Sophie

I hit the wall last night.

Literally.

It is 9 p.m.

Both little kids are hysterical.

They are beyond tired and I feel my skull vibrating with their monkey screams.

I am on my way out to the recycling. I throw the box against the wall.

It hits with all the force its' flimsy cardboard can allow, which isn't much.

I wish it were a dozen glass bottles.

I wish their shattering would silence everyone.

Andrew rumbles upstairs to "help."

I bark at him to, "Just read Pepper a book!  She's been waiting for me to read her a book for the last 20 minutes!  She can brush her teeth LATER!!"

"I'm going to brush her teeth FIRST!"

He slams the bathroom door in my face and proceeds to force a toothbrush into Pepper's wailing mouth.

Beckam is on a roll in his crib, thrashing and screeching.  

I look over at Sophie.

Her body is slumped over, her mouth a straight line.

She is sitting on the kitchen table, watching.

It all stops.

I remember this feeling, when it was me watching.

I shut Beckam's door, let him cry.

I shut the bathroom door, let Pepper cry.

I walk over to Sophie.

I put her head against my chest and wrap arms around her.

I speak into her hair,

"This sucks, I know.  I know."

She tries to push against me, but only for a second.

I let Sophie cry.

Her sobs are fast and whole like a solid stream of water.

"I'm sorry Sof.  I know how you feel.  It sucks to watch the parents get mad.  It sucks to hear the little kids cry and be the oldest and you can't do anything about it. I know. But you know what...this is normal.  All families have nights like this.  It's gonna be okay."

She is still crying,

"Really?"

"Ya, this happens in all families.  You just don't see it."

She slows to a trickle.

I hold her face and look into her eyes.

I notice her eyelashes.  I always notice her eyelashes, thick as tarantula fur.
"You ready to go to bed?"
Sniffle, "Ya."

Five minutes later the house is quiet.
I am perched on the ladder to the top bunk where Sophie sleeps.
I smooth her forehead.
She cuddles Butterscotch, the stuffed animal I used to sleep with.
He is matted and grey.  He is 30 years old.  She loves him just as much as I did.
In the end, the kid who wasn't crying needed the most attention.
"Ya know Sof, everyone looses it sometimes.  I didn't know that when I was a kid.  I thought my family was so messed up, but they really weren't.  The important thing is that we keep forgiving each other."
"I know," she says. "Wanna pray?"
"Ya, we really need a prayer tonight don't we?"
"Ya," she smiles.

I feel like I barely catch these moments before they hit the ground and shatter.
The times when Sophie would grow more hard when really, she needs a cushion.

This is 1 minute well spent.  Sophie's narration of waiting in the car.  The end is the best.

Zoo Day

Negotiations of which animal to see next.

 Pepper has been asking me to take her to the Zoo on an hourly basis for at least 2 weeks.
"Mom.  You gonna take me to-na-zoo today?"
It worked.
Sunday morning we were at the gates of the Hogle Zoo-  at 9 a.m.-  right when they opened.
"We're gonna go to-na-Zoo!"  Pepper chanted "Sophie!  You wanna go see all-na-animals?"
From a top her yellow-flowered car-seat she reigns - Queen of the mini-van.
However she is easily distracted.
She steps down to chase animals and candy.
So we don't have to deal with her demands all the time.

Beckam charmed all the ladies.

But this one would not die, so here we are.
Beckam is nestled into the umbrella stroller.
He barely fits.
He stayed in it the whole time, kicking his sausage legs.

I feel tired, blearly eyed like a Jack Kerouac poem and too much whiskey.  I haven't drank whiskey in over 7 years, but I remember.  I also remember that it passes if  I just put one foot in front of the other and put my head down like an ox.
I told Pepper we would do this, so I put on my checkered Vans and conjure my inner child.
I need the girl who runs through fountains on a hot day and builds forts out of bed sheets.

I think of my own Mom, and how many days she must have felt just like this.
She had six kids in ten years.
She was tired for entire years of her life.
She created magic for us every Christmas, birthday, and a hundred days in between.
She understood that little things are important.
She sewed our Easter dresses, and made sure we had little white gloves to go with them.

Talking to "Timone" from the Lion King

Taking turns sticking tongue out at Mom

Sophie is incredibly patient.

Monkey meets monkey

watching seals swim

"Mom, what was the coolest thing you saw today," Sophie asks.  Her voice is eager and young.

So often I hear hints of teenager come out of her, and it scares me.  I want her fascination to last just a little longer.

"Hmm...probably the giant iguana," I say.

"Ya, but what about the monkey whose hair looked like Beckam's!"

"Oh ya, of course, how could I forget about that?"

"Sophie, you wanna go to-na-zoo?"  Pepper chirps from her throne.

"Pepper we just went to the zoo," Sophie says.

"Ya, you wanna go?" Pepper repeats.

Oh Pepper...

timpanogos cave

"What do you want for your birthday Soph?"
    "I want to have a party with you and Dad.  I don't want to have two separate parties."

Jeff and I have been divorced for over 6 years.  She has never asked this of us before.

"Okay," I tell her, "We'll work it out.  I'll call him."

Sophie is turning 10.
She wants to hike Timpanogos cave and have a cook-out in the mountains.
That is my old life.
She is asking me to step into the past and live it again.
She deserves this gift.

I pull up to Jeff's house in my mini-van.
It makes sense to drive it because Sophie and all of her friends will fit in one car.
I suggest this to him.

    "Sure I was thinking the same thing," he says.
"Do you want to drive or should I?"
    "I'll drive," he says.

So now we are riding in the front seat of my new life.
I put my bare feet up on the dash.  We talk easily, even laugh.
This moment is the result of a thousand drips into a formation of new trust.
It is beautiful and delicate and I dare not touch it.  I just stare.

We hike the trail.  We move in and out of each other easily.  One in front with the chargers and one in back with those taking their time.  I like being on the mountain with him.  I always have.

Inside the cave we are both very quiet, watching the kids giggle in the dark.  I have no idea what he is thinking.  His is a language I could never learn.  For years his muscles radiated acid. I'd pull up to his house in my boyfriend's car.   His 3 year-old daughter would hop out.  He would stand feet spread wide, arms folded across chest guarding his space.  We spoke minimal words.  I would leave and cry and pound fists into my steering wheel, wishing I had never destroyed us.

Heart of Timpanogos

"The heart of Timpanogos weighs 4,000 pounds," our tour guide marvels.
I crouch down in the dark to stare at her.  This heart has been through earthquakes and not fallen.  How can she hold so much weight?

Not me.  I folded.  My 22 year-old heart could not withstand the pressure of marriage and motherhood.
Now 10 years later, I can understand why Jeff would leave tiny notes in my sock drawer,


"I still believe."
"I love you"

Even as I was packing my bags, he still wanted to be married.
"He must not really know me," I'd think.  "If he did, he wouldn't want this."
The day I left our house for the last time, I went outside and pounded my fists on the hood of his old, grey, Toyota truck.  I wailed out loud.  We drove that truck down the coast of Baja for our honeymoon.  By then little drops of doubt had already found their way into my cracks and frozen. I had always been on the run.  I thought if I married a normal person, my rage would be neutralized.  I thought I could live in the little yellow house and have a quiet mind.  If I just stuck to washing dishes, rock climbing, and raising Sophie, I wouldn't be driven.  I could just stay in that sunlit kitchen and hold our baby.  I watered plants, walked through the park at sunset, baked cookies at Christmas.
But it was not my time to be quiet.
It was my time to self-destruct, and I did.
I did with alcohol, with pills, with men, with force.
For once I did not look back or try to hold it together.
I drank as much as I needed to, and it nearly killed me.  I hoped it would..

Now a silence is spread between us. One that can only exist in the absence left by a great bellow of pain.
In the center is the same tiny light which started the whole thing.  It is the spark of Sophie, perhaps....  of me.  It is the thing that wouldn't die.  It is the thing Jeff's sock drawer notes believed in.

The end of the day found us in the mountains.  Jeff with his fiancee.  I with my new husband and two young kids.  Everything healed, and nothing left to be said.

Jeff setting up the slack-line

Sophie blowing out candles.  Help from lil sister Pepper (right)

me on the slack-line, Andrew (husband) 

Sophie (middle) building a fort with her friends.

Easter morning 2006 - one of our last mornings together as a family.

3 wishes

"Mom...okay.  You get three wishes."

Sophie is clearly an excellent muse

I'm trying to feed Beckam formula mixed with baby cereal.
I am weaning him and have a bit of guilt stuck to my shirt.  It won't wash off.

"Not now, Sophie."
.............Where is your imagination, Sarah?.........play with her.................
"Okay...sorry Soph.  Okay.  3 wishes Umm...I'd wish for my body to be healthy and work right until I die.  And...I'd wish for Andrew's Plan-B business to be a success for him and for our family.  And...one more."

So many things I would have wanted, I don't want anymore.
I don't want to wish away my suffering.  It teaches me.
I don't want to wish away my imperfections, my glitches, my circumstances.
I realize I do not know what is best for me or anyone else.
Wishing as an adult is hard.

"I'd wish for eyes that always see the truth."
As soon as I've said it.  I wonder if it's true.

"Okay," she looks at me as if I'm weird, but she's glad I'm playing the game.
"I'd wish to never age and be the best at gymnastics. I'd wish for all my family to be healthy.  And I'd wish for any pet I want."

Pepper's turn.
"I want a pink pony!"
   "What else Pep? You get three."
"I want a pink pony!"
    "Okay, 2 more wishes Pep."
"Umm...Gwen wants a purple pony.  Max wants a blue pony.  Sophie you want a pony?"
    "I want a black one."
"Okay, and Sophie wants a black pony.  K, Mom?"
    "Okay, Pep."

Pepper's pink pony

hair cut

"You are pretty brave to cut Pepper's hair like that,"
my friend said last night.
Actually, friend, bravery is minimal.
I was simply fed up.
Done with the battle to maintain pigtails.
Yes, they were cute.
Yes, she looked like Boo from Monsters Inc.
Yet however I'd rope those pigtails in, she'd pull them out within the hour.
I'd find wadded up rubberbands on the floor and Pepper twinkling away on her trademark pixie toes.
So, I thought, Pixie Cut?

I've never held pristine ideals about my kids' appearance.
I buy all clothes 2nd hand.
I store boxes of hand-me-downs in tumble-down castles.
They are free to get as dirty as imaginations demand.
On picture day, Sophie dressed herself.
For 1st grade pictures she wore jeans underneath a skirt underneath a dress.  She held her chin up high, clearly proud of her 3-tiered ensemble.

Kids are utilitarian poets.
I try to facilitate this delightful combination whenever possible.
I swirve the mini-van like a maniac in the snow to see how far we can slide.
I sing the Lion King with full voice right along with Pepper
I let Sophie cook with flair and full artistic license.  This includes as many dishes, vegetables and spices as necessary.   She surprises me often.
One day my husband, Andrew accusingly said,
"The most important thing to you is that the kids have the most amount of fun possible, all the time."
To which I replied,
"Yes. and..."

And she lived happily ever after

Pepper is proud of her hair.
She twirls the short pieces in the back and says,
"You like my hair?  It's Ca-yewt."

Now we don't brush her hair, we style it.
She is completely fine with styling.
Brushing was a wrestling match.
But styling is fun.

So while her hair is certainly not professional.
It is fun.
Functional.
And to this Mom's eyes - adorable.

Pepper flaunting her new hair to Beckam in the bath.

Attention

The stars of the show - Beckam age 8 mos.

It has been brought to my attention that I am writing 2 blogs.
One about eating disorder recovery and one about parenting.
So.
This blog will be reserved for:

Adventures in Domesticity!

Because yes, it is an adventure.
Everyday.
And I rarely have another adult to point to and yelp,
"Did you see that!"

"It wasn't meant to be done alone in a house."
My good friend said to me  as she exited my mini-van.
She is right.

Pepper age 3

 Sophie age 10(the short one eating strawberry) also pictured is her cousin Morgan