350th Friday Blog Roundup

Thank you for the kind words about the Roundup yesterday.  I am very fond of this weekly ritual, happy that it’s still going five years later.  I never get bored reading blogs.  And while the same topics come around year after year, people always manage to write about them in a fresh way.  No two blog posts are alike, even when covering the same situation, the same emotions, the same wishes.

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On Wednesday, we had one of those sick days that wasn’t really a sick day.  We played in the house until mid-afternoon when we decided, after reading a few chapters in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, that we wanted to get a Harry Potter Lego toy.  We went to the toy store but they only had one set in stock, so we ended up wandering around the aisles.  That is where the twins found the magic set.

“This toy will help us do real magic like Harry Potter!” the ChickieNob exclaimed.  She’s the sort who likes to practice a lot, prepare herself for things.  She may have thought that she’d be a shoo-in for Hogwarts if she proved her ability to make a ball disappear well before that eleventh year threshold.

I explained to them the difference between real magic (right?  Can we all just agree that we’re going to believe that real magic exists?) and a magic trick.  You have never seen two children both more disappointed and more willing to still have a magic trick even if it was just an illusion.  And then, I heard myself telling them that I would drive them over to a magic store.

I had never been in the magic store; had only seen it from the road, and I have to admit that the exterior creeped me out a little bit.  And I can now tell you that it’s the sort of store that Ativan was made for.  You enter the store and you are in an empty room save for a fake tree and dozens of ripped up playing cards glued to the ground.  You then climb a concrete stairwell up two flights, encountering things like this along the way:

Finally, you enter the store and it is like being over at the Frankenstein place a la Rocky Horror.  I half expected Riff Raff and Magenta to come out from behind one of the red velvet curtains and do a song and dance before serving us Eddie.  The owner was incredibly kind and patient, immediately picking up on how important this trip was to the twins.  She took them to the side and showed them her wand.  She made flowers grow from an invisible seed in a pot.  She turned a penny into a dime.

Finally, the ChickieNob, unable to contain herself, sank down on the floor and said in the saddest voice, “please, can’t I have a real wand like you?  I want to be magical so badly and I can’t wait.”

And the owner just smiled at her and said, “you are breaking my heart because you’re so cute, but no, the Ministry of Magic will not let me sell you a real wand until you are eleven.  But until then, I can teach you how to appear to be magical with tricks.”

They both perked up with this and I wish I had filmed their faces as she did a series of tricks for them.  Delight.  That word perfectly captures the look on their faces.  We explained one last time that once she taught them how to do the trick, it would be ruined for them.  They’d be able to do magic for others, but it would no longer feel magical to them.  They took this chance and each bought a trick, and she taught them how to do it.  They drove home, practicing their trick in the car.  What they lacked in skill, they made up for in heart.  Then they woke up at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning to show Josh their magic trick (even though they normally sleep past eight) because they couldn’t wait.

Despite what others think, I don’t believe the twins are in for an enormous, life-shattering letdown when they find out that Hogwarts doesn’t exist.  Frankly, I think they already see the clear strings in life based on the questions they ask.  But they want to continue believing so badly that the Cinderella at the Magic Kingdom is a real princess, the tooth fairy is using their baby teeth to create laughter, that Befana rides to their house each year to drop off gifts.  I’m thirty-seven.  I want to believe in it all too; am willing to suspend disbelief.

Isn’t hope just another form of magic?

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Since the blogger writes somewhat anonymously, I’m not going to link to her blog here, but I will link to her children’s book, City Life, which rocks.  It’s a picture book (and I love the illustrations by Haytko) about a child going through the city with her two mums.  Great rhythm for reading it aloud.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “A Life Still Worth Living” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Why Don’t Apologies Make the Moment Vanish?” (Creating Motherhood)
• “18 Signs You Might Be a Blogger” (It’s My Life)
• “Tiny Opinions” (Here We Go Again)
• “On Being a Mediocre Parent” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Everyone Deserves” (Stink-Bomb)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Lissie’s Luck has a post asking if she is the only one who has the feeling sometimes that “everything is out of place and nothing I can do will fix it. I don’t know what brings on this feeling. I don’t know how to end it.”  It is the struggle between the “what if” side of the brain and the rational mind.  I hope writing it out helped her release it.

Better Full Than Empty has a post about hitting THAT point in your cycle, the one when you’re filled with dread that it didn’t work.  She explains, “I have come to that dreaded time of the cycle, where everything feels wrong and the doubt is pouring in like icy seawater into the holds of the Titanic. The alarm bells are ringing. So far one of our brave cyclesistas has already been dragged down by a BFN.”  It’s a familiar thought space, but one that she describes uniquely well.

Infertile Fantasies has a post about healing.  It begins with this thought-provoking assertion: “We carry our grief, our anger, and our resentment for further than is necessary when we haven’t yet decided what to do with it. We have, after all, paid dearly for our pain. It’s not reasonable to expect us to part with it easily, even though it is ugly and burdensome.”  It is about someone with primary infertility meeting up with someone with secondary infertility, and what we can give one another.  What actually strengthens us to give away.

Lastly, Baby Smiling in Back Seat has a post about kindness.  About those moments when you realize that you have baked more cakes for other people’s birthdays than they have ever baked back for you.  And just when you are about to sink into a hole of depression considering the lack of reciprocation for the kindness you have sent into the world, a hug comes around.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thank you for the kind thoughts about the Roundup.  Our trip to the magic store.  City Life.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 15th and July 22nd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.