Niece with sparkler, Berkeley, CA.

Nephew with sparkler, Berkeley, CA.

 Daughter with sparkler, Berkeley, CA.

My niece turned 11 the other day. We had a “village” dinner tonight, village meaning all three households in our little cohousing community (four kids and five adults among us, ranging from six to 50). The feast, which the culinarily precocious birthday girl had largely conceived of and executed (with loving sous-cheffery from her dad and mom) concluded with a sparkler-fest in the back yard.

The littlest kid, my son, decided he really didn’t want to hold a quasi-exploding chopstick-sized wand, but everyone else had a blast with them, each very much in their own, unique way.

Pencil seller and shop assistant, Berkeley, CA.

The sign’s small print reads: “PENCILS AND OTHER PENCIL-RELATED STATIONARY SUPPLIES FOR SALE.” Taped on the front bench is some original artwork, for sale at a modest price ($25 per) by the shop assistant at right.

Recently I was talking on the phone to a friend and colleague, while looking out the front window. I told him I may have to jump off abruptly if some untoward person walks by, because my kids were out on the street selling pencils.  And we do get an untoward person or two strolling by pretty much daily, at some point or another. He chortled at what he thought was a quip at our family’s financial straits, at which point I had to say, “No. Really. They’re on the street selling pencils.”

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Playground squeeze, first day of school, Berkeley, CA.

He is ready.

He’s been ready for who knows how long, whether he knew it before today or not. He was ready today, from the moment he awoke, to the moment he tied his shoes on the stairs, to the moment he sat with his sister and two cousins out in front of our shared yard for the annual all-cousin first day of school portrait, to his holding hands and skipping up the street to the schoolyard with his sister, through the bumpy patch of the mosh pit crush of parents, caregivers, and schoolkids in the yard, to the transitional minutes in the classroom during which we sat and read with him, all the way up to the moment the teacher asked parents and caregivers to leave the classroom, and we did.  Some more reluctantly than others.

“Bye, Baba,” he mouthed, waving as he sat cross-legged on the colored-grid rug. And that was that.

A friend and two siblings, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA.

Story of his life, so far. And it ain’t a bad one. Sandwiched between, trotting to catch up with, scheming to annoy, and otherwise organizing most of his leisure hours around activity with his older sister and either (a) their older girl cousin, whom we live with, more or less, or (b) the neighbor girl up the street, daughter of the nice lesbians, or (c) another chum of his older sister’s, usually a girl but sometimes a boy.

Other much less frequent options include hanging out with his next door older boy cousin, who’s now 12 years old and can rarely be sighted in the lingering presence of those this much younger than him, or with one or another chum of his from preschool, which does happen, but not nearly as frequently as we’d like, what with the both parents working their arses off and having very limited capacity to make nonstandard childcare arrangements thing. Still, he’s an astoundingly happy, well-adjusted young person.

Downside: he spends a lot of time running to catch up and often molds his likes and dislikes to conform to those of his big sister. Upside: he’s extremely comfy and at home with women older and (at least at this point, due primarily to the unfair advantage of years) wiser than him. He could do worse. Actually, he’s following in the footsteps of his mama, whose extreme comfort with older women led her to yrs truly, and look how splendidly that turned out.