What does the fox say?

Reading: Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Listening to: Relaxing Jazz Music / Coffee Shop Ambiance

Outside: 2 o'clock sun rises a little higher, holding over us a little bit longer, as the days lengthen, amen

Maybe it's the snowdrops pushing their way through the slate flowerbeds, their tiny leaves so rugged and so delicate, tenacious even in the cold, but the end of January always gives me hope that Winter Can Be Gotten Through. They are springtime yearnings, these little shoots, wanting and waiting.

I take it one half-frozen day at a time, each school day a new hill to climb, a kind of structured panic involving a gallon of coffee, trendy school-bottles of water, unzipped book bags, fleeting time, and the same run of morning cartoons that roll on in the background, offering the same comforting noises - Grizzy and the Lemmings's cheerful-if-frantic intro tune; the gruff voice of the aged grandfather in Monster Loving Maniacs. Oh yes, I know them all, and my children eat it all up happily, along with their spoonfuls of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut.

Lena and Indiana chill after school
January 25, 2024

Now that Indiana has begun school, he returns home in the afternoon with a different walk, a new kind of gaze on the world. Learned, listening. A playground veteran. An Armageddon-like Here To Save The Day stride.  He considers things, questions and interprets carefully. As a three-year-old, he still trips over his own shoes (don't we all?), but there's a new toughness about him. He cries less, listens to reason more, dusts himself off, and offers his own solutions to problems. Emotions are still there, as they should be, but they're less like a fifteen-foot wave-wall crashing into the living room when his building blocks collapse (or in the backyard, when it's time to get off the swing because I've got to make dinner), and more like a shallow eddying current, softly buffeting and then letting go. Gentle. And, even more importantly, he sits down. He actually sits still. I am amazed. 

So amazed that I caught a picture of my two children not biting each other and screaming, but sitting, nay, snuggling on the couch, one day after school, glowing like a Rembrandt painting over the blue-tinted light of Lena's tablet. Cue the heart-breakingly beautiful violins: a Hallmark moment on the TV screen of Your Life. One of those moments you actually feel. You live inside it.  This here was one of the exact reasons we chose to have a second child, hoping one day this would be possible. And, ladies and gentlemen, here we are. Yes, he's probably just worn out after an afternoon of fun and learning, but it's a good kind of tired. 

Recently, we'd put on an old YouTube playlist, starting with a song we'd listened to a lot in 2020/1: "What Does the Fox Say?" by Ylvis. And like that, our Pandemic Playlist started up again, the soundtrack of the longest goddamn winter of my life, but with an entirely different backdrop - no scribbled home-learning papers scattered like confetti on every available surface; no broccoli boiling over on the stove, forgotten by an overwhelmed and overtired mom; no rumpled baby bouncy-chair in the corner; no lady-bug-shaped Tummy Time mat on the floor. And this time, two children were laughing at it, rather than just one (and a baby's blissful coos). I'd enjoyed this music video way back then - yes, even through the stress and exhaustion, the song's hilarity pierced my sadness, a magical chord struck - but this time I actually, really listened to it. 

And it's a great song!

The kids love it! And it got Lena asking, "What sound does a fox make?"

We all looked at each other, unsure. 

"I don't actually know," I said, and Indiana shook his head. 

"Don't know," he said.

And I guess the video's silliness and its Techno dance-in-the-woods got us thinking, and we couldn't figure it out, and that's okay.  In this moment of my kids being 10 and 3, their laughter unlocked yet another piece of my heart, and I wished for them to keep that curiosity, to always wonder what a fox says. 

And so I'll close with this: I hope my kids push forth like each snowdrop, awake and reaching and unafraid while its floral cousins sleep. Keep looking for wonders, my tenacious two, keep finding what you need. Rise and shine in that hesitant sun. Sooner or later, sunlight always comes back. 

I hope we all keep wondering about the world, and who knows - maybe, if we're lucky, we'll even figure it out. 

Happy Saturday, everyone.