Filed under: As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will, List, My mother
10 Random things I found while digging though an “Ivory’s GoodStuff” box which has been ducttaped closed since before the move, two Novembers ago:
1. One eared sock monkey. My Great Grandma was a doll and toy maker, and all the kids in the family got a sock monkey when they were little. Except me. I can’t complain, since I did get a lot of other toys from her, but I was somehow overlooked when it came to my very own sock monkey. After my Great Grandma died, my mom gave me her sock monkey, and I love that it only had one ear. Ella and Alice both got sock monkey’s from their Aunt Jena this Christmas, so we have a little sock monkey family now.
2. The very first embroidery I ever ‘finished’. The back is here. I was probably 6 or 7 when I started it, and I remember it taking forever. Patience was not my strong suit as a kid, but I wanted to be able to dig around in my mom’s sewing box, so I had to sit down and be still for a few minutes a day. My mom kept it, and I found it in her ‘office’ after she died.
3. Yarn dog from Bea, my 80 year old best friend when I was 5. It turns out that the things I worry about with my daughter really just stem from my fear that she will be like me, and I want it to be easier for her. I want her to be comfortable with her peers, because I never was as a kid. Bea lived in an RV on the same beach we lived on when my dad was working on HWY 101 in North Cali, and when I wasn’t with her or Benji (the disabled vet who lived across the way) or Barbra (the woman who ran the community store) I was hiding under the trailer, playing with slugs and talking to squirrels. Rinse and repeat for 20 years.
4. Speaking of middle aged people who were kind to a kid who had no friends: A bear, a knicknack, and a book from Mrs. Harrison, my speech therapist when I was in k-2nd grade. You wouldn’t know it today by how I can blather on, but when I was young I had major speech issues, and almost no one outside my family could understand me. Enter Mrs. Harrison, who was beyond kind to me. I was so inspired by her, that years later I studied speech pathology for three years of college before realizing that it wasn’t what I wanted and switching to English. I wrote her years ago, thanking her and including a playbill from a play I was in at the time, and she wrote back (and as I keep digging, I’ll probably find the letter).
5. 8 jewelry boxes of random, cheap jewelry, none of which I can bear to throw out (I stopped taking pictures after a while…)
6. A package of moon flower seeds from a plant in my mom’s yard.
7. This tiny boat, from “Undersea World” which is the toy of my earliest memories.
8. A replica of one of my pageant dresses for my ‘ cabbage patch’ doll, Maggie Mae. My mom made my dress, the little dress, and Maggie. She also took me to an estate sell on the way home from losing “Little Miss Oklahoma” and bought me an enormous green bridesmaid’s hat.
9. The postcard that informed me that I had been selected to receive the scholarship that ended up paying for my degree. Until I got this slip of paper, I was planning to stay in the small town I had graduated in, working as a waitress and taking care of my brother. Instead, I came to college, got a degree in something that doesn’t pay but that I love, and met Tom in a Lit. class.
10. An autograph book (like yearbook autographs, not lifestyles of the rich and famous autographs) of my mom’s, which I will probably do a whole other post about, because so many of the pages made me laugh.
Filed under: As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will, Cricket, Ella, Everyday, Motherhood
It’s hard to think it was a coincidence, after writing this post earlier in the week, that I happened to be in the car late last night and this program come on my local NPR. I’m disappointed that I can’t link you to the actual audio ($7 for the mp3) but even the title of their book (Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting) seemed so in tune with what I had written about that it felt less like chance, and more like a steady hand reminding me that, yes, this is important, do not let it be a passing idea.
It’s so tempting, when faced with the responsibility of parenthood, to let ‘the experts’ make the decisions. To read books, follow the “Five Easy Steps to a Happy Toddler” and when they don’t work, find another expert. What is hard is just being here. To not let the annoyances define our day. To tune into my child and treat them the way I want to be treated (even when they are years and years away from returning the gesture). It’s easy to live in my head as a stay at home parent - to let the drone of “Mama look!” and “Whatzzat?” become background noise. I forget that the greatest gift I can give to my kids (and my husband, and friends) is my time, undivided and fully engaged.
So, that’s where I’ve been. We’re all battling a cold, ( & opted out of two birthday parties, a baby shower and knit club this weekend), so there hasn’t been much activity, just a lot of laying in bed together, reading and snoozing. I’m working on a new yoga bag, the wall hanging, some cloth diaper covers, and have 4 books half read on my bedside table. But mostly, I am just trying to listen, to smile, to be slow to anger and quick to laugh. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it?
(Picture has little-to-nothing to do with the subject, other than to remind myself that my kids crack me up. Also, the view from down here is a lot better than the view from above.)
Filed under: 50 book challenge, As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will, Cricket, Ella, Motherhood, posted in haste
I’m back on a reading kick (it seems to go reading, crafting, tv watching, & back to reading) and am reading two very different books right now. The first is Trees Make the Best Mobiles: Simple Ways to Raise Your Child in a Complex World by Teich & Bravo, and the other is Julia’s Mother: Life Lessons in the Pediatric ER by Bonadio. On the surface, the books have almost nothing in common - one is a series of short meditations on simplicity and empathy in parenting, while the other is a stark picture of childhood traumas - but both inspired me to set out an old blanket and have a (chilly) Spring picnic with my girls.
Both books come at childhood from very different angles to reach the same conclusion: that these tiny people are people, who, if we let them, can teach us tenacity, patience, hope and acceptance. That, while children are more complex than we often give them credit for, it is their simplicity that we can learn the most from. This isn’t at all revolutionary, but it is something that I need reminded of every so often. It’s the woods for the trees I guess - I am with these girls so much (so.much.) that it is easy to focus in on this tantrum, this crying jag, this diaper, and miss the big picture of who they are.
I’m of the school of thought that children are closer to the source - call it the soul, call it the Id, call it the Earth’s energy. Children hear an inner voice that doesn’t logic out possibility. They are not embarrassed by joy or anger; they forgive quickly, and will ask for exactly what they need. I don’t think I am overly romantic about childhood - if you live with a two year old and a 3 month old, it’s hard to be maudlin about a span of time defined by diapers and sleepless nights - but occasionally I can see a moment as an opportunity to reconnect with that source, to slough off the weight of adulthood and sit in the sun, letting the earth spin around us.
But only for a moment, because there are crackers to be unwrapped, swings to be pushed, and small hands to warm between my own.
Filed under: As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will, Motherhood, metablogging
I’m a big believer in the adage “Actions speak louder than words”, and have been looking critically at my own actions lately. What does it say when I spend more time reading blogs than I do reading to my daughters? What does it say when I would rather check my 6 email addresses than call my best friend? What does it say that I have 12 loads of laundry to fold, but I organized my google reader blogs yesterday?
I’m trying to find the balance - there has to be one - but if I am going to err on one side, I want it to be on the side of my girls, my husband, my home. I don’t want this to sound like a “Oh noes, the horrors of the internets” post, because really, I loves this bloggityblogblog way too much to ever condemn it and walk away, but ya’ll, the other day I asked Ella to stop tearing apart the bathroom and come help me cook lunch and she said “Just a minute Mama” in just the right tone, and I thought “Wow. How many times has she heard me say that?”
So, assuming you are reading this on the internet and not a hand written zine printed on recycled paper with soy ink, what are your tricks for balancing life and this ‘hobby’? How do you work this flashy box into your day?
Now if you will excuse me, I have a fort to go play in.
