when listening feels kind of exhausting

I stepped outside this morning, having sent the boys ahead while I strapped on my own shoes, and caught Tucker, head raised to the sky, yelling Hello through a cardboard mailing tube.  He quickly explained he was just trying to discern whether the folks at Heaven's house were having a good day.

Tuck is verbal and imaginative, describing what he sees and narrating what is happening and wondering about how things work.  And hardly ever using a very quiet voice.

It takes us about ten minutes to get to church, and last Sunday Tuck filled the entire ride with words.  He told us all about the super fast speed car he'll drive when he grows up, about which color helmet each of his five children will wear when they ride with him, about the number four-and-a-half that will be on the roof and the thunderbolts that will stick on the doors, about the engine where the trunk usually goes and the parachute that will be attached.  He did not mention how fast the car would travel, but I'm certain the speed of his story was faster.

It seems like every thought that scrambles through his head sneaks out Tuck's mouth.  What does tropic mean? I want to have a pet dolphin. I can use these pliers to shoot my slingshot. May I have some square cereal in a bowl and also some fresh cold strawberries? How could we catch a kangaroo? Maybe we could build a fence real quick, a circle right around it before it hops out, maybe if we did it like that? Let’s see if I got any longer today.  I know a lot of silly ways to move. You can watch me, if you mind. 

Despite some linguistic precocity, Tuck always says that, if you mind, when he means if you don't.  
And even when we're tired, we don't.

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Tolliver, twenty one months

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I hope his idea store never closes

When Tucker’s new teacher came to meet him this summer, he intended to show her his collections and inventions. What he ended up doing was drawing her a quick map and then riding his bike down the block, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was watching.  If his grin did not reach out and grab her then maybe the crawdad he took into class today will.

In anticipation of back-to-school, I made it a point over the past several weeks to ask him what he’d like to be when he grows up, and to record his plans when he offered them voluntarily.
A sampling of his aspirations at four and a half:
I could be a swimmer when I get big. I’m a good swimmer. 
I'm going to have five babies.  I'll be their dad and I'll teach them everything they need to know.  You can help me name them.
I could also be a construction worker when I grow up.  I know how to build things and fix them. 
Or I will open an idea store. I’m full of those and people could come to my house and get one when they need it. 

I have a sliver of guilt, staying at home and sending Tucker to school.  I want Tuck to believe in himself.  And in others.  And so I should too.  I should step aside and let others love him - our neighbors, his grandparents, our friends, his teachers.  They can’t possibly love him as much as I do, but they can certainly love him in ways I cannot.  So I send him forth, with his own map and a wide grin, and a quiet prayer that others might embrace him too.

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your turn, shiny star

You like to wear a gold Mardi gras necklace and a green headband, and also your new backpack.  You cried because I made you take off the backpack when you asked to sit on the toilet to pee.

You pull most of the clean hand towels from the drawer, to cover Buzz Lightyear or dinosaurs lined up along the top basement step for a nap, Buzz beez.  Di-roar beez.  Night night Buzz.  Night night di-roar.

Your shoes are often on the wrong feet, because we don't argue with “I do it.”  Your cheeks are usually flushed and full of cherub loveliness.  Your belly still folds over the top of your diaper like an overstuffed envelope.

You say “yo ho ho” when you pretend to be a pirate, and you use strong words like you own them, no and stop and move and mine.  You could talk about helicopters all day long, and you call your brother "Da-duck."

Sometimes I feel like I fail to acknowledge your amazingness, Tollie.  Your brother’s firsts were, mostly, the firsts. And it’s not that yours are less amazing, but they're different.  We don’t document them quite the same way, but we did celebrate when you saw the Viper and said “nice car” and when you pooped on the potty and when you initiated your own version of the Red Light Green Light game. Your brother was there for each of those things, and his pride and love for you matched ours.  So although your accomplishments may come second, you do have an extra cheerleader, another teacher, a big brother who thinks you’re amazing, mostly, too.

*Tolliver started school today. His teacher, the same one Celia and Tucker had for Parents Day Out, reports that after a few minutes of crying, he banged drums and fed new friends plastic play food and splashed around at the water table.  He was all smiles when we picked him up.  First day photos to follow.

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mostly #betzboys

the boys might have enjoyed growing up on a farm
post-church visit with papa, salsa on the sidewalk
OSU MICU bake sale for BDSRA, a good reason to consume extra carbs
short glasses after a looong day
daybreak walk to the donut shop
sometimes social media makes everything look fun #foodtruckfestfail

food chain game
date night documented by Tuck
FountainSide
sun's out, guns out
ice cream for lunch
where truth is spoken, children spared, equality achieved

tied to his jet pack kite
rainy day play with daddy
J pops at the Hills, plus a cart full of Way Betters
the neighbors know the boys LOVE bugs
poolside peaches, straight from Branstool
"mine turtle"

corn on the cob + candy corn = balanced meal?
it's hard to keep up
at the shoe, ready to play
preschool orientation
behind the bar with the Pleasure Guild
high-heeled helper

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by letting things go

Of all the medical approaches we experienced, hospice and palliative care were the only ones that felt right, even though that meant our daughter's death might come more quickly.  Hospice caregivers enhanced Celie's quality of life, our family's quality of life, not by adding things, but by letting things go.  We were glad the Pleasure Guild invited us to be part of their Fado fundraiser for NCH Hospice last week.

Andy slung some serious black and tans, and after I poured one Palm without spilling, I mostly loaded dirty glasses.

Tuck proposed a toast to Celia and kissed raffle tickets for good luck.

Not pictured are friends who came to Fado, who've been there all along, who, when they weren't able to lighten the emotional burden, lightened loads like laundry and meal preparation and childcare.  To them, and to the ones who couldn't be there, to the ones who offered to play with the boys while we poured drinks and who extended kindnesses with Celia in mind last week, we continue to be humbled and grateful.

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her hair, his heart

I'm proud of myself, that I'm mostly able to put loss in a place where it doesn't poke at my heart all the time.  But then it pokes at his.

Riding in the front of a red shopping cart, Tucker said, rather randomly, Mom, I was thinking about Celia's hair.  It was beautiful, wasn't it?  Remember it was curly?  He held back tears but I could hear sadness seep from the cracks in his voice.  I nodded, flashed him a sympathetic smile and felt the sudden need to lean on something firm.

Several times over the past few days I've fingered the small brown barrette we found when we rearranged what had been her nursery to make room for Tolliver's big boy bed last week.  Each time I felt the warm beginnings of nostalgia driven tears, and I did not sense shame in them but I could not find any wisdom in them either.  

I wonder now, during the ongoing catastrophe, whether we kept our promises to Tuck, whether we took him to the zoo and the park and the pool when we said we would, whether we read enough books and took enough walks and built enough block towers.  I don't think he resented the way we loved her, the way that parents love each of their children, with shattering devotion.  I don't think he felt slighted by the way her illness turned our days into question marks.  Even at two, he seemed to understand the difficulty of our predicament, seemed not to begrudge her theft of our good time.  When someone says He seems happier now, I try not to feel like his perceived sadness was our fault.  Nor is the sorrow that visits him now.  I believe not feeling anything at all could be somehow worse than feeling sad sometimes.

When he was a toddler, one of Tucker's very first joys seemed to come from wobble-legging around the house looking for her, giving her kisses and sharing his toys and stroking her hair.  The joy of being a brother, the joy of being alive, has always been so concentrated in him, boiled down and intense.  What pokes at my heart right now is that somewhere in his he'll always carry the ache her absence leaves.

We'll be pouring drinks at Fado from 7:30 to 8:00pm at Easton, hoping to help the Pleasure Guild raise money for hospice and remembering our little girl.

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