The other morning Tucker came downstairs with a handle bar mustache and a goatee drawn in magic marker on his face. “I don’t know how I do that in my sleep Mama,” he innocently stated and I looked over at Brevitt who was giving me his huge mischievous smile. Somehow he had convinced his little brother that he had actually drawn on his own face in his sleep. It was our little secret.

But Tucker is getting a little fed up with his little problem for now Axel is following Brevitt’s lead and also drawing on his brother’s face in his sleep. It’s time for the talk.

Brevitt is pushing his boundaries and I am doing all that I can to hang in there and teach him how to listen to authority and to not get himself into trouble. I find that nighttime is our best time to communicate. “Anybody want to take a walk with me and Muki?” I yelled out before stepping off into the dark for a beautiful summer evening walk around the neighborhood. Silence ensued and so I left without my little male companions. Ten minutes later I heard, “Mommmmmmyyy,” and I called out my signature bird cry so that Brevitt could run toward my voice. He ran up beside me and quickly grabbed my hand, both afraid of and exhilarated by the evening sky and the shadows lurking in the dark.

Soon after we heard screaming and crying, another one of my children disturbing the hood. “Poor neighbors,” Brevitt said. It was Axel who had finished the project that he had been completely engrossed in and had gone into a panic after discovering that he had been left all alone in the house, only he wasn’t alone. Wade was reading upstairs to Tucker before bed and either was ignoring Axel’s screams or somehow did not hear him carrying on. Husbands are talented in that respect, screening out noise disturbances.

Shouting back to Axel from across the neighborhood we directed him to meet us at the fence at the end of the field that we always walk through. Brevitt’s anxiety began to set in as he worried about Axel alone in the dark and so we raced faster and faster until we found him, traumatized that he had been abandoned and racing at top speed on his bike pedaling barefoot in his oversized Homer Simpson pajamas. Brevitt put his arm around Axel and let him know that all was okay.

In an interview between Consumer Health Interactive correspondent, Blyth Woolston, and Clinical Psychologist Dr. William Pollack, author of Real Boys (1998), Dr. Pollack asserts, “Research shows that if a boy has one adult he can open up to in a shame-free way, one adult who cares about him, that boy is going to be healthier, happier, less likely to be depressed, less likely to be violent, more likely to succeed in school, more likely to be open and caring, to have friendships, to succeed in life. The most important thing is for the boy to know that one adult mentor understands him and will listen — someone who will keep an eye out for him and will provide the time. It seems like such a simple task…”

“Lay down with me Mommy, you need to spend time with me,” Brevitt requested the day before he went off to Water Ramp Camp, a program offered through our local Aspen Valley Ski Club.

He was working me. There is such a fine line between sticking to the bedtime routine and taking that precious alone time to connect with your child for as soon as I am in that prostate position exhaustion rapidly sets in and all pent up creativity gets released in my dreams.

“Tickle my back,” he said and as I did a flood of emotions and harbored thoughts flowed from him, “Today you said that I was not growing up to yours and daddy’s expectations and that made me really sad.”

“Brevitt, I so did not say that today. I said that in the past year you have been doing your best to defy the requests made to you by your parents and your teachers and that it is important for you to learn how to respect authority.”

How interesting it was that he had processed the information so negatively and differently than I had intended and I was glad that I had a chance to further expound on his need to not push his luck.

We fell asleep with my hand tickling his back and the next day as he climbed into the big, black, ominous van with eleven other boys to head off to camp I was so glad that we had connected the night before. When I climbed in to say goodbye to my tough little boy I said, “I won’t embarrass you in front of your friend and tell you that I love you.” I thought I was so funny but my sweet little boy who holds my hand in the dark did not think so and all I got was a wave and a final glimpse of Brevitt with flushed cheeks.

As I drove away I hoped that our previous conversation had some lasting impact. Children need boundaries, especially boys, the question is when to let them stretch them and when to draw the line…and not on Tucker’s face.

My homeboy at the Breckenridge Parade

I looked at the clock and realized that once again I had been so absorbed with my writing that I had written myself into being late. I raced around the house gathering together the swimsuits, filling the water bottles and chopping the fruit for the cooler all the while trying desperately to hustle the boys. “Why aren’t your shoes in your cubby?” I yelled feeling the hysteria once again rising in my voice.

Glancing at the clock I saw that I was going to be late for my 15 minute meeting with an agent I was meeting through the Aspen Summer Words Writing Conference. That was it, my breaking point. It was all too much. It wasn’t working, this heroic attempt to enhance my writing career in the summer with a house full of boys and little to no help. I leaned against the wall and began to slide down it with tears welling in my eyes and as I did I thought to myself, “She slid down the wall in a rage of tears in the dark mudroom with nobody to save her from herself for after all, it was she who had created this life that she was living in.”

That’s the problem with being a writer, everything is material and I can’t escape conceptualizing all of my actions into script. “CUT,” I screamed inside my head having a flashback to my film days. “You’re doing it all wrong, start over.”

When I sat down to meet with Rob Spillman, Editor of Tin House Magazine and Executive Editor of Tin House Books, I apologized for being the only one who had not submitted my manuscript beforehand. Truth be known I had worked on the first three chapters of my book all day and night, changing the beginning three times and when I printed it out I threw it in the trash, submitting nothing.

Rob smiled at me and commiserated at the trials of mixing children with creative passions. “At least you’re dressed and not still in your pajamas,” he said with a smile and all of my tension melted away. I liked him immediately and wished that I could continue listening to him over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Later I listened to him lead a panel discussion on the Publishing Industry. He told the audience to imagine the person reading the Query Letters that we sent in as being nerdy, socially inept Editors sitting in a dark room reading books all day. He highly recommended that we do our research and personalize the letter. He was right too, I know, I worked with those nerdy Editors at Simon & Schuster, but I LOVED them all and I spent as much time as I could in the Editing Department.

I left the Conference questioning the blogging path that I have been on thinking that I should quit blogging and focus more on getting published in periodicals. In fact, I should sell my ticket to BlogHer ‘10 and save the money for another writing conference outside of Aspen where I could actually attend the full conference and not race between lectures and kids.

As the children and I drove home we discussed our new regime of working as a team. I informed them that for now on all meals would be prepared together and that cooking classes commiserated that evening. While Brevitt worked on his grilling skills, Axel prepared the fruit and Tucker peeled the carrots and we all sat down to a wonderful dinner. After dinner Brevitt did the math homework that I had been trying to get him to work on for weeks and after that I did some well overdue grooming, cutting their hair and sending them to the bath remembering that this was what it felt like to mother my children. We discussed the new way that things were going to be around the house and how my new working hours would be from 6-9am and after they went to sleep instead of my current pattern of obsessively plugging away at the computer every chance I got. TV was going to be far more limited and the chore chart would once again emerge.

And so today will be a new beginning and my children will become my priority once again. They will no longer suffer  from a completely harassed mother and I will no longer suffer from the guilt and pressure that I have been placing upon myself. At least it sounds good in theory! Okay, 9:01am STOP

9:02am Just one more thing, if you haven’t made it a habit to check into my “Today’s Capture” page. Check it out for it often shows behind the scene photos or my favorite photo of the week.

Meet Summers Moore, another local artist/photographer. Summers lives near Carbondale and is number 9 on the 7th Annual Roaring Fork Artists Studio Tour, June 4th-6th.

I first found Summer’s beautiful photographs of Africa hanging on the walls of La Maison, a fine furniture store down in Carbondale. They are still there for you to see.

For more information on Summers, please visit her website.