The Gazillion Dancing Lanterns

It's been over two weeks since my last blog post. Boy, has life been busy with the end of school and the first week of summer behind us. We can already cross off things on our Summer Bucket List. The boys have already been to their first camp, basketball sleep away camp. They did this camp last year and really loved it. Unfortunately, Timmy got sick on Friday and as hard as he tried to get through the day, he needed to come home a day early. I got a phone call at 8:00 Friday night from the coach saying that he wanted to come home. Timmy is passionate about basketball so I knew he was sick if he didn't want to stay. Shannon, Chris, and my brother Brian were at the Yankee/National game (another thing to cross off our list) and so Molly and I drove to camp to get our sick Timmy. We pulled into the driveway at about 1:30 in the morning.


Timmy is back to his old self and as I write this, he and Ryan are at another basketball camp this week and Molly is at horseback riding camp. It is quiet with only Shannon in the house. Today, the plan is to get things done around the house; finish the laundry, finish cleaning out my closet, (I've had that one on my to-do list for a long time) and then start thinking about our Pocono trip with the Nealon side of the family. I love the summer! I love having down time away from the school schedules. But the summer brings new schedules and new routines and they change by the week. What we did last week already looks different than what we are doing this week because of camps, and what we do next week will look differently because we will be following our Pocono routine...lake in the morning, back to the house for some lunch and then an afternoon at the pool...a normal day in the Poconos for the Nealons...lake, lunch, pool. This routine started years ago. There seems to be a comfort with having a routine. 


But summer is also a time for breaking out of a routine or schedule. Last night it was nearly 10:00 by the time we finished cleaning up the kitchen from our late Father's Day dinner. Molly wanted to take me out firefly catching. At first I had said, "no." She had gone out the night before with Chris, it was late, and she had to get up early for horseback riding camp. But somehow she got me to the front stoop. I didn't see any fireflies and it was chilly last night. I still wasn't convinced but Molly gave me one of her pretty please faces and tells me that the fireflies aren't here in the front yard but down behind the neighbor's house and the next thing I know, I am going inside to get my sweatshirt. 


Molly grabs her net and bug jar and takes my hand to lead me to the fireflies. "I'll show you where they are," she says. "There are gazillions of them back here, mama!" She continues to lead me by the hand. The more we walk, the darker it gets, away from the front lights of our cul de sac and into the blackness of the trees and the woods behind the houses and then, I see them. A gazillion of them, just like she said. I've never seen so many fireflies at once. Molly handed me the bug jar and instructed me that I was to hold the jar as she ran off into the darkness with her net to catch some fireflies. I just stood there in awe of the dazzling lights that were twinkling before me. I called Molly's name every once in awhile because I couldn't see her. It was like playing Marco Polo at the pool. But she would call my name and she would follow the sound of my voice with a firefly in her net and we would put it in the bug jar...one firefly, two fireflies, three fireflies. I finally sat down on the grass and enjoyed this natural light show that was before me. Molly skipped over, net in hand, and just plopped herself down next to me and then put her head in my lap. 


"Mama, what are you doing?"


"I'm just sitting here watching the fireflies. I don't think I've ever seen so many at one time before."


"I told you this was a good spot. It's like watching a gazillion dancing lanterns in the sky, isn't it mama?"


"Yes, Molly, it is exactly like that. Thank you for taking me to see the dancing lanterns."


"You're welcome, mama."


The two of us just sat there together watching the show, Molly's head in my lap, me stroking her hair, and a gazillion dancing lanterns above our heads...and I just soaked up the moment because I never wanted it to end. 


Eventually we got up, we released our firefly friends, and walked back toward the house. Molly wanted to snuggle in bed with me and I said sure. "I'll read you a story," I tell her. So while she got on her pj's and brushed her teeth, I grabbed a book. We got cozy in bed and we read Patricia Polacco's When Lightning Comes in a Jar.

Later on that night, I googled fireflies and found a website that said the number of fireflies is on the decline and they believe it is because of light pollution and loss of habitat. "Their environment of choice is warm, humid, and near standing water of some kind-ponds, streams and rivers or even shallow depressions that retain water longer than the surrounding ground." This described Molly's firefly spot exactly...we walked down the slope of the hill to be near the creek and there is a wet marshy area that always stays wet long after a good soaking rain. Molly has found the perfect spot for firefly watching.

I am one for schedules and routines, but summer is a time for  new routines, like taking time to watch the "gazillion dancing lanterns." We may be able to cross off catching fireflies on our Summer Bucket List, but I'm sure we will be watching "the dancing lanterns" again this summer. 

Happy Spring 2012

What a magnificent weekend. This past week we have been sleeping with the windows open and waking up to the birds chirping and the woodpeckers pecking in the backyard. This weekend, I was in Molly's room painting. More spring cleaning as well. Once the painting is finished, I will sort through all her "stuff" and decide what will go back into her room. Her closet will need to be sorted through again, decisions of what clothes still fit and what needs to given away will be made. So after a few hours of painting I needed a break. I felt like I was missing out on this wonderful weather. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots in our own yard. It really was a dazzling day and color was bursting everywhere.

I love this time of year. I love this small window of time between having the heat on in the house and it getting so hot that you need the ac. There have been some years that we have gone straight from heat to ac and skipped this small window all together. It's the same thing with the spring blooms. They are only here for a very short time. Maybe two weeks if we are lucky. They pop out and dazzle us with their vibrant color and then before you know it, they are gone. 

 Then I looked at this picture of Timmy taking a break from a few hours of playing basketball in the driveway. I just bought that sitting hammock a few weeks ago for Molly's birthday. She went to a birthday party a few months ago at a place that had a bunch of swing sets indoors. Molly fell in love with the hammock and spent most of the party just hanging out and swinging back and forth in the hammock. Well, all the kids have fallen in love with it. I love that we still have a play set in the backyard. I love that as my kids get older they still have no hesitation to get on the swings and play with one another or even swing by themselves. I know these moments won't last forever, just like the spring blooms. Before I know it, shots like this one, of kids just hanging in the backyard will be gone. With three spring birthdays all within a month of each other, I've been thinking about how much my kids have grown. Shannon, who will be 14 this week, she's finishing up eighth grade and will be on her way to high school. Timmy, who is about to turn 12, my last year before having two teenagers in the house. Ryan, who turned 10 back in January but really has grown this year, not just physically but also as a person. Molly, who no longer wants the light pink room that we painted when we found out she was a girl because she thinks it's a baby color even though I know she secretly still loves the color pink.

The rest of these pictures Shannon took. She asked if she could take the camera into the yard and this is what she came back with. I think she has a pretty good camera eye.

Happy Spring 2012!

After the Dazzle of the Day is Gone

After the dazzle of the day is gone,
Only the dark, dark, night shows to my 
eyes the stars.
After the clangor of organ majestic, or 
chorus, or perfect band,
Silent athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.
                               -Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass


I read this poem for the first time in a children's book about baseball. In Deborah Wiles's, The Aurora County All-Stars, 12 year old, House Jackson finds a note from Mr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd, who died before him at the age of eighty-eight. The note read, 


"Your mother gave these words to me;
Now I give them to you as treasure for the days ahead.
Look for me in every atom that you see."


I read Aurora County All-Stars for the first time a number of years ago after I discovered and fallen in love with Deborah Wiles books. The second time I read it was when Timmy was reading it and I decided to reread it so that I could refresh my memory  and Timmy and I would be able to talk about the book together.


Today, I read the first chapter to Ryan's fourth grade class. I love to read aloud in my children's classrooms. It's one of my favorite things to do. Recently I asked Ryan's teacher if I could do something different. Instead of picking up in the middle of a book that she has started to read aloud that I might not have read before which then makes it difficult to read if you don't know exactly what's going on, I asked if I could come in once a week with a book that I had picked out and just read the first chapter. My thinking was to pick books that have great beginnings, read the book in such a way that will get the kids interested, get them "hooked" if you will, and then stop reading to them. At the end of the reading, I leave the book behind in the classroom and the next day, the teacher decides who gets to read the book first. I've been doing a lot of thinking about those "reluctant readers," those "dormant reader," those students that can read but chose not to, and how to get them more interested in reading. Parents and teachers have to be a little passive-aggressive when it comes to getting those "dormant readers" to read. Kids are smart and we can't just tell kids you need to read because it will make you smarter. When I walk into the fourth grade classroom, I am not their teacher or their parent. I am just Ryan's mom who came into read to the class. I don't tell or ask them to read the book after I'm done reading, I just simply place it in a bin and tell them I will see you all next week. No pressure. 


"After the dazzle of the day is gone"...dazzle...what a great word. One of the definitions of dazzle is "to amaze as with brilliance." Synonyms are awe, overwhelm, and overpower. Lately, I have been feeling overwhelmed and overpowered by our hectic schedule, so many places to be, so much to do, so many important events coming up: birthdays, first communion, tournaments, boys trying out and making travel teams. This is all good stuff but instead of feeling overwhelmed by it all, I want to feel dazzled by all this good stuff. 


Today I was dazzled by the attentive listeners in Ryan's class while I read.  I was dazzled by how well Molly's class listened while we painted leprechaun hats and their concern for the student that was absent today and might not get to make a hat. I was dazzled by Timmy at basketball practice and by how much he has grown as a basketball player this past year and the comments that I get from coaches and other parents that tell me how great he is not just as a player but as a leader that generates team spirit. And I was dazzled by the fourth grade musical show. 

The final song they sang was...take time in life, take time in life, take time in life, we have far away to go. I really needed that reminder...take time in life.

As the dazzle of the day is gone, and the clangor of my day of students and basketball and a musical is over, I sit here in the still silence of my study writing this, the symphony that I hear playing in my head is gratitude for this crazy, noisy, dazzling life.

I found this picture on my camera. Shannon took it. She told me she was looking for signs of spring. Isn't it dazzling?