ingrid

My kids love a good gimmick.

Last year I read Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy.  (I encourage you to check out her blog through the link too.  She’s very clever and entertaining).  I read a lot during the year, and of that reading, about 0% is usually parenting books.  I don’t like people telling me what to do, thus I do not like parenting books.  This book, however, struck a chord with me, offering me something that I NEEDED.  My thoughts and dear Lenore’s were perfectly aligned last year.  I kept thinking—why is it that I:

1)  think that MOST people are basically good, even in the city

2)  hear other parents freak out about the dangers of the now versus then,(as in “It wasn’t like this when I was a kid”) even though crime rates across the board, including crimes against children continue to plumment

3)  want my kids to be outside and free and adventurous

AND

4)  feel totally crushed and stifled by the pressure to supervise each and every minute of their play?

And I kept thinking—is this what parenting is suppose to be?  I certainly don’t remember my parents watching us each and every day of our existence.  Didn’t I ride my bike to friends’ houses (like MILES away).  Didn’t I range alone for whole days?  (I do remember bringing a lunch or just not coming home until dinner.)  Didn’t I climb the highest trees (and hang by my knees)?

And I know that in terms of sexual abuse and violence, that kids are in danger around offenders who have consistent ACCESS to them, which is why kids are largely abused by relatives or friends of the family—this is sad but true.  If I want to keep my kids safe, I need take care of my own mental health, keep the kids away from guns, and control who comes in this home, because children are at greatest risk of being harmed by US—the ones who say we love them and are suppose to take care of them.

But in terms of moving freely around our neighborhood, I wondered why it felt so hard to parent my children in the community of my choice.  Why shouldn’t the kids walk home from school alone sometimes, or go to the children’s section in the library on their own, or ride their bikes around the block?  Why shouldn’t Francis take her $3  by herself to the yard sale down the block?

Anyway, Lenore addresses all these issues and more and is freaking funny to boot.  I loved her book, laughed all the way through it, and was impressed at how she balls-ily took many jokes nearly too far.  Quite the commitment!  The other thing that I loved was just that her book sort of soothed my soul.  I was carrying all these worries alone, grappling with these contradictions and feeling crushed and hopeless about the world that my actions seemed to show I believed in.  Does that make sense?  What I mean is, I don’t think the world is all ugly.  I don’t think evil is all around us.  Why was I living like I did?

Whoops.  This was suppose to be about chores.  Next time!

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I am not a brilliant logician, but I thought I did okay at illuminating the larger issues for my children.  When Francis would whine about what she wanted to do when the whole family was discussing plans that should be fun for everyone, I would commonly say, “Francis, are you the most important person in the family?”.  She had to think about it, but she would usually arrive at “No….” and seem to understand that she had to work within the confines of the group desires.

Today however, I heard Zephyr use this phrase on Inez.  ”Inez, are you the most important person in this family?”  There was a long pause.  I felt proud of how my simple question illuminated the necessity that we all work together for mutual happiness, how the question shows that WE ARE ALL EQUAL HERE and our desires carry equal weight.  Then he said, “No, Mama is!”.

Crushing.  Goes to show that you can not enlighten the proletariat.  Freedom within social boundaries is still seen as oppression.  I’m going to Cuba.

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Lord you have blessed me with children, but I do not want 5 of them.

My two nephews are staying the night.  They are perfectly lovely kids.  Really.  There is nothing wrong with them, but when paired with the chaos that is already present around here, it is… enough for angry face.  Someone peed in a board game, two someones rubbed diaper ointment all over a window, the same two someones took scissors to a philodendron, and then emptied an entire kitchen cabinet.  Someone else emptied the entire basket of trains….wait!  That was me!  (Now why did I do that?  I’m sure I had a good reason to do that.)

Zephyr this evening took a fork to one of my very expensive dining room chairs.  Then he lied about it and said Inez did it.  The hilarious thing about the lie was that I misheard him and in an attempt to clarify said, “She scratched the chair with a knife?!” and he answered, “No, a fork”.  Who had the fork in his or her hand?  Zephyr.  That is the problem with lying.  The minute you give details, you enter the problem zone.

Brad is completely incensed by lying.  He is entirely upright and ethical.  He sees no reason to lie EVER and accuses me of dishonesty for all sorts of minor offenses.  He was disgusted with me when our kids bit holes in an expensive toy of a friend’s and rather than tell the friend, (who I knew would say–”No big deal!”) I just replaced the toy with a matching one.  ”Dishonest!” he bellowed.

He is not upset about the chair, but heaped on punishment for the lie.  I am upset about the chair, but I sort of understand the attempt at lying.  It bothers me in a sort of cosmic way, but I understand why a kid would try to dodge the bullet.  I also understand that lying WILL screw you over.

Not can but WILL.  I have gotten caught for every lie I have ever told, (except to Brad for the purpose of surprises and such—those always work.  He is incredibly credible!), so I guess when I punish the kids for lying I only want them to understand that lying makes things worse, not better.

Zephyr was feeling the pain tonight.  He was sent to bed right after dinner, and his computer password was changed for the week (No!  Gasp!  This is really akin to cutting off a hand or something.  I swear the kid seems to have one week of computer privileges and then lose it the next.  And Brad who would seriously die if someone removed his computer privileges seems to have no problem banishing the offender.)

I had better be good this week.  No lying!  Never!  Not even when I tell my sister, “It was easy!” tomorrow morning.

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Just thought I ought to tell you—yeah, I’m fine.

It’s hard when you quit writing for awhile and then try to start again, but find that maybe you need to waste a bunch of time writing about why you weren’t writing, writing about why you should be writing, etc.  Brad’s cousin’s wife did this really sweet (like awesome) summation of her year—6 parts and beautiful photos to boot.  I was impressed with it, but couldn’t pull that off.

I thought about my philosophy of art too.  Maybe people are really dying to hear about that! I composed lengthy and elegant musings on what it takes for a working individual to have something left over to create—in my head.

For the most part, my excuses are boring.  I got sick.  I actually had more art to do and less time to write about it.  The kids are unrelenting.  (Did anyone tell you that when you were younger?  I just want to make sure that everyone hears this.  Guess what?  KIDS ARE UNRELENTING.)  I’m freaking tired.  Just finishing the laundry and keeping the house running is sometimes too much for me.  I didn’t feel too creative.  I got hooked on this awesome YA book series and would rather that the author just downloaded his crazy ideas to my brain than to have to work to come up with any of my own (Uglies by Scott Westerfeld).

But, I’m here.  I’m fine.  I’m even kind of happy.  I just didn’t have the energy to tell anyone about it.  But now, I’m gonna’, I’m gonna’, I’m…oh, we’ll see.

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I wrote about making things for Christmas, but didn’t want to spoil the surprise with pictures.  (Or was it that I finished everything so last minute that I DIDN’T HAVE pictures?).  One of those.  Whatever.

Anyway, it was a good Christmas for my art.  It is hard for me to explain how I feel about making things.  And it is strangely tied up in my feelings about staying home with kids.  In a nutshell, it seems that the work of parenting these children day in and day out can be a little thankless.  I’m embarrassed sometimes trying to talk about MY life, because it sounds like the kids’ lives.  I don’t really lose myself in them (because I am far too selfish for that!) but I fear sounding like I am.

What is mine and just mine?  Making things.  Art work feels joyful for me.  I love creating, I love surprising myself at figuring out little projects.  I love RESULTS, which is a sensation that I don’t get from the children.  My friend Carmi calls it “product”.  She says you work and change diapers and help with homework and dress children and make food and clean the house…. and then you do it again without ever really seeing an end product.  She cans in order to see her product; to line it up and look at it and say, “Yes.  I made this.”  It is the same for me.

I feel like I am sort of arriving as an artist, not because I made such unique or amazing things, (although I was pleased with them).  It is because I did it.  Making the time to sit down and create has been a goal for a few years now and I feel like I finally made it happen this year.

Okay, enough philosophical blather.  Here is what I made:

A passel of Ugly Dolls

Yes, me!

Little clay houses to attach to soap packages

Pear chutney and a bar of soap topped with a ceramic house

These were tea party gifts---they looked nice on the table.

I also finished a felted hat for a friend, a crazy sweatshirt with a Japanese cartoon character on it for my sister, and made a fabric table runner for a cousin, but of course did not get pictures of any of this.  So goes it.  Maybe this year’s resolution will be to better photograph my projects.  Or maybe make something for myself?

4 Comments | In: Current musings, Projects That I Do With My Clever Little Fingers | | #

Ha!

Sorry.

We are chicken-sitting around here.  We took in two chickens for some school friends who are traveling in Guatemala for a month.  These girls are pretty, but not really earning their keep, so they are joining the rest of our girls “on the dole”.  A combination of molting, youth and old age are making egg efforts sort of meager.  Out of our nine chickens, it seems like only one is actually laying.  Geeze Louise!  They’ll be back at it in another month or so.

My friend’s chickens are not laying either, although the younger one should be laying by now.  I kind of think she might be a bit overweight, which can certainly happen in small flocks where one hen is dominant and there isn’t much competition for feed.  In my mind I started calling her “FattyCakes”.  (I’m sorry Pam!).  I know it is mean, but it just rolls off the tongue so nicely!

I’m actually glad that FattyCakes brought in some extra heft because I think it is helping her stand her ground around here.  I had been worried about bringing new chickens into our flock because our hens are such ass-kickers.  They aren’t very nice to new-comers.  I figured that I understood more about flock dynamics this time around and could maybe make the transition smoother.  I kept the hens separated for a few days but visible to each other.  FattyCakes got pecked through the wire, but everyone seemed okay with each other by the end of day two.

The biggest challenge has been getting everyone to roost on the roosts.  The teenagers (chicks) have this obnoxious habit of crapping up the nesting boxes.  Now mind you, no one is USING them, but I still hate to see poop in them.  When the miracle eggs do start to show up again, I want them to have a lovely clean place to be deposited.  I hung cloths, I nailed boxes shut, I put stuff in them at night….nothing worked.  Nothing short of tromping out there in the dark and dragging the poulets out of the box screaming seemed to work.  Once they gave up the box, they started roosting on the top of a door frame, way up high above my head.  FattyCakes joined them one night.  I didn’t even realize that an 8 pound hen could get up that high.

In other news, before it started raining (and raining, and raining) last week, I finished hauling the leaves from hither and yon and piled them on my garden a few feet deep.  I put down a layer or two of chicken manure, wood shavings, compost and other good stuff. There you are blueberries.  Do NOT die this winter.  Goodnight garden.  See you in spring.

These cold but dry Autumn days make me happy.  When I have the time to do repetitive outdoor tasks, I find my breath just slowing down and my mind just peacefully wandering.  I have so little time to be in my own head, quiet with my own thoughts.  An hour or so scraping shit off roosts really leaves me feeling like a new and better person!  At these times I have to laugh recognizing that I actually love to work.  Cleaning out my henhouse makes me happy.  Raking leaves and hauling stuff makes me happy.  Looking at my compost makes me happy.

And my beauty berry—that the painters stepped on, and I thought they killed it but it came back—in fruit makes me happy.

Here’s to chickens, compost and beauty berries!  I wish you many small moments of happiness as we approach Christmas.

2 Comments | In: Chickens Are Super Fabulous, Current musings, urban farming | | #

I recently finished Ayelet Waldman’s new book Bad Mother. While I enjoyed the book, I wasn’t much impressed with the various things that she listed that made her feel like a bad parent.  My theory is that any parent who offers up their “bad mother” story is really only sharing something from the middle ground.  Most people wouldn’t pipe up with the real dirt as those parenting “dark moments of the soul” are not so funny and make for pretty terrible anecdotes.  You want to make all the mommies at the playdate fall into an awkward silence?  Share one of those!  “This one time I got so sick of him throwing bark dust that I grabbed a handful and crammed it down his throat!  And I didn’t stop until he was screaming and barfing up bark chips!  With blood!  HA ha ha……uhhhh, yeah.”

Oh wait a minute.  This isn’t suppose to be about my problems!  Anyway, Ayelet in a very offhand manner said one thing that I have pondered much this last few weeks.  It isn’t even one of her major points, but she asked when it became inappropriate to ask babysitters to clean up while watching the kids.  I thought about this a bit, because while I seem to employ many babysitters (and often), I haven’t really thought much about what I am actually expecting them to do.

The young women I am using right now all seem nice.  They all seem to like kids, and yet, no one seems to know how to put away food after dinner, or get kids to bring dishes to the kitchen, or pick up toys or projects around the house.  This wasn’t too big a deal until I found myself repairing the damage of being gone—for two hours one day.  I had only been out of the house for 3 hours.  How could things get so messed up?

And so I ask you fair reader—  if you were ever a babysitter, were you expected to clean up after dinner?  Or did you clean up even if not asked?

If you are a parent, do you ask your babysitters to clean up or put away food?  Or are you just glad the baby is still alive when you get home?

Weigh in—let me know.

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I actually don’t quite feel that good.  Frazzled is more like it, but I am trying to think positively in the hopes that some might wear off on me.  It is a “fake it until you make it” sort of philosophy.  Those clever Alcoholics Anonymous have so many good ideas for living!

Last week was the first week of Zephyr’s school AND Brad was on a business trip, so I was slogging through by myself, trying not to collapse into tears too many times (confuses the kids a bit) or scream obscenities at them (confuses the kids a bit).  In short, I was trying to be a better person than I am, which is always hard but a worthwhile dream to pursue.

Our new life is way too time-based.  It involves short, intense pushes in order to get dressed, fed, shoes on, out the door, then fed, shoes on, out the door, then nap, then diaper changed, shoes on, out the door.  We run out of here THREE times a day.  We have to be on time somewhere three times, which just about kills me.  On Wednesdays when there is soccer, we have to be on time FOUR times.  I sort of hate it.

I have always prided myself on being somewhat organized.  I am pretty dependable.  I do what I say I am going to do.  I hate being late.  Now I hate being on time, or rather, hate having to be on time.  I yearn to space out.  I yearn to not have to be responsible.  My sister Kendall says that you know you are overwhelmed when you start day dreaming about ending up in the hospital—hurt, but not too hurt, just hurt enough to merit a bit of rest where no one expects anything from you.  I’ll admit that the thought did occur to me last week.

Now Francis is in school from 8:45am to 3pm, and Zephyr joins her from 12:15pm to 3pm.  Inez naps in there, so I do have a nice block of complete quiet that I need to learn to maximize.  Don’t let the internet suck you in for hours!  Don’t get stuck scrubbing toilets!  It’s thankless! I am stuck at home a lot these days (because there is no freaking time to go anywhere or do much of anything), but that doesn’t have to be bad.  And on the bright side, my seven year old has become super helpful and responsible.  And she’ll scrub toilets for 50 cents.  I don’t know.  I guess I am not a good Buddhist.  I can’t wait until next year.

Not sure if I am thrilled...

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I like the phrase “dog days of summer”.  I realize that it is talking about the dog star being visible in the night sky and has little to do with actual dogs, but it still makes me think of dogs, lying under a tree in the shade panting.  It makes me think of my childhood and this obnoxious but lovable dog we had named Bilbo.

We have chicken days of summer around here.  I tired of stinky chicks in the house after a whole week.  That might be a world record actually.  The baby girls were banished to the henhouse last night.  I felt pretty proud of myself in this respect.  I rigged up a nice little place where the chicks can “hang with the big girls” without being pecked or smashed to death by the big girls.  You have to introduce any new members to the flock with care and consideration; that goes double for the little ones.  I had read enough horror stories on on-line chicken blogs, (yes, it is not just me), about baby chicks being killed by adult hens.  Other blogs suggested that new members could be introduced by the “seen but not touched” method.  Usually this would be by putting the new birds in caged off area where the established hens can get used to seeing the new birds for a while.  I think I may have accomplished this with the chicks by fencing them in above the nesting boxes in my storage place.

The babies still need warmth at night, so I ran a light out to the henhouse using my NEW outdoor plug.  I know that most people probably have one at their house and TAKE IT FOR GRANTED, but I do not.  We have not had anywhere to plug anything in to for the last 5 years.  Finally with the bathroom remodel I had them stick a plug through to the outside and now I have all this freedom to plug shit in!  How should I waste electricity first?  The possibilities are endless!  (I am thinking bouncy house!)

Unfortunately this is going to be a source of worry for me.  I wish I weren’t like this, but I imagine it will be a few nights before I can sleep without worrying about burning the henhouse down.  When I first got a running fountain outside I worried about raccoons getting in it for two nights.  What would they do there and why did that matter?  I don’t know, but I worried about it.

Besides chicken matters, little is going on these days.  After a summer jam-packed with fun and running around, my children seem to want to go nowhere and do nothing.  For the second day in a row I offered fun options, including requisite bribery.  They didn’t take it…. even for a pastry at the Italian bakery, even for a trip to the fountain downtown, even for a stop at the library.  What do they want to do?  Stay home.  Play with legos.  Dress up their animals (and sister) and pretend they are going to a wedding.

I’ve been vaguely frustrated with this because I am go-go-go!  I want to get out to Ikea and buy a new bookshelf for Francis’ room, hop down to Powell’s and pick up Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay, (can’t wait to read that one!), get the right sized screws to finish mounting hardware in the bathroom, and we are all out of milk so we need to grocery shop.

But I am trying to go with the flow, and the flow seems to be a trickle, so I need to be hip to that.  I am trying to not push it so much, stay quiet and enjoy this lovely time of peaceful play.

2 Comments | In: Chickens Are Super Fabulous, Current musings, family, My super freakin' cute kids | | #

I have a babysitter for a few hours every Friday.  This is a life-saver.  Even when I don’t know what I am going to do with myself, I treasure those short hours of solitude where I can just be firmly in my own head, not listening to anyone, not talking to anyone, and not needing to consider anyone’s needs except my own.

My own needs at this juncture in my life are enough to balance.  I have come to accept that I actually need a lot… and I am not going to get it all at once, (or I hate to admit, maybe not at all!).  I have accepted this, but I am well aware that if I am going to get anything at all,  I had better prioritize.  Here is what I have figured out that I need for optimum happiness:

• solitude
• feeling independent
• being artistic
• being intellectual
• exercise
• a house that may not be clean but is at least not disgusting
• spiritual time to contemplate the Divine
• time to space out, sit in a cafe and read the newspaper or a magazine
• accomplishing some tasks that are either necessary or make life easier

Can I fit this all in three hours once a week?  Nope.  It is a balancing act, this motherhood thing.  I want to do an art project, but my body is screaming for exercise.  I want to read my book, but there is grocery shopping that must be done.  I want to stay home and clean but the kids are there with the babysitter.  I can’t have it all.

Today I went for independence and accomplishing tasks.  I did some light birthday present shopping, had a double latte AND attempted to read Ulysses, but my mind was completely wandering and I totally could not understand it.  So much for intellectualism!  On a whim, I hopped out of the coffeeshop and decided to go take a jaunt on the Wildwood Trail above Lower Mclaey Park.

Oh lovely, lovely, lovely.  I don’t know about you, but there are some things in my life that are so transcendent.  Singing in gospel choir is one of them for me, as is watching theater.  Sitting by running water is another, as is listening to early morning bird song and smelling the midsummer wild roses in bloom.  Wildwood Park is right smack-dab in the middle of Portland.  From some stretches you can hear the work on the waterfront and the cars zooming through downtown and St Helen’s Road, but from other places you can hear… nothing.  Nothing except the birds.  This morning I walked for a few hours, letting my mind go blank, dreaming of things, (specifically, how to hike the Pacific Crest Trail with kids and how I might get over to Japan this year to see my sister Anne).  Half way through this hike, I felt my chest lighten, my brain lift out of my head, my breathing become slow.  In short, I was really, really happy.

I am not an unhappy person, but I think a lot about holding on to happiness.  Why is it that sometimes we are so joyful and full of life, and then another day things seem flat?  It isn’t what is happening to us; somedays nothing at all happens and I feel so great.  Others, not so much.  I wonder though how to get back there to the happy place.  Why can’t I live there all the time?

I know that we hear this all the time, but we human creatures NEED nature.  We need the woods.  I returned home peaceful, tired, ready to meet my little ones and make some grilled cheese sandwiches.  Recharged.  Ready for another week.

3 Comments | In: Current musings, Environment, family | | #