slug catcher

This morning when I left for work my son was patrolling the driveway on his tricycle looking for slugs. I'm usually fond of bugs and creep crawlies, but I have a grudge against slugs. Maybe it's the damage they do to the garden? Maybe it's the Huge slugs we had at our first house in NJ 9 years ago? Shudder. Maybe it's the work/anniversary camping trip on Cheat Mountain when small slugs invaded our tent and everything else we brought. Yuck. Anyway, I just have a thing about slugs. But my son doesn't. He rides around looking for the slimy critters and pokes them with a stick until they slime up enough to stick to the stick and then he peddles over and bangs his stick on the block next to the driveway until they fall off behind the wall. Thank you D for removing the slugs! I appreciate it, I really do.

nursing in an APLX

This is one of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. Me nursing my daughter in the Anglepack LX at the Frontier Culture Museum.

a tooth and a fox

My daughter has a tooth! I guess that explains the funny nursing habit and waking up every 45 minutes to nurse!

Oh, and my son won't go to sleep until he lays and egg in his nest. Then after nap he has to nurse the baby fox that hatches from the egg.

pea pods

I have a large pile of empty pea pods sitting on the corner of my desk today. This morning I stopped at the farmers market for lettuce (since our next batch is not ready yet) and couldn't resist the last bag of peas. I love peas! I bought them for my son - at least that's my justification - but I figured I should test a few before I take them home... I also got some cherry tomatoes. And the lettuce that I came for. Last evening my husband and son put up the cages on our tomato plants while I put our daughter to bed. The garden is looking really nice in the sections that we've gotten weeded and mulched. Hopefully soon I can get some more seeds in and we can finish up the mulching. Fun fun!

Oh, and we're going to have fresh broccoli with dinner! :)

what i need

Last evening I spent a little time weeding in the garden while my husband was mowing the lawn. Our son played in his digging hole at the edge of the garden and checked in with me periodically. Our daughter sat on my lap or in the hay beside me trying to eat weeds. And I listened. My mind was open. Thank you woowoo mama for the reminder to listen. And what I heard was that the reasons for my distress at working outside the home go beyond missing my children. Yes, I want to be with them, but it is more than that. Being a working mama means I have no time for the things that are important to me to be me and to be a mama. Deep things that seem simple but cannot be brushed aside like I have been doing. I have a deep need to provide for my family, not with a monthly pay check but with my own hands and my own self. It sounds silly. I mean, we have money to buy the things we need and want, why on earth would I personally need to be more involved. I don't know the answer to that, but it is what it is. I have been reflecting on this since last evening, and it makes sense. It is true. It is me.

Before we had children I was able to work And to do the things I needed to do to be me. I spent my free time growing plants, canning and freezing food, making things, etc. When we lived in suburbia and didn't have a large garden I made and canned our own soups to take to work for lunch. I cooked a lot. Baked a lot. I took fresh hot cinnamon rolls to my husband's work and fresh bread to seminars at school. And we were drawn home to the farm frequently. Now that I have children that deep inside part of me needs to provide for them. It is what I am meant to do. Not that I need to make everything for them, but a part of me, a big important part, is aching because I can't do what I am meant to do. I can't provide for their most basic needs in the most basic way. I have no time to cook and sew and can and teach. It's meant to be simple, and it can't be. Instead I have to take the round about path of working to earn money to buy the things and hiring others to teach them. And this is not a matter of "wait until they are older and then you will have more time to do the things that you need to do for yourself". No, what I need to do is provide for them! It is for me, but it's not that I want to have more time to myself, it is that I need to be a different kind of provider. And this is not something that I can do later. I only get one chance at this. I can't put these things off until the kids are grown, it won't be an option then.

A lot of these things are ideas that I have been flirting with for a while. Maybe I'm just hard headed or in denial, but these ideas are not new. Please guides, be patient with me while I try to grasp this and learn. Each time these ideas surface I take a little more of it to heart and remember for longer that it is true. I have been here before. There have been other times in my life where I felt too far removed from the basics of life and had to make major changes to recenter my life. Then gradually my life has moved away from that centering again. But I think we are nearing another big shake-up and recentering.

I feel is that there is a solution. It's not meant to be like this forever. So this morning I'm searching my mind and soul. What can that solution be? I don't expect it to jump out at me, but I think it's there somewhere. And it may take years to get there. But I also strongly feel that it will take all of our creativity and effort to make it work. If this is what we want (and it must be we, I cannot do it alone), then we must make it a big goal and take baby steps toward it. We must. Or the time will pass and the chance will be gone and it will not be what we Can do, but what we Could have done. And that will never bring happiness or contentment. So, please universe, give us the strength to put some effort where it is needed and find a way to meet all our needs, even our non-material needs.

one of those days

Today is one of those days where I want so badly to be a stay-at-home mom. I know that it is not possible, but I still dream that somehow it could happen. Every day I leave the most important things in my life. Every day I miss the little joys. Every day I am sad and feel an emptiness. Every day I am homesick.

I keep trying to get past this. To move on and accept and be thankful for what we do have. But I always end up right back here, with a lump in my throat.

I am thankful. Really I am. I am so thankful that my husband can be home - and is willing to be home - and is good at it. It is not an easy job. I am thankful that he gets to see all the little things I miss. I am thankful that I have a relatively flexible job without travel and usually not long hours. I am thankful that I have my own office and can pump milk for my baby without major inconvenience. I am thankful that I have a happy marriage and two wonderful kids. I am thankful for smiles and hugs. But darn it, it's just not easy to be away from my kids. I feel like I missed the most important calling in my life and now I will never get a second chance. I feel like I put my priorities in the wrong order before I had children and now I have to live with it forever.

Yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself, but it's one of those days.

nap versus garden

I would like to thank Annie at PhD in Parenting for including me in her series on preparing for baby #2. Annie will be sharing the the experiences of how she, janefriar, woowoo mama, and I adjusted to life with two. I am looking forward to reading more about their experiences, and I feel very honored to be included! :)

It is nap time again here, and everyone else is asleep. I supposed that I should nap, too, but I have never been a good napper. In kindergarten I was proud of the fact that I seldom napped even when everyone else (all 6 in my class) was asleep on their mats. And I remember lying on the bed at a babysitters house thumping my belly like a watermelon when I was supposed to be napping.

Today I feel like I could nap, but both bedrooms are full of nappers - and I don't want to risk waking anyone to go lie down. Maybe I will go work in the garden instead. Weekend nap times are the only time I ever really get to myself, so in some ways I think the time is more important than the sleep. So, off to the garden before it rains....

the trouble with sharing

(tough man and his tattoo - he came back from grandma's house with bugs)

Our son isn't particularly good at sharing. Maybe no tots are? Sometimes he is very good about sharing and distributing his toys/food/whatever, but only on his terms. He's very much an in charge kind of guy. He'll push carrot sticks and grapes on daddy until daddy begs him to stop. But he still isn't used to having another strong willed little person around.

Now that our daughter is mobile she is much happier. And she is keeping our son hopping removing his toys out of her reach. He is very possessive of his things. I have no idea how much of this is normal 3.5 year old stuff and how much is our spirited gift, but he gets right mad if she gets the wrong thing. Well, nearly anything. We talk to him a lot about sharing and about how she is just checking things out and will soon drop it and move on. But if he does not get the item away from her he sits there like a pot boiling over the whole time she is checking it out. And then he sighs a great sigh of relief when she drops is. He even took over the exersaucer - it's his car.

Our son can be very efficient at removing all interesting play things from an area, leaving his sister with a cloth diaper wipe, a diaper, mama's shirt, a paper towel tube, and a few other odds and ends to entertain herself in the bedroom. She used to get mad, but I think she's getting used to it. Sometimes it is even a game. He moves things a few feet away, she follows, he moves, she moves, he growls, she laughs. I'm also not sure how much of this is his game and how much is serious. Basically, I have no clue what's going on and how to deal with it. So we try to keep some sort of peace and find a few non-controversial things for our daughter to play with. Usually the boring things that she doesn't want.

But the last few days our daughter just leaves the room if there is nothing worthy of her time. We're gonna need some major peace keeping she learns to walk. We have a self motivated, self propelled baby on the loose and a possessive, spirited tot in the same space. I'd love tips from other attachment parenting peace keepers....

Wordless Wednesday: she was so small

My little girl is standing up any chance she gets now. She's getting so Big! She says "da" when her brother comes in the room, and maybe she says "dada"? And she is too busy to nurse properly except at nap and night or if she's in a carrier. I was looking for a picture for today and this group caught my eye (pictures taken by my cousin last Thanksgiving).

bouncing baby

Today I am bouncing a sick baby for her morning nap. This is only the second or third cold that she has had (so much for the well baby visit last week - I think it created a sick baby by visiting the doctors office), and she is not happy about having a nose filled with snot. Last night she had a lot of trouble sleeping lying down, so my husband (who has a cold now, too) or I had to hold her pretty much all night. Not conducive to sleep. This morning she is fussy and clingy, so I have been wearing her most of the morning. We decided that she needed a good nap and the best way to get that was to wrap her, so here I bounce. And really, I'm enjoying it. I never know when it will be the last good wrap-nap. Warm baby snuggled on my chest, breathing gently, relaxed bare legs and warm little toes hanging at my sides.

My baby is growing up. Probably my last baby. That is hard for me to admit, but I know that our family is full, and in reality I'm ready for some sleep and easier. But still, it's all happening so fast. Two weeks ago our daughter learned to crawl, a few days ago she learned to pull up to standing by herself. One evening I left her in the middle of the bedroom floor while I went to put diapers in the washer and when I returned she was standing at the changing table looking very pleased with herself. My husband says that she likes to stand at the TV cabinet and adjust knobs and push buttons while our son is watching is lunch-time video. And she has discovered the towel drawer in the kitchen and thinks that is great fun. Yesterday she smashed her fingers in it once, but that did not deter her for long. We can no longer leave her anywhere unattended because she is Trouble! Having a tot and a toddler in the house is going to be quite a handful!

I am trying to be conscious of both my daughter's need to practice her new found skills and mobility while also meeting her needs for being held close. I am trying to be very aware of her need to reconnect with me and to be available when she reaches for me or tries to crawl onto my lap. Since I am only home for a few waking hours during the day I try to be sure to wear her when I can instead of trying to get her to entertain herself by herself while I do things. She still very much needs her mommy time. And I still very much need baby time. Now balancing all that with giving my son enough mommy time is another matter, and something I am still working on every day.