Medieval History

Happy Birthday, Oliver

These ten days between Eleanor's birthday and Oliver's are always the craziest: turning grades in, saying good-bye to students, graduation, cleaning out the office, oh and there's a wedding anniversary in there somewhere. This summer, we're flying solo without the help of childcare (mostly splitting days, but there'll be a sitter when Mac is in India), and the long stretches at home remind me of that waiting time before Oliver was born. There had been a miscarriage the year before, a sad summer, but this was a truly happy one: Mac had just gotten the job at DePauw, everything was lush, and we lived in this ranch house that was cool and orderly. And then he was there: tiny, blond, wide-eyed. He hardly cried when he was born, just looked and looked all around him as we passed him back and forth, rolled up in his tiny seraphim swaddling. I felt as though I knew Oliver immediately. He is glad and open and eternally optimistic. His buoyancy is fettered but undeterred by structure and I've come to count on his joy. We brought him home, he slept, we marveled. He paved the way for his sisters, duping us into thinking it was all really easy. And even now, being with Oliver is a sense of home, a very sure comfort: of origins of a mother self, of first summers of play, of new knowledges. He reads, and imagines, and talks, and daydreams and daydreams and daydreams, and considers, and loves a good ethical dilemma. When he talks to a friend, he is completely theirs, ready with that smile and that eagerness. He still rushes to me when I pick him up from school, and I am so glad. I love you, my bear.

- Happy Birthday, Eleanor
And so she came, this utterly unexpected and treasured little pixie girl with a fiery heart who would have been called Edgar had she been a boy. She's very interested in this part of her birth: our unknowing, whereas we knew with Oliver and...

- House Of Sick
Iris and Eleanor and Mac first succumbed about two weeks ago, and now finally, Oliver and I have been felled. I think we have a stronger, crazier bug: much more fever, hot eyeballs, aching all over. Debilitating. Reading today was reduced...

- Glimpses
Oliver's been questioning Santa's existence, though at this point he has "no evidence that Santa does not exist," as he puts it. But, crafty kid that he is, he thought of leaving the iPhone with its built-in camera and asking Santa in the...

- The True Meaning Of Macmas
Today is Macmas! Or, as some call it, Macanalia. It is a day of celebration for a man whose kindness and wit and patience and light makes this planet pretty terrific to dwell in. Brunch for friends in the morning, great big snowstorm in the...

- Dutch Courage
Oh my. Is this how we solve our problems? Turns out that this was a synopsis exercise from one of the stories at school, and that the last word is supposed to be "gift" - as in to cheer Rick up. Still, I have this terrible image of this...

Medieval History