Didn't sleep much that night...

I didn't sleep much that night—maybe three hours. Why? Because I couldn't.

The weekend was fun-busy-exhausting, the day was full, and I got in back-to-back runs. I was ready for rest. Then our following weekend plans shuffled, one set of activities out, and another set in. The news came late, so I put off sending several messages to change declines into acceptances, put off sending invitations for Berzo's birthday on Sunday, and the logistics there unto until the morrow, or so I thought. My brain simply would not let the weekend wait. Also the puppy had an accident the previous night, so it was my turn to wait for a wimper and let her outside, to avoid another atomic poo mess.

The next morning I wished I'd stayed up to get the jobs done. I would have netted more sleep that way.

Having been through so many of those no-sleep nights when the girls were little, I knew I'd be fine. I wasn't running on deficit, and being semi-conscious can make the day go faster. So Berzo and I went about our normal day and chores, but early afternoon left me feeling woozy on sleep-deprivation.

Charley came home from work. Whew, I made it. Kids were still alive and reasonable happy, the house wasn't a pile of ashes...

So I went for a run.

Sometimes, a run recharges my brain with oxygen-saturated blood and revitalizes me, and sometimes it just zapps whatever I have left.

I was zapped.

I hosed myself off in the shower. Fell into some clean-ish clothes, and landed in bed. Oh, heaven.

Moments later, Berzo came in with Play-Doh Eggs. For those uninitiated to the splendors of YouTube Kids, Play-Doh Eggs are colorful egg shaped blobs of Play-Doh that serve as wrapping for a small toy. Berzo had made several and wanted me to take a video of her opening her eggs, like in the videos. I told her I would, but I needed to rest for a while.

She said she would wait.

I told her to go and make a few more eggs.

She said she would wait.

And she did, it was pretty amazing really, because I literally did nothing for about fifteen full minutes, and she waited…weird—I know.

Eventually, her staring at me while I zoned creeped me out enough for me to drag my carcass to the front room to shoot her video.

Charley, being the good man that he is, took pity on me and cooked dinner AND cleaned up the kitchen. Back off ladies, he's mine.

I slogged through the remainder of our evening routine, and Charley and I headed up stairs to continue watching The Walking Dead, Season Four. Boots and Berzo are learning to be autonomous during this time, and learning to help each other… ….OK fine, we just clock out and refuse to adult for an hour. It's AMAZING.

Tonight, Boots and Berzo immediately start fighting. Boots is indignant and demands I come back downstairs to resolve the issue of who gets to use the computer first, and for how long, set timers, and whatnot.

Downstairs. All. The. Way. Downstairs.

Conflict AND stairs?! I feel like crying a little.

Boots and I go back and forth a bit and I use my big voice, and state that there is no way I'm going downstairs, this is our (me and Charley's) time and this is their time too.

Boots gathers a mighty huff and stomps out.

I turn to Charley, "Sorry I was a jerk to her, I'm just so tired I feel sick. I take care of those two so much, and today I need them to take care of me."

We heard no further bickering from the girls that night.

Our episode ended and we looked at each other and telegraphed our usual, five-minutes-of-the-next? look, and Charley queued it up.

We called them upstairs to teeth brushing time, (after Berzo's eight cavities we now brush teeth as a family) and they groaned because they wanted to finish their pretend birthday party. They're playing together? Sweet! Charley and I watched another five minutes and he clicked the TV off.

The girls came bounding up the stairs, excitedly telling us about the birthday party pretend game they were playing.

We headed downstairs and the kitchen was clean. Everything was put away, the counters were washed and the sink was scrubbed. Boots had done it all. She had even sorted the laundry and picked up around the house. I oohed-aaahhhed and wowed about it all she did and offered to give her a couple dollars for all her help. She actually looked a little mad and said, "I didn’t do it for the money, mama, I just wanted to do something nice for you." (I didn’t tell her that the part I appreciated the most is when she engaged Berzo in a pretend game. An older sibling taking care of a littler one… as The Donald would say, "it’s HUUUUGE!")

She never said so, but I'm fairly certain she lingered outside the door and overheard what I said to Charley.

With a renewed respect for my Boots, I tucked her into bed, laid with her a while, closed my eyes and thanked God for the zillionth time that she was mine.

Reformed Plant Snatcher

If you're anything like me, a spring hike makes you covetous of the delicate woodland flowers that are blooming along the trail. As a kid I used to trek into the forest and dig up flowers and ferns and transplant them into my yard. Sword ferns, bleeding hearts, trillium, fawn lilies, all submitted to my trowel. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I first heard that digging up wild plants was illegal. I was incredulous, "What!? Why!?" The rebel that I was, I continued my plant-snatching ways, but I was more clandestine about the whole operation.

Hand over my heart, I have reformed and have left my lawless ways behind me, but I still have an abiding love for the beautiful plants and flowers that have adorned many of the happy places of my life. Luckily, I can buy these same plants—legally—from the Audubon Society during their annual Native Plant Sale. And you can too, the sale is this weekend and they have thousands of plants, many that are hard to find like, trillium, fawn lily, wild ginger, camas, iris, woodland strawberry, oxalis, nine-bark, evergreen huckleberry, red currant, Indian plum trees, ferns, inside-out flowers...

To make amends shady past, I also volunteer at the nursery once a month all year. If you buy a plant this weekend, it is likely that I've either potted, pruned, weeded, hauled—or in some way put a fingerprint on it. But don't let that deter you. The sales goes all weekend, April 23 and Sunday, April 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Audubon Society of Portland.  If you missed the sale, no worries, there are a few available in front of the main building almost all year.

BTW - If you want a trillium, go early, they usually sell out the first day...

Here is a preview of some of the plants that were on the move for the sale, when I was working last Sunday.

Dutchman's Breeches

Bleeding Heart

Trillium

Wild Ginger

My Little Bootstrap Conservationists

In my pocket, rests a packet of honey. I slide my hand hold it a moment, a smile plays on my lips and my chest fills with love for my daughters.

This parenting gig is rough. I'm glad I didn't know the toll becoming a parent would exact from my vitality, body, relationships, finances, career—what's that?, sanity… ...because—gasp—maybe I would have done things differently. And not having my girls would be the only lamentable loss in this scenario.

So I've messed up, a lot. Turns out I'm not as patient and kind as I thought I was. I can be downright cranky and crazy yelly. Seriously. I've struggled, see here My Rough Day and here The Great Shower Debacle and here Rise of Cave Berzo. And those are only the ones I've shared publicly—it's rare that I go a day without feeling humbled in someway by my lack of parental awesomeness.

However, today is not one of those days. Today, I noticed a wonderful characteristic about both of my girls. They are both bootstrap conservationists in the making. Before you groan about goddam-tree-huggers, hear me out. We were at a park today that has several ponds. My girls were looking for the two overgrown coy fish when Boots spotted an old plastic sack half buried in mud, half floating in the water. She ran up to me, (I was on the paved walkway, not getting muddy) and told me about it. I told her she could fish it out with a stick if she wanted to, and she dashed off to find one. While she was looking, Berzo reached in and pulled it out. It was nasty. Boots hung it on her stick and ran it to the garbage can. Then they found two more pieces of trash and repeated the process. I didn't interfere, just noticed their efforts verbally ("You cleaned up three pieces of trash, blah, blah, blah.") and moved on with the rest of our trip.

Then, just a moment ago, I felt the honey packet and everything suddenly zinged together. They do this stuff all the time. The honey packet is to satisfy a request from Boots that we have an emergency honey bee feeding kit available when out and about. We found a wayward honey bee at the park two days ago and couldn't do anything to help. It just walked on, a dying traveler in a concrete desert with no nectar oasis to save it. Boots went to the concession stand that happened to be open and asked if they had a honey packet. She returned empty handed. That's when she asked me to keep a packet in my bag. I agreed, and the next day when I got a tea at Starbucks, I put a raw sugar in my cup and a honey packet in my pocket.

We routinely rescue worms, honey bees, bumble bees, and spiders. We pick up trash, when we're out on walks in our neighborhood. We hang up bird suet in the winter, we have brought injured birds to the Audubon, and Charley will bring home frogs that wander into his shop to release in our wetlands. When we go to the lake we bring an extra paper sack to clean up all the broken glass, dirty diapers (seriously), fishing tackle, and other garbage. I volunteer at the Audubon and help out in the native plant nursery, often Boots comes with me, working harder than she ever does around the house. We've bought many of the plants for our own yard to replace the non-native ornamentals.

We've always done these things, I've never really given it much thought. Then when I read the term “Bootstrap Conservation” in the book entitled, Last Child in the Woods, recently, I realized that that's what we're doing, on an incredibly small scale, of course. But even pennies amount to dollars especially when you have help collecting them. Does this mean my girls are going to grow up to be be-dreadlocked loonies that chain themselves to trees and sing Kumbaya while heavy equipment grumbles all around them? No—well I hope not. What it means is that they won't pass by a problem and and think, “Someone should do something about that.” Instead they reach into the muck pull out the garbage and put it in the trash can. Instead of lamenting the declining honey bee populations, they'll plant native wildflowers and give a wayward bee some honey from their rescue packets.

They won't be the type to watch and whine, they won't expect accolades for their conservation efforts, they'll just see something that needs doing, then do it.

And that makes me think that perhaps, just perhaps, I haven't completely bungled this child rearing job.