Back in the Saddle?

        During the summer between high school and college, and for a couple years thereafter, I was a camp counselor and "wrangler" at a homestead-style camp six hours north of San Francisco. The work-- rising early to groom and saddle twenty horses, leading trail rides, life-guarding at the river during swim time-- never felt much like work, and yet days off were still the highlight of the week. I had no form of transportation other than my own two feet, and so I'd load up my backpack with my sleeping bag, journal, book, and a few meals' worth of peanut butter sandwiches and set off by myself to climb some nearby mountain or spend a day alone along the river. I remember listening with honest bewilderment to a fellow counselor who bemoaned the solitude of his day off; he liked being with people, he said. It was just more fun. I didn't get it; being alone felt like a natural state to me. I felt good in my skin, happy to meet my body's needs as they arose, constrained by no one else's schedule. Perhaps I was just more interesting to myself back then, filling page after page in my journal, as if the lines were a map of self-discovery without which I'd be lost.
Spartanburg is not a pristine river in northern California, the bed in this rough-around-the-edges motel no sleeping bag under the stars. Still, I've been looking forward to this trip for months: two days of being by myself! No one I knew was attending this conference; I could be totally anonymous, if I wanted to. And I wanted to! I would eat, drink, think, and sleep alone.  I had my running shoes, my bicycle, my book. I had this computer, the key board jammed with crumbs from home, to write. Because more than anything, I wanted to write.
My mind had been swimming lately, all the big questions bubbling constantly to the top: Should I go back to teaching next year or the following one? ESL or something else? Full-time? Part-time? At my old school in Henderson County? (Would there be a job for me there?) At a new school closer to home? (I'd have to prove myself again...)  And if I waited one more year, should Clayton go to full-time preschool anyway? Should we shell out for Montessori even if I'm not working, or is a cheaper church-run program enough? And the girls? Next year they'll be the age when Clayton started going to his kids' morning out program. Shouldn't the girls have the same opportunity? Or is the two full years they'll spend in preschool when I do go back to work enough?
  My mind was like a great big tongue, worrying away at the questions until it was raw. I wanted to talk about them, but felt wary of others' opinions; their certainty seemed to cast an even darker shadow over my own mind's muddle.
Of course, it didn't help that winter seemed to have set in. The days were cold and rainy, the evenings short. I felt constantly frustrated by Dee Dee's stubbornness, her infuriating two-year-old insistence on getting her way. "Are you not mad at me?" Clayton kept asking. "Just Dee Dee?" She'll spend hours awake in her bed at nap time, and when I finally give up and go to get her, she has taken off every stitch of clothing and her diaper. "I have to pee!" she'll say cheerfully.  "Books on the potty!"  In the car she narrates everything. "I see a blue house! I see a red tractor!" And, God forbid, if I don't understand her, don't repeat back to her, "You see a whatever it is?" She'll say it over and over, twenty, thirty, fifty times, growing increasingly frustrated and high-pitched.  "Really?" or "You did?" is not enough; she knows when I'm faking it.
I remember when the girls were infants and people used to comment on how hard that must be-- two babies!  I always said that even the two of them together were easier for me than Clayton by himself. I thought it was his personality; he just felt higher-maintenance to me, more draining. Now I see it differently. I think that I found him exhausting and difficult because he was two, then three. And two and three are hard!
Except... there's little Sylvia. Oh, she's not perfect. She still pulls hair, still cries for an hour most days after she wakes up, still has her moments of non-compliance. But mostly she still makes me marvel, What if Sylvia were your only child? Would you look at all those parents floored by the challenges of parenting and think, what's the big deal? This is easy! At dinner, we'll be admonishing Dee Dee not to stand on the bench, Clayton not to wipe his hands on the table, both of them running their mouths every second they're not swallowing. And then I'll look over at Sylvia, tucking quietly into her food, taking it all in. It's hard not to ask her, "Why are you so good?"
There are times, though, hours even, when parenting does feel easy. Easier, at least. On Sunday when we were reinforcing the chicken run, we sent Clayton inside to check on his sisters. "They're not doing anything bad," he reported. "They're just drawing."  (Drawing on his door, as well, it turned out, but still.) Even the girls can actually help out now, too, letting the dogs in, or fetching anything you ask them to. More importantly, though, there  are moments that make the challenges seem insignificant, because they make me remember how lucky I am to get to witness them. Like when Clayton puts his arm around his sister and says, "Want to come play in my room?" Or Dee Dee grabs her twin and pulls her head to alternating sides of her own, saying, "A hug. And a cuddle. A hug. And a cuddle." Or when Sylvia spends fifteen minutes arranging her doll in baby Gemma's car seat, pulling the blanket over her head and shoving in her pacifier.
And then there are the gems of their emerging language that never cease to amaze and tickle me:
Clayton: "When I get big I'm going to live in a house in the backyard so that I won't miss you."
Dee Dee: "Mama, what are you talking about?"
Sylvia: "Baby right there!"
Oh, I know their little funny comments are a far cry from learning about the latest in literacy research or school reform or instructional strategies. Sometimes I do feel like my brain is only moments, if not days, away from total atrophy. But even being reminded this week what it's like to feel like a professional again, I still can't help but wonder... What's one more year? I'll be back in that saddle soon enough.