What We're Doing

I. Owen
The bedtime routine is pretty well set. At about 7 pm James will notice that it's beginning to get dark out and start asking nervous questions about whether he has any more time to play. He'll try to negotiate for more time, and eventually settle for choosing a bedtime story. (If he's feeling particularly rascally he'll pick an impossibly long bedtime story, like Richard Scarry's Encyclopedia Britannica, or Curious George Counts 10,000 decimal places of Pi.) Owen keeps on doing his usual thing at this point, except with more frequent breaks to rest his head against a piece of furniture or someone's leg while he tugs at his left ear and sucks the first two fingers on his right hand, a sure sign that he is running out of steam.
Then they make their way upstairs. James insists that he doesn't need to potty, and is put on the potty anyway. James protests the brushing of his teeth (the toothpaste is too SPICY) but steps up to the stool beside the sink and has them brushed for the length of two choruses of Happy Birthday. (Usually it's just one chorus of Happy Birthday, but with extraordinary embellishment and drama.) He leans over the sink and spits.
Then Owen steps up. Owen is not complaining about brushing his teeth--Owen LOVES brushing his teeth. He grins when you pull out his toothbrush and stamps his little socked feet in excitement when you apply the toothpaste.
"Would you like to brush your teeth?"
"Uh-huh!" <nods> <stamp-stamp-stamp>
Then Owen gets a chorus of Happy Birthday, and I take the toothbrush out of his mouth.
And he leans over the sink and spits. Well, sort of.
He isn't tall enough to properly lean over the sink, even when he's standing on the stool. And he doesn't really spit, but he sort of blows downward.
He's just trying to be like James, and it's currently the best part of my day. I love James. He is shrewd and calculating and serious and often incredibly dour and self-important.
Owen is none of those things. But watching James' actions transposed into the key of Owen is a way to love them both even more.

II. James
I've instituted some extra reading for James after the time when his light would normally go out. We've inherited or been given several children's Bibles (with apologies to any of you who gave them to us) and I can't stand them. All the interesting details of the stories are flattened out and sanitized, and the characters are literally whitewashed. J and I have stayed up late into the night arguing about what we're supposed to be doing about a moral education for this little boy who is clearly old enough to listen to Bible stories, but has no Bible stories that resemble the actual Bible.
This Easter I told him he was going to get to stay up a little later. He was now old enough to listen to some stories without pictures. I've been reading Genesis to him, almost unchanged. (I'll say "This is the story of Noah" instead of "These are the generations of Noah," but I'm leaving in the bits about the four headwaters and the entire land of Havilah.) I don't know how much of the Bible stories he's picking up, but I'm following them with a story or two from the Book of Virtues, and I know he's listening to those. (He remembered the story of King Midas the other day.) He's awfully antsy while I read to him, and I know he'd rather be thumbing through books about Cars or Curious George, but every once in a while I can see something flicker and he'll hold still to listen to the story.
When we talked about whether or not we were going to keep a TV in the house, I insisted that I wanted James to grow up with an imaginative life that wasn't entirely derived from television worlds. He hardly ever sees the television on, but it only took one watching of Cars (and, to be fair, a fairly regular exposure to Curious George) to wreck that project. He has an incredibly powerful and all-consuming imaginative life that is completely dominated by licensed and trademarked cartoon characters. I have no idea whether his moral compass is strongly tied to the stories of Cars and George (and again, to be fair, he could do a lot worse for a moral compass than the lessons in those stories) but I feel like we're now fighting guerilla warfare to introduce elements of imagination that don't come from screens.

III. J
Do you ever feel like you have one difficult decision that consumes your entire life for a time? And that it's too complicated to resolve right away, even if you wanted to, but as long as it's hanging over your head you can't really shake off the attendant anxiety, and eventually you just want it to be over, even if it doesn't work out in your best interests?
We both had decisions like that over the last few weeks. For me it was mostly a matter of sorting out where I was playing the trumpet in the month of April. For J it was buying a dress.
Her best friend is getting married in June, and she needed to order a bridesmaid dress. I've been paying attention to the wedding plans over the course of their engagement, but more out of politeness than genuine interest.
I regard wedding planning the same way that I regard exterior landscaping--an unfortunate obligation one owes to the community that ties up a lot of energy and money for a result that I find somewhat pleasing to look at but generally much less exciting that any number of better uses and is strongly tied to unspoken customs that pressure all parties involved to feel a social display of appropriate "keeping up" is absolutely necessary.
In case you couldn't tell, I'm not particularly excited about trying to plant flowers and shovel mulch in the front yard once the weather warms up.
At any rate, I'm usually not particularly interested in the details of people's wedding plans. Now, because I dearly love the bride and groom in this wedding, I am happy to offer a portion of interest on their behalf--I want to see them happy, of course. (And by the way, if either of them happen to read this, please know that I'm sure that all of the preceding comments are a result of a fault in myself.)
J loves wedding details. She's been wanting to help with wedding details at least since October, when she flew down for a visit for the express purpose of working on details. Actually, I think that one of the sub-purposes of that visit was to look at bridesmaid dresses.
And now, in April, she still didn't have one. There had been many twists and turns in the saga which I'd have to let her relate. The big issue was that she was running out of time. She HAD to order a dress before a certain number of weeks out, or she wouldn't have it in time for the wedding.
What started as a task she was excited about became the thing that was hanging over her head to her constant dread, and eventually she wanted it all over with, even if it didn't work out in her best interest.
She ordered a dress. A couple days later she called the company and changed the order, but even with that hiccup I think she feels a lot better.
I'm still dreading the landscaping, though.

IV. Me
33 services in 21 days.
That's what I'm looking at for the first part of my April. For the record, the usual orchestra week has a cap of 8 services per week, with a guaranteed day off. Because I'm basically attempting to play full-time in two orchestras (which are over two hours apart from each other) over the next few weeks, I'll be working the equivalent of four of the highest-pressure and busiest weeks of the year in three weeks. With an audition in the middle, in case you were wondering.
On the one hand, I need to make hay while the sun shines. (The sun has been shining so far, which helps) I'm grateful for the work, and it should bring in a lot of extra money.
On the other hand, I'm not going to be home very much at all. Next week, for instance, I'll have either a rehearsal or a concert in the evening 5 out of 7 nights. That's 5 out of 7 nights that J will have to put the kids to bed on her own, and I probably won't get back home until after she's asleep. There are also way too many days, like today, when I'll have a rehearsal in the morning (we finished about noon) and then won't have a concert until 8 pm. Today I'm at the Amherst Wegmans with a big stack of books. I don't think it will be too much longer until I've finished the Documents of Vatican II.

And as boring as that sounds, here's one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever read:

We are here before You, O Holy Spirit, conscious of our innumerable sins, but united in a special way in Your Holy Name. Come and abide with us. Deign to penetrate our hearts.
Be the guide of our actions, indicate the path we should take, and show us what we must do so that, with Your help, our work may be in all things pleasing to You.
May You be our only inspiration and the overseer of our intentions, for You alone possess a glorious name together with the Father and the Son.
May You, who are infinite justice, never permit that we be disturbers of justice. Let not our ignorance induce us to evil, nor flattery sway us, nor moral and material interest corrupt us. But unite our hearts to You alone, and do it strongly, so that, with the gift of Your grace, we may be one in You and may in nothing depart from the truth.
Thus, united in Your name, may we in our every actions follow the dictates of Your mercy and justice, so that today and always our judgments may not be alien to You and in eternity we may obtain the unending reward of our actions. Amen.