Wonderlust

Mr. Mom and The Sugarmama

2010-03-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago, our family joined 11% of our fellow Americans on the Unemployment Bandwagon when my husband was, quite unexpectedly, laid off from his job. He was informed of said lay off around 9:00 a.m. on a Wednesday and was home with his box of personal effects by 3:00 p.m. that same day. Done with that chapter. Just like that. Amazing how quickly and efficiently your life can be upended.

We are most certainly not at risk for going hungry anytime soon, although I’m comforted that we all genuinely like rice and beans. Nevertheless, we are well aware that another job could elude us for months. We are, therefore, in a World War Two-worthy “ration” mode and are collecting as many resources as possible while we can to stretch over an unforeseeable future.

Since the birth of our daughter two and a half years ago, I have worked only two days per week at the same agency where I worked prior to her birth. My preference would be to stay at home full-time, but given our financial needs and my mother’s generosity in caring for Madelyn while I’m away, I happily work part-time outside of the home. This past week at my agency, an opportunity presented itself, quite unexpectedly, for me to work full-time for the next 4-8 weeks. The ration-focused part of my brain screamed “Wise decision! What a blessing! Take it!” which, of course, I did. But my heart has been quietly quivering ever since at the thought of being away from my daughter 40+ hours per week, even if it is only time limited. I just love my kid. I have been smitten with her since those first popcorn kicks inside my belly, and I am simply too selfish and too possessive to relinquish the majority of her care and early education to anyone other than myself. Furthermore, I am quite comfortable with my traditional gender-specific role. I like grocery shopping and preparing the evening meal. It matters to me that the curtains are gathered with turquoise ribbons every morning and that the house just feels cozier with a spiced pumpkin candle burning. Folding laundry gives me a genuine sense of accomplishment, and don’t even get me started on my standards for a clean bathroom.

I suppose, however, that it will be valuable for my husband and I to try each other’s shoes on for a bit. I arrived home last week after a ten-hour workday and genuinely felt that I deserved a half-hour or so of decompression time before launching myself into the craziness that is dinnertime and bedtime. My husband has never ever asked for a post-work decompression time, and he probably wouldn’t take it even if I offered it. But it was nevertheless enlightening for me to experience the sense of entitlement, as well as the ginormous amount of will power it took to muster up the energy to play-redirect-play-redirect the rest of the evening. Bonus admiration points to the husband for enthusiastically leaping into toddler-land the minute he steps through the door.

For his part, I think he’s learning just how wrapped up in your child’s world and well-being you become when you spend literally every waking moment with her. He gets disproportionately frustrated when she won’t fall asleep, he knows how many bites of food she has consumed in each meal, and he proudly reports every detail of the day as if they all were critically significant – all classic “me” behaviors. My favorite thus far was the fury of texts I received one morning while he and Madelyn were at our local indoor play park. I routinely take Maddie to activities within our community – parks, the library, the Children’s Museum – and I am quite accustomed to seeing styles of parenting that are very different from our own. Unless someone is beating on their kid, I typically just make an editorial comment or two inside my head, smile, and then ignore them so Maddie and I can continue our adventure. But I forget how glaringly ridiculous these encounters are if they are not a part of your typical weekly routine. “Crazy hippie parents!” came his first text. Oh dear. Evidently, another two-year-old at the play park (it speaks volumes that I knew exactly which one he was talking about) was loudly and incessantly tantruming in the middle of the room. Arms and legs were flapping about, and the wails were reverberating through the spacious gymnasium with the acoustic power of five or six screaming toddlers. The boho not-so-chic mom reluctantly sauntered over after a minute or two, hesitantly leaned over, and said, “Radio, what do you want, baby? What do you want?” over and over until the kid finally lost interest after ten minutes or so and commenced running (at least quietly) amuck. Believe me: I know how nerve-shattering those experiences are and how frustrating it is to have to explain to your own gawking, confused child why some children are permitted to behave in ways that are not permissible for her. But I was genuinely tickled by how incensed my husband was by this incident; like it was a personal affront to his fatherhood to witness such wimpy, permissive parenting. (Please note, dear reader, that my husband is actually a fan of hippies: he’s married to one. “Hippie” seems to be the default label for a few too many stereotypes in our culture. I vote that we establish a new label for the overly permissive parent... perhaps “Permie” or just “Perm...” That way those of us cloth diapering, knitting, organic buying “hippies” don’t have to be tangentially insulted.)

It will be a colorful few weeks in our household to be sure. We will both be relieved to return to our preferred roles, but in the meantime, it is touching to see my daughter bond with her daddy in a way that not many children have an opportunity to do. Hopefully I can just remind myself of that the first time she reaches for him instead of me – he will undoubtedly have earned it :)

Unburdening My Heart

2010-02-14T22:41:00.000-08:00

Upon graduating from college with a degree in social work and moving out West to be near my family, I got my first “real” job at a residential facility for behaviorally and emotionally disturbed children.  My title was “Youth Treatment Specialist,” which, while it might sound lofty, was about as entry-level as you could get without emptying the garbage and mopping floors.  Essentially, I functioned as a parent to a group of about 12 children ranging in age from 6 to 12 between the hours of 1:00 and 11:00 p.m. four days per week.  Nearly all of these children were wards of the juvenile court and had been removed from their birth parents’ care for either abusive or neglectful circumstances.  For a number of varying reasons, however, none of these children were able to maintain safe behaviors in a foster home.  So.  When you can’t live with your birth parents and you can’t live with foster parents, you get to live at a “rez” with locked doors, on-site therapists, and “staff” for parents... even if you’re 7, still speak with a lisp, and sleep with a blankie.

Working rez is rubber-meets-the-road child welfare — the Marines of child welfare, if you will.  We were trained how to defend ourselves physically and how to hold or “restrain” children when they became dangerous to either themselves or others (we used both sets of skills on a weekly, if not daily, basis).  We learned and implemented lock-down procedures in the event of a riot.  We dispensed alarming combinations of psychotropic medications to pint-sized humans up to three times per day.  And amidst the defiance, aggression, destruction, and general chaos, we helped with homework, led activities, cooked and served dinner, and got 12 kids ready for bed and asleep.

The logistics of managing behaviors were a cake-walk, however, in comparison to the emotional challenge of working with such traumatized, damaged children.  Reading these children’s files literally turned my stomach and lit an aimless rage within me at how such injustice could exist.  I would play checkers with the kids or read them stories and try to imagine what their eyes have seen, what their ears have heard, and what terror and loneliness has filled their hearts.  I would hold a child’s arm or legs in a 3-person restraint while he lay face down on the floor screaming and think, “What flashbacks is he experiencing right now?  In how many ways are we re-traumatizing this child in our efforts to help him?”  I was monitoring an 8-year-old girl in the locked safe room one evening and was desperately trying to motivate her to calm down so I could unlock the door and get her out of there.  I went through my standard bag of tricks, to no avail, and then finally reminded her that it was bedtime and it would be no fun at all if she had to sleep in the safe room.  She stopped her pacing and looked me directly in the eye through the window in the door and said, “I have slept and woken up in much worse places than this.”

Perhaps my worst night there, and certainly the one event that to this day cycles almost daily through my memory, involved a 10-year-old girl that I’ll call Amy.  When Amy was barely old enough to walk, she swiped some LSD off of her parents’ coffee table and ingested it.  I’m not sure how much she took or how long it was before her parents realized they’d better get her some medical attention, but in the end, the hard wiring in her brain was permanently damaged.  She walked a bit like an ostrich, cautious and jerky, and she resembled an ostrich, too, with her perpetually wide eyes and wiry frame.  Her ability to accurately interpret any sensory input was grossly altered such that she was always either totally tuned out to events occurring around her and lost in her own world or so overwhelmed with noises and lights and smells that she would begin screaming and thrashing.  Unlike most of the other children, Amy was not oppositional or violent.  But when she was in one of her fits, her body harnessed a strength beyond her size, and she could be every bit as unsafe or destructive as any of the other children.  And given her mental and emotional disconnection from reality, it was seemingly impossible to process with her toward the goal of more constructive behavior.  No one really knew what to do with her, which is why she came to us, but we didn’t really know what to do with her either.

After maybe one year of living at rez, Amy was stable enough for us to begin looking for adoptive homes for her.  Her birth parents’ parental rights had been terminated by the court, so she was legally free to be adopted.  We were thrilled to learn one day that a family was very interested in Amy and would be taking her to their home for the weekend to begin the transition process.  For her protection, we did not tell Amy that this would be her “adoptive” family or her “forever” family, but despite her addled mental state, she got it.  She literally skipped out the door, beaming, when the family arrived.  Two days later, she returned with her arms full of gifts and back-to-back stories.  She may have even referred to the parents as “mom” and “dad” once or twice.  We shared her excitement and began preparing for her good-bye party (a very big deal in a rez program).

Imagine our shock several days later when we learned that after spending those two days with Amy, the family did not feel they could care for her after all.  Her therapist broke the news to her, as gently as possible, and surprisingly, Amy did not become upset and simply continued with her daily routine as if there was never any family at all.  But then the exact same scenario played out a second time.  And, horrifically, a third time as well.  Within about six months of the first family, two other families learned about her, invited her to their homes for the weekend, and then backed out immediately after.

I was working the night she got the news about the third family.  She walked out of her therapist’s office with her face flushed, her eyes wet, and her hands clenched.  We desperately wanted to avoid any restraints or seclusions for her that night, so I stuck by her side the entire evening, distracting her with conversation or activities when she began to get frustrated or overwhelmed.  She made it the whole night until bedtime when she began to yell uncontrollably at another child for a reason I don’t remember.  She would’ve attacked the child if another staff member hadn’t been between them to block Amy, and between the two of us, we simply corralled her into her room and shut the door before a restraint would become necessary.  She screamed and thrashed and kicked for several minutes until she finally collapsed on the floor, sobbing, with her head bowed and her long auburn hair hiding her face.  Alone with her at this time, I knelt down beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.  She leaned into me as though her muscles could no longer support even her tiny frame and whispered, with a lucidity and honesty that haunts me to this day, “Kimberlee, I can’t do this anymore.”  Oh, my heart ached.  I didn’t know what I could do to comfort this hurting girl.  I helped her into her bed, got her snuggled under her covers, and then rubbed her back and her face and her hands.  Any sort of physical touching outside of restraints and side-hugs is strictly forbidden in a rez program because of the prevalence of past sexual abuse for most of the children; even the most innocuous touch runs the risk of being either stimulating or confusing to a child with such trauma.  I can understand how, on paper, that is a wise policy, but can you imagine being ten-year-old Amy on that night having not been properly bear-hugged or physically soothed in over a year and a half?  I’m not sure I gave it more than a fleeting thought; I just did it.  I sat beside her and rubbed her back and sang to her like my mom used to do for me when I was little.  Her muscles melted under the unfamiliar touch, and she eventually stopped crying.  I stayed with her until she drifted off to sleep.

I wept for Amy the whole drive home that night.  Sadness flooded my heart, but anger also boiled through my veins.  I was furious at the obvious targets—her parents, the adoptive families, the stupid rez rules—but I was also oddly enraged that I was being paid to comfort her.  I sincerely wished that I could forgo that particular paycheck so I could tell Amy that I soothed her and stayed with her because there’s nowhere else I would’ve rather been, whether I was being paid for it or not.  I desperately wanted her to know — to feel -- that she is inherently worthy of love and compassion, and it ripped me apart that she might never know that.

I started writing this story over four weeks ago and am only just now getting around to posting it because I don’t really know what else I want to say about it.  This world is broken and sinful and far from what it was intended to be, and until the return of Perfection, there will continue to be suffering and loneliness regardless of our best efforts to prevent it.  We can’t all be foster parents or adoptive parents, and yet, I feel a tremendous burden to share stories like Amy’s because on some very basic human level, isn’t Amy all of our responsibility?  I don’t know what the solution is, and sadly, nearly ten years of experience in the child welfare field has only further muddled any ideas I may have had.  My heart demands, though, that I contribute, however minutely, tangentially, or creatively, to the relief efforts... and I invite you to join me.

(Post-script:  Mercifully, I learned several years ago that Amy was eventually adopted after I left the agency by a family who lives on a horse ranch.  She was reportedly doing very well.)

Tough Lovin' Two's

2010-01-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

We are in the middle of Age Two in all its schizophrenic, drama-infused glory at our house lately. My daughter Madelyn turned two this past September, and although she gets measurably cuter each day, we are never quite sure which version of our daughter will emerge on a minute-to-minute basis: Maddicakes or Madditude.

I have a longer history with Maddicakes, thankfully, and find her to be utterly endearing and charming. She carries a book around with her wherever she goes and channels John Travolta when she dances and asks for “just a little bit of chocolate” nearly every day. She says “Thank you for my yummy lunch, Mommy” and “What a pretty outfit you have on, Nana” and “I love you, Daddy” all on her own without any prompting. She likes to snuggle with me while we dance to her favorite songs (currently Glee’s rendition of Lean On Me), and I bury my nose in her gorgeous curls and inhale her warm scent while carefully cataloging this precious moment for the sob-fest that will inevitably be her first day of college. I love, love this girl.

In recent weeks, however, I have become all too familiar with Madditude. At her best, she is feisty and sassy, and truthfully, I’m ok with that—a little (harnessed) spit and vinegar serves a girl well, I think. But at her worst, she is oppositional, histrionic, and downright domestically violent. She looks away when she’s being asked to pick up her toys and runs away laughing every single time we need to put shoes on and head out the door. She gets within inches of my face and screams “NO!” and thrashes on the floor like a fish out of water if she isn’t allowed to do something totally by herself. She has also been known to look me straight in the eye and slap me across the face, just to see what I would do about it. I challenge anyone who does not believe in an inherent carnal nature to spend one day with a toddler and see if that theory stands. She is capable of voice inflections and behaviors that she has never witnessed, certainly not in her own home, and yet they come as naturally to her as her newborn root reflex once did. There is a very specific reason that humans were designed to enter this world as chubby-cheeked, wide-eyed babies and not pimple-faced, snaggle-toothed adolescents: we are much less likely to harm something that is cute.

I wasn’t spanked often as a child, but the few times I was, I remember my parents telling me after the fact that spanking me hurt them much more than it hurt me. When your bum is still stinging from the wooden ping-pong paddle that, I swear, had holes in it for aerodynamic efficiency, this is not something you want to hear. I’m learning, however, that along with most of the parenting observations my parents shared while I was growing up, that statement is absolutely true: disciplining my child and making her cry when all I want in the world is for her to be happy and at peace just breaks my heart. Tough love, indeed.

Here’s another thing I’m learning about discipline: laughing at your child’s misbehavior grossly undermines your authority as a parent and confuses her understanding of right and wrong, but oh my goodness is it hard not to. Hitting, biting, kicking…those offenses are easy to swiftly consequence without a hint of amusement, but most toddler misbehavior is just plain hilarious.

Awhile back, Madelyn got a lollipop from the man pumping gas at our local station. (Ordinarily, accepting candy from a stranger is not something I would condone, but it was Christmas time, he was jolly, and it was an all-too-rare root beer Dum-Dum. Please don’t judge me.) We were on our way back to our house for lunch, so I told her that she could hold it but she couldn’t eat it until after she finished her lunch. The whole way home she beamed and held that lollipop like the Olympic torch for all to admire and covet. Immediately upon entering our house, my phone rang, so I quickly took her shoes and coat off and then sat on the couch to talk to my mom for about five minutes which, evidently, was long enough for Maddie to get into trouble but not quite long enough for me to notice. After calling her name several times with no response, I finally found her lying on her tummy in a slightly hidden corner of the kitchen with her hands covering her head and the end of the lollipop sticking straight out of her mouth. My hand barely made it to my mouth in time to stifle my laughter. I must’ve stood there for two full minutes desperately trying to conjure a depressing enough image to regain my composure (and I work in child welfare!). She lay there the whole time utterly silent and motionless except for the frantic suck-suck-suck of the lollipop. I’ve been known to have similar, clandestine escapades with the last chocolate cupcake or, heck, the last third of a pan of brownies, so for a moment I wondered if I had any right telling her this was against the rules. (Although, if we’re going to use that logic, I would also have no right to tell her not to tantrum. I, not infrequently, pitch quite an artful tantrum. I just try to limit them to times when she’s not around to take notes.) “Madelyn,” I finally squeaked. “What is going on here?” She told me, and then I told her that because she disobeyed, the lollipop would have to go in the trash. I even made her throw it in there (tough Mommy!). We both shed tears but for very different reasons.

Ah well. Being two is hard sometimes, as is parenting two. But our Maddicakes moments far outweigh our Madditude moments, both in quantity and quality, and really, two hasn’t turned out to be nearly as terrible as its reputation would have us believe. Nevertheless, as I close my computer and prepare to slumber for the night, I can’t help but wonder who will greet me in the morning…

Tickling the Ivories

2010-01-08T07:27:00.000-08:00

This past New Year’s Eve, I had the absolute pleasure of attending a Pink Martini concert at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall here in Portland. First of all, I’d attend just about any show at the Schnitz. Steep stairs, tiered balconies, red carpeting, marble pillars, ornate walls, stained glass ceiling... it’s the only place in Portland where a gal can be dripping in diamonds and not look ridiculously out of place. (Incidentally, we learned that you still do look out of place in a backless, skin-tight, leopard print dress and gold platform shoes.)

Pink Martini, for those who have not been introduced, is a band comprised of a dozen or so classically trained musicians, including several violinists and cellists, a few trumpeters and trombonists, a flutist/clarinetist, a smattering of percussionists, one pianist, and one lead vocalist. Their four studio albums provide a whirlwind musical world-tour through jazz, salsa, bossa nova, polka, and swing, to name a few, and are often infused with well-known classical themes and melodies. “If the United Nations had a house band in 1962,” quotes their website, “hopefully we’d be that band.” Their lead singer, China Forbes, sings in no fewer than six languages (ironically, Chinese is not one of them). Their music is soulful and sensuous one moment and then playful, witty, and whimsical the next—not unlike many of my favorite people.

Listening to Pink Martini is a delight, but watching them is pure joy. They look fantastic, to start. The band is almost always in black-tie attire, and China wears the most splendid, flowing, bejeweled gowns complete with glittery eye shadow and sultry red lips. (Is it too much to ask to have a job where I, too, must wear gowns? From now on, I am going to do all of my parenting in the one floor-length dress that I own, just to see what that might be like. I think Madelyn will respond well. Children understand the importance of feeling fancy so much better than adults do.) These musicians play their instruments with their entire bodies; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they burn as many calories during one concert as a pro-athlete burns during one game. The pianist, Thomas Lauderdale, is my favorite. He practically dances from his piano bench, but he is so connected to those 88 keys that no matter how much his arms might sweep, arc, or bounce or how much distance lies between two notes, his fingers always land precisely where they mean to. He is a marvel to watch, and by the perpetual grin on his face, you’d think it took no effort at all. I was rivoted and awed... but the more I watched him, the more familiar he seemed. Where had I seen these fanciful piano stylings before?

Ah yes! Josh!

Growing up, there was a boy named Josh who lived a few houses down from us on the corner of Tamarack and Basswood. He was an only child, if I’m remembering correctly, and he was perhaps two or three years younger than me.

Josh, my sister, and I all took piano lessons from the same teacher. I’ll get back to Josh in a minute, but I must pause to briefly introduce you to one of my life’s greatest characters: our piano teacher, Mrs. Hickey. Even as a youngster I knew that her name was giggle-worthy although I couldn’t necessarily articulate why. She was a petite, fifty-something woman with a crisp, bobbed haircut and conservative but expensive clothing. Her wardrobe consisted primarily of long skirts and high-necked blouses, and she peered at us through a pair of perfectly Dumbledore-esque half-moon bifocals. She had smooth, well-moisturized skin, and her make-up was flattering and current without being overly trendy. All the right pieces were present for Mrs. Hickey to be a classy, put-together gal, but, as is often the case with gifted artists, something always went a bit awry in the assembly. To begin, the buttons on her blouse were frequently misaligned, and as luck would have it, the gap always seemed to be right between her breasts, showing off her unexpectedly lacy braziers. (Those lacy braziers were a source of genuine confusion and concern for me. Mrs. Hickey seemed like a decently moral person. I was pretty sure she even attended church, but I was confident that you couldn’t attend church and wear lacy undergarments. It was a bon-a-fide mystery.) Her lipstick, while always a lovely shade of raspberry or plum, was inevitably smudged across her front teeth or in one corner of her mouth. And without fail, she would spend the better part of our hour lesson searching for her bifocals that were perched solidly and predictably on top of her head. She called me “Kimbuhlee.” As far as I know, she was born and raised in the United States without any identifiable speech impediment. I’m not quite sure what happened to that “r,” but hearing her speak always reminded me of the actresses from black-and-white movies who spoke with an accent all their own seemingly fabricated solely to sound glamorous.

Who can be bothered with buttons, lipstick, and “r’s,” however, when you routinely guest-star with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and experience music in all five of your senses? Mrs. Hickey had perfect pitch, and given that she frequently closed her eyes and furrowed her brow while giving us instruction, I suspect she “saw” music as well. One of our favorite requests of her during group lessons was to ask her to transpose a piece of music from the key in which it was written to a key of our choice, an impossible feat for us students that she accomplished with perfection down to the last eighth note almost as soon as the request left our lips. She was a stickler for accuracy in our notes, but I think her true goal was to teach us to feel music—to identify with the notes and express some part of ourselves using our entire bodies to play them. She would stand behind us and lean into us while we played, placing her arms along the top of our arms and her hands on our wrists showing us how to move within the phrases of the music to coax even the tiniest nuance out of every last note.

But back to Josh. Josh was Mrs. Hickey’s pint-sized protégé. With his feet still short enough to swing from the bench and his repertoire consisting only of single-note melodies, Josh swayed his tiny torso and approached every note with the arc and trajectory of an Olympic high-diver. From any vantage point, his index fingers could be seen rising and falling, often above his head, to, well, coax even the tiniest nuance out of every last note. My sister and I thought this was just hilarious and would frequently mimic him while practicing at home. We weren’t making fun of him, necessarily, and we were never unfriendly to him, but, come on, outside of Mrs. Hickey, who really played like that anyway?

Well, touché, Josh. I stood (or sat, rather) humbly corrected in my Mezzanine seat at the Schnitz as I watched Thomas channel your patented piano panache to dazzle and delight thousands. I hope, wherever you are, you’re still playing. Shoot, for all I know, you are Thomas Lauderdale and you’re really having the last laugh.

It's a Wonder-Full Life

2010-01-01T01:10:00.001-08:00

I am a hopeless magazine junkie. I do read lengthier literature, but I am not at all above diving into virtually any magazine and pouring through it cover to cover, often in one sitting. I love the combination and juxtaposition of the text and the graphics; it almost (almost) makes me understand how people can love comic books. I have subscribed to many magazines throughout my life and have eagerly anticipated the arrival of each crisp new issue in my mailbox, but only a few collections have earned a spot on my bookshelf, permanently safe from the recycle bin.

Wondertime was one of these publications. Like many of my favorite delicacies in life, my sister introduced it to me. It was a parenting magazine, but, with all due respect to all other parenting magazines, it was safely in a class all its own. First of all, its pages were larger and slightly more square than a typical magazine—kind of like some fancy photography journal. And said pages were in a matte finish. Let me repeat: a matte finish. Sigh. My eyes just love a matte finish. My fingertips just love a matte finish. Matte is all about understated sophistication, and if I can be truthful for a moment, I secretly, vainly hope that people describe me in the same way: “Oh Kimberlee…she’s all about understated sophistication.”

But beyond those gorgeous pages, the heart and philosophy of Wondertime was true to its apt name: articles, featurettes, and gallery-worthy photography celebrating the magical, wonder-filled years of childhood. It wasn’t so much a “how to” magazine like most other parenting magazines, repeatedly covering ear-infections, tantrums, and the on-going immunization debate. Wondertime was more of a “get to” magazine as in, “Well isn’t it just the bees-knees that I ‘get to’ be a parent?!” Each issue was packed cover to cover with information that was genuinely fresh and interesting, even to research-obsessed parents like myself, and the overall approach was decidedly get-on-your-knees-and-look-a-child-in-her-eyes rather than affectionately-pat-her-on-the-head.

Alas, as you have undoubtedly deduced by the past-tense verbs, Wondertime is no longer in publication. I have no idea why. I sang its praises to everyone I know, and I am really loud. There wasn’t even any warning or big going-away fanfare; I happened to notice one day that I hadn’t received any new issues in awhile and then put two and two together that the flimsy, sensory-assaulting “family” magazine that had been randomly showing up in my mailbox was in fact its obscenely sub-standard replacement. It was like trying to pass off polyester for cashmere, skim milk for cream, flat-leaf parsley for cilantro; it simply can’t be done. Sure enough, March 2009 was its final issue. I was, and continue to be, genuinely disappointed.

I am under no delusion that I can simply pick up where Wondertime left off. I have nowhere near the artistic skill or experience to even attempt it, and I’m pretty sure that even using the same name would be illegal somehow. Nevertheless, I believe in its purpose, and I think that someone, somewhere needs to carry its torch, even if it’s more like a pocket flashlight. I adore children—even the naughty ones. I love their chubby rolls and wobbly walking and toothy grins. I love their lisps and grammatically incorrect sentences and sticky hands. I love their crocodile tears and lovies and unconditional trust in their caregivers. And I love their ceaseless curiosity and shouts of delight as they discover and learn about the world around them. Children are absolutely essential to the well-being of a grown-up’s spirit. It is a humble privilege to parent a child, care for a child, or even befriend a child.

This, then, will be a space devoted to celebrating all things directly or remotely related to children and the “wonderlust” that fills their lives and rubs off on those of us blessed enough to be around them. I anticipate lots of personal anecdotes and observations, some soap-box editorials, and perhaps even a few pieces that will demand I crack a book or two. Most will be humorous and heart-warming, I hope, but I can already feel a few weightier, more sobering topics tumbling restlessly about in my heart demanding to be discussed. Childhood is not all snuggles, kisses, and blissful exploration for all children, and their stories need to be told, too; I am a child welfare social worker, after all, and I truly can’t help myself.

You should also know that, personally, this is a bit of an “out on a limb” moment for me. I dream of being a writer someday, but until someone else is willing to hire me, I’ve decided to hire myself (the pay is measly, but I get to make my own hours and choose my own topics). These posts will make excellent practice for me, but truthfully, if no one ever reads them besides my husband and my mom, it will all still feel worth it for the joy of writing itself. Nevertheless, if someone else does stumble upon these missives, I welcome any feedback. Really, I mean that.

Enough said. Thus, I embark…