30 days: day 30

And so I end the thirty days with a photo of my girl. It is appropriate considering most of my thirty days were about her and him.

It couldn´t be any other way. I didn´t throw them into the spotlight, couldn´t know beforehand what the thirty days would be about, but here they are in nearly every photo, my constant companions. Maybe in ten years my thirty days will be of smelly basketball shoes in the hallway and a large wet dog who runs through my house. Or maybe it will be about a burning passion for antiques or sailing. Who knows what the future holds.

I encourage everyone to do this little project. Just by taking pictures of the everyday, the mundane, you learn a lot about yourself and your little world. I am so happy to have this series of photos (and a whole bunch of others) to look back on in in a few years time. I definitely want to do this again before the year is over.

And now onto the next project that will last just eight days....flowers.

30 days: day 29

My beautiful children who have forever forced my heart to walk outside of my body.

Have you read this story by Anna Quindlen? I have to share it again because it's so wonderful:

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On Being A Mom
By Anna Quindlen


All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber
ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language-mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

30 days: day 28

-Mom Painting!...painting mom...paint, paint, paint, paint....Moooom PAINTing, painTING.

-okay let me just get the jars.

-No painting now please...painTING, Pint, pint, pint, now please mom pai...

-okay, okay but don´t scribble with my the brushes.

-noooo I do like dis. I pinting like dis. Nooo leave me. I pint like dis! (scribbles with sable haired brush)

-Oh look at this picture sweetheart ..you´'ll like this come here by me (hides sable hair brush--replaces with Crayola brush--feels guilty--but not for too long)

-Look mom I did good job.

-Yes honey you did do a good job. I like your color choices. Now just lay it down on the floor and let it dry. No not face down, face up. (gets rag for cleaning floor...)

30 days: day 27

We were bound to capture a milestone somewhere in the thirty days. She´s sitting up all alone for the first time. I know it looks awkward but she´s balanced in her own quirky way.

30 days: day 26

Yesterday like many days here I had that urge to escape to the wilderness and be in the open air away from concrete, and brick buildings, gates and automobiles. I dropped Little S off at school and then drove around to a neighborhood I often visit when I have this urge. It is situated on the outer western edge of the city, high above a hill not far from the Montesorri and it has the loveliest views of the hills and the valley. There I can breathe.

One of the most difficult aspects of Mexico for me is fulfilling this need. It isn´t possible to just walk outside and be in nature. And unfortunately it isn´t safe to just go off walking. I have a constant urge to hike and walk and escape from the confines of my home and this privada where we live. I have a constant urge to get away and feel the earth crunch beneath my boots, study flowers, collect rocks, get lost, run my finger over well-worn map, feel the wind..., to discover a cow pasture or stumble upon a small lake at the base of a mountain. I imagine walks like this all the time, in my mind´s eye I am pulled in to a world where I am regenerating, shedding a layer of myself as I sit on a broken tree stump pulling a half warm bottle of water from my backpack.

Without these walks I am a lost soul, bumping aimlessly about. I am not the me that is me. The me that I know.

Our Mexico is urban, closed. We are prisoners trapped in the most pleasant of circumstances but here furthering someone else´s agenda and not our own. It will be good to get back to our world, --mountains and forest. It will be a nice feeling to pull on those boots again and have an open path in front of me.

My little walk was good. I didn´t leave the neighborhood. It wouldn´t have been wise, but I did soak in the view enough to be able to breathe a little better.

30 days: day 25

Eating homemade limecicles outside on the carport. Melting, melting... melti....

30 days: day 24

I blocked the car sideways so Little S could play on the carport and be discouraged from running into the street. He still managed to escape a few times to run after his basketball.

I don´t think we´ll ever live in such a chic neighborhood again. The houses here are amazing. This was our year to live in another world and it was interesting and fun and definitely eye opening. We were just visiting this life of abundance though. It finished long before we could have ever thought it would. We're completely okay with that, and in fact we're more than okay with that. We enjoyed our year here but to be honest we´re eager to move into cosier surroundings--it´s what we´re used to and it´s what´s good for our family.

Still I´m going to miss Mexico and all the beautiful sunshine!

30 days: day 23

I don't like this picture because it's very posed but I do love that my babes are in it with me and it's a fun picture with the reflections. I don´t have any pictures of us together, ever. Things to notice, hmmm --my oven was cleaned with a damp dishrag in a fit of morning laziness and it´s streak city, there is paint on the back of the chair from Little S´s artistic adventures, the time is seven hours off on that digital oven clock, I have astrology mugs in Spanish on my mug rack, my cupboards are dirty at the level of someone's little hands, it looks like Charlotte's leg is mine which is really funny, I'm not wearing the damn nursing bra for once (or any for that matter, yay!), and Little S pushed the remote button on this photo so technically it's his photo.

Ed. I finally have a new profile photo...yeehaw.

30 days: day 22

It´s all about spoons around here.

30 days: day 21

Lunch for four. Steak fajitas that you might consider marinating four hours beforehand. Oops. They were still really good.

30 days: day 20

A daily ritual: lining them up. The Fat Controller would be very proud indeed.

30 days: day 19

This project is about shooting your everyday life --glimpses of who you are and what you do each day. I´m always surrounded by these two little people. They are my world. We are in the project room. A small drawing table, a pad and play set for baby Charlotte who is at my feet listening to the sewing machine whirrrr...

Little S and I are passionately engaged in the creative moment. What will she think and be in a few years time? Will she join us in a the small chair at the table or will she choose to play at something else? I think she will join us. It already seems interesting to her--these people entirely consumed by something.

30 days: day 18

Trapped inside because of the deluge. It´s the rainy season and it rains every afternoon so hard that the house is starting too spring leaks.

30 days: day 17

It´s how I like to eat every day here. I make chicken tostadas three or four times a week. The cheese is chihuahua which is somewhat similar to the mild French Auvergne cheese, St. Nectaire, or I guess in American cheese talk close to montery jack. It´s my favorite so far.

And then of course I pile on lots of lime and guacamole or pico de gallo, for dressing everything up. On the side, in a frosted mug a Coronita --yes, you heard right...a baby Corona in Mexico is marketed as a Coronita. I squeeze a little lime juice in it, not too much but just enough to add some tang and there´s my little evening meal.

By the way did you know that in Mexico no one drinks Corona with a lime. It´s odd because limes are served with everything here but not beer. I am so used to drinking it this way that I have to ask for a lime when I get served one and they give me the funniest look.

30 days: day 16

She´s learned to sit up for fifteen seconds at a time and then she topples into my hands. I made her nervous because I wasn´t holding my hands behind her ready to catch her like I usually do, instead I have her in a knee lock. She started crying really hard, poor thing.

30 days: day 15

We are taking an apéro, a moment in the evening just before dinner where we can relax and maybe have a very light drink and an elegant little snack like stuffed olives. Little S sets the table because that is his thing lately--a beautiful table with boo-jee and fourchettes and poons. He even puts a table runner on from time to time. That´s my boy.

30 days: day 14

I love my kids hands. I can´t stop photographing them.

Our glamourous view from the kitchen--the Oxxo mini mart and all those power lines.

30 days: day 13

Choosing today´s photo reminded me of something. It reminded of how frustrating and elusive the creative process can be. I took over a dozen photos like this one yesterday morning of Seb swimming in the pool. I was sure they would be wonderful pictures and I was very excited while shooting them. The light was lovely and he was swimmming underwater arms spread like a crucified saint. Sometimes you know when you've made magic. Sometimes not. When I uploaded the photos this morning there wasn´t one picture that stood out to me. They were all a terrible disappointment-- the lighting, Seb´s reactions, the empty spaces, the flat gray tones. I wanted to cancel my day´s upload for the 30 days, or worse still cheat and dig into the day before´s batch.

It´s funny how the results of our creativity can often be a disappointment. The process can be wonderful and then when we are studying the results we fall flat on our face. Our heart sinks a little. Where was that elusive thing --that thing we had a hold of during creation but lost somewhere in the final minutes? Where did it go? I had forgotten about that phenomenon. It happens to all of us from time to time. In 30 days how many times will it happen to me? I´m sure it will happen a lot.

Of course sometimes there is the reverse phenomenon. The thing you thought was a disappointment is a masterpiece. Everyone praises it. It took no effort and you had no idea how special it was when you were making it. You are pleasingly shocked. You grapple for the reason, reviewing the steps in your head. What was it that you did and how do you do it again?

These are life lessons too I guess. Sometimes even if you think you know, you just don't know what your hard work will bring to a circumstance. Sometimes you need perspective, a little stepping back and some outside opinions to see what's real.

30 days: day 12

Yesterday Little S´s school had a Spring Spectacle at his school in belated honor of Mother's Day. All the mom's were invited and the kids recited poems and sang. It was cute and well done, but slightly over-the-top like most of these things here in Mexico. For example all of the mom's without exception were perfectly coiffed and made up as if they were going to a wedding or had the lead role in one of those Mexican soap operas. Mexican women will use any excuse to dress to the nines and it can be intimidating tto be in the middle of it. It was certainly a little intimidating for me, totally ill prepared and dressed in raver pants and a black reversible t-shirt bought in a Paris flea market. Reversible because I like the shirt but not the print so I cut out the tag and wear it wrong side out. I know, I know awful. So yes I felt kind of out of place and let's not even talk about my kid in his crinkley orange t-shirt and scrappy hand me down Carter's shorts three kids have already worn. Nobody said anything on the invitation about the kids putting on a showcase. All the kids looked perfect and S was The Little Rascal. He even told me this morning as we attacked his hair, "yesterday my teacher brush-ed my hair." So yeah, bad mommy.

The food was fun. There were snacks of apples wedges coated in hot pepper candy, deee-licious! I love this red pepper candy coating. It is a perfect mix of sweet and hot and it's not hard and crunchy but powdery and soft. This fountain machine which I love and must have one day for future parties, dripped the red pepper sauce into pretty cascades and you could put your fruit skewers of pineapple and honeydew melon under it. Those candy apples in the background are actually red pepper apples too. The food was really creative and I was impressed. And while I think they spent a lot of money which might have been better spent on Montessori supplies this IS Mexico and parties and festivals are an enormous part of the culture.

I was proud of Little S as he filed out on to the stage with the 27 little amigos from his class. They all sang and did gestures, including one annoying little girl who you could just tell had been coached at home by her parents. Little S bit his bottom lip and stood there staring off until he saw me and then he smiled a little shy smile. I was proud of him for not panicking and for all of the transition he's put up with this year. He didn't sing but he was adorable without doing anything.

* I really wanted all thirty days to be in black and white but I had to cheat a little because this is just too pretty in red.

30 days: day 11

Helping with the dishes.