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Last year we seemed to misplace summer.

This year I’m itching all over for it.

Each summer has been encased in it’s own set of circumstances-pregnancies, babies, caring for an elderly parent-I’m still not sure exactly what I’m looking for this summer.  I have some fears about loneliness and an endless lack of shape to our day(which can end up as bored sibling fighting). But all the same-

Bring it on.

Good-bye to stacks of school curriculum and attempting to constantly motivate 4 small people, bring on the days of less mama-corrections and directions and more mama smiling and sitting on the floor.

Good-bye to structured learning, bring on the family summer bookstore and nature sketching with brand-new sketchbooks and pencils(shhh, don’t tell the kids).

Good-bye to heavy soups and flavorless grocery store produce, bring on the weekly csa box brimming with the ingredients for yet-to-be-discovered recipes, happy salads, and pasta with fresh tomatoes.

Good-bye “go on, you need some fresh air” says mama to the reluctant children, bring on strawberry(tart) kissed cheeks, bathings suits, and the smell of suntan lotion.

Good-bye predictable days, bring on days of adventure on land, on pool, on travel.

Good-bye limitations, bring on the possibilities.

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I first heard Emily Franklin read her book excerpt on NPR. With equal amounts wit and truth, she relayed her son’s dislike of peas, comparing his reaction to someone experiencing a traumatic event such as death:

“In fact, Daniel’s reaction to knowing he’s going to have a big pile of peas just like the rest of the family is very similar to the five stages of grief.

The first stage is denial.  Disbelief takes over and he shakes his head at the warm dish I’m preparing.  ’I just can’t believe it.  I can’t believe you’re making me eat peas!’ He mutters to himself, confounded and confused.  ’I don’t get it.  I can’t believe this.’

On national radio she confessed her child’s Olympic worthy skills in fit pitching. Particularly over food. She mentions a similar reaction to the peas when she slices his sandwich. (He likes it unsliced, just in case you meet her and make he son a sandwich one day.)

I sat in the car outside of the grocery store and laughed out loud and thought how fitting the metaphor of the stages of grief to my children and food.  My son’s issue begins and ends with beans. All varieties. And chicken. And milk. His sister denies that salad dressing exists, also lunch meat. His older, older sister-well, she actually likes most things(which is what keeps me holding on with similar hopes for her siblings as they age).

Within a few hours I requested her book from the library-not quite sure what the book would be like beyond the brief sound clip, just knowing she and I had something in common.

It turns out that Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 mom, 4 kids, and 102 Recipes is set up in the recently popular style of foodie books: each chapter consists of an essay followed by correlating recipes.

It also turns our that her one excerpt on pea grief is only one of the many, many stories that made me laugh over the true situations that arise from cooking for (or with) kids. She’s not cooking in ideal situations that arise only in photo shoots for a Mom and Me cookbook. She’s got baby Will at the breast, kids with unwashed hands, and ingredients that have to inspire me to move outside the macaroni box(monkfish, anyone?). I don’t want to give too many stories away but I will mention that there’s a vomit situation on a flight to Indiana. We’ve had that flight(to florida).

So why does she cook salmon, thai food, fresh bread, and tarts despite the fact that it might mean opening up to a bit of chaos and a whole lot of “That’s gross, I’m not going to eat that.”? First of all, it’s clear she loves food in the same way that I love books and can’t pass a used books store without filling two bags(she was previously a chef). But she also wants to pass on her wide palate to her children. Not her exact palate, but one willing to try. And I have to admit by the end of the book, I was just as happy as she was when Daniel started eating food that was combined into one dish and instead of separated into non-touching piles. She goes to all of the trouble because she’s pretty sure she’ll eventually hear “Wow, I like this” as a regular phrase(as opposed to the swear words that the 8 year-old brought into the house from his camp counselor), and she’s right.

Although we are generally one of those whole-wheat, organic-when-we-can-afford-it, eat your veggies family, you can still read this book if your family is not. In her introduction she lets you know that she doesn’t have a food agenda other than “get your kids to try a lot of things”. She’s generous in giving options with flour in her recipes(whole wheat or white) and she includes recipes that use rice crispies. And she’s humorous with her recipe titles including the Gross-looking But Very Delicious-Tasting Red soup.

Her passion for food is obvious, but so is her love for her kids, fits and curse words included. The world could stand to read more moms who love their kids in this way. While her kids grieve the coconut she made them try, she grieves the end of babyhood for her last child. (Which is another way I felt a connection to her-see photo below.) She takes food writing into the world of family, and I cheered for both throughout.

So I connected to Franklin through her four kid circus complete with spit-up and her recipes that offer something wholesome and tasty with a touch of exotic. I only felt distant from her when she was feeding her kids in Italy and Martha’s Vineyard, and serving them cheeses that cost a quarter of our weekly grocery bill. Those chapters reminded me that we’re not going to be living next door to each any time soon.

As I sat in my car outside the grocery store again today, after a week of reading her essays, my taste glands wandered toward imported cheeses and wild salmon and then I looked at my real list and decided Buttery Apricot Bars and Wheat Oat Bread would be a fine start.

Note: I’m just beginning to try the recipes. The Hamburger, Macaroni, and Peas(which I happened to have on hand during the week) was surprisingly satisfying even though it was one of her most simple, comfort food recipes. The Mummy Nuggets are chicken nuggets that are all-natural and can be made in bulk and frozen, a good staple. Only the two-year old like the 10 Minute Unplanned Bran Muffins.

 

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I stood in the middle of the woods with a handful of moms and  a dozen pre-teen girls. We mirrored each other in matching helmets and harnesses that circled our waists, swaddled our many-sized bottoms and finished their path around our thighs.

Always preferring to learn with my hands instead of ears, I was hoping for a short instruction time.

Fuzzy, the name of our bearded and barrel-stomached instructor, stepped forward. Instead of asking for volunteers to demonstrate as I had hoped, he began with a different kind of lesson.

“Everyone link arms and form a tight circle.”

We crossed elbows and pressed against each other’s shoulders, moving several inches into each other’s personal space, Fuzzy completed the chain.

Nervous giggles of discomfort.

“Now take a step back and drop hands.”

Ahh, a little better.

“This is what we’ll call our comfort zone. In our comfort zone we do the things that we’re most comfortable doing. Let’s go around. I’m Fuzzy, and I’m comfortable playing the piano.”

As the answers leapt around the circle, I formulated a list of my own.

My name is Aimee and I’m comfortable taking a hot bath with a wet book. I’m comfortable with four kids leaning into me, shifting their bodies into every free crevice. I’m comfortable in the library with stacks of books almost tipping out of my hands.

“Now everyone take another step back,” commanded Fuzzy.

We did and I wondered again when he was going to tell us how to climb those ropes.

“What happened when we stepped back? What happened to that chain we’d created? That’s right, we stretched it. I like to call this the stretch zone. This is the place where we do things that might seem difficult, you might be a little scared or uncertain you can do it. Why is it good to be in our stretch zone and not just stay in our comfort zone?”

One of the young girls raises her hand, “Because we might find things we really like to do and then our comfort zone will get bigger and bigger.”

“Exactly. Now everyone turn around and wave to the trees behind you.”

We waved.

“Back there is the panic zone. We don’t want to go there today. If you panic you’re going to be tempted to jump right back into your comfort zone and stay there.”

Even though I was anxious to get to the hands-on portion of this course, I wondered if I’d have the strength for the ropes. I worried that the system would be too complicated and I’d feel dumb and fail. In front of my daughter. And a pestering thought about a dislike of heights rumbled around my hard hat.

But circle time was finally over, Fuzzy was at the ropes.

Another instructor hooked my harness to the tall ropes streaming down from the top of the tree. I pushed the large knot in front of me up as high as it could go. Pushing up the knot for the foot loops, I placed my feet inside. Lifting the first knot, I stood up in the foot loops. Lifting the lower knot again, my feet were off the ground, my weight entirely resting in the harness.

Repeating the steps, I moved further into the air, a stop motion picture of a baby bird leaving the ground.

With each foot that I moved up the ropes, my smile grew. Sally cheered and took pictures. One of girls called from below, “Go Mookie’s Mom!”

And I continued to pull myself into my stretch zone.

Finally, floating freely at twenty feet, I looked around, my smile at full capacity.

I did it!

Did I say that out loud?

“Take a picture!”

I definitely said that out loud.

Meanwhile, my daughter was 10 feet below me performing a butterfly. She had removed her feet from the loops and thrown her arms and torso backward from the harness, until her body formed the sloping wings of a butterfly in flight.

WE did it.

My name is Aimee and I am comfortable hanging from ropes twenty feet off the ground.

Soon after that I started to think about what would happen if I fell. What equipment would have to break to cause my fall, and what on my body might break if the fall occurred? I heard the rope fibers rubbing against each other with the tension. I felt my weight against the harness.

I waved to my panic zone.

And I said I was ready to come down.

But the stretch zone had already served it’s purpose and it became a repeated metaphor for the rest of camp. As another mom and I walked across the pitch black field to get to the bathrooms, we both agreed we were in our stretch zone then. As I pulled a tick from one of our girls, I knew beyond a doubt that the whole weekend had been one big stretch zone.

Back home I read an email from my best friend about her tough mothering week, one that ended in tears. As I typed I noticed the cuts and burns the ropes had left on my hands. I thought of my friend struggling and of myself at the highest point on those ropes. I realized from the moment my first child became flesh in my arms parenting had also been one huge stretch zone.

Ten years later mamahood spreads itself across all three zones.

I’m comfortable with dirty diapers, occasional stomach viruses, feeding and clothing and laundry, going to the bathroom with a toddler always present, teaching a child to read and add numbers, hugging and comforting. But in the beginning, any of those could take me to my panic zone.

On the ropes course I made the choice to leave my comfort zone, but in parenting the choice was made at the very beginning. Since then I’ve just tried to hold onto the knots. I’m stretched when my children are fighting and hurting each other for the fifth time that day, and when a child needs me and I can’t meet her needs in the moment.  The fibers of my heart rub against one another when my child has made a mistake and I can’t see which path will grow her character, should it be mercy or a consequence? In those moments I can’t call Fuzzy over to grab the rope, it’s either stretch or panic.

Sometimes, mercifully, I get to whisper, “I did it” and I’d really like someone to take my picture.

I also regularly land in the panic zone, usually when I’ve looked from the ground and can only see the path of my own failings. I panic when my daughter is distressed and my mind only calls up foolish, trite answers. I panic when I realize they’ll have to hurt sometimes to grow. I panic when I realize I can’t protect them. Mostly I panic when I look around at the other moms who look like they never question if they’ll reach the top of the ropes.

Usually the dividing line between stretch and panic happens when I look up. Do I see a mistake that I could make that would break me and my child, or do I fling my arms and legs out into a butterfly because my whole family is tethered to One who is going to keep holding us with each of my mistakes and successes. Do I look up and see how much bigger He is than me?

My comfort zone has expanded as a mama. And for it to grow further, I’m going to have to dangle in my harness and so are my kids.

Because even if I did have the choice, I’d definitely choose the stretch zone instead of keeping my feet on the ground.

 

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