The Children’s Table

Continuing on where I left of yesterday…

Once safely inside we settled ourselves comfortably by counting the beds (7), putting the kettle on, fortifying ourselves with a whole bag of brownies, searching about for the internet, and beginning the long long squabble about the seven beds. The little girls pinged around on the furniture like those balls in that arcade game (what is that called?), running up and down and climbing and jumping and starting again. They do that all the time anyway but after nine hours in a car seat they achieved a new intensity. I thought I would blog so I sat down and stared stupidly out the window and did nothing else until we heard scuffling outside.

Finally! The Babies!

(Here they are with their Grandma Terry.)

My cousin, Wendy, crazily had twin baby girls last year. Whenever anyone tries to tell me that I’m nuts, I say, ‘Ah Yes! But I never had twins. You see I am a sensible and moderate person.’ These babies are so cute I can hardly stand it. They sit and smile and nod their heads and look at you like they know too much already and won’t be taken in by your foolish ways. They shout only when their suppers and breakfasts aren’t delivered swiftly enough into their wide delicate mouths.

Wendy and Terry bustled in and organized the babies and their food and the kitchen and for the next two days, or however long it turned out to be, they were really in constant motion. I’ve seen sped up videos of mothers doing breakfast for two or three kids–you know the ones where the mother never sits down and the children smear food everywhere but she just keeps going and going and after a minute and a half you are exhausted just from watching the video–it was like that, only real life and faster and more capable and grounded and amazing. Sat around on a chair in wonderment, thinking, ‘I should really try to be helpful’ but never actually doing it.

Finally I rousted myself and brought our clothes in and shoved everyone into dresses and tights and vests for the boys so that we could go to the Rehearsal Dinner, to which we had all been so generously invited. Alouicious nurtured a black cloud of anxiety about how soon the food would appear and whether or not he would suffer any amount of boredom and if his life had a been a total waste because of his iPod not charging quickly enough. Realized, as I argued and cajoled, that this child doesn’t get out enough. He is routine bound and deeply attached to whatever order he has created for himself in his own mind. Felt happy about all the sanctification he was undergoing and resolved to do this again every. single. year. that. I. can. possibly. organize. it. until. he. turns. 18.

The Rehearsal Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant with a large fish tank and a large private room at the back and a little shrine like cubby with a long table into which we and all the children were lovelingly conducted by the staff. Elspeth began doing laps around the table and Wendy and I took her babies and circled round the grown up room meeting the family of the groom. Some helpful person brought all the children tankard sized cups of Apple juice that then we struggled, for the next three hours, not have poured out upon the floor as an oblation to that god that every child worships–the god of chaos, sticky sugar, and grown up sorrow. A deep weariness spread over my feet and up into my heart as I admonished Marigold and Elspeth, again and again and again, Not To Pick Up the Cup, but to perch on their knees and sip out of the straw as the cup remained on the table. Was grateful and delighted when more family arrived and I was able to forget about the presence of all this juice in my life.

The bride, the groom, cousins, new wives and husbands of cousins whose weddings I missed, aunts and uncles, a few more children–eventually we pushed the children out of the cubby entirely to go stare at the fish, and filled The Children’s Table with the Lander Clan, as it is generally called, well really, The Lander Net. Just looking at everyone in the face and seeing that they really are all still real and do exist and are living interesting and full lives, was such a gift. Could have gone home then perfectly satisfied. However, there was still a wedding, and suddenly I realized that it was nine o’clock and the little girls had reached The End. So I crept out during the speeches and we collapsed in total exhaustion in all the beds.

Part Three: The Glorious Wedding Dream