To market, to market ...

Basil and beets, potatoes and peas, cheese from a goat and honey from bees!

I love the Woodland Park Farmer’s Market.

We pet the dogs from the no-kill shelter.
We watch Robillard’s honey bees hustle through a display.
We point out the newest blooms at Karen Anderson’s stand, and throw bean bags through rings to get a junior firefighter badge from the Four-Mile Fire Protection District crew.

There are vegetables to touch and watermelons to taste. We buy goat cheese from the Canyon City dairy, and mushrooms from Black Mountain Mushrooms in Guffey.

We say hello to neighbors we see only at the Friday market, and try to carry on conversations with other parents, watching our children pool together and race through the crowd.

After a couple of hours, the boys and I head home, loaded with bags of produce from the people who actually grow and make our food. We talk about our menu for the week, made up entirely of the day’s purchases. We shell peas and make pesto, and laugh about how pink our fingers turn when we pickle the beets.

Like most children, mine refuse vegetables regularly.

With patience, I hope they will one day learn to love them, as they are learning now to love their farmers.

Dismantle the Sun

A few houses up the street, there is a home filled with unbearable silence.

My neighbors were in the process of moving from Colorado to California. Larry had been at a new job there for just a week. Michelle and their son, Alex, had just returned here from visiting him. They were looking for a new home, trying to find a neighborhood that reminded them of Woodland Park.

Alex got sick on the trip. He contracted pneumonia, and just ... died.

He was three. Just a few months older than Kai.

I don't know how you recover from something like that. I don't know how you can get out of bed, and put your feet on the floor. How you can stand up. How you can breathe.

I told Michelle that I was sorry. That I knew there was nothing anyone could do. That I just wanted her to know that I was thinking about her. And I hugged her for a long time.

I took some fruit, and some fresh pastries from the Farmer's Market. Michelle told me she wanted to go to the market this morning, but just couldn't. I imagine there will be many things that she just can't do for a very long time.

We talked about their move, and what they'll do with the house here. And the list of things that Michelle is doing to get ready to leave. And we both cried.

I didn't know Michelle very well, or her son. I pray that I will never fully understand the kind of pain that she is going through right now.

Back home, the birds are singing and the wind is blowing through the aspens. I am trying, unsuccessfully, to get some work done. And anticipating the stomping on the stairs that will end the silence, so much more peaceful here than it is up the street.

Juggling

"Mom?" Berg asks. "How do you spell computer?"

C..O..M..P..U..

"That's too hard. How do you spell work?"

W..O..R..K

"How do you spell Mom?"

M..O..M

"Thanks."

Two minutes later,  Berg tapes a sign to my office door. It says "Mom" at the top, and "Work" at the bottom. In between is a drawing of a computer, with Berg's attempt at an international "NO" sign drawn over it.

"I made you this sign. Now you don't have to do any more work, Mom."

I try to compartmentalize my day into little pieces of time that can be doled out carefully to everything and everyone:

• Start laundry.
• A snack for one boy.
• A book for the other.
• A gap analysis here.
• Help cut out a paper catfish there.
• Make lunch.
• Do dishes.
• Call client.
• Write quote.
• Update financial spreadsheet.
• Pack for picnic.

Most of the time, I feel like I'm doing everything half-assed. Apparently I'm not the only one.

Music Soothes the Wild Beast

Kai is very good at being a 3-year-old boy. He has moments of such utter wildness that you'd think he was part beast. Maybe Tasmanian devil. Or howler monkey. I only really worry when his dad starts humming Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy" around him.

Today Kai had none of those moments. With his brother in zoo school and all of Mom's attention, Kai turned back into the sweeter version of himself. He spent 20 minutes singing a song to the Okapi at the Henry Doorly Zoo.

Maybe we'll keep him after all.

Silly Goose

My dad has bursitis.
It doesn’t hurt, but it has created a giant squishy knob on his right elbow.
Berg is fascinated by this.
Whenever he touches it, Grandpa honks like a goose.
I love my dad.

To Grandmother's house we go ...

Bicycles?
Check
Fishing poles?
Check
Henry Doorly Zoo pass?
Check

The boys and I are off to Grandma and Grandpa’s house tomorrow. They live on the Elkhorn River, just outside of Waterloo, Nebraska. This is roughly a 10-hour drive from my house.

The boys are very excited. I am currently having a hard time seeing beyond the packing and the driving, which is why I am writing, rather than packing.

Kurt has to work.

I picture him having a relaxing cup of coffee with the dogs in a quiet house every morning, listening to NPR and taking his time getting ready for work. He won’t have to change his pants (twice) because someone hugged him with peanut-buttery hands. He won’t have to hunt for the car keys that were used to start up Kai’s crane, or the work badge that somehow found its way under the seat of Retro Rocket.

He’ll get in some of those long runs he needs to begin training for the Marine Corp Marathon next fall.

He’ll take his bike to work, and ride fast up the hills without the weight of a trailer or a wife to slow him down.

He’ll have time to read the mail; time to finish a project ... and a conversation ... and a meal ... without interruption.

Kurt won’t be woken in the middle of the night by Kai, who is scared and had a nightmare and needs to put his icy feet on Daddy’s tummy so he can fall back asleep.

He won’t be woken before dawn by Berg, who has already told one story and is midway through the second before his audience is fully awake and is it OK if he already got out the peanut butter and some pickles for breakfast?

We’re going to be gone for two weeks.

Kurt is going to be miserable.

Who says they should be seen and not heard?

People often look at my sons and say “Wow, you have your hands full.”

Often, as in all the time.

This is not meant as a compliment.

I used to move on quickly after these comments, chagrined. No more.

Yesterday, in Home Depot, Berg asked an employee in the garden department if he could plant carrot seeds directly in the ground, or if he had to start them indoors. The employee said he could plant them in the ground, and Berg asked if it was still OK if we lived in the mountains where it was colder.

The employee didn’t know.

Kai interrupted Berg to ask the employee if deer eat carrots.

Followed quickly with:

“Do deer eat spiders?”
“Do deer eat rabbits?”
“Do deer eat children?”

Followed by Berg telling Kai that he is ridiculous. And telling the employee: “Don’t mind my brother. He’s three.”

At which point the employee said to me, “Wow, you have your hands full.”

“Yes,” I said. “My boys are awesome.”

When I take my sons out in public, I explain to them carefully what we are going to do before we go do it. Most of the time, they comply with enthusiasm. They do not break the merchandise, or wrestle in the aisles, or trip old ladies trying to cross the street.

They DO ask a lot of questions:

“Why are artichokes so pokey?”
“Why are artichokes named after the dog?”
“When can we get another dog?”
“Why is Daddy allergic to cats?”
“Why am I allergic to cow’s milk?”
“Do cows like to be milked?”
“Would you like to have cows?”
“Would you like to have goats?”
“What if we had a goat farm?”
“Do you know how to make goat cheese?”
“Would I be able to eat goat cheese?”
“Do goats eat artichokes?”

Apparently, neither of my sons came with a volume control. But if loud and inquisitive are the worst they throw out, I’ll take two hands full, please.