Our Newest Addition

According to our family’s well-loved edition of D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, Hermes, the “merriest of the Olympians, was the god of shepherds, travelers, merchants, thieves, and all others who lived by their wits.” That’s a diverse set of patronages; the bottom line is that, although best known for zipping around in his winged shoes and winged helmet, Hermes was a bit of a trickster.

So it’s particularly appropriate that my daughters named their new kitten Hermes, since we were basically tricked into adding him to our family.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” in The Addison Independent.

Small, Sharp Things

common-porcupine-e15fcb-640

Not that there’s ever a good time, but the “low tire pressure” light came on in our minivan at a particularly inconvenient time.

It was a chilly, overcast Saturday morning in early October, the kind of morning that makes you want to pour another cup of coffee and curl up on the couch with a good book.

Unless, of course, you have children, in which case you have to get your little Girl Scout out the door by 8:30 AM so that she can meet up with the rest of her troop for a morning hike.

As I ushered the Girl Scout and her little sister (who wanted to come along for the ride) into the minivan that morning, I was feeling pretty good about myself: Not yet 8:30, and my entire family was dressed, breakfasted, and brushed up. The dog had been walked, and the poultry were fed.

Then the “low tire pressure” light came on.

I drove my daughter to her hike anyway, of course, because I’d rather be on time on three tires than late on four.

We took the car to the mechanic later that morning. A few hours later, my husband gave me the report: Two porcupine quills.

I cannot imagine how I ended up with two porcupine quills in my tire. I’m fairly sure I didn’t run over an entire porcupine, so there must have been a few spare quills lying on the road somewhere; this is Vermont.

Isn’t it amazing how a couple of small, sharp things can take down a massive, powerful vehicle?

I’m not just talking about porcupine quills; I’m also talking about flu shots.

Click here to continue reading the latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Just Two Pages a Day

fullsizeoutput_87f2

Last weekend, I did something I’ve never done before: Packed my family into the minivan and drove up to Burlington for a book-signing event. I would do this for very few authors, but I did it for Kate DiCamillo.

For those who don’t have children under age 18, Kate DiCamillo is a children’s book author known for an impressive array of beautifully written and moving works, from picture books to young adult fiction. I taught her novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, to my third grade class before I had children of my own. My own children have devoured her Bink and Gollie books (co-authored with Alison McGhee), The Tale of Despereaux, and – our family’s favorite – the Mercy Watsonseries, about a pig who lives with the Watson family on Deckawoo drive and will do anything for toast with a great deal of butter on it. (I consider one of the Mercy Watsonspin-off books, Where Are You Going, Baby Lincoln?, to be among the most perfect books ever written, period.)

Needless to say, when I learned that the Flying Pig Bookshop was hosting an event with Kate DiCamillo and New Yorker cartoonist and illustrator Harry Bliss to promote their latest collaboration, Good Rosie!, I deemed it a worthwhile way for our family to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Out of the entire afternoon, one moment stuck in my head:

When asked by a young girl in the audience how she handles writer’s block, Kate DiCamillo explained that she doesn’t getwriter’s block, because her working day involves sitting down to write two pages. Just two pages a day.If those don’t turn out well, she said, it’s not writer’s block, “it’s just a bad writing day.”

This moment stuck in my husband’s head as well; my long-suffering husband, who has spent a decade listening to me bemoan my lack of writing time.

“Two pages a day,” he said to me as we exited the event.

“Yup,” I said, smiling in an attempt to look brave. “That seems pretty manageable.”

Inside, I was thinking: HOW can I find the time to write two pages a day?!?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Mother’s Little Helper

“Wow, your girls sure are comfortable around the kitchen.”

The friend who said this to me was visiting us with his family. He would repeat the statement several times over the course of the weekend, but I believe the first time he mentioned my daughters’ culinary confidence was while watching my seven-year-old slice herself an apple at the kitchen island.

I nodded and smiled in response, acting every bit the proud mother.

What I thought – but did not say – is that the five words that most strike terror into my heart are: “Can I help you, Mommy?” followed closely by, “I’ll do it by myself!”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

…And Things That Go Bump in the Night

clue_rooms_by_jdwinkerman-d9pis41

It’s happened many times before, but it happened again last night:

I was sleeping soundly, my brain floating through the mists of the sort of vague, rushed dreams one has when your consciousness knows that you’ve gone to bed too late – again – and that you’ll have to wake up too early. Yes, I’m multi-tasking even in my dreams.

Suddenly, with a jolt, I felt a clammy hand on my arm. I jerked awake, and the hand’s owner screamed. I screamed back. (My husband continued sleeping soundly, of course.)

When both the intruder and I had recovered ourselves, I realized that it was my eldest daughter standing beside my bed.

“Mommy, I can’t sleep. I’m scared,” she said.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Why Not?

40023398641_6d023e0f57_b

Our telephone rang towards the end of dinner one night. My husband picked up the receiver; our neighbor was on the other end.

“Are you hearing noises in the morning?” he asked.

It was an odd question to ask a family with four energetically verbal daughters, 19 chickens (including two roosters), seven ducks a-quacking, and one dog who barks at the slightest provocation.

Are we hearing noises in the morning? When are we NOT hearing noises?

My first response, when my husband repeated our neighbor’s question to me, was guilt. Were our roosters — who crow not just at sun-up, but throughout the day — becoming a nuisance? Did this have to do with my daughter’s ninth birthday party the previous day, when we’d had six rambunctious youngsters telling silly stories and dancing to the music in their heads around our fire pit long past bedtime? Or to that very morning, when four of those rambunctious youngsters awoke in the tent where they’d camped out in our yard, demanding assistance at 6:30 AM?

The answer, it turned out, was none of the above. Our neighbor was simply inviting us to come over and see the white peacock that had settled in his yard.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

That’s Lice

nuttall_1917_f11

Someone once said, “Life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans.”

I might revise that to: “LICE are what happen to you when you’re making other plans.”

In my last column, I wrote about my fear of flying, which is at root a fear of falling.

So, while we’re on the topic of my subconscious anxieties, my secondgreatest fear – the thing I’ve wanted most to avoid as a parent – is head lice.

You can probably guess what’s coming, but click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Love in the Poultry Yard

kisspng-chicken-rooster-see-the-little-hen-rooster-vector-5a696c0e736c18-8807436315168583824728

“I think those hens are about to start a #MeToo movement,” my husband said, coming in one night after tucking our chickens into their coop.

Yes, spring fever has struck our poultry. Watching the chickens and ducks act on their hormonal urges, I can almost hear the voice of Friend Owl in Bambi: “Nearly everybody gets ‘twitterpated’ in the spring!”

In that Disney-fied, animated world, being “twitterpated” involves a lot of animals fluttering their eyelashes, blushing under their fur, and slinking off into the flowers. That is not the truth; at least, not in our poultry yard.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Watching My Daughters Climb

All four of our daughters love climbing, but one of them has elevated climbing to a lifestyle.

I’m not talking about “climbing” in any metaphorical sense; I’m talking about actual climbing, defined in Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary as, “to draw or pull oneself up, over, or to the top of by using hands and feet.”

My climbing daughter has always scaled whatever was available, with the goal of getting as high as possible. She began, as a toddler, with the boulders and trees that filled the yard of our house; her first word was “rock.” At two years old, she amused herself during her big sisters’ swimming lessons by climbing the trees by the town pool. It was from one of these trees that she fell that summer, thankfully from a height of only about four feet – she was on her way down – thus earning the dubious honor of being the first of our children observed for signs of concussion.

In recent years, this same daughter has climbed rocky cliffs by the Maine coast. She claimed a willow tree in our yard (named “Willowbee”), in whose branches she sits whenever she needs time alone. She once scaled the six-foot-high, spike-topped metal fence that borders the library parking lot, rather than simply using the entrance. When we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on a recent trip to New York, I found it necessary to warn her beforehand that the trees there were not for climbing. The friends we were visiting understood my warning the next day, when they watched her attempt to climb every city fence we passed.

Raising this daughter has made me curious about the human impulse to climb. What ancient code in our DNA compels us to lift feet off the ground, pull up with arms, and attempt to defy gravity? Was climbing necessary to avoid predators? Did an elevated perspective improve one’s success in hunting and gathering? Were climbers valued members of society because they could keep watch from the heights and be the first to spot impending danger?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Brooklyn, Take Me In

zane_grey_cabin_rock_wall_1_-_galice_oregon

“I’m still thinking about that man who lied to us,” my daughter said as I tucked her into bed the night we returned from a family weekend in New York City.

My husband and I lived in Manhattan for seven years, throughout our dating and early marriage but before we had children. Only one of our daughters had ever set foot in the Big Apple, and since she was six months old at the time, “set foot” isn’t quite accurate. So, this was our first time in New York City as a family of six.

We stayed for two days and two nights with dear friends who live in Brooklyn with their three children. The best way to describe our family’s relationship with these Brooklyn friends is to say, “We have the same books on our shelves.” This means that, although we see these friends rarely, and although we live “city mice/country mice” existences, when we get together it feels like home.

In emotional terms: We love spending time with this family. In practical terms: Because everyone gets along so well, this is the family to be with if you’re trying to shepherd seven children around New York City.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” — about some of our adventures OUT of Vermont — in The Addison Independent.