local adventures

home safe and sound

 Fortunately, Anna's most recent local adventure has a happy ending. Every once in a while, she decides to go for a walk...but neglects to take a grown-up along. Friday was one of those days. Thomas was drawing, Iain was looking at a book, and I was about to sit back down at the dining room table, where Anna and I had been coloring a few minutes earlier. But it was oddly quiet, and I sensed mischief, so I headed upstairs to look for her. Immediately upon reaching the top of the stairs, I thought, no--she's gone out the door.

And so she had. If she had shut it, I would have heard her go; since she didn't, I was certain she'd gone. I called to the boys, and we had our shoes and jackets on in seconds and were out the door. Unfortunately, because Anna had been asking to go for a walk to the ruin (what remains of a late-medieval retreat house, about 20 minutes' walk away), I guessed she must have gone in that direction. So we headed that way, and I asked Lewis, who was by then on his way home to join the search, to drive into the village just in case she'd gone that way.

We walked to the ruin. We looked in the woods. We asked everyone we passed if they'd seen Anna. We met up with Lewis, who had looked in the village. We had a couple of graduate students round, one of whom scoured the area around the terrace. We asked some neighbors, as we walked up the back of the terrace, on our way home empty-handed, whether they'd seen Anna. They hadn't, but took up the search in the woods immediately behind the terrace.

Still no sign of Anna; Lewis started going door-to-door in the village, and soon found her, wrapped up in someone's coat, eating chocolate--and looking a bit shocked. If I had guessed right, we probably would have caught up with her immediately, as she didn't get far.

Thomas and Iain dressing up at Housesteads

So you can bet that the next day, when the boys went to Hadrian's Wall, I made certain that Anna was under a watchful eye. And today we ALL took a walk to the ruin.

nighttime prayers

Anna never ceases to amaze me. We've been saying prayers together in the boys' room for a couple of weeks now, and she's a full participant: she remembers classmates, present and former, teachers, friends, our parish priest, and most of the regulars at Faith & Light. Anna reminds me of people we've not seen in ages, and I sometimes wonder whether she knows something I don't. Last night, though, she asked at the end of prayers (when we usually have the Salve Regina--apologies to all the liturgically correct: someone needs to teach me the Ave Regina Caelorum before next Lent) for Michael.

Michael? I wondered. Which Michael? Then it dawned on me: St Michael, as in St Michael the Archangel. Back in Atlanta, we concluded every Mass with the prayer to St Michael. I don't remember whose idea it was to incorporate it into our bedtime prayers, but we used to have it each evening. I think eventually it was squeezed out by the Salve Regina (which Thomas decided he really wanted, especially after experiencing compline at Minster Abbey). I asked Anna, "Do you mean St Michael?' She said 'yesssss' in the way that she does when you've worked out what it is she's trying to say.

Again, I wondered. Does she know something I don't? I will probably never quite understand the way her imagination works. She remembers so much, and reminds us of things at the most surprising moments. It's unpredictable: unlike Thomas, she's not likely to remember the big events that we keep in prayer; unlike Iain, she's unlikely to have something specific in mind. But then there are these moments, when she reveals something to us, reminds us of something or someone we've forgotten or nearly forgotten, and we know that she's been paying attention all along, storing things up in her heart. She may not be meditating on them, exactly, but she certainly keeps them.

I often wonder how that extra chromosome affects Anna so variably. In some areas, the delays in development are pronounced; in others, she grows by leaps and bounds (though also in fits and starts!), making her way forward in her own unique pattern. In her heart, though, she carries so much more than I do: she may be delayed in speech, she may be behind in arithmetic, but she's way ahead in love.

march miscellany

We've had very little of the 'madness' of the NCAA tournament this year, and yet Thomas managed to throw himself into the University of Washington v UNC game as if he had bet his life on UW. I think the sports gene (like the math gene) must skip a generation. Thomas watched with interest, listened to the explanations given, and by the end of the game was able to suggest fairly sophisticated strategies. I know the sports gene skips a generation, because I can't even remember the specifics, just that I was amazed at how quickly he picked it up. Later that evening, as I was saying goodnight to a very sleepy Thomas, I commented that I was impressed at how quickly he'd learned, and that I was proud of him. As if to console me, he replied that he didn't really understand the offside rule in soccer, either.

inspiration?

Iain has decided he doesn't mind saying prayers. He's practically taken over saying grace at suppertime; he learned Thomas' school grace, and surprised us all one day by rattling it off. We thought he wasn't paying attention.

So prayers at bedtime involve more participation. Thomas tends to remember the big events: he's the first to pray for the people in areas of the world affected by earthquakes, floods, famine or drought, or political unrest. Iain is just the opposite, perhaps because he is only 4 and doesn't have current events brought to he attention at school. He asks God to bless his teachers and friends at school. 'Especially God bless my friend Alex', he said tonight, 'so that he doesn't get ill again'. He continued on, naming friends (including 'all the babies'), pausing occasionally in an effort to remember. 'God bless Poppy...God bless Samuel...God bless Sebastian....' and on he went, until he said 'God bless Rachel...'

He stopped suddenly and looked at me. 'Who's Rachel?' he asked.

I laughed. I have no idea how 'Rachel' got into his head. 'Is Rachel one of your students, mummy?' he asked. Fortunately, I do have a student named Rachel: problem solved.

Ash Wednesday

Today, when I picked Iain up from school, he immediately noticed the ashes on my forehead. 'Where did that come from?' he wanted to know. Church, I said. 'Did you do that yourself?' he asked. No, Fr Tony did that, I explained. He wanted me to wash it off. Immediately. I said, a bit too flippantly, that the Archbishop wouldn't like it if I did that, whereupon Iain started to cry. That'll teach me to quote the Catholic Herald to my 4-year-old. So I had to promise to try to get the ashes off once we got home.

Iain and I walked to the bus station, and rode the bus home. (Iain absolutely loves to ride the bus!) About halfway home, a group of teenagers boarded the bus and headed straight for the back, where Iain had insisted on sitting. One of them, a boy, stared at my forehead. He tried, without success, to get his schoolmates to join him in staring at my forehead.

I think there was a time that might have bothered me. But that feels like a very long time ago now.

High culture

Lewis hates opera. Well, too be fair, he doesn't hate it all: he says he likes Verdi, and he likes Wagner. Still, he usually turns off BBC3 during the metropolitan opera broadcast on Saturday evenings. Apparently, Anna takes after her daddy. 'Scary bit!' she insists, whenever she hears opera on the radio. It's not scary, I tell her.

So a week or so ago, I was with the children in the dining room, and the opera was on. Anna was complaining, as usual. Not only was it scary; she insisted that she couldn't like it. (That's Anna: it's not that she doesn't like something, it's that she can't like it.)

'Of course you like it,' Iain interjected. 'It's lovely.'

That's my boy.

a domestic miscellany

Iain wins the prize for creativity and obedience this week. Well, that's true most weeks, but never mind. We hold out hope that his siblings will copy his cheerful attitude and at least appreciate the fantastic tales he spins. His two most precious moments of the last week or so:
(1) several days ago, I gave a very specific instruction to the children before I went upstairs to gather my things in preparation for the morning school/work run. Don't tip out the legos; we need to leave in a few minutes. (I admit that may seem somewhat arbitrary to those who don't mind coming home to a living room floor covered in brightly colored plastic rectangles and squares. I am not one of those people.) Within seconds of clearing the top step, I heard the familiar sound of the lego bin being turned over. At exactly the same moment, I heard a lovely little voice saying insistently, 'but mummy said no!' I can't remember whether Iain prevailed over his brother, actually; I was just so pleased that he had heeded the instruction I didn't care whether the legos were all over the floor. Some things are more important than a tidy living room.
(2) Yesterday, Iain had to have two immunization injections. He wasn't pleased when I explained to him where we were going and why, and there were some tears on the way to the doctor's office. When we arrived, we read his new favorite book, which I had just received from amazon that morning. (This was my first read-through: Captain Pike looks after the baby was a nursery book, not one we had at home. I recommend it.) Our turn came, and we found the right door (eventually), and a very kind nurse met us. She was much gentler than the last nurse we'd seen, and I was glad. I was as traumatized as Iain after the last round of immunizations--and that only invoved one needle! He sat still, though, in spite of his tears. Afterward, he observed the tiny dot of blood that showed through the little band-aid the nurse had applied. What's that? he asked, then answered his own question: it looks like blood. I nodded. Well, that's very interesting, he said. Trauma over. By the time we got home, the jabs were a part of a new story he made up about some pirates and a sea monster (who, incidentally, bit one of the pirates in the leg).

The prize for most thoughtful action of the past five days goes to Thomas. Last Friday evening, he amused himself by testing me on his spelling words. Since I didn't miss any, he got some help from Daddy and from our friend, Mim, in creating a spelling test certain to stump me. I managed vicariate and catacrestically, but was eventually tripped up by 'gymkhana'. To be fair, I had no idea what it was, and my strategy for spelling it came from having grown up with words derived from Spanish and various Native American languages. The next morning, Thomas presented me with a piece of paper, on which was written the word 'gymkhana'. Just so you don't forget how to spell it, he explained.

I shall endeavor to work it into my next bit of academic writing.