stain front and center) with his surfer dude hairdo, suntan from hours and hours at the pool, an uncharacteristic fist of anxiety, sneakers that are a little too big for me, and an enormously heavy backpack containing magnetic items from Walgreens for his locker.

And here are the rubber bracelets he’s been wearing non-stop, only taking them off in the car as we pulled up to Owl Creek Middle School because I told him he should.  I don’t know why; it just felt like on the first day of school his lower arm and wrist area ought to be free.

This child has had many a new school experience for his young age, and because of the way Fayetteville does things he’ll have two more before he graduates high school.  Maybe by then I’ll be less of a secret basket-case and more smooth in my ways.  Yesterday morning while packing his lunch I asked if he still wanted a love note.  Both answers would have been fine with me.  Frankly, six years of lunch love notes has not been easy.  My messages are all are starting to sound alike.  He paused and said, “Sure.”  So I quickly sprawled something out, adding a decorative “BUS N!” just in case he needed reminding how he was getting home that day, which is one of my signature moves.  Hours later I called the school and told the front office he would be taking the N Bus home with his good friend, since the school bus office told me that’s what I should do when he’s not getting off at his stop.  I was feeling a little nervous about the whole thing and thinking his right arm must be feeling so empty and cold.

By some miracle of the universe, Huck survived the first day of middle school, including the bus part.   As I tucked him into bed last night I asked innocently enough, “Did anyone at the school make sure you got on the right bus?”  His face went through several complex emotions.  ”Because I called the school,” I explained.  It all began to make sense.  ”Oh …” he said both quickly and slowly.  ”The bus office told me to,” I added.  His face softened and he looked at me like I was a hurt puppy.  ”So that’s what … the bus office told you …  Mom?  Don’t put any more notes in my lunch anymore.  I’m sorry, but just don’t.”   He continued to tell me that in the middle of the day over the loudspeaker came a voice that said, “HUCK SCHREMMER IS GOING HOME WITH HIS FRIEND ON THE N BUS!” which is apparently not a middle school dream come true.  He pointed out that I quizzed him many times in the morning about the N bus and that I even put it in his very last lunch note.   If I am understanding him correctly, he thinks I overdid it with the bus reminders.

As I was about to leave him for the night he asked if he could have the last note to keep forever.  I admitted I threw it away.  He asked if I’d get it out of the recycling, and since I was already pretty low status, that’s what I did.  When I brought it back to him he looked at it for a minute and asked if we could frame it.  By now I was feeling like a celebrity again.  ”Sure, we can frame it,” I said, already mentally picking out some cute frames that would really make it stand out.

“We’ll hang it in my closet,” he said sweetly.

The three of us finally got a week’s vacation which ended up being a stay-cation which was actually a move-cation, what with August 1st being Moving Day.  Though a lot of our week was spent putting all of our belongings into boxes recycled from our last move and back yard fence building and king size bed shopping, we did find some fun along the way, including a visit to the newly opened science museum and Huck’s first trip to the drive-in movie theater.  But mainly this week Huck got his new locker and his PE shorts/shirt set and his middle school schedule, what with August 4th being The First Day of 5th Grade.

If you’ve recovered from that heartbreaking picture, here we are at the end of Moving Day in front of our beautiful temporary house.  The real owners (and our good friends) will be in England for the next 11 months, which means before you know it we’ll be filling those boxes up again while Huck learns a new locker combination.

Here’s proof that we’re living in a math professor’s home …

This was our 12th move together, Troy and me, and I can truly say never have we grunted more, what with our matching plantar fasciitis and middle aged bodies crashing in on us, occasionally experiencing brief hallucinations that water and good friends ended, than this one.  At the end of the night Huck expressed his love for moving days because their horribleness makes the evening of relaxation so wonderful.  For now we shall sleep in our wonderful new bed by night and enjoy our glorious front porch by day while Sunny sleeps in her newly fenced in little yard and remind ourselves that we really like adventure.  And ibuprofin.  And a glass of wine.  We really like adventure and ibuprofin and a glass of wine.

There are some places where a bad mood doesn’t fit.  Like last weekend’s Firefly Fling at the Botanical Garden where little girls show up wearing faerie wings and grownup girls walk around fully clothed in faerie costumes. Troy was asked to sing this year, and though we weren’t exactly sure this was our kind of thing Huck and I decided to come along.  To be safe, we packed many books, a few decks of cards, snacks, water, a picnic blanket and 3 camping chairs.  Upon arrival to this very pink affair, a bee stung one of my toes and sent my flip flop flying as I hopped around screaming. Troy was unable to help much, what with his singing gig in the Fairy House.  I began hobbling around with what felt like a butcher knife repeatedly stabbing my toe, asking everyone who looked like a volunteer for a first aid station.  We ended up in a behind-the-scenes backstage kind of room surrounded by four grown up faeries fixing each other’s wigs while I held a baggy full of ice on my poor toe.  I could hear very loud children’s music coming from a nearby stage, and I knew things were bad when I realized I wanted to kill all the faeries.  After a few minutes of this, Huck and I began wandering around the hot gardens searching for the Fairy House, me limping and Huck carrying too many things for a person his size.  I have a hazy memory of friends shouting hellos while I angrily waved and growled, “I just got stung by a bee and we can’t find Troy.” Huck kept kissing my arm, because he hates it when I’m upset.  Several faery grown-ups blew bubbles in my face. We never found Troy and instead plopped down in the hottest, loudest, most awful spot we could find and waited for our guitar slinging celebrity to appear so that he could take us home.  Because there is nothing lonelier than being miserable while surrounded by people having the best night of the summer.

Another place a bad mood doesn’t fit is summer camp.  Due to a difficult set of circumstances that included a huge construction project, new licensing requirements, multiple thunderstorms and intense heat, my job was usually overwhelming.  Camp for me mostly meant putting out fires, mass emailing, apologizing, explaining, calling parents, talking to misbehaving children, and organizing complicated schedules.  Some days felt like a hundred bee stings.  Camp for everyone else meant roller skating, movies, popcorn, wii, computer games, art projects, Airheads, learning about other cultures, celebrating birthdays, fencing, martial arts, ball games, swimming, water balloons, sprinkler parties, dance parties, Minute to Win It, Gator Golf, snow cones, lemonade stands, bowling, laser tag, card games, trampolines, and hours spent with best friends.  One little girl loved to stand in my doorway to watch me work, with a look on her face like she understood the difference between her camp and mine.  She and a few others wrote jokes to tape on my office door. Why didn’t the cheese pizza fit in the oven?  Because there wasn’t mushroom.  Summer’s gift was the occasional ability to come out of my stress bubble to see that I was surrounded by people, both big and small, having crazy fun and deciding to join them.  Sometimes it was impossible to resist the happy all around me.

Yesterday was the last day of camp.  That morning I opened the back door and a bee flew into our home.

No stings this time.

What do you do when you find out your third ear surgery wasn’t the charm after all?  You thank the very good doctor and promise to think about his offer to try again for free, you take comfort in the presence of your husband and 10 year old son who cannot stop hugging you, you have an unexpected but much needed cry at the hotel, and then you go to the mountains.  For us, it was a night in Little Rock followed by a day at beautiful Petit Jean State Park and the exquisite Mount Magazine. Nothing is more healing to my tired little soul than the sight of trees and water and mountains, except for belly laughter with Troy and Huck, and so by nightfall I was quite content.  My eardrum is not complete, but it’s better than it was pre-surgery, and for now that will have to do.  That, and the knowledge that all this beauty is only two hours away.

Plus I get to live with these two:

How lucky am I?

1.  We got to be in Fayetteville’s Pride parade alongside our St. Paul’s friends while the Supreme Court’s decision for equality the day before was still fresh in our happy hearts.

2. We got to spend a weekend alongside our beloved John and Shana in from New York for TheatreSquared’s New Play Festival which meant hours of belly laughter followed by my annual weeping session upon saying goodbye.

3.  We got a much needed 3 day weekend that included Sunny’s 3rd Birthday on the 3rd & Fireworks Fun on the 4th that tops the list of reasons why Huck prefers living in Arkansas.

Happy 2 Year Anniversary, Fayetteville!

Yesterday Troy and Huck took the day off together in an attempt to recreate their New York Wednesday Morning Adventures, only this was an all day adventure smack dab in the middle of summertime.  Huck wanted to join his field trip peers for bowling but Troy felt that diminished the whole day-off-from-summer-camp feeling he was going for.  In the morning I went up to Huck’s room while he was reading to say hello.  He took one look at me and said, “Shattered!”  Apparently he was trying to make the day all about Him and Dad or Him Alone.  No Mom Allowed!  He said I shattered the glass bowl in his mind, but that was okay.  Arms outstretched, he invited me to snuggle before their fun got underway.  This morning he heard me slowly shuffling toward the coffee pot and sweetly called my name. I climbed into bed next to him and he told me this was his favorite time of the day with me, before my coffee when I’m so tired and vulnerable.  ”The rest of the day you’re so strong, but right now I just can’t even get mad at you.”

Sheesh!

Summer weeks 2, 3 and 4 meant pool time, an outdoor concert, bowling, ice skating, roller skating, trampolines, miniature golf,  ”Inside Out,” hot hikes, insane rain, Father’s Day, Summer Solstice, porch parties, a softball game, backyard dinners, and delightful visits from Brooklyn Shana and birthday twins Jackson and Rylee.  And as of today at 5:30, summer camp reached its halfway mark with minimal damage to my mental health.

Yesterday a friend asked how my summer was going and it stumped me for a minute there.  Sometimes a simple “fine” just won’t do. My summer is going crazy, that’s how my summer is going. It’s one part non-stop stress, one part really fun, one part sleepwalking and one part hyperactive.  Somewhere in the middle of all that is where I spend most of my time, simultaneously counting down the days while already beginning to miss it.  Kind of like parenting a 10 year old.

So Huck and Pappy T got a day full of Wednesday morning adventures and I got a phone full of happy pictures documenting a summer day well spent.  40 more to go.

Finally landing a full-time job, or as my sister’s friend calls it a “J-O-B Job,” has meant a lot of things for me. It’s meant consistent paychecks with taxes taken out (taxes taken out!) which has helped lessen the sense of anxiety and impending doom that I’ve mastered.  It’s meant waking up most mornings around 2:12AM with a to-do list that is part real and part imaginary from the depths of my troubled mind.  It’s meant finally getting a handle on most everything and realizing summer camp is as fun as it’s supposed to be sometimes. But mostly it’s meant Huck’s first summer of his entire ten year old life without me to hang out with all day long in equal doses of fun and boredom.

Last Friday the Northwest Arkansas Fencing Center came to The New School and led workshops for our campers all morning long.  Huck’s group was first, and I texted the above picture to the other two moms of the boys posing with the Olympic fencer.  Both were very appreciative and one said, “I wish so badly I could be there right now.”  And then I realized I was the mom who got to be there right now.  How about that?  A couple days later Troy noticed that one of his breaks from the preschool children coincides with Huck’s lunchtime, and so now they get to end the morning and begin the afternoon together, catching up on all the camp stories of the day so far.

When we three began attending the family friendly Wednesday night services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, we happily discovered that they often end the evening with our favorite song “Seek Ye First.”  The first time this happened the three of us accidentally harmonized as we sat with our arms around each other in the most grotesque and cutesiest family formation you ever saw.  It was as if we finally found land after nearly drowning in rocky waters, holding onto each other for dear life.  We realized how awfully adorable we must have looked to anyone who had the misfortune of glancing over at us, and it’s one of our favorite memories to this day.  We still sing it together, but we try to play it just a little more cool now.  So in the spirit of our gross family preciousness, I give you the New School Nerd Family in all of our summer camp t-shirt glory.  Because this, more than anything, is us right now.