At the still point of the turning world

I really meant well when I said that I would post on a regular basis, chronicling the moments in my stay-at-home-mom-ing life that are worth remembering, for my sake as much as for the people that read this blog. But for as many moments in a day that are worth telling, there are usually more harried, forgettable moments that keep me from meditating on those lovely worthy ones. So the last couple of weeks has been full of both types and I have written little. Here's my attempt to make up for it.

We flew to Arizona last weekend for an extended visit with Rohl family and friends who mostly mass-emigrated from California for the affordable real estate in the Phoenix area. Because this group of people have known James since junior high or longer and because we make it to Arizona so infrequently, everyone wanted to see us. So every meal, basketball game and shopping outing involved about 30 people and what seemed like 9,000 children. Compared to my relatively solitary life in Portland with the boys where the weekly trip to the grocery store constitutes the majority of our social interaction, all these people were a bit overwhelming. Once I realized that all talents of extroversion and adaptability were going to be required for this vacation, I really had a great time. I also got to see James and the boys in a different context than I am used to. For instance:

Finn is a natural born leader and seems to be perfectly content on 5 or 6 snatched hours of sleep in car-seats, various pack and plays and leaning on Bing's chest on the airplane. He dashed around Kyle and Melissa's house with Hayley yelling "dah dah dah dah" for a number of hours, zigzagged around Mark and Kendra's back yard with their dachshund Tyson, like two ships passing in the night-in fast motion, never actually acknowledging each other but following the same figure eight pattern worn in the grass, played with trucks at church nursery, sat in the dirt with the Jackson kids at the farm on Sunday afternoon, rubbing much dirt onto his sunscreened face to make warpaint looking pattern and generally made friends with everyone he met: "pop pop chuck, Yenny, mahhk, kenna, mahl, owen" and his favorite-baby hayley.

James is the best version of himself in this group of friends both because he has known them so long making him more comfortable and because James is enough different from the other boys in the group that he sets himself apart. He did dishes after huge meals, he picked up kid explosion of toys wherever we stayed and he held and cared for both of our boys as well as any other child who seemed to have a need. While these are normal parts of James' and my life, this kind of participation in the domestic and child-rearing scene is not expected of many of the other men we visited. It made me feel so progressive with our non genderized roles and reminded me that I am lucky to have him. He also told stories and teased his brother and generally shined bright the whole weekend.

And Henry, well he is just the nicest, best, smiliest, good natured baby ever-even with my bias taken into account. He got put in and taken out of the carseat and the stroller a zillion times, slept on a chair, in a king sized bed, on a couch, the floor and wherever else he could manage to drop to sleep amidst high volume, much action and a number of interested dogs. And never cried or noticeably fussed even when it had been an unforgivable amount of time since he ate and he had been passed to the thirtieth set of arms to be cooed at. He smiled at each oggling relative with fresh delight and even sat through an entire basketball game in the arms of his 7 year old cousin lyric, to her enormous joy.