Thinking I'm too old for this . . .

Invariably, people (as opposed to friends-who-know-me) , upon learning that I recently adopted a 4 year old, blurt out some variation of "you must be crazy!" Meaning, I think, that at 53 I am too old to want to parent a little kid. One commuting acquaintance, when I told her I was planning to adopt Lulu, actually said "but isn't there an age limit????!!!" (to which I wittily replied, "Oh, I'm actually much younger than I look!) The lady sitting next to me on the train snorted.

But I digress. My response when people ask "Why would you want to do this (parenting) all over again?" is to ask, in what I hope is a tactful way, "Why wouldn't I?" Life is 10 times more fun and exciting when you're exploring it with a child.

Except when it's not. Yesterday Pierre and I took the little ones to the Newport Folk Festival. This was all my idea. Last weekend we had gone to the Lowell Folk Festival, and had a grand time: lots of good music, good food, fun train rides to and from venues, free and plentiful crafts and games for kids. So I thought the fun would continue in Newport . . .

Wrong. While the day was clear and lovely and we did get to hear excellent sets by Madeleine Peyroux, the Meters, and the Indigo Girls, the whole thing was experienced through a miasma of complaining, requests to revisit the portapotties, open rebellion, and physical torture perpetrated by lemonade-guzzling Thing One and Thing Two (my new names for Libby and Lulu!)

To placate them, I fed them ice cream, allowed them to get insanely expensive painted "tattoos",
played endless games of Animal Rummy . . . finally, desperately, I decided I'd let them do anything they wanted, short of hurting themselves or others, so I could watch and listen to the Indigo Girls. I gave them a whole box of graham crackers. They fell upon in, ripping it open, like a scene from Lord of the Flies. Once they realized I wasn't going to intervene, they crammed 4 and 5 layers of entire cracker slabs in their mouths. Libby sat on my lap, facing me, trying out different ways of chewing the crackers into a foul paste. I sat there, stoicly singing along with the I.G. Only when she started letting the paste dribble onto my clothing did I react, and by then the show was over. We began the long march to the shuttle buses to the parking lot. I felt I had aged 10 years over the course of the day.

On the way home, they fell asleep in the car. Pierre carried Libby, I carried Lulu, and we gratefully deposited them in their beds, still in their sundresses. Looking at them, so angelic when they're sleeping, I was so happy to be doing it over again.

But when next summer comes around, I want everyone who cares about me to remind me I do NOT want to go to the Newport Folk Festival with small children EVER AGAIN!!!!!