The days are pouring out like water from a pitcher, passing through my hands so beautifully and so quickly.  There are little boys pulling open drawers in the kitchen, asking for toast and milk and apples picked from the orchard, and I want to be with them. 

I’ve spent so much time trying to get to this place of ordinary life:  now, I want to soak up as much of it as I can.  I’ve decided to take a blogging break, which seems scary and like exactly the right thing, all at once.  You’ve been my first readers and my best readers, my teachers and my cheerleaders, you are that support van I wrote about wishing for, always right on time.  How will I manage without you?

I’m going to leave up the archives and the blogroll, for anyone who happens to pass by and wonder about this time in our lives.   There’s so much here that is good: because of the comments, because of the community. 

I’m leaving the light on. 

xo

And I have not 1, but 2 copies to share!  If you’re interested, leave your name in the comments and I’ll have Avery choose the winners at the end of the week.

Happy reading!

UPDATED TO ADD:  Oh, how I wish I had copies for everyone! But I only have 2, and the lucky winners are Krista and Terri.  Email me at jennifergrafgroneberg at yahoo dot com with your addresses, and I’ll ship them right out. 

And if you’d like another chance to win, go to The Tao of Tulips before Sept. 30.  Good luck!

The days are getting shorter and the air, especially at night, has a new chill to it, which is a long way of saying,  it feels like fall!

Things we’re loving at our house right now: French toast with real maple syryp, Richard Scarry books, Goosie cards, BOB books, garden tomatoes, the reprintable resources from DSFOC,  Melissa and Doug’s play food set, this pretend clock, this zucchini bread, and fresh eggs from this chicken (now all grown up!).

What do you love, at your house?

Today I’m over here, with a short essay I wrote a few years ago. It feels as true today as it did then, perhaps even more-so after Avery’s surgery. I hope it rings true for you, too.

Thanks, Louise!

And by that I mean:  supplements.

Recently a new mom to a baby with DS wrote me and was wondering if the thoughts I shared in my book about supplements, such as Nutrivene-D and others, were the same.  

A lot of things have happened since I first was thinking about the subject of supplements, when Avery was just a baby.  Some things had me leaning toward trying it; others had me shying away from the idea.   The most recent example is Avery’s heart surgery.  On the one hand, I believe he came through it so well and recovered so quickly because he was strong and in good health.  To date, we have not given Avery anything more than a children’s multivitamin. If he hadn’t been healthy, I’m sure I would be looking for ways to boost his immune system, and that might include a special vitamin regimen. 

But on the other hand, there is the fact of the surgery itself.  I was glad Avery’s system was clear, and that there was no risk of any complications from any megadoses of vitamins or any herbal supplements that needed to be accounted for.  In this instance, it was one less thing to worry about.

I think the decision of what to feed and how to feed your baby is a very personal one–and I continue to think of supplements as a corollary to feeding choices. 

I also want to remember not just the trisomy, but the other 46 chromosomes in each baby, which makes our children similar, but also very unique.  So there might not be a one-size-fits all answer, here.

I hope other parents will share their thoughts and experiences in the comments?  It’s been a while since I’ve done much research, and I’m not as up-to-date as I’d like to be.   Because this is a topic where parents are really on the front lines, I want to ask you all, the best experts:  what advice would you give new parents about supplements?

The kids and I just got back from a camping trip in Glacier National Park.  It was full of all the usual things:  campfires and scary stories and mosquitoes and starry skies and hiking, lots of hiking. 

Which to me, felt like a small miracle. 

Four years ago, I was wondering if Avery would ever take his first steps.  Four months ago, we were in the children’s hospital for Avery’s surgery.  And four days ago, Avery completed his very first hike, one in which he walked the whole way. 

In the middle of the trip, we had to cross a two-beam suspension bridge.  My first thought was to carry Avery across it; my second thought was to let him do it (and hover protectively behind him, of course).  

I’m glad I had that second thought–because he handled the bridge like a pro.  When he reached the other side, he turned around to me (I guess my protective hovering wasn’t very secretive), and pumped his fists in the air in a perfect imitation of the kids from the Foundation for a Better Life TV spot.

And I wanted to share this:  to all the parents who write and ask how long it will take to walk, or to potty train, or to read…I give you that image, of Avery’s arms held high in triumph.  Your children will get there, too.   It will happen when it happens, and when it does, it will be beyond your sweetest hopes, beyond words, beyond exclamation points.

Oh, and we found ripe, luscious huckleberries along the trail on our way back–a perfect, purple reminder that life is sometimes unexpectedly sweet.

Avery loves to draw circles.  Sometimes, we call them “O”s, sometimes it’s “zeros” but really, they’re all circles, and he’s very good at making them.  When he works, his face tightens with concentration as his little fingers grip the pencil.  His tongue peeks out, a wisp of golden hair falls in his eyes. 

He’s making circles and I’m watching him make circles and we could go on like this forever.

As I see him, my mind wanders back to the baby he was, the way his chin would quiver just before he cried, the way his cry was so soft and almost apologetic.  Sometimes I think of him as a toddler, how he always loved to be held, how he could melt into your lap so lightly, almost without weight.  I think of him now:  determined, a little headstrong, more interested in teaching himself to run, or playing wiffle-ball with his brothers in the fading summer twilight, than in snuggling in anyone’s lap.

Yet there are times, like when he’s quiet and concentrating at the kitchen table, that I can see all the Averys in this one little boy, who is filling the page in front of him with circles, one around another like a bulls-eye, just as my life circles around his.

Lately, Bennett has been giving Tom and me little performances in the evening, usually a combination of dancing and karate moves.  He twirls and then chops the air with the heel of his hand, or bends over and kicks his back leg up into a handstand.  By this time, Avery has joined him and they jump and spin all around until they become dizzy and fall down.  I always worry they’ll bump into each other, accidentally konking heads, or that a stray kick will land in someone’s eye. Especially, I worry about Avery.

When he does the kick-into-a-handstand move, my mind imagines the steel staples that hold his breastbone together, and everything becomes blurry for a moment.  Was it 6 weeks, or 8, before he could wear a backpack?  I try to remember what the doctor said, but what does it matter?  It’s been 16 weeks already, plenty of time for everything to have healed, surely.   Why can’t my own heart let go of it?

Sometimes when he snuggles next to me I can feel his heartbeat through my skin.  It’s strong and sure, he’s bright and full of life.  There is no sign that anything is wrong; there is no reason for me to hold on to him so tightly, or to demand that he go slow, be careful, and always, always hold my hand. 

Just as it seems like yesterday that we were watching great white flakes of snow fall from the sky on the 11th floor of the Hotel Deca in Seattle, Avery freshly released from the PICU, still smelling like the Hibiclens soap I bathed him in twice (per instructions) before surgery.  He sat in the big bed surrounded by pillows (I was afraid he might fall) watching Horton Hears A Hoo.  

The boys watch the same DVD here, in our new place, in our new life.  A person’s a person, no matter how small.  I think of the small hole in Avery’s heart, now repaired.  I think of small changes that can make a big difference.  I think of the small things I can do:  email a sad friend, cook dinner for my family, put clean sheets on our beds. 

The little boys dance and spin and fall down, they dance and twirl again, they fall again and I watch until my head spins.  They say, “Look at me, look at me!”  and I am.  I’m looking with my whole heart.

This is the longest interval between posts here at Pinwheels since I began scribbling down my notes and thoughts more than 2 years ago.  I want to say I don’t know how this could have happened, but really, I already know the answer.

In the past few weeks, I’ve broken almost all of my own writing rules, and now I’m feeling the reprocussions.  It all began with one, small, good thing:  Tom got a new job.  He began working for a ranch about 3 hours from our home, and we originally thought he might commute, and come home on the weekends. 

But that didn’t work.

So the kids and I moved to the ranch in bits and pieces, getting acclimated to this new place and slowly letting go of our home of 10 years at the same time.  And while all this was happening, I broke my own personal writing rules. 

I always tell aspiring writers that we need to make a physical space in our lives for our writing, even if it’s just a corner in a local coffee shop.  And next, we need to put it on the calendar, make it part of the routine, right along with laundry and dentist appointments and grocery shopping and exercising and all the things we do to help keep ourselves and our families moving forward.  It counts, and it needs to go on the list.

I didn’t do these things.   And as a result, I began to notice that I wasn’t writing at my blog, or in my notebooks, or even, returning emails.  Everything had ground to a hault.

And I was sad!  So sad, and I didn’t even realize it was because the thing that I most needed to do for myself, even more than moisturize around my eyes or stretch before walking or taking a multivitamin each morning, had disappeared from my new life.

Now that I understand what’s missing, I plan to correct it.  And I hope you’ll be with me for the ride:  I have so many things to say, and so many words to catch up on.

Today, it’s a two-for-one on the “Good things” posts (I will always have a soft spot in my heart for that phrase after my one-time roommate and friend Caroline responded, when I told her about the twins, “I love two-fers!”  I do, too.)  So here we go:

Vicki Forman’s book This Lovely Life, which won this year’s Bakeless Prize for Creative Nonfiction, is now available here. 

I’ve written a longer review of the book that will appear at Literary Mama later this summer; get your copy now and we can discuss it online.  This book has some of the most beautiful writing about grief that I’ve ever read.   I hope you agree!  And if you don’t, let’s talk about it…there’s nothing I love more than a good book discussion.