I have been obsessed with "the olden days" for as long as I can remember. I devoured historical fiction. Books like Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Secret Garden, Little Women and the American Girl series were my magical gateways to golden days gone by, days I longed to be a part of. I loved the notion of the simple, quiet lives, close-knit communities, self-sufficiency, and old-fashioned ideals...and maybe, if I am honest, the dresses. Until I had Liam, I used to say that I was born in the wrong century. I can't keep up with the quick pace of life these days. I never have the latest and greatest anything, and usually cannot even see the point in whatever it is. I often feel slow and out of place and decidedly uncool. But...there is nothing quite like having a life-threatening pregnancy complication, emergency birth and premature baby kept alive by machines to knock the romanticizing of the past right out of you. Suddenly, the past is just a dark and scary place where you and your baby would be dead and you are feeling quite ready to embrace modern medicine and modern technology. In fact, you sort of want to wrap yourself up in the safe cocoon of modern living and never look back again. But, after a healing period, I discovered there are still things I envy about the way people lived so long ago; however, most of the things I love have more to do with simple living than those "olden days" I used to long for. Things like cooking from scratch, sewing and knitting, an abundant kitchen garden, less technology, more walking, slow living, room to breathe... and, maybe still, those dresses. These are the simple things I want to capture for myself and for my children, even in the fast-paced, "latest and greatest" time that they are growing up in. My hope for them is that, many years from now, their childhood will stretch on for ages in their memories and it will be full of lazy, quiet afternoons, wild adventures in nature, cooking lessons from mom, crunchy beans plucked straight from the garden, and maybe just a little bit of unsupervised trouble. I hope that they will remember that we made hot chocolate on winter nights and snuggled up with movies during thunderstorms and went to the farmer's market on Wednesday afternoons for eggs and milk. One of the ways I am attempting to slow our lives down is through seasonal living. This is something I am just starting to embrace and I am still quite new at it. All it really means is being more aware and accepting of the seasons and the changes they bring. It sounds so easy but once I really started diving into it, I became aware of just how out of touch I am with the rhythm of the seasons. We are taking the re-introductions slow. I am throwing the windows open and turning off the air conditioner. We are spending as much time as possible outdoors in all sorts of weather. We are figuring out when to plant the things we want to eat in our garden and we are learning to eat and store food in season. This week, our local strawberry farm posted that the strawberries were ripe, so that meant that this week "seasonal living" was picking as many strawberries as we thought we might need this summer, since the strawberries we planted this year will not produce fruit until the fall. On Thursday of last week, without any notice, I slathered the boys in sunscreen, packed them in the car and declared it Strawberry Day. ,The boys impressed me with their picking abilities this year! In spite of growing tired after an hour, we still managed to bring home about 15 pounds of strawberries! We brought them home, cleaned them up and sorted them into three categories: For Eating, For Baking, For Freezing. We then spent the afternoon turning them into strawberry limeade concentrate, strawberry lime popsicles, strawberry coulis, and lots and lots of whole frozen strawberries for smoothies and ice cream and other various things. The boys have put in their requests for strawberry muffins, strawberry cake, strawberry shortcake, strawberry pancakes, and many other versions of baked strawberry goods, all of which end in "cake," so a strawberry baking day is in our very new future. We also brought a bucket of strawberries for our shared snack during forest school today because sharing is caring! I hope that one day, as spring rolls around, the boys will begin to anticipate Strawberry Day. I hope in the winter their mouths will water at the thought of spring and strawberries. I hope one day they will associate the taste of a sun-ripened strawberry with springtime and playing outside and planting things in the garden and soft grass under their bare feet. I hope when they are 90, they will savor a bite of strawberry cake and think, "It is just the way my mother used to make it every Spring."
0 Comments
Rory Emerson turned 2.5 today. I took these photographs of him almost a year ago. These are some of my favorite Rory moments. He is pure light and love and unbridled joy. When I took these pictures, I did not really know what to expect for Rory's future, so I am not entirely sure whether or not I am surprised by where Rory is now. If there is anything this boy has taught me it is living in the moment. Many things have happened for our Roo bear in the past six months. He is crawling on all fours. He is responding to language. He is using a few words and gestures to communicate. He is sitting up on his own. He received an official diagnosis of Diplegic Spastic Cerebral Palsy. He has several pieces of supportive equipment such as a Spio suit, a medical walker and AFO's that have greatly enhanced his mobility. He is receiving regular chiropractic care and bi-weekly acupuncture, and Chinese herbal supplements and we have noticed undeniable changes in him since beginning these alternative therapies. These are all good things.
We are also in the beginning stages of transitioning him from home-based therapy to developmental preschool and in six short months, provided all goes as planned, I will most likely be sending one of my children to school for the very first time. I am not going to lie, it is terrifying. I sometimes feel as if I have been backed into a corner by Rory's diagnosis, forced to give up a lifestyle I love, a philosophy I believe in, and, most importantly, precious time with my child, to do what is best for him. But I will always, always do what is best for him. Even when I hate it and it sucks. At 2.5, Rory lights up any room he is in. He has the best smile and the best kisses and the best hugs. When he reaches for you, you reach back. You can't help it. You can have your hands full and be running late to something important and really have to pee and you will still drop everything and take that baby in your arms because you just can't walk away. He can entertain himself for hours. He can destroy a room in minutes. He can shriek like a pterodactyl. He still does not take his newfound mobility for granted and he will often look at your with a look of total surprise and pleasure as he crawls purposefully around the room. His ringlets and his big hazel eyes draw attention wherever we go and he never fails to make friends with his charming personality. Rory lives life to the fullest and I am so pleased to be a part of his journey. Happy half birthday to my littlest little. When it comes to parenting, I take the long way around; let's call it the scenic route. I just don't understand the rush to push kids out of the nest and into the world.
Wean by one. Potty train by two. Literacy by five. Sleeping through the night as quickly as humanly possible, of course. Independence is the doctrine of our culture, and it is taught to us as dogmatically as any preacher spouting fire and damnation from the pulpit. I have been questioned for every decision I have ever made that gives my children room and time to be little and new: soothing hurt feelings or helping navigate social situations instead of insisting they do it themselves, keeping them out of school so they can spend their days playing, not having chore lists or allowances, breastfeeding my toddlers, rocking my babies to sleep, on and on and on. I am regularly scolded by strangers for carrying my two year old. "Let him down so he can walk, he needs to learn some independence!" Setting aside the reality that my two year old cannot walk, I always think to myself in these moments, "What is the rush? Why are we in such a rush?" Do we genuinely believe that if a child does not start doing things for himself as soon as absolutely possible that he will never learn? Could it be that the vulnerable and needy simply make us intensely uncomfortable and while we feel fine expressing that discomfort openly when it is directed at the homeless and the poor, we have to find passive aggressive ways of directing it at children? Perhaps, we want to rush children through childhood because a child needing her parents for survival is offensive to our sensibilities of working hard for what you have and being a contributing member of society? Or is it just that as selfish, egocentric people, the idea of someone needing us to be self-sacrificing is confusing and off putting because we have been taught our entire lives to put ourselves first? Is it just that we have bought that our happiness is most important and that the kids are going to be alright as long as mommy and daddy are happy... so go out there and find your bliss and manifest your destiny and sacrifice as little of yourself as humanly possible because losing yourself is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to you? Whatever the reason, I find it absolutely absurd. I find the entire salvation message of Independence absurd. It is harmful to people. It is harmful to society. And... it is entirely false. People need people. We need each other. I wake up every single day and rely on a million different people, people I do not know and will never meet, to function. I rely on a grocery store employee making minimum wage to show up at work so I can buy bananas for my baby's breakfast and I rely on a farm laborer halfway around the world to grow the bananas and pick them and package them so that I can buy them for my baby's breakfast. I rely on a scientist somewhere on the planet to work long hours and miss her daughter's dance recital to make the medicine that keeps my seven year old from curling up in a ball in the corner of his bedroom asking me what is wrong with his broken brain. I rely on you to not walk into the grocery store that I am shopping at or the pharmacy I am waiting in or the church I am praying in and decide to pull out a gun and start shooting at me and my children. I rely on the truck driver who ended up divorced because his wife could not handle the long weeks apart, to pull into the gas station and fill it with gas so I can drive my car to my son's doctors appointments or karate lessons. I rely on politicians and law makers and bus drivers and therapists and friends and family and my husband and my children and I do not spend one single second of any given day independently. Independence is a myth. Rather than teach my children "independence," I choose to spend my time teaching my children to be good humans to other humans...and to animals and to the earth. My children who were breastfed past one and potty trained whenever and aren't quite reading yet and never learned to self-sooth are learning how to be good humans. Even a three and a half year old who is still breastfeeding will snatch his shoes from your hand and tell you defiantly that he can do it himself. One day, he will also stop breastfeeding, and stop waking up in the middle the night, and learn to do his own laundry, and get a job, and move away from home, because the desire to take care of yourself is human nature. It does not require teaching, it requires patience. Selflessness and an awareness of our interdependence are the learned behaviors that require my attention and efforts....and also my patience. Because even still, there is no rush. When they make mistakes as they always have and always will, we talk about why it was a mistake and we work on what we could do better and we will do that over and over and over again until it sticks. I have the rest of my life to teach these boys to be good humans and I have the rest of my life to learn to be one. Besides, without all the time limits and stress and rushing about, the scenic route is a lot more fun. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
|