My Magic Place in Maryland

I am sitting outside of Jon’s door, waiting for him to fall asleep for his nap. He only takes one nap a day, and sometimes it is like trying to keep an ice cream cone from dripping once it gets too warm. You know that it is dripping somewhere, you just have to keep checking the back and sides while you are eating the front. Just when I think that he is passed out asleep, his bedroom door slowly begins to open and I see him stick his head out just enough to make sure that I am still here in the hallway—blocking his exit lane. Sometimes it is good that Meg and Anton’s apartment is so small. I don’t think that I could keep up with him were he given more potential escape routes.

My two forms of parenting (bribing the child and/or consistently having the child practice being obedient) are working well. Of course, Megan has already gotten Jon very familiar with the second method. He moves so gracefully that it is hard to perceive the moment when Jon’s actions flip from “No way in the world am I going to do THAT.” to resigned compliance with his mother’s or father’s requests. They have an “I’m going to count to three. If you can’t do/go/come, then when I say 3, I will help you do/go/come.” routine firmly established as part of their parenting routine. They are both so quiet mannered and so grateful for the other, so in love with each other, so dedicated to uplifting the other—that I love being here in their home.

Jon is still napping. I have had a lovely shower and now I am camped out along one wall of the living room, right below the wall-sized picture window. Megan found an orange—kind of a subdued pumpkin colour—fitted sheet to cover the air mattress. It has become a small oasis where I can fold clothes or work with my photos. Anton uses it for study and occasional naps. Meg feeds Kate here and at night she lays here while I massage her lower back with Shea butter cream. Jon sits here while he watches a movie on my laptop and brings me his cars to admire. I quite like the arrangement. It is an inviting kind of set-up that can only exist here and now. It is almost as if I have been given a magic place to stay in while I am here in Maryland.

One Week Later

A Week Ago: Just Hatched Robin

This Afternoon: Robin Looking More Like a Robin

The top picture you have seen before. I took it about a week ago. I didn't want to spook the mother bird by going back too soon to check on the progress of the hatchling, but I did peek again today. From a little sack of red skin and hollow-stick legs, the baby now has a full beak, eyes, skin fuzz--even the beginnings of feathers on the wings! It is amazing to me that such transformations happen--and have been happening--before I was even aware of the world around me. Perhaps I got to watch while the process of egg to bird was being organized in the preexistence--no way, though, was I part of that committee.

Singing, yes. Trees, probably. Horses, certainly. Chocolate and whip cream--committee chairperson. Eggs to flabby pink blob to fuzzy red blob to scrawny pin-feathered wisp to gullet-wabbling-down to bad-feather-day plurf to flying and singing marvel--it doesn't feel like I was clued in enough even to begin to imagine such a transformation.

A week ago, when I took the first picture, I didn't know what kind of bird it was, but this time it was still light outside and a very agitated, very loudly chirping robin was hopping about on the fence near the holly tree. So . . . a baby robin. Unlike my grandchildren--who were both amazing from the first moment--baby song birds are u.g.l.y up until almost the very last moment before they morph into "real" birds.

Had I not known better, I would have thought that the newly hatched ducklings, chicks, and quail cheepers were a distinct species from baby robins, parrots, and doves.

I don't know why I'm still wandering on about this. Sometimes I take a moment and when I look--I realize that I have no clue what kind of place it is that I'm living in.

KR: Three Days of Age

This Afternoon: KR at Almost Two Weeks Old

What a strange juxtaposition that I should be able to see the first weeks growth of two fledglings. Kate, of course, growing from beauty to beauty--I am enchanted by her movements, her round-mouthed yawns, her tender-tiny-perfect ears and hands. I knew Kate's mother--I bore Kate's mother--and she was as magical and Kate is. I am still Megan's Mother here--but more often I'm known by those who live here as Jon and Kate's grandma. And Megan? She is the mother--Jon and Kate's mom. It's a title that passes from me to Meg with solemn ease.

She will never grow out of being my child, though. Crazy way of things--change that continues to stay the same even as it evolves: revolves--again and again.

I wish that my mom could be here to see.