Frog Park

My brain actually goes blank when the relief of all babies being quiet in their beds sinks in. It's just. . .I have yet to find the words to describe the quality of such a silence. It vibrates. It's as though the rest that each of them is unfolding into somehow latches onto my skin and spreads to cover me, muffle me in cotton. No one is touching me. They are all getting what they need. I am alone which I really need to be.

I don't know how long I have because the Bigs aren't really taking a morning nap these days. They're in an in-between state where they can hardly make it to their afternoon nap without losing their shit but if they sleep in the morning they don't want to sleep in the afternoon. So I put them in their cribs with books and tell them I'll be in to get them in a while. Meanwhile the Littles are napping for real. Daphne and Lily are the sleepers. Daphne will be happily playing or eating and will go from zero to a hundred, screeching like she is on fire. That means "Put me down right now I am tired and I am over all of this nonsense!" She almost always falls asleep within five minutes of that moment. Lily will start laying her head down on things or will walk over to her crib and ask to be lifted in. Cyrus and Cleo would stay up all day and all night for the most part. I see aspects of myself and of their dad in them--two people couldn't be more different when it comes to sleep than my husband and I are. Let's just say Lily and Daphne are my people.

The Bigs are 21 months right now, the Littles are 9 months. We have a lot of birthdays coming up in June for our tribe of Gemini. All four of them are pretty fun these days. And they are also totally exhausting.

We went to the San Francisco Zoo on Tuesday. It was a long day and the drive back home took forever. Seriously, like three hours. A lifetime in a world where you are stuck in a minivan with four small children strapped into car seats. When we rounded the exchange from one freeway to the next and I saw columns of gridlock stretching out ahead of us, I gave up. Cyrus was crying, taking his turn in the symphony of irritation that can be my day where each kids counts the next one in so they make sure there is at most a few minutes in between one meltdown and the next. We needed gas. We were all tired and aggravated. So I pulled off the next exit and followed the instructions Google had provided in response to my "playground" search. Frog Park in Rockridge. Never heard of it, never noticed it despite driving by it many times. It was a good find. I parked us right underneath the freeway we'd just exited because I couldn't figure out how to enter the parking lot. I loaded up one double stroller (not the quad because I didn't bring it with us to the zoo). Cleo stayed in her car seat, hooked onto on seat of the Bob. Daphne got seated in the other stroller seat. Lily got balanced on the front end of the stroller and I carried Cyrus. Who wore no shoes nor socks because he has a propensity for removing them in the car and I had no patience or flexibility to go searching. We entered the gate and we had arrived.

I set the Bigs loose. They were thrilled to be out of the car and immediately explored the little side playground we came to first. It had an unoccupied tire swing and a set up that included a steering wheel, my boy's fave. A dad and his two older kids kicked around a soccer ball on the grass nearby. Nannies and parents accompanied different combinations of kids and no one stared to directly at us but let's be honest, I was the only single woman decorated with four small children. I can feel the glances and I mostly just stare straight ahead, not because it bothers me so much as because I'm tired and don't want to get into a conversation so if I pretend I don't see them we stay in our urban bubbles. MUNI taught me well.

We made our way over to the water fountains where I rinsed and filled and made bottles of formula. Handed out pouches of food. Peeled a tangerine. Took in the scene. Down a small hill was the main playground--a beautiful wooden situation that definitely invited further exploration. I debated leaving without going down there, mostly because you start to know what you can handle and I was pretty sure that playground was teetering on the edge of "no way mama, you're crazy" But I knew the traffic would be mostly unchanged and none of us was ready to get back into the car so down we went.

The Bigs were excited. Cyrus found another steering wheel right away, off to the side near some tables. Lily bee-lined into the main play area and went right for a combination monkey bars/ladder deal that she doesn't quite have the skills for. Were she my only child, I might have gone in with her and either helped her or told her no. Instead I stayed where I was, with the Littles in their stroller outside the playground fence and watched her assess it, start to climb it and then decide she wasn't ready. One of the best pieces of parenting advice I've ever received was via my parents, way before I had kids of my own. They learned it at Sunset Co-Operative Nursery School, where my siblings and I went from ages 2-5.

"Don't put kids into places they can't climb themselves."

There was a sweet little tree in the backyard of that nursery school, right near a climbing structure near the back fence. Most kids wanted to climb the tree or the structure or the red tower at various points of their school career. And they mostly would, eventually, when they could navigate it themselves. If they can't climb up it's a good indication that they can't climb down. A good indication that they're not safe there. It is a great way to let kids discover their own abilities, feel safe in their bodies, and feel pride in their accomplishments when they finally do make it happen. It has been crucial to my child raising because I can't be in four places at once.

A while later Cyrus entered the playground and went straight for the same piece of equipment. He had a similar experience of checking it out, putting his hands on it and then deciding nope, not today. I never said a word to either of them and they never looked my way.

All of this is great and makes me seem like I totally have my shit together, which I kind of do in some ways. Though fifteen minutes later Lily fell backwards onto the cement from the little seat she'd climbed up on. I wasn't even looking at her. She burst into tears and I scooped her up, rubbed her back and her head, looked into her eyes and decided it was time to go. We packed up our rag-tag circus train and headed up the hill and back to the gate. A silver-haired man in his mid-60's, wearing crisp business clothes and a tie looked at us as he tried to decide whether to hold the gate open or close it. I nodded at him and he held it open.

"You've sure got your hands full!"

"Yep."

"Are those quadruplets?"

"Two sets of twins."

"Wow! God Bless you."

"Thanks"

Then to the kids, "Thanks for paying my social security!"

Hahahaha. Best comment we've received so far.