Pinterest Day!

Jun22

Last Friday, my oldest son suggested that we have a “Pinterest Day–all the stuff we do today comes from Pinterest!” So, I said okay and we had an overall delightful day. It was not without some pain (details + photo to follow) and it was shockingly exhausting too. We decided to keep up the trend perhaps on each Friday. It is so easy to pin-it-and-forget-it, or to pin things that you have no intention of ever doing (I joke that I need a separate board titled, “things I like to pretend I’m going to do some day). I also got Instagram on my phone finally and so in this post you will also be treated to random, not very skillful edits of the pictures of our various projects…

The boys were super excited and took some pictures of themselves while waiting for me to get ready:

Zander chose first and we made these peanut butter cheerio treats. We used organic chocolate o’s from Big Lots, rather than the called for PB Cheerios. We also used giant, ridiculous marshmallows also from Big Lots rather than the mini mallows called for:

They were pretty delicious.

Lann chose to make these homemade “Cheez-Its.”

The results were clearly a case for which this meme was created:

I’d put the dough in the fridge between waxed paper and the paper somehow melted/fused into the dough. It was almost impossible to roll out–not to mention took FOREVER to scrape away all of the melted in waxed paper. I guess we added too much water–it went from crumbles to sticky very suddenly. I thought chilling it would solve the issue, but I probably should have just added more flour.

It was too sticky to cut before baking, so I cut them afterward. They were not crunchy, but guess what, they were delicious. We ate them all up and Mark didn’t even get to try one!

Then, we decided to make homemade shrinky dinks using hard-to-find #6 plastic. We located some minimal amounts from cracker/cookie packages and the boys had fun making their designs while Alaina tried to snag all the permanent marks and rip their lids off:

They sort of really worked…

Then, Pinterest Day devolved into PAINterest day when after getting up from naptime, Alaina accidentally stabbed me full-force in the wide open eye with a corner of one of the shrinky dinks.

It was horrible. I thought I might be permanently damaged. I thought I would probably have to go to the doctor. I thought my eyeball was possibly punctured. It burned, it watered. I couldn’t open it. It felt like it had a chunk of gravel stuck in it. By the next morning though it was down to feeling a little sandy/gritty and by that night it was totally back to normal. What a relief!

Despite my suffering, the fun had to go on and we made these utterly fabulous potatoes to have with dinner:
They tasted like good fried potatoes, only they were baked. After the painstaking slicing of the potatoes into thin slices (which Mark then informed me I could have done with the food processor rather than by hand), I sprinkled them with 3TB olive oil, 1TB of italian seasoning, and 1ts of salt. I also sprinkled them with Parmesan cheese and they baked for probably over 40 minutes. Very delicious. We’re having them again tonight. Official Pinterest win!

I also need a pinboard titled, “Nutella in ALL THE THINGS!” Couldn’t resist making at least one Nutella recipe–these weird little cookies:

Only three ingredients: 1 cup Nutella, 1 c. flour, and one egg. They turned out pretty dry, but quite delicious and we quickly scarfed them all down. We made them again the next day and I used half the flour thinking I was a genius and they were super floppy, greasy, and kind of gross flat cookies then.

We continued with a carb-heavy dinner and made these supposedly delightful 30 minute dinner rolls:

They were so-so. Tasted lots more like biscuits or a quick bread even though they used yeast. I make good bread already, so I really shouldn’t have experimented and should have stuck with my existing, delightful recipe that is plenty easy and turns out tastier.

On Father’s Day we continued our pinteresting lives by making homemade Reese’s eggs:

I used melted Ghiradelli chocolate chips for the outside. Some milk chocolate, some dark chocolate. In case you can’t tell from the picture, they were totally awesome. Will definitely make again. They were pretty fast too.

So, now, here is it Friday again! And…despite the eye-incident from PAINterest day, we decided to give it another go. An abbreviated version today since the boys went to see the Wizard of Oz at the theater in town with my parents and are there now (and Alaina is napping and this post is taking me WAY longer to write than it should, especially because no one really cares!!!)

But, I surprised the kids this morning with the “cookie dough popsicles I made and froze last night so they’d be ready for Pinterest Day today…

I used chocolate almond milk and mini chocolate chips and 1/3 cup of brown sugar and some vanilla. I shouldn’t have used the sugar, because they would have been sweet enough with it! I froze them in ice cube trays with toothpick sticks, so they were mini-popsicles/bite size.

Alaina was pleased with them too:

We also took a take two at the homemade Cheez-Its. They turned out different this time. I also did away with the waxed paper and the chilling and the rolling and just dropped them on the sheet with a spoon. Still delicious and still nothing like a cracker!

Pinterest Day was a really fun experience overall and I highly recommend it, because really, what is the point of pinning all that stuff if you just go back the next day and pin more and never actually DO any of it? (or even remember you pinned it!) I think this is our new Friday fun plan! 🙂

The world unfolding

Jun10

When I watch my children meet the world each day, I realize new meaning in ‘discovery,’ ‘fascination,’ ‘enthusiasm.’ I hear their awe-filled murmurings, and I know there is much I do not see, touch, taste, rub up against…Can I learn to pause in my reaching ahead? Can I become an explorer of this time and place? Play is the ability to throw oneself fully and joyfully into the present moment. When we play we release memory and yearning. We find the moment at hand is sufficient to hold us, and we wallow in it like a sparkling river on a hot summer day. As I play with my children, I am reminded: I cannot choose now or tomorrow. I can only choose to see or not see this world unfolding before my eyes. –Shea Darian, Seven Times the Sun, p. 61 (emphasis mine)

I’m decluttering my bookshelves today and in so doing have been finding things I’d marked and now need to transcribe if I wish to keep/remember them after getting rid of the books I’m culling. I love this reminder above, particularly the part I italicized.

Some recent things that unfolded in our house…

Customizing selves with markers:

Playing in hose while brothers were at dentist appt:

Playing in hammock swing:

Edited to add: this is my 600 blog post here! And, I typed it all on my phone…

Z is Six Already!

May29

On Memorial Day weekend six years ago, this is what I looked like:

Polka dot bathing suit…never worn before or since… (date on picture is wrong, really taken the 28)

A couple of hours later, this is what I looked like:

Zander’s first nursing.

I can hardly believe that he is SIX already! I feel like my oldest kid should be six, not my second one! Zander is amazing. He is super funny—perhaps the funniest kid around—he is also brave and spontaneous and silly and witty and kind of wild. He is impulsive and smart, draws great pictures, and comes up with the most off-the-wall comments about life. He has a fabulous imagination that is always working overtime. He has a flair for the dramatic and a tendency towards the gruesome and macabre. He is a great brother—he is the most generous of my kids and is always looking out for his brother.

Zander’s birth story.

Couple of pictures to share of current Zander!

Drawing is one of his favorite activities!

Attitude!

Big enough to drive a go-kart himself!

I love this series of photos that sums up his feisty, imaginative spirit!

What’s this?!

Mysterious stranger in my living room…

A different look with wild hair now…

Oh! It’s really Zander! My Zander!

And birthday party fun!

Carefully constructed Star Wars cake for his birthday party–homemade orange frosting colored with natural dye, first-ever try at making layers, and ample toys to make up for many failings!

For Zander’s birthday party on Monday we dressed in our matching Creeper t-shirts (Minecraft)!

Yep, we’re a little geeky. Creeper shirts from thinkgeek.com

Happy Mother’s Day!

May13

Blessed be all mothers.
Blessed be all the mothers of mothers.
Blessed be all the daughters of mothers.
Blessed be all the children of mothers.
Now, and forever.
Amen.
–WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual)

Happy Mother’s Day!

I keep feeling like making some big, philosophical, insightful post today and I also keep wanting to share some of the great articles I’ve read lately (my file of things to blog about has reached epic proportions). I also have stacks of draft posts partially written and waiting to be polished and posted. And, then, I realized that this feeling–at least in the moment–was primarily rooted in “should” and that what I really want to do today is to take a break, to rest, to read and to wallow in my stacks of books, and to maybe make some art. So, just a quick update post sharing some pictures from today and from our homeschool field trip to the Botanical Garden in St. Louis (we also had another appointment at the pediatric dentist for Alaina since the filling that I was so happy about last week fell out the following day. This trip was pretty traumatic–she was restrained in the baby wrap thing and it was awful for us both–but it’s over now and so I’m not going to spend any more time thinking about it).

So, Mother’s Day. Mark made me this beautiful new pendant with birthstones included for all the kids:

We went to the flower communion at my little UU church and the boys surprised me with new lilies to plant. They also made me great cards–Lann’s has a cool drawing of the Goddess of Willendorf and Zander’s has a sweet note saying, “I love MOOM” ;-D Mark picked up sushi for lunch and we took it home to eat.

I made a new three generations polymer clay goddess sculpture for my mom to replace the one I’d made for her after Alaina’s birth that got accidentally broken. I actually like this one better than the original. It is only the second three generations sculptures I’ve ever made–she’s special!

The delightful reasons I’m a mother! (picture taken by my aunt during her visit last month–I just love it!)

Now some pictures from our homeschool field trip to the Missouri Botanical Garden:

Serious watchage of koi…

With friends in a model canoe!

With friends in a model covered wagon!

Laina’s big enough to climb all the way up the stairs in the watchtower by the shrubbery maze!

Koi feeding was a major hit with all.

Different day–trying to show some cute corduroy pants I bought at a yard sale when I was pregnant with Zander. I later gave them to my friend when she had a girl saying that I was probably never going to end up using them since I probably wouldn’t end up ever having a girl. Last week when I visited my friend on my birthday, she gave the pants back to me! How special! So, I had to put them on Alaina even though it is really too hot for them right now.

In other news, it’s a good month for publications! My peer-reviewed journal article about prenatal yoga was published in the International Journal of Childbirth Education this month and my review of The Five Ways We Grieve appeared in the same issue. And, my articles for the journal Restoration Earth about breastfeeding as a feminist issue and parenting as a spiritual practice should be out next week! I’m really proud of both of those articles, because they represent something of a departure from my typical audience as well as a somewhat different twist on some of my usual topics. That said, a lot of the content of both articles have roots in posts I wrote for this blog, so perhaps it isn’t much of a departure after all. In fact, when I posted about these publications on Facebook earlier in the week, I had this realization:

In case anyone is wondering, “how did she have time for articles while grading those 50 papers,” I didn’t. I revised the ICEA articles in December (from an article originally written in 2007 and a review written for my blog in 2010) and I wrote the two for Restoration Earth in March on my break from class (again pieced together from blog posts written over several years). Not that I need to explain myself, but this writing/publishing thing is not a quick process and I think sometimes people think I just magically write articles and have them appear in print that same month. And, these publications prove to me again that my blog is not a waste of time at all–all kinds of article seeds are found there! 🙂 Go, bloggers! You’re producing a genuine body of work!

Since writing the above, I also thought about how many seeds for my dissertation can probably also be found here. Though the bulk of my writing for it is probably still a couple of years away, I’m constantly finding articles and quotes and having thoughts and ideas related to my dissertation subject and I will continue to collect and store them in this way as the ideas deepen, grow, and expand.
—
*blessing modified slightly from the original.

Birthday!

May3

Today is my birthday and my mom sent me a guest post about my own birth!

Molly’s Birth Story (33 years later)
May 3, 2012

At the time of Molly’s birth in 1979, we lived in a 10 x 30, un-insulated building – a shack, really – and were completely off the grid. We used wood for cooking/heat, and kerosene and candles for light. We hauled in drinking water, and bathed in rain water. We had no phone, electricity, or plumbing and shared a vehicle. Many people were appalled at our decision to homebirth (fortunately, they couldn’t call us to yell about it!). Midwives were completely hidden and underground. I had two dear friends, both nurses, who agreed to attend the birth.

I was very close to term, and we were concerned that I would begin labor at home (with no phone or car) while Tom was away at work, so I spent those final days of pregnancy hanging around at the homes of neighbors and friends. Labor began while with neighbors, and continued to progress throughout the evening. It was a wild night – raging thunderstorms, torrential rain, and incessant lightning. It became apparent that this was true labor, so Tom had to leave me alone in our tiny home to go find a phone to call our support people. They arrived by midnight, and I continued to labor throughout the night, culminating in 2 hours of pushing and the arrival of a beautiful, sweet baby girl! I’ll never forget the surreal feeling of contractions punctuated by lightning and thunder. Towards the end, I was actually falling asleep between contractions and still remember the dreams I had…..

Unfortunately, I sustained a large tear, and was unable to push to release the placenta. We had to pack up, borrow a 4-wheel drive truck, and slip and slide through the mud to a doctor who had agreed to provide postpartum care if needed. I was curled up on the seat with baby Molly – this was before car seats were in use! I lamented having to go out in such horrible conditions. The tear was major, and took 42 stitches, making my days of postpartum recovery very difficult. Nothing daunted, I went on to have 3 more children at home – still off the grid, still with no indoor plumbing, but some of the time with a car and a phone for the last two.

This experience – having my first baby – was a transcendent transformation. I became a mother at that moment, and being a mother is still a defining element of my personality and identity. Molly grew to adulthood altogether too fast, and even though she stands before me now as a mother herself, I will never forget the infant, child, and teenager that she was. We’re inextricably linked, and while I marvel at our sameness, I also celebrate our differentness.

I had 2 favorite books that I read to prepare for a very rustic homebirth – Spiritual Midwifery, by Ina May Gaskin, and Special Delivery, by Rahima Baldwin. These books are still being recommended to birthing women, and while the climate of homebirth is certainly in transition, each woman must find her own path through the labyrinth of birth.

Who knew, when I was planning a homebirth all those years ago, that Molly would grow to be the birth advocate and authority that she has become? Perhaps my decision to homebirth had some sort of deep-seated and profound influence on her!

Happy birthday to an amazingly intelligent, witty, loquacious, creative, generous, intuitive, compassionate and productive daughter. I am incredibly proud of the woman you have become, and I love you beyond all reason.

Love,
Mom

She also uploaded a photo of me at 11 months–we think Alaina looks like me 🙂

I also had this nursing picture already saved on my computer:

Happy Birth Day to both of us!

Present day…

Today we had to take Alaina to the pediatric dentist in St. Louis to have her front teeth looked at. I thought the four upper front teeth all had decay, but it turned out to be a pretty best case scenario—she only had one actual cavity (some pitting and staining on three others, but not decay) AND the dentist said, “would you like me to just fix it now instead of you having to drive all the way here again from Rolla?” So, not only was the problem more minor than we feared, it is already ALL FIXED! Yay! So, I was able to go on and enjoy the rest of my birthday rather than fretting about her teeth or planning the follow-up visit for the “big work.” We did have a horrible 15 minutes while I held her on my lap and she screamed and cried and they did the work, but that is a tiny blip as far as things go and it was SO much better than the anesthesia route we did with Z (ambulatory surgery clinic admission, etc. Boo on that, especially because most of the work then chipped off—that’s what $5000 or so gets you!). After we got home she was extra clingy and very needy and mama’s girl-ish though, which makes me feel bad because I know she must still be feeling traumatized by the betrayal of being taken somewhere to, essentially, be hurt, trapped, and helpless 😦

After the dentist, we went to my friend’s house who lives in the vicinity. Another friend joined us and we had a little party with a nice lunch and cupcakes. My friend’s kids had blown up balloons and hung them up all over and there was also a great sign hanging in the tree:

I cried when I saw the cute sign! I really miss seeing both these friends on a regular basis, but I also feel thankful that they still live close enough to be within reach!

Recovered enough from tooth trauma to swing like a big girl!

On the way home we stopped at the pie shop for the Boston cream pie Mark ordered for us to enjoy with my parents:

Couldn’t resist taking a picture of the sweaty, wild hair of a traveling baby!

My parents came over bearing gifts and my favorite dinner of beef stroganoff and we also ate the pie. I’m tired, but relieved. I was also feeling weird to be 33 now and said something along the lines of, what happened and is Alaina going to be 33 soon too?! My dad said, “this can never be a long time ago…” and then reminded me that it was a Laura Ingalls Wilder quote: “…They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago...”

Later, I laid in bed nursing Alaina to sleep and thinking about how my parents remember me as a baby—their baby—but I don’t remember being their baby. And, how this intimacy with Alaina will someday soon be only my memory, not hers (at least not consciously). How strange, because it is so total and so real and so right now…it can never be a long time ago.

New Pictures! (and life musings)

Apr23

During my aunt’s visit from California two weeks ago, we had a last-minute photo shoot for some Mother’s Day pictures (it wasn’t last minute for my aunt who planned in advance to hire the fabulous Karenfor a photo session, but the addition of me and my crew was last-minute). I’m currently at the end of the another school session with the accompanying 50 papers and finals to grade, so I haven’t had many opportunities to write posts in the last two weeks. I have ideas piling up like crazy though! For now, some of the pictures and thoughts from our recent photo shoot:

I absolutely love this picture! The cheeks, the eyelashes, the puffy hair, the powerful shoulders…

: I absolutely love this picture! The cheeks, the eyelashes, the puffy hair, the powerful shoulders…

After getting these pictures taken I came across two items on Facebook that made me think about why I want pictures and why I write blog posts. The first was this: A daughter grows from 0 to 12 — in 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The dad videotaped his daughter every week from birth to age 12 and then put a little snippet of footage from each week together into a fast-moving montage of her life. It was a cool project and also so poignant. As I watched it, I thought about my own fast-growing kids and also about a moment I had last month when I was watching Alaina walking away from me on the porch—suddenly I felt fast-forwarded and like I was watching her adult self walk away, like my future self was seeing her and looking back at the porch moment thinking, but she was JUST MY BABY!

So, along those lines, I also enjoyed reading a thoughtful blog post by Stephanie Soderblom about her son’s seventeenth birthday:

When ‘they’ kept saying, “it goes by too fast!”….what ‘they’ mean is that memories don’t fade. My childhood is foggy, a distant memory of playing outside and brief snapshot memories of friends or school. But raising our children – that memory doesn’t get foggy. I remember this almost-17 year-old man’s first week as clearly as I remember this past Christmas. I remember the clothes I dressed him in….I remember the chair I would sit in and rock him. I remember the smell of his silky hair, the feeling of him cuddled up in a little ball between my breasts as I rubbed his back. I remember rejoicing in the tiniest of accomplishments – learning to coo, smiling, rolling to his side – as well as the big ones.

I also remember the insecurity that came with being his mother…

from Left to cry….alone

I really connected to the mention of the children’s memories fading or becoming indistinct, but the parents memories feeling like “just yesterday.” This makes a lot of sense to me and feels true from my own childhood and now with my own kids—being a mother to small people is so sharp and so defining and so all-encompassing that it seems impossible that this phase of life will end. There is an element of initiation to it, of almost a spiritual journey, a defining, core life experience, that I wonder how it will feel to have only teenage children and then young adult children. Will I still identify closely with mothers of toddlers, or will I “move on” and just remember “what it was like” from afar. Since my oldest is only 8, I have a ways to go before I figure that out, but my experiences as a breastfeeding support group leader is that the memory of caring for a small nursling is as sharp and potent as ever (of course, right now it is, since I’ve still got a nursling of my own, but I’m talking about the time during which I was a leader and had no active nurslings).

And, speaking of memories and how childhood memories can be blurry or indistinct or amorphous, I was a little depressed by this observation in a current article in Parents magazine:

For years, I’ve been asking audiences of parents a deceptively simple question: “What was the sweetest moment of your childhood?” I wait so they can come up with a memory, and then I say, “Please raise your hand if your parents were present when that sweetest memory took place.” I have done this with thousands of people and the result never varies much: Around 20 percent say their parents were part of their sweetest memory and 80 percent say their parents weren’t. When audience members turn in their chairs to see the result, they laugh self-consciously. As parents, we hope that we’re laying a foundation of happy memories for our children. When we’re confronted with the fact that our own best memories of childhood took place away from our parents, we’re a bit confused. That’s a slap in the face to dedicated moms and dads. Or is it?…

via Thrive in 2025: How to Raise an Independent Kid.

Bummer! All of this time, energy, and constant life investment isn’t producing any sweetest memories for my kids, only for me?! :::sob::: My own dominant memories of my childhood are actually mostly about my sister. Watching my boys play and appreciating their tightly interwoven lives, I predict they will have the same experience in adulthood. I also have more specific, event-based memories of my dad than I do of my mom and I think that was because he was gone at work during the day—my mom was everpresent and thus it is harder to pick specific memories for her. I think that is one of the good things though—since she was always there, I could rest in that security of presence and affection, rather only focusing on “special occasions” or special days/moments. She was (is) my life’s constant.

(Side note: I’ve found that as my kids grow, I find more to enjoy in Parents magazine. It isn’t a helpful resource for pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, infancy, or medical care, but many of the articles about older kids have nuggets of interest for me to glean.)

You’ll miss this?

These musings also reminded me of my post from last year: You’ll miss this. I think the intent of my post has been mispercieved by some readers as thinking I’m saying not to savor or appreciate time with my little kids or that I’m somehow thinking that I won’t “miss this”—I most definitely will miss many things, I already miss them with a sharp pang of nostalgia as I in the moment see them passing by, which raises a whole other issue because I want to make sure I’m parenting the child right in front of me, rather than the memory of their baby self or the vision of their future adulthood. I also stand by my personal assessment that it would hurt my feelings quite a lot to know my mom was spending tons of time thinking wistfully about me as a baby when I’m right here now! Why would I expect to spend the second half of my parenting journey any differently? The current people who my kids are and will hopefully continue to be are so rich and vibrant, that there isn’t much space for “missing this”—they’re right here and I like who they are right now. (I also note that perhaps not everyone picks up on the shaming undercurrent that I perceive—particularly online—in the “you’ll miss this” comment and how it is used by other mothers against each other and against themselves.)

What I know is that there has not been a single day of Alaina’s life that I haven’t savored and appreciated her. Almost every day I experience a moment in which I feel like my heart is breaking open at the sight of her and how she is growing and just how magical and she is. My boys are so very much integrated into my life—I can’t imagine life without them and so my pangs about them are a little less sharp. They also aren’t babies and so the changes they experience aren’t so obvious and striking, they’re more subtle. Lann is getting taller and taller and I can see into the not-too-distant future that he is going to be taller than me. He has grown two inches since last year. My husband was six feet tall by the end of middle school. Lann is going to be nine in September, so doesn’t that mean that I may only have three more years with him as a boy instead of an almost-man?! Ack! Zander continues to surprise me with how bold and confident he is. In my own family, the older sister (me) was the “leader” and the one who was more confident. In our family, while Lann does boss Zander around quite a bit, Zander is the “brave one”—the one who will go talk to people, or turn on the lights in the dark room, or ask questions, or step up and speak up. They are tightly connected and their senses of self are obviously entwined with each other. This is my brother. It is one the deepest and most profound bonds they will ever experience. I feel both lucky that they have this connection, that the genetic dice rolled so compatibly, and also mildly smug, because I think one of the reasons this relationship is possible is because we homeschool. If they were going to separate classrooms all day, I can’t imagine that they’d be quite as close—their “spheres” would be different and Zander would probably be treated like the pesky little brother and Lann would be the bossy big brother, instead of the rock-solid team of best friends that they are.

300 Things

Mar23

Step out onto the Planet

Draw a circle a hundred feet round

Inside the circle are

300 things nobody understands, and, maybe

nobody’s ever really seen.

How many can you find?

–Lew Welch

I’ve almost finished reading the book Earth Prayers and the above is one of my favorites from the book. It was actually the first one I randomly opened to when I first got the book last year and then it jumped out at me again this week (when I finally got to it in sequential order).

I’ve had some exhausting days with Alaina lately. She’s getting four molars and is super whiny as well as just generally a “baby on wheels,” constantly wanting to move and grab and get and explore. I feel worn out—body, brain, and spirit. However, earlier this week, I went outside with her to play in the rain and I think I found some of those 300 things:

Noah's tree bloomed again!

Alaina specifically picked a spot on the deck where the rain was dripping through the gutter and stood under the drips experimenting with the feeling of getting dripped on.

Look at those great arm segments, as well as the little hands thinking about catching raindrops.

This is one of her faces that I most love--she does this fabulous little head-cocked-to-one-side-question-look that is ADORABLE!

Baby on wheels running in the rain! See that face? Those little feet?

Literally a baby on wheels now. I love watching her climb onto her little bike. It is a lot of work for short legs, but she does it.

Another one of her best faces--little squinchy, "eee" face!

A better look at that cute little squinched up "being bratty" face!

Hey! Mama has a face too!

Check out the baby curls. And, check out the "challenge" stand and also Z's defensive face...she is fond of wrecking just about everything they do lately.

Mama collapsed in toddler induced exhaustion on the floor. Then, I got jumped on. Her expression is that grating, "eeehhhh" sound that she is making that drills through my skull.

There are women who make things better…
simply by showing up.
There are women who make things happen.
There are women who make their way.
There are women who make a difference.
And women who make us smile.
There are women of wit and wisdom who –
through strength and courage –
make it through.
There are women who change the world everyday…
Women like you.

~ Lisa Young

Then, today, after feeling again like I was being drained in body, mind, and spirit and feeling frustrated, annoyed, and headachy (I swear the tone of voice she uses drills straight into my brain and saps my life force!), I went outside and took a 300 things walk with her. It was wonderful.

My favorite dogwood tree bloomed. I love how this one is shaped like a tree that should be in front of a Japanese temple.

After admiring this tree, I lamented how we don’t have any pretty redbud trees in our woods. Then, my 300 things eyes snapped like a magnet into the woods beyond this dogwood and lo and behold there WAS a redbud there. We walked down to it and I took a close up picture of one branch:

The profile! Look at the glee of being outside.

Earlier in the week I also mentioned how I didn’t have any violets and should dig some up to transplant from my mom’s house. Well, look what happens when you go on a 300 things walk? It turns out there are plenty of violets right next to our front porch.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took on our walk.

Friendly hound. Earlier was licking butter off my skirt (Alaina is fond of eating straight butter)

Clouds!

Approaching priestess rocks in wood--I love this overlook.

Looking like most precious ragamuffin ever to be found standing on the rocks in the woods!

Love that I accidentally caught both the reaching, straining arm and the pointing, desirous finger!

Looking a little stormy. Have I mentioned how I love these woods?

I sat on the rocks and noticed a blue jay flying in the woods. I thought about how many things live their lives in these woods without anyone even noticing. I thought about how there was only one redbud on the whole hillside. Then, looked to my right and suddenly there was another redbud I had overlooked before. And, another blue jay flew above it…

How many can you find?

Saturday Savoring…

Mar10

I was surprised to unearth a wonderful little reminder in the March issue of Parents magazine. Parents is usually pretty mainstream, party line, and conventional for my taste, though I do really enjoy some of the recipes and party ideas as well as the $1 subscription renewal price I got this year. Anyway, in an article titled “Savor the Moments” by Harley Rotbart, he explains:

Alaina and my dad---*blink*--this moment, this "Saturday" is months old now already! (he looks like he's paying attention though 🙂

There are only 940 Saturdays between a child’s birth and her leaving for college. That may sound like a lot, but how many have you already used up? If your child is 5 years old, 260 Saturdays are gone. Poof!

Oh. My Goodness. FREAKS me out! That is nothing. A blur. A zoom. A blink. An amazingly swift transition. Somehow putting it in terms of Saturdays makes it feel very stark and swift.

Also included in the article is an oft-repeated remark in some form or another in parenting circles: “Each day with young kids feels like a week, each week like a month. Yet as every birthday passes, the years seem to be streaking by at warp speed.”

I don’t actually quite agree with this one. Even with my first baby, I felt astounded at how fast the time flew by. Even with overwhelming early days, I was more amazed by how fast the day would pass without “getting anything done” and “without time” for a shower, rather than feel like the time was dragging or lasting a year. The speed of time as only increased with each baby and with each developmental milestone.

Mothering as a Spiritual Practice

Mar7

Why is it that to rise gladly at 4:00 am to meditate and meet one’s God is considered a religious experience, and yet to rise at 4:00 am to serve the needs of one’s helpless child is considered the ultimate in deprivation?

Mothering a child is the greatest act of service one can do. It is an act of surrender, and act of love…

One can learn sitting meditation by rocking and nursing a little one to sleep; one can learn reclining meditation by staying still to avoid disturbing a little one who has been awake for hours; and one can learn walking meditation by walking and swaying with a little one who would like to be asleep for hours. One must learn to breathe deeply in a relaxed and meditative manner in order to still the mind that doubts one’s strength to go on, that sees every speck of dust on the floor and wants to clean it, and that tempts one to be up and about the busyness of accomplishment…

–Peggy O’Mara in The Way Back Home

Zen and the art of baby curl and dimpled finger spotting...

I really enjoyed reading this collection of essays by Peggy O’Mara. I do find that I have a tendency to think about my spiritual practice as something that has to wait until I am alone, until I have “down time,” until I have space alone in my head in which to think and to be still. On the flip side, I’ve also thought and written before about how the act of breastfeeding, day in and day out, provides all manner of time for spiritual contemplation and meditative reflection, but I often find it difficult to stay centered and grounded in mindfulness of breath and spirit during the swirl of life with little ones. I’ve done a lot of reading about “zen parenting” type topics and it seems like it would be so simple to integrate mothering with mindfulness. Then, I find myself frazzled and scattered and self-berating, and wonder what the heck happened to my zen. Today, I read an interesting article about anger and Zen Buddhism that clarified that meditation and zen practices are not about being serene and unfrazzled, but about being present and able to sit with it all. And, it offered this helpful reminder:

I used to imagine that spiritual work was undertaken alone in a cave somewhere with prayer beads and a leather-bound religious tome. Nowadays, that sounds to me more like a vacation from spiritual work. Group monastic living has taught me that the people in your life don’t get in the way of your spiritual practice; these people are your spiritual practice.

via The Angry Monk: Zen Practice for Angry People.

And, then this small snippet from the 2011 We’Moon datebook also reminded me of my 2012 vow to be embodied prayer:

My prayers are

The food I cook

The children I hug

The art I create

The words I write

I need no religion.

–Eileen Rosensteel

I don’t need to wait to be alone in order to be “spiritual” in this life with my babies. This sometimes messy, sometimes chaotic, sometimes serene, sometimes frazzling, often joyful life, is it.

On a somewhat related side note, I’m in the middle of writing an article for a scholarly journal addressing breastfeeding as an ecofeminist AND spiritual issue. I’d love to hear any reader thoughts on the issue!

Previous related posts:

Breastfeeding Toward Enlightenment

The Rhythm of Our Lives

Motherhood as Meditation

How to Meditate with a Baby…

Surrender?

Ode to my nursling

Embodied Prayer

Telling About It…

Bits of the month

Mar3

I’m trying something new—a weekly (or monthly) wrap-up sort of post where I share bits and pieces that don’t warrant full posts and that allow me to share personal type things about homeschooling and so forth as well as just random thoughts and ideas and material for my personal memory archives. I’m inspired to do this by Molly Westerman’s always interesting links for thoughts posts and by a blog I stumbled across recently called The Holistic Homeschooler(she does a weekly “homeschool mother’s journal” post).

So…here goes…

What I’ve been up to

Me = grading papers and final exams. The last day of the session is today

What boys have been up to

They both enjoy playing Minecraft to an almost obsessive degree. This week they’ve been working on plans for programming mods for the game and setting up sort of mock worlds with things they’d like their mods to have. Lann worked on a Batman themed mod and Zander’s is about “hunchback zombies” (many of whom are holding cakes).

New dog Dagger!

They’ve been making movies for the last several months in a very dedicated manner that I’ve really enjoyed observing. Over 300 video clips have been filmed since this new project began. And, then, this week, the perhaps inevitable happened—they dropped and broke my camera. It was around $300, but I quickly realized that I didn’t have any grounds to be mad at them (despite the fact that they’d been carefully instructed to always keep the strap around their wrist and to be careful). When you give 8 and 5 year old’s free reign with a camera, breakage is definitely a possible side effect. I also try very hard to remember the people before things mantra. So, now their extensively movie making projects are on hold until we figure out a replacement. I’m thinking a low cost kid-friendly, video-capable camera and an adult camera might be the most logical plan.

They buzz with ideas constantly. Lann’s big project idea this week was for a virtual reality helmet. Mark and I both struggle with the balance between expressing interest in his ideas and offering reality checks. It can be extraordinarily exhausting, truly. The other thing they came up with is a cartoon strip about “Poo Log Dog.” This is based on their intense dislike of our new little dog, Dagger, who showed up skinny and starving last month and is now part of the family. I like him, which is a real shocker, because dogs are not my favorite. The boys are less enraptured.

We’re back to our no artificial colors experiment which seems to have a drastic impact on Z’s rage fits, Lann’s teasing, and their cooperation with each other. We’ve had days and days of happy playing, bright energetic faces and ideas, and very little discord or meltdowns.

I love this baby's eye view picture taken by my friend at the playgroup Valentine party last month.

What baby has been up to

Walking more and more—I think we’ve almost seen the last of the crawling baby and the funny little one foot on ground, one leg down scoot-drag-crawl.

Climbs up on couch and onto stepstool in bathroom

Walks unsupported outside

Loves outside—loves so very much.

Likes to do mischievous stuff on purpose and stare at person til they notice and then squeal/yell while staring in their eyes.

Makes addle, addle, addle sound with tongue. Still uses adorable, “hmmm?” question-intonation sound to ask for or about things. Says Dagger, dog, Daddy, dragon, and quite a few other things. Refuses to perform any of them on command.

Loves to spin! In hammock swing outside, on Sit n Spin toy, dancing with brother. (A long time ago, pre-kids, I went to a workshop on play therapy. One of the speakers maintained that you should never bounce or rock or jiggle a baby, because it predisposes them to become addicts later in life—i.e. they start to like the feeling of having a “scrambled brain” and seek out that stimulation. It is amazing how certain, seemingly small experiences can leave a powerful legacy that cast a shadow on happy moments!)

What Mark has been up to

The man is quite focused on his plans for an aquaponics system. Is drawing plans for the greenhouse and figuring out supplies to buy. Planning to take a week off soon to focus on building it. We’ve also been doing our work party with a group of four friends. We take turns working on each other’s homesteads on alternate weekends. It has been a really good, community-building experience.

Homeschooling report

I finally did a Cartesian diver experiment (about buoyancy and air pressure) with the boys and it worked perfectly. While we did so, Alaina mashed her breakfast and a fruit leather into a cup of water.

I also signed them up for Studyladder. Jury is still out on whether this was a good plan. The graphics and style seem “primitive” in a way, like they were programmed in the late 90’s. However, I like it because they have math and science and counting in other languages, as well as reading. It seems much more comprehensive and full scale. Lann has also been wanting to work on his Click N Read Phonics lately and Zander has been doing Reading Eggs (still our favorite) and occasionally Starfall (we pay for the “more” version). Jumpstart we’ve let go, because even though it has really cool graphics and features, we can rarely get it to start up without crashing/freezing/or being generally frustrating.

I’ve been trying to find a good new book to read aloud to them. We keep reading the first chapter of various (free Kindle) books and then deciding we want something different.

This week (month) in blog news

I hit the 200,000 hit mark! That is pretty good for something that started out only intended for a local audience. I checked my annual stats too and noticed that in 2008 (my first full year of blogging), I had 8,000 hits during the entire year. Just this past week, my All that Matters is a Healthy Husband post had 8,000 hits by itself. ;-D Another new post that had a lot of shares and views was the Spontaneous Birth Reflex. I was happy to finally write it and also its related companion piece about the Rest and Be Thankful Stage of labor. My Honoring Miscarriage discussion and giveaway are still open too.

What’s on my mind

I am nearly speechless and also horrified about the current political obsession with contraception. This isn’t about birth control it is about woman control. I can’t stand it! And, I do not consider contraception to be a “women’s issue,” it is a human issue. Last time I checked, men participated in sex too. And, they too, desire a size of family that is compatible with their other needs (financial, personal, whatever). Likewise, many, many happily married, monogamous couples choose to use birth control and ; enjoy being able to have sex without procreating. It would be bizarre to characterize a man’s desire to be responsible for his own fertility as, “being paid to have sex all day.” It is equally bizarre to apply this claim to women.

In my work for my doctoral classes, I focus extensively on body politics, reproductive rights/politics, feminism, women’s rights, and personal autonomy as well as the historical and sociopolitical context of these issues. Since I live in a conservative area and have a “public” reputation to maintain, I shy away from addressing any of these subjects in depth here (I’m very googleable by students and prospective clients—heck, this blog was originally intended exclusively as a business tool for my local clients). However, in an ironic twist, that is exactly the kind of social control/inhibition/silencing/oppression of women that I am so passionate about addressing in my doctoral work. In fact, my dissertation is going to be about a thealogy of the body and how women’s bodies are the very terrain upon which patriarchal religious structures are built and maintained.

What I’m reading

I just finished reading The Hunger Games for book club—gobbled it up in a couple of hours—and I’m in the middle of the second one. I also finished reading Sisters Singing which is anthology of women’s prayers, blessings, songs, and readings. I read it over the course of several months in short segments during my daily meditation/altar time. I also finished reading Daughter of the Forest (also for book club) and Nobody Girl (don’t bother) and I am Woman by Rite: A Book of Women’s Rituals. I’m currently reading Peggy O’Mara’s Way Back Home collection of essays. The boys and I are listening to the sixth Harry Potter book on tape while in the car. I really love doing this! I less love realizing that by the time we finish we will have spent a minimum of 19 hours in the car. Whew. When I’m on my own I’m listening to Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce, one of my favorite childhood authors who wrote The Song of the Lioness Quartet, which is where I got Alaina’s name (I guess when I was approximately 12). I recently finished re-listening to Two for the Dough and Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich.

Articles I’ve enjoyed

Breastfeeding support: less is not more

What an awesome logo for the upcoming LLL of Illinois conference!

“I feel saddened by the alarming regularity at which women give up their desire to breastfeed because breastfeeding is not the ‘best’ way to feed babies. It’s the normal way. The idea that breastfeeding is somehow extraordinary persists because we live in a culture where very limited paternity leave is normal, where an expectation to continue cooking and cleaning and exercising and socialising in the post partum weeks and months is normal, and where a perception that unpaid work (especially if it is physical and monotonous) is pointless drudgery is normal.”

Breastfeeding – Does Science Mislead Parents & Professionals?

“A clear majority of public opinion in the United States supports the view that ‘breastfeeding is healthier for babies’, yet substantially more than half of the surveyed population disagree that ‘feeding a baby formula instead of breastmilk increases the chances the baby will get sick’.

If exclusive breastfeeding was the norm against which other methods are measured, breastfeeding would not be ‘protective’ and breastfed infants would not enjoy ‘lower risks of ill health’; they would instead be referred to as ‘normal’, while formula fed infants are in fact ‘exposed’ to increased risk of poor health and development.“

Also enjoyed this post from The Minimalists about turning off the internet at home. Since we live out of town and I work from home teaching online AND since it is super important to me to have a home based life, it wouldn’t make any sense for me to shut off the internet at home and drive into town to use it, but for a while after reading this article I fantasized about it.

And, this inspirational short post from Roots of She.

And, some pictures:

This heart-meltingly adorable sight met my eyes as I sneaked away from Alaina's napping self this week.

Tiny, independent nature girl!

Sweet sibling moment even though I lose crunchy points because they're watching a movie (it is Kipper though)

Yes, we have a michief-maker in the house!

I have about 14 others things I was going to include, but forgot about, such as the fact that we had our first local birth network meeting in February and I feel really good about it. But, now this post is terribly long and cumbersome anyway. I’m too wordy to do a bits and pieces type post, I guess! I thought it was going to be short and simple—instead it took several hours over the course of multiple days to get ready to post. Sheesh!