The Magic Bunny by Garrett T. Fraley

Garrett was the 3rd Grade winner for the Young Authors Contest.  He is elated.   This is his story (created by a process that I will henceforth call "Begging Garrett to Concentrate so that His Inner Light Can Shine").

          Once there was a medium sized bunny named Ramon.  He was a white bunny with a few patches of black fur.  Most people thought he was cute.  Ramon knew only one person—the magician, the Great Ricardo!  The Great Ricardo! knew many magic tricks and was well known.    The Great Ricardo was especially good at making a rabbit appear and disappear from his black magic top hat.  Ramon was upset that nobody ever seemed to give him credit for making the trick work.

            There was one trick that The Great Ricardo! could not do.  He could not manage to pierce something with a lot of swords and have the object come out unharmed.  Ramon had been watching The Great Ricardo! practice this trick for a long time, using a large supply of watermelon.  The only result was a lot of sliced watermelon.

            Ramon began to worry that Ricardo (the Not So Great) would want to try his sword trick on a poor, cute, helpless white bunny with black patches of fur.  He heard Ricardo say, “For my next show, I will try the sword trick with my trusted rabbit, Ramon!”

Ramon was very worried when he heard this.  He had to think of a plan.  He would have to trick The Great Ricardo! and disappear.  How could he do this?  Ramon knew that most magic tricks involved making people see something that they don’t really see.  Ricardo calls this “the art of illusion.”  But how could a simple bunny master something so fancy as The Art of Illusion?  He did not know.  He decided to try to hide.

            One day when The Great Ricardo! was sleeping, Ramon squeezed out of his cage and hopped quietly to the coal stove.  He tucked a large piece of coal under his paw and ran on his other three legs back to his cage.  In his cage, he scratched the coal into a powder with his long claws.  Then he hid the powder in a small baggie that once held some rabbit treats.

            The next day was the day of the big show.  Ricardo greeted Ramon with a smile and said, “Today is the day, my furry friend!  Today we will do our greatest trick with the sword.  Now, don’t be afraid.  I’ve had lots of practice.”

Ramon was afraid.  He hoped his own magic trick would work!  He hid his treat bag full of coal in his cheeks as the magician lifted him from his cage prepared him for the show.  Soon Ramon heard the announcer, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!  I present The Great Ricardo!”

It was time.  Ricardo began the show by showing the crowd that he could bend a spoon by wiggling his finger over it.  Then he made balls multiply and disappear under shiny metal cups.  Next he made a ring move through a solid rope.  The crowd was impressed.

“Next,” said Ricardo, “I will make a rabbit appear from my hat!  This was Ramon’s big moment.  The magician lifted him out of the hat and showed him to the audience.  The audience said, “Awwww!”  Then the Great Ricardo said, “Now I shall make this Rabbit disappear!”  Ramon hid himself in the hat and quickly covered himself in the black coal powder.  The Magician turned the hat upside down and showed that Ramon had disappeared.  The magician said, “Now, I will make the rabbit reappear!”  But he could not find Ramon who was camouflaged in the hat.   There appeared to be no rabbit in the hat.  The Great Ricardo was confused.  The audience laughed and booed.  Ramon felt bad about that.  He was used to people clapping for him.  But, he was happy to have escaped possible death from the Magic Sword.

            Later that night, after the show was over and the crowd was gone, Ramon hopped from the magic hat and scampered into the darkness, unseen and covered in coal.

About Face

While driving in the car to Garrett's piano lesson, Mary randomly announced that she does not like her "crying face."
Mary: I don't like my crying face.
Caroline: Do you mean the face that you make while you are crying?
Mary: Yes.  I don't like the way it looks.
Caroline: How do you know how it looks?
Mary: When I am crying I look at it in the mirror.  I only open my eye a teeny crack to see it.  I don't like it.
Caroline: I don't like my crying face either.
Garrett: I haven't seen you cry in a long time.
Caroline: I cried when Grandma Lee died. (I have certainly cried since then, but Garrett has seen it).
Garrett: Yes, you cried hard.
Caroline: You know what face I don't like?
Mary: What?
Caroline: I don't like my angry face.
Mary: Why not?
Caroline: It makes me feel yucky.  Ugly.  My smiling face is much better.
Garrett: I don't like your angry face either.

Sleep tight

Lately Mary has been insisting that I sleep with her.  She is such an independent, determined person; it surprises me when she says "I don't want to be alone.  I want you to sleep with me all night."  She says she has nightmares.  Last night she had one about Minecraft, a computer game that she plays where she invents her own worlds. She woke up to tell me about this nightmare, but I wasn't fully awake.  The information about her dream was somehow merged with my dream.  In my dream I was inside the fence of a zoo environment where all the animals roamed around together.  There were rhinoceros, elephants, bears, monkeys and apes, and jungle cats.  Mary and Garrett were inside the enclosure with me.  I was sure a Giant Panda was going to take out Garrett.  In the bed, Mary woke and said, "Mommy, my world isn't safe."  I said, "Neither is mine.  Go back to sleep so I can get this bear away from Garrett."  She said, "I don't have a bear, mommy, but buildings are popping up and falling down where I don't want them."  I assured her that it was just a dream, but I felt the same urgency to get back to my zoo and do something about the chaos. 

Mary has always wanted me to be with her in some way for sleeping.  It brings back all sorts of memories for me.  Sometimes she completely freaks me out by saying the exact thing my sister, Mary, would have said. "You sleep by the edge, Mommy." 
"Why do you want me to sleep by the edge?"  I already know the answer.
"Because I'm afraid of monsters and if I sleep by the wall, they'll get you first."
Yep, I've heard that before.  As it has in the past, this comment is both a compliment and an insult.  Apparently, I'm a source of protection and a necessary sacrifice.  I'll admit it feels a little more acceptable as a parent than a sister. 

Mary is completely stubborn.  This drives me crazy, but I also admire her for knowing what she wants and sticking to her guns.  On nights when I'd rather sleep in my own bed, I try to explain to her that there are no monsters, that we are all in the same house, and we are safe.  She can sleep on her own and we'll all be here in the morning.  She's not buying it.  It's absolutely necessary that I be with her in the bed. 

I feel like taking my argument a little further and telling her that the monsters don't live under the bed or in the closet.  In my experience, the monsters are lurking under our own skin.  Self-doubt, disease, fear of being alone--those are the monsters that I worry about.  All those years that I slept next to my sister because she was afraid of monsters--or the thing that would come to get us--didn't keep the real monster away.  It was already there.  It was already taking us, and it didn't choose me.  It didn't care if I was on the outside or the inside of the bed.  Maybe Mary knew that it was coming for us.

For this reason, I ignore all parenting intuition and sleep with Mary Moo.  We wake in the night and say, "There some scary stuff in here."  We resolve to go back to sleep and take care of it.  I fall asleep turned away from Mary and eventually I am hugging her.  I wake up stiffer than I would have in my own bed, but with a familiar peace.  She doesn't hog the blankets, or snore, or climb over me to get to the bathroom.  She is quite beautiful when she sleeps.

My mother used to tell me that she could always tell me and my sister apart, except when we were sleeping.  Our deep resting expression removed all the individuality from our faces.  When Mary Moo is sleeping, her face reminds me that we are all the same.  We want to go to sleep feeling secure.  We want help making sense of chaos and uncertainty.  We want to know we can explore our innermost self  safely and with a witness. 

When I climb into bed with Mary, I hope that the monsters stay away from her.  I still hold out hope that snuggling has a buffering effect.  I pray that nothing is lurking or coming for her.  I pray that I will not look back on these days of sharing our dreams with a pining heart. 

In another part of my dream last night I was with my grandma.  I was at her house arranging her things.  I had a collection of framed photographs and I was unsure whether or not they should be saved.  I had the sense that I was being advised to throw them away, but I resist this idea.  I leave the photographs alone and later return to them.  My grandma is there and she has fastened them all together with gold filigree clasps.  She tells me, "They are all connected, see?  They go together even if they are framed a little differently."  Suddenly I see the pictures as a whole.  I say, "Grandma, where did you get those clasps?  I have never seen them before."  She said, "Oh I keep them by my bed.  I have lots of little things."  The clasps were actually connected to the people.  It was essential that these clasps touch a part of the subject's body.  My grandfather had a clasp on his foot and on his hand.  The hand extended to the next picture where it linked to a child's shoulder.  We were literally all connected. 

Although there is not a third body in the bed with Mary and me.  There are other souls.  They come in and out of our dreams and they are part of the fabric in the quilts and blankets.  We swaddle them around us and invite them to tell us something.  They tell me that we have to make the most of the time that we have.  They say that these sleeping moments count just as much as the waking moments.  We are all connected all the time.

No title

I'm embarrassed to call myself a blogger.  Something coming soon because I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't document our amazing summer.

Happy Birthday Garrett, bare minimum style

Garrett turned 8 on Monday and I just barely eeked out a birthday celebration for him.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again: having a January birthday sucks.  Everyone in our family, except Garrett who has been miraculously spared, has been sick.  The kind of sick where you wonder if today you'll feel terrible, a little better than terrible, or, happily, just crummy.  Mary and I don't speak full sentences any more.  We just cough out Morse code.  Cough. Cough.  Coughcoughcoughcough.  Cough-cough.  That's "I'll be there in a minute."

January was off to just a good start.  We were still riding the high of Christmas.  I was going to the gym everyday and feeling good.  2011 was rapidly wiping out the blues of 2010.  We took a cool family trip with friends to St. Louis and stayed in a funky hotel that the kids loved.  We've been living in the land of love and joy (mostly due to the euphoria that is brought on by hours of Wii Sports and Mario Cart).  We often invited friends to stay for dinner and thought the snow looked pretty.

And then boom!  We were down for the count and Garrett's birthday came with the hope that we could get through a round of Happy Birthday without hacking on the cake.  We invited our closest friends to join us for chicken dinosaurs and soup.  I stopped by Meijer on the way home, picked out the only chocolate cake that could pass for a "boy" cake and stuck a Sponge Bob figurine on it for decoration.  That evening as Garrett and his friends pronounced that this was the "best day ever", we grown ups sat on the couch and strategized ways to make it until Spring.  It took our friends 20 minutes to prepare their car for departure because a layer of ice an inch thick had frozen to their windshields.

Garrett, bless his heart, had a fantastic day (although later I learned that Mrs. Beck--his teacher--had passed out fruit roll ups in class in honor of Garrett's birthday because his lazy mother didn't bring in cupcakes.  Is this a requirement?  This is what I get for setting the bar so darn high in years past).  His best-day-ever was topped with extra goodness when he learned that school was canceled the next day and he could play with his birthday presents instead of singing Little Orphan Annie songs in Music class.

I guess turning 8 wasn't so bad for him.  I think my favorite thing about Garrett is how pleased he is by the small pleasures that come his way.  I hope he doesn't grow out of that. 

Apples and Oranges

Mary has a wiggly tooth!  I can't believe it.  I know she is five and in Kindergarten, but I haven't really processed that my baby is old enough to lose teeth.  She bit into a marshmallow at school and saw red on it.  Her teacher said, "Mary!  Your tooth is going to come out soon!"  Mary said, "Mommy, I want that tooth to come out because I like dollars."  That's Mary for you--ready to analyze the situation in terms of personal gain. Mary is a quantifier.

Sometimes I enjoy comparing Mary and Garrett's reactions and perspectives because they have such different strategies for happiness.  Garrett is happy-go-lucky and wants to win every game he plays.  Whether it's a computer game, Wii game, soccer game, guessing game, he wants the taste of victory.  He's rather coordinated and often puts me to shame.  He bowled a 180 on the Wii and I got a less than impressive 124.  Mary doesn't really care about winning, but she does like to come out ahead.  She's the kind of kid that counts Christmas presents.  She also totally gets the concept of delaying gratification for a bigger reward.  If Garrett has Halloween candy left over in December it's because he forgot about it (after he went to as many houses as his legs could stand); after he accomplished the task of filling his pumpkin, he no longer cared about the candy.  If Mary has candy left over in December it's because she is rationing it, making sure few people have access to it, and literally squirreling it away somewhere.  She knows how to make a good candy trade with Garrett who thinks it only matters to have a full bucket.  On Halloween night Mary stopped collecting candy at least 30 minutes before Garrett and opted for a ride in the wagon.  She's no fool--When we got home, Garrett was wiped out and Mary was ready to take inventory and plan her trades.  Garrett lives in the moment and Mary is always thinking ahead. It makes complete sense that Mary's wiggly tooth is a signal to start counting cash.  All Garrett cared about was how much blood would be involved.  Garrett hates blood.  Mary thinks the only injury worth getting excited about is a paper cut. 

Mary loves to do everything herself.  She is rather impressed with herself most of the time.  If she asks me to open something for her, such as a new puzzle, and I say, "Not right now," she will quickly move on to plan B.  The next thing I know she has the scissors out, the box opened, and the pieces sorted. Mary has been making books and zines.  She got 1000 sheets of printer paper for her birthday and some tape.  We're almost out.  I also have about 700 pages of handmade "art" that I don't know what to do with.

Garrett hates to do things by himself, particularly his homework.  He usually wants help or company and is willing to wait for it.  If he wants Mary's help or company she will sometimes use this as leverage for something she wants.  This all amounts to having a very sweet boy and a very clever girl.

The other difference between Mary and Garrett that is remarkable is their memory.  Mary remembers everything she's ever heard or seen.  She knows when we're getting close to a destination even if she's only been their once before.  If we take a different route, she'll say, "This isn't the way!"  She hides little objects around the house and remembers where she put them.  The other day I asked, "Where is the Lego cat for Hogwarts castle?"  She said, "Oh, I know" and went over to a silver sugar cup in the living room and dug it out.  Because of her memory we have to be very careful about what we promise her.  If I tell her that next Christmas she can have the red stocking and Garrett can have the green, you can bet that 11 months from now she will say, "Mommy, remember what you said about those stockings....."  If I tell her something twice she'll say, "Mommy, I know that! You already said it!" 

Garrett is another story.  Somewhere on the list of Top 10 Phrases Frequently Said by Garrett would be, "Oh, yeah, I forgot.  Ha ha."  Another one on the list would be, "What? I didn't hear you."  Garrett has to deal with his audio processing disorder, which makes it very hard for him to process new information.  When you add the APD to his easy-going personality, only a few prized bits of information have staying power.  Like his daddy, he's a creature of habit.  He wants to eat the same thing for breakfast every day and the same thing for lunch.  Once something becomes his favorite (food, color, activity, etc), it's very hard to displace it (for Mary, variety is the spice of life).  This makes him loyal, forgiving, predictable, and somewhat stubborn.  He has a great sense of humor and loves to tell jokes when he can remember them. 

Both Mary and Garrett are extremely loving.  They give us hugs all the time and are good to their friends.  They are also very loving to each other.  Garrett thinks Mary is "so funny and so cute," and Mary thinks Garrett is "good at lots of things and cozy."  Usually they enjoy playing together or doing their own thing side by side.  When Garrett does something that Mary doesn't like, she says, "No thank you, Garrett!"  If Mary does something that Garret doesn't like, he'll say, "C'mon, Mary!  Don't be mean!"  I bet you can guess which one of them says, "I love mommy 110," and which one says, "Mommy is the best mommy of any kind of mommy." 

Use Your Button Wisely

My sister gave me a wonderful Christmas gift.  She had all of my blog posts printed in a book.  Now I feel all published and everything.  It's like my own personal yearbook.  She didn't realize this, but I have secretly wanted something like that because I have never really read my blog entries.  I have wondered what kind of shape they would take when pieced together.  When I make an entry,  I write it, post it, and move on to the next thing I need to do.  I have this weird fear that one day Miss Moo and Mr. Mo will vanish.  All of our memories will just be gone, like scrapbooks lost in a fire.  Having a tangible copy of Miss Moo and Mr. Mo helps me to know what I will grab if my house ever does catch on fire.

I didn't write a single word for any blog in 2010.  Why?  Not because my kids weren't cute enough, or funny enough, or blog worthy enough.  They had many shining moments.  There were many times I wanted to preserve the incidental things they did or said, or memorialize their achievements and milestones.  Nor was it because I lost interest in writing.  I often wished I could do it, but couldn't quite find that happy place in my heart that allows me to share my thoughts and feelings.

It was just a hard year.  I have started working part time, which feels like full time because I am learning the ropes and getting accustomed to my new lifestyle as a working mom.  Being a working mother is an energy sapping endeavor.  I wish I could say that my fulfillment from working gives me a renewed energy at home.  It does not.  I'm tired all the time.  Mary and Garrett want for me not to work because they feel the difference.  My "what can I do for you?" pleasantry can quickly become a "what do you want?" snap. 

2010 was a year in which several awesome mothers that I know faced the reality of raising their kids alone.  Witnessing this has motivated me to do whatever it takes to build my own career.  I know that I could be in the same position (we all know that Chris refuses to wear his bike helmet, for example) as these women.  There are no guarantees.  So, now I have two jobs and I have to deal with the uncomfortable and unfamiliar feeling that both of these jobs do not get done to my usual standards.  Fostering creativity and fulfillment in my family and in my community is my passion, but when I'm working I feel like the most I can hope for is clean underwear, a sustainable pantry, and kids that wake up with a smile and go to bed with a story.  There is not much room for blog writing among those goals.

2010 brought the passing of my beloved Grandma.  I spent the first part of the year anticipating her death, the middle part of the year facing it, and the last part of the year coping with it.  To summarize Grandma's influence on my life and my parenting would be an entire book unto itself, but suffice it to say that it's hard to write about your children's childhood when you are completely absorbed by memories and reflections of your own.  My feelings for my grandma cannot be separated from my feelings about my childhood.  My grief cannot be set aside for joyful writing, even though I certainly had many quiet moments of joy and gratitude throughout the year.  I have been creatively wearing black for the past year.  It's no wonder that Mary frequently says, "I miss Grandma Lee so much"; she is keenly aware her mother's inner storm. I think she misses her happy mother as much as she misses the warmth of her great grandmother.

Elaina's real gift to me was the reminder that time flies and we're having fun.  I read over some of my past entries and was amazed by how little I remembered writing.  I found myself eager to learn about Mary's first few days home from the hospital and Garrett's struggles with speech and his very early fascination with the computer.  I had not realized that while I was busy trying to keep all our lives running smoothly I was having a lot fun.  My kids are an absolute pleasure to raise--even on their most grumpy and inconsolable days.  The daily hassles and stress of parenting put a tarnish on what is actually a very shiny and beautifully etched experience.

I did not name the book Elaina published on my behalf.  She called it, Use Your Button Wisely--a saying we invented in our own childhood when Mary Rose and I were 12 and Elaina was 8.  We were making the long drive back from Disneyland and were quite bored.  Without the luxury of hand held gaming devices and iPods, we were left to our own imagination (no, not that!) to come up with ways to pass the time.  Having played all the travel games multiple times, Mary decided to invent a new game.  She distributed game pieces from all the games as well as any other materials that she could find in the car.  From our materials we were instructed to invent something.  We all had plenty of game tokens, dice, spinners, and so forth.  Mary was distributing the final material by dismantling a hotel sewing kit, which came with 3 buttons and some thread.  Mary held up the button the way a priest holds up a host at Sunday Mass and issued us all some sage advice: "Use your button wisely, girls!  You only get one."   I immediately valued the button and made it a central part of my invention.  I used a cardboard bucket (previously used to separate tokens from a game board) and the button and thread to create a pulley system that would carry people (game tokens) from one end of the car to the other (fastened on car door coat hooks).  Mary was impressed with my use of the button and it was decided that I had won the game.

After that trip we would frequently use the phrase use your button wisely to emphasize the value of something, especially when you only get one chance.  I often use it to refer to making the most of time.  I have a day to myself and I want to use that button wisely. 

The loss of my grandma prompts me to think about how wisely my grandmother invested her time and energy; I know of no one else on this earth that loved so deeply, honestly, and consistently.  I think about how my sister's life was as short as my grandmother's was long and how they both managed to live such full and meaningful lives.  After I wallow in my selfish loss of these women, I ask myself, "Am I using my button wisely?"  Elaina's gift reminds me that I am.  In taking the gifts and blessings that I have been given, particularly my children, and using every joyful, glorious, sad, and aggravating moment to celebrate the fullness of life I use my button wisely. 

The new year brings a lot of new hope and excitement.  Mary is in Kindergarten and does something to amaze me every day.  Garrett is turning 8 this month.  He looks more and more like a boy who will become a man rather than a baby who has become a boy.  I'm getting the hang of this working life with the help of Chris who is always supportive and even.  He's the balance that keeps the scales from tipping too far in one direction.  With the legacy of those that have lived their so fully, and with the encouragement of those in the here and now, I'm ready to write it down again.

Now, where to begin....?