Mountain play

We celebrated our little girls' first birthday on Saturday with our first pool party. Last year at the Bigs first birthday party the pool was an empty pit and some of the kids hopped in and picked up tools to chip away at the plaster. . .safe and fun at our house!

I bought the six of us superhero capes in honor of this milestone. More than a few people told us "Once you get through the first year. . . .it's much easier?" I can't remember the last part of the sentence but the implication was that the first year was really hard and then it would get easier. So superhero capes to proclaim that ta da! We made it through the first year! Again!

Ha. Then we upped the ante and took the kids to the Mountain Play atop Mt. Tamalpais in Marin yesterday. The husband and I are still recovering from the excursion. It was. . .not easy. We didn't expect it to be easy but it was really, truly the opposite of easy. Our kids can handle an hour long drive in the minivan with few complaints. And my boy was super excited to see the line of school buses waiting to drive us up to the top of the mountain--he looks buses. And backhoes. And garbage trucks. And mail trucks. Apparently he does not love riding in a school bus--at least not up a windy road that keeps going and going. Each of us parents had a one-year-old in a hiking backpack, a bag (picnic and diaper) and a two-year-old, alternately by the hand or in arms We got very few questions or exclamations (usually we get a chorus of "Wow! Twins!" "Are those all yours?" "You've got your hands full!"). I think our fellow passengers were mostly silenced by their thoughts of what in the fuck are these fools doing? Yep. That was us.

There was crying. And whining. And seat switching. Eventually I pulled out some chocolate covered pretzel sticks. . .about one minute before we saw the entrance to the play. Sigh.

They were immediately entertained--by the people, by the little golf cart decorated in ribbons (used to transport people who needed help walking). We walked up the sloped hill to the amphitheater and found the seats my parental in-laws had found for us. Stone steps stretched down the mountain side and people sat on bleachers made of dirt and stone. My older daughter promptly fell off our bleacher onto the picnic set-up of the two men below us--a fall of about a foot and a half. She cried but was comforted pretty easily. The men were gentle and forgiving, despite having wine and cheese flung about. I may have yelled Jesus Christ! very loudly when it happened.

The play was sweet--Peter Pan. I didn't expect to watch much, if any of it, and I didn't. But it was nice to hear the singing while breathing in the fresh, mountain air and that distinctive Northern California smell of dust and bay leaves, salt and pine. We passed kids amongst the six adults and they all seemed to have fun. We sat on a blanket in the shade and played with sticks and moss and rocks. During the dueling scene Peter Pan shouted "He's mine!" of Captain Hook and Lily, in my arms, said "Mine". So she was listening, which was very cool.

We packed up early to get in the front of the line for the shuttles--the idea of waiting an hour just to get back on the school bus made me want to cry. Despite not enjoying the ride up Cyrus was happy to see the buses again, chanting "school bus" as he pointed them out. This bus was more crowded and we wedged in, two babies each. At one point I looked over at my husband and was pretty sure the look on his face exactly mirrored the one on my own. It was a look that said There is no where to go and no way to get out of this except to wait. Painful. It's own fresh circle of hell--covered in tired, hungry, diaper-rashed babies on a school bus riding down a mountain. There was vomit. And poop. And screaming. Then it ended and we hustled off the bus as fast as two weighed-down parents can hustle. We dumped bags, backpacks and children in a pile (the children were lovingly placed, not dumped) and then my husband ran to get the car while I kept our crew out of the way of cars and buses. Both little babies were asleep--one in my arms, one in the backpack.

The thing I keep realizing about adventures and outings with children is that it doesn't stop when the excursion is over. We are the ones who still need to drive them home, unload them, feed them, bathe them (sometimes) and put them to bed. Hours later, laid out on the couch watching reruns of Friday Night Lights on a randomly discovered and randomly existing Texas Longhorn TV station, we looked at each other and sigh. Like two limp dishrags, all energy and life-force having drained out from the soles of our feet.

Probably the people who said it gets easier after the first year didn't mean for us to test that theory by doing harder and more tiring things with these kids, just because we can. And of course in many ways it is getting easier--they sometimes play together on their own, which is a delight. The older ones can communicate so much more, which makes things very fun. The littles are interactive, joining in all our reindeer games and cracking us up. They all mostly sleep most of the time. Except for teething and random freak outs and other impossible to understand crises.

Yesterday was meant as a celebration of my mother-in-law's birthday, which is today. It's a big birthday and I know we will never forget it. Fun was had. Some misery too but that's the beauty of being human, and of being a parent. The misery fades and soon we'll be energized enough to plan another adventure.