A Curious Garden*

The other day, after Clio had been off on her own in the house for a while, I encountered this scene in the office.


Clio was lightly stepping from book to book. Before I (reflexively) got mad at her for potentially harming her books, and making a mess to boot, I asked her what she was up to.

These are lily pads, she told me. I'm hopping across the pond.

Delightful.

I love how creative Clio is, how well she invents worlds for herself while the rest of us are too busy living in this one.

While she wouldn't allow me to photograph her walking her lily-pad path, she did, without argument, help put all the books away.

*The title for this post comes from the same picture book where, I believe, Clio got this idea. We had taken it out of the library in Brooklyn, and one of my aunts gave it to Clio for Christmas. I highly recommend it.

Valentines

I love making valentines. Somewhere along the way, I figured out my favorite method for producing these little cards, which mostly consists of a layered collage of heart cut-outs. I vary the materials- one year I got particularly creative with some leftover origami paper with intense, graphic patterns; sometimes ribbons and feathers make it into the mix- but the general make up is the same. This year, Clio will be exchanging valentines for the first time at school, and so, after a brief internal debate over the Disney Princess card kits (because we all know how Clio feels about Disney Princesses), I decided to introduce her to my method.



We decided on the basic scheme together: a red background with "ruffled" edges at the top and the bottom, layered with a pink construction paper element (hearts, ruffled-hearts, or a rectangle with heart cutouts), then "decorated" with slips of ribbon and glitter and/or metallic heart stickers. I had never actually employed stickers in this process before, but Clio likes them and this was really her project.... right?


So far, we have made about 22 of these, over the course of the two nights. (We need 30 for school, plus a few extras for non-school friends). As we go, Clio grows more confident in her decorating, and I have loosened up- a little. I will admit, at first I was one of those moms who thought her child was doing it "wrong" and tried to keep her "on track." But more and more, I remembered that Clio has a very artistic eye, and that she would likely come up with some ways of decorating that would never have occurred to me (I tend to be a little rigid. You're surprised, I know.) Indeed, I was right. I like how there was generally a method to her madness, like filling in a heart cutout with stickers, or lining tiny little stickers up all along the edges of a heart. the only control I continued to exert was not letting her use the grown up scissors to cut the ribbon (just a physical challenge and possibly dangerous).

I also remembered a scene from the movie Six Degrees of Separation, where the Donald Sutherland character, an art dealer, is telling a story about the artwork he encountered at a local school; in all of the classrooms, the work was a mess, colors muddy, paper laden, except in second grade. In second grade, "picassos, every one". He wonders aloud whether this is developmental, if there is something peculiar that happens to a child at this age. No, the teacher tells him; I just know when to take their drawings away from them. A revelation. Mostly, Clio knew when her cards were finished, but on occasion I did have to save her from herself.

My last stress about this? I wonder if she will be the only one to bring homemade cards to school and if, upon realizing that Disney Princess valentines (and Dora and Spongebob, etc.) exist, if she will regret the ones we made. But I don't think so. I believe the spirit of valentines is to make or choose them with care to express love, friendship, or admiration, and I truly hope that, during her valentine's celebration, Clio will feel nothing but pride and delight at the little piece of herself that she will give to each of her friends.

Embrace!

Several years ago, The Denver Art Museum worked with starchitect Daniel Liebeskind, he of the Holocaust memorial and the ill-fated Liberty Tower at Ground Zero, to create a massive addition to the building, doubling the museum's size and drawing criticism for Liebeskin's trademark jagged edges and tilted walls- full of affect, but not so great, practically speaking, for hanging art. The new curator of Contemporary and Modern art, a German import who I met in September when interviewing for a position with the DAM Contemporaries, a membership group at the museum, devised an exhibit to embrace the museum's quirky space: 17 artists were invited from around the world to create site-specific installations that take advantage of the galleries strange angles and lofty walls. Yesterday, I dragged everyone along for the Free First Saturday (including one of Dave's fellow students, Ciny, her 4-year old son, Xander, and her mom, who is visiting from Arkansas), to check out whether or not the exhibit- named, quite literally, Embrace!- met its goals.

I'm not sure I can effectively answer that question: I spent most of the time serving up snacks and scrambling after Eleri, trying to keep her mitts off the artwork. But I will say this: The Denver Art Museum is perhaps the best I have seen when it comes to family friendly programs. You may not ultimately see much art if you focus on all the kid stuff, but the kids will feel as if they have spent the day in a very cool playground.

Case in point: On the ground floor of the new building there was this room full of words.


Not only were there styrofoam words hanging from the ceiling and colored acrylic words cascading infront of the windows, but there was a pile of beanbag words for kids to jump into- several older children were smashing each other with "sandwiches" and "leisure."


The walls were also papered with words written by guests to the museum. Clio chose "rabbit" for her word likely after the stuffed toy she found in the car and snuggled with on the drive from Boulder.


I have been noticing since Thursday that the word "Cancer" is also all around you if you are sensitive to it, like the bumper sticker on the car next to ours in the parking garage that read "Stupid Cancer," and sure enough: there it was.



After spending much of the morning swimming in language, we did manage to at least make our way through the exhibit, with Clio "explaining" the work to Xander as we went.




She's quite an expert. When we got to this installation on the second floor, she declared that it was "not art" and suggested that we move on.


We didn't argue.

Greta at 18 months

I love that, in response to my last post, Carrie sent these picture of Great at Eleri's age.
There's definitely a kindred-spirit thing going on here!

Oh, Eleri

Often, when we take Eleri out on the town, I see that look in peoples' eyes: that look that says, maybe I would like a kid, if I could have one like that. It may sound like bragging, but I swear she's just that cute. It's partly the age- 1 1/2 was my absolute favorite time with Clio, too- and it's partly the thighs. Especially when Dave dresses them in her crazy zig-zag leggings that emphasize the chubbiness, then adds her purple high tops, gold satin quilted parka, and teddy bear hat, and sets her loose on Pearl street. It's like a stealth attack.

The other day my friend Carrie sent me an email about our visit over Christmas, casually mentioning that Eleri might have the power to make one want more kids.


Carrie claims this effect is because of Eleri's smallness- her own girls, Greta and Morgan (front left and back right in this picture, along with my girls and Lizzie's son Owen) are too big to pick up and carry around on your arm. But I know it is also because Eleri looks like this:


In fact, at this party for Dakota I found myself guilty of saying things like "she's so cute right now, I can hardly stand it."

The thing is, she's not cute in a vaguely sweet kind of a way. As my friend Sara just said yesterday, this girls got personality. And there is so much that endears us to her: the way she attacks her sister with hugs, the way she throws her head back when she laughs, the way she dances when there is no music. Her penchant for the possessive: "Daddy's." (chair) "Mommy's." (water bottle).

Luckily for us on the whole desire-more-kids front, Dave and I are the ones around when Eleri throws her food- no, hurls is more like it- to signal the end of a meal. And when she throws herself on the ground all tantrum-like. And I seem to be the only one who gets the pleasure of Eleri's very effective face-slaps. And neck-pinches. That's right, this cutest kiddo likes to inflict violence upon me. And you can see it here. That spunk is right at the heart of what makes us melt anyway, and makes other people wish they could have one just like her.

The Things That Go Unsaid

Last night, learned that one of my oldest and best friends was diagnosed with Breast Cancer at the age of 33. If I had not committed myself to putting words on this page today, I probably would not post this. Partly because it is not my story to tell. Partly because blogs are edited versions of our lives, often leaving out some of the hardest or most personal challenges. I was looking at our wedding invitation list the other night to update our address book, and I was startled by how many people we've lost in the past four and a half years- how many marriages have ended in divorce, how many people have succumbed to illness or old age, and also how many have battled serious illnesses--and won. These are not the stories I tell here, but they are meaningful, they matter to me.

It is also something about the immediacy of electronic forms, good for sharing information quickly and effectively, as Lizzie did when she finally told her story on her own blog, getting her diagnosis and options out there all at once. But bad for waiting. I don't think I have written here that my baby brother had skin cancer this winter; it seemed too dangerous to put it down when we were waiting, and then well beside the point when the malignant melanoma was removed, and when the tests came back negative, showing--thank god--that the cancer had not spread. I will always remember when I signed up for Facebook, because it was the week that the same brother and his wife found out that something was wrong with their first baby. I remember waiting for the call staring at my laptop; when it came, and I learned that their baby would not survive, I just looked at the blinking cursor. "Heather Duggan Peterson Is..."

Bereft.

But we do not write that down.

The larger world gets lost in our microscopic blog vision. You would think, reading this blog of mine, that nothing real happens. That earthquakes don't shake poor island nations. That universal health care isn't an ongoing debate for our government. That reclusive authors don't die. That no one dies, or gets sick, or suffers other losses.

And being here, isolated across the country from so much that I love, I wonder again, as I did when Liam died, when Rory got cancer, what the hell I am doing here, and why I am not home, where I might be able to help.

Dakota's Birthday, Two Ways

It's become a bit of a joke in my mind, but when hanging with the Desautels-Steins, we like to do things "two ways". It started with chicken two ways, which then, absurdly, got double to chicken two ways, two ways, which I know I have mentioned here. My brother Brian picked up on it, and for Christmas, he made Dave's gift two ways, two ways: high and low root beer (a fancy schmancy variety six pack and a dollar store jug) and Flight of the Concords on DVD and CD.

Last weekend, we joined Dakota in celebrating his third birthday, twice. Friday night, for his actual anniversary, we headed to Chuck E. Cheese, just our two families. And Saturday morning, we joined a throng (15 kids and various attendant parents) for the official birthday party.

A few days before all the celebrating began, one of the women I work with recounted her own daughter's recent sixth birthday party: they had invited just six kids from school, but a few days later another classmate sent out invites to his party for the same day--and invited the whole class. Andrea shared with me the heartbreak of waiting with Joanna to see if any of her chosen six would forsake a party with bouncy castles and the whole school crowd, her relief when one did show up, and her daughter's resilience in seeing the bright side of this: that she really got to know that one little girl. It occurred to me that Clio is old enough now (already!!) that these kinds of social situations can be crushing, and I was glad that we had our own special celebration with Dakota in the Chuck E Cheese bedlam.


Still, on our way to Dakota's house the morning of the party, we talked a lot about how many other kids would be there, that Dakota might not be able to spend as much time with her as she was used to, that Amy and Justin might be too busy to notice that Clio had chosen a special party dress for the occasion. As it turned out, we were the first to arrive and the last to leave (A Duggan family tradition); Amy and Justin both commented on Clio's dress and helped Clio get bagels with cream cheese and fruit and other food as desired; and the Birthday boy opted to sit next to Clio for lunch.


For much of the afternoon, as I ran after Eleri, who insisted on swinging rakes and brooms around the yard with some clear potential for a guillotine effect, Clio kept herself busy convincing other people's dads to push her on the swing anyway (Dave was at school),

and it made me realize yet again that I often choose the wrong moments to be over-protective, that Clio is a big girl, and that, in many ways, we are still in the period of resiliency before the social thing gets really tough.

At the same time, watching the two of them together validated the idea that 3-year-olds can, and do, have real friendships. When we left New York, I was terribly worried about separating Clio and her best friend Elsie, but I think I figured they were little enough to move on and forget. Every once in a while, though, and seemingly out of nowhere, Clio will say "I want Elsie." When I explain that we live far away now, and that we would need to take an airplane to visit, Clio is undeterred: "okay," she'll say, very matter-of-fact, like she has solved everything, "let's take an airplane."

Elsie's dad just told me that the other night, Elsie put on her purse, and when he asked where she was going, she just looked at him and said, "Colorado."