How to get where you want to be...or the reality of the immediate needs versus the eventual goal

"House!" he said as he dumped the bin of blocks onto the floor.

For a long time now I have had goals for what I want my life to be like. I want to have the ability to choose for Alder the best educational setting that I can, and that I want to raise him consciously and full of creativity and passion. Ideal I would love to stay home with him a lot and work some as a writer. Of course that isn't our reality right now. The economy is effecting how many clients Kevin is seeing and it just isn't enough. Since we moved I have been working part time doing high end retail at a natural parenting store (read cloth diapers organic clothing, baby slings breast pumps and the like). It is a job I have a hard time with, I love helping new parents to choose the right diaper set up or baby sling but I have a hard time with the need for $60 children's hat or $18 a pair underwear. But it was a job that I got quickly and I love all the people I work with.

But our bills (which are not very much to begin with) are out of our reach still. A few nights ago I couldn't sleep and I went looking on-line for a new job when I found one that looks like I would be a good match for, it pays better and it is still only twent hours a week. But the best thing about the job is that it is one where I would be helping people reenter the work force. Teaching them to write resumes, do interviews, help them with employment skills. It would be making a difference in a real way. So once again I am rewriting my resume and fiddling with words to make me seem like the right person for this job.

I haven't even gotten the job and I feel bad. I am not ready to send Alder off for childcare yet, not as much as this job would require. I am guilty of being a dreamer about how our life should be but don't want to go through the in between stage of working other jobs while working towards becoming a better paid writer and while Kevin builds a consistant client base but we have to.

I'll admit I have a lot of envy for the lives of many of the women whose blogs I read, I want the house, the calm life, the ability to choose what I do with my time. But this envy isn't a negative it has helped me to clarify my goals and makes me realize that to end up living this life I aspire to I must be active in creating it. So I start slowly, I write article topics, I design cards, I look for work, I build toys for my son, I take him to to the woods alone and with friends, and I find joy with the new and deep connections that I am making with my family. But it doesn't mean that I don't stare longinly at the crisp photos taken with better cameras or wonder what it would be like to live in a space wholly our own.

These are only examples the reality is much more complex because there is an outside world impossing itself on me and there is a husband who doesn't always agree with me and there are days where I much rather look at blogs of other people's life than live my own.

Guns guns and more guns and a few crummy plastic swords too

I'm having to processing something I experienced the other night. We went to a Halloween party at a co-workers house last Saturday night. The first thing I noticed that Alder was the only child in a home-made costume. All the boys were Power Rangers, Star Wars characters or other "soldier" story characters (although there was one vampire) and all the girls were princesses (and on Pokemon). But the costumes we the supermarket sort and they all really looked the same, polyester one piece suits with a big gaping hole at the back and some indeterminate symbols on the front. I didn't think too much about it because I know not everyone sews or has the time to make a costume.

So we're there, all of us feeling somewhat uncomfortable. Everyone seems to know everyone else and we literally know one person. Not to mention the fact that I don't really like parties where everyone is crammed into a house and there is loud music. So I sort of hover in the kitchen talking with my friend and trying to help with setup. After a half hour I realize that Alder still hasn't left my side (A is usually searching out the other kids, even if it's to just watch them).

So I decide to walk him back to the kids room to show him where they are playing, and to give him a little space. I was not expecting what I would find in this sweet four year old's room. Guns, lots of toy guns, sixteen toy guns to be exact and an additional nine toy swords and knives of all varieties. I was speechless. The kids, even some younger than Alder, were collecting them in piles and shooting them at each other, in each others faces and sticking them in the faces of adults and pretending to threaten them. And no one seemed to care. Luckily Alder is my son and just the noise from the room was too much for him so he followed me back out to the living room.

Now I understand that I live in a bit of a "crunchy" public radio no TV bubble, but I was a public school teacher for five years and I can not remember ever this much focusing on guns. To be honest it really disturbed me. I know that it was a hyped on sugar get together but still it seemed so unchecked.

I should explain that it isn't as if I have a hate of guns, certainly not those used by hunters, in fact I spent many winters in Durango eating the elk, pheasant, venison and turkey that my friends would kill. I can even say one of my favorite toys as a child was a toy gun that my father and I made together that shot little pieces of cardboard. But in all these situations there was a great deal of understanding of what guns were for and the real effects that they can have.

The father of the boy whose room this was is a hunter, in fact he had just shot a bear that day. I thought that if anyone hunters are the ones who try to have their children understand guns and safety the best, because there are real guns around, but it seems as though it isn't always that way.

Besides the fact that they were guns I was also shocked by the quantity of them. Just the idea that a four year old had sixteen of anyone thing is sad to me. Especially when they are all disposable and pretty much interchangeable, why so many?

What does all of this means in relation to how I want to bring up Alder?

Violence is not okay, ever. Not for Alder while he is still young and forming his early sense of self. I know eventually weapons will make there way into his play, whether is pretending to be a medieval knight or a Greek soldier violence will enter the picture. But I would like for it to be introduced within the frame work of a story, one whose meaning goes beyond the fight. But these are not stories that he needs to hear for another four years, at least. Until then I am absolute in my feelings about violence and the associated play. If this means that I may shield my son from certain cartoons or other media (hey we already don't watch TV except fpr movies) I have absolutely no problem with that.

Of course no answer can ever be that simple. Alder already is growing up in house with weapons in it. Kevin practices martial arts and uses swords, staffs and kuan-daos as part of his practice. But Kevin frames it as an art form, sure he can protect himself as need be but he has never deliberately gotten into a fight. Alder may end up learning to use a sword in one of the sets that Kevin does which have more in common with ballet than with fighting (something he pointed out to me). To me this is a good thing, I think that if he learns about weapons first with respect he will be more apt to make better judgments later on.

Of course all of this means that Kevin and I have had to make some choices in our movie watching habits because we like to watch action movies. I can still recite Raiders of the Ark and James Bond (Sean Connery Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan only please) is in regular rotation in my favorites list. But now they are left for later evening viewing.

When Alder is all grown up I'll be able to see whether any of this has an affect, but I'm not going to let it slide just because there isn't a lot of evidence one way or the other (according to one GAO study I read).

How do you approach things like this in your families?

Becoming Native to This Place

I just started to reread Wes Jackson's Becoming Native to This Place it is about "integrating food production with nature in a way that sustains both." It's fairly farming focused but the concepts are broader how do we live with the land we are on, not impose upon it.

However this isn't about his book, except the title. I am having to learn to become native to this place. This place is having a toddler, being a mother and being a parent with someone else. All of these are the things you don't plan for. People talk constantly about the changes having a baby bring about. But for us a baby was only sort of a change, Alder was easy, other than bars and concerts our life didn't change too much. He just came along happy to be part of our world, looking out from his perch in the Baby Bjorn. Even as he got heavier the switch to the stroller and backpack were smooth.

Since New Years my sweet happy to come along with me little boy has become a person in his own right. He is still sweet and lovable as ever but now he has opinions about everything. About what he wants to do, and when. About what music we should listen to, and when we should not listen to music. All of this is amazing to watch happen but it changes things. So we struggle sometimes with his wants and ours. If he had his way he would be outside every moment of the day until bath time.


In the mornings he still curls up in bed with me to cuddle and talk. We name everything we can see from the bed, in the room and out the window. We sing songs and rhymes. We tickle and snuggle. But now the hour of welcoming the world has been cut to a half hour then he slides down the stairs to papa who will give him some food and take him OUT (his newest word). So I rush to get up to get my brief moments of alone time before Kevin is off to work (this is a rare treat to be at the coffee shop blogging).

Our day is full of the pulls and pushes of two personalities going through the day, getting the must dos done and leaving as much time for just going for walks or playing in the pile of dirt in our yard as possible. But this isn't easy for me, I feel trapped, both by the limits he puts on what we do and by the lack of a car. There is only so much we can do in walking distance from our home. When it rains we are even more limited to our scope of adventure. By the time Kevin comes home I am desperate to have a real conversation, to go to the bathroom by myself.

But being us, the three of us isn't always smooth either. We haven't quite learned how to spend time all together without turning it into tag team Alder watching. We've seemed to have forgotten how to be together. So now we try, we stay together in rooms, not always but less of one of us fleeing. It isn't fleeing from him more trying to find our own little moments. We've realized that while Kevin may need 14 hours a day to work on his business our weekend time is precious that we need to spend it all together as much as possible.

It is all learning how to be together as family, as three people with likes dislikes needs and wants. It isn't easy but everyday we seemed to be able to do it a little more naturally. But there are still blowouts as we become native to this place of being three.

Motherhooding

Getting ready Halloween 2005

Meredith had a wonderful quote on her blog from Elizabeth Gilbert: "When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt. This is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty and also your entitlement as a human being to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

To me this is what motherhood can seem like. Some days it seems as though life with A is just a series of actions that waiver from making him happy and getting stuff done. Those are the days where it is a struggle to find the balance of joy or contentment for both of us. I know and understand what I need to give him for happiness, the things to do with our days and minutes that will make him smile and be at peace. But there is a certain sense of unrest that I feel sometimes when there are things to get done or ideas I want to get down on paper or projects I want to start. Days like that I am not a good catch partner, I can not bring myself to love every dandelion he brings me.

I miss alone time when there wasn't a list of things to get done. I miss when the creative process was always the first on my to do list. But I am learning how to include him in my process, when I bake bread he has his own dough to knead and roll. He has his own drawing space, that he goes to when he wants to draw but he wants me there with him, not drawing my own things but sitting there just watching. I want to be him there, I would scribble and draw excitedly. Instead I watch as my linear son is more interested in lining the markers up and balancing the tops on the table.

So I am learning to search out the things to do that we both love to do. We go for long walks, throw sticks into streams, make mud, we bake and we sing silly songs. Still when we come home and we are sitting on the floor stacking jar lids I turn on the radio and occupy my mind with the world through public radio. I am engaged in both directions but I am also full of guilt that I can not love spending every minute in Alder's world.

What is the secret to entering that world? I know I go there sometimes, and the day goes by smoothly, we both get things done to fill our souls but it is a mystery how and why those day come together. Other days I rush to negotiate time alone to finish just a little of what needs to get done, never getting all the way through to creativity. This blog , most days, is my is my creative outlet.

Yet I agree that we need to holding onto happiness, because it is a fight that we are in. A fight with norms a fight with expectations and with loss of autonomy. So I try every night to look back and see what worked, where we were both happy, and I try to hold it close to me and try to live in it so that the next day I can bring these moments back and add more of them to our day. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have the energy to write a few pages or make something after he goes to bed tonight.

On Running Away

On Sunday Alder and I went for a drive, it was meant to be only twenty minutes away. But then I got it in my head that we would visit my godparent's who were of course not there. By then we were only a half hour away from Northampton, and what better place to walk around aimlessly and possibly find this book. So we turned our twenty minute drive into an hour and a half.

The trip turned into something more important. Life has been very hectic for the last six months and Alder has really gotten lost in the chaos (more on this and the changes being made soon). So for this day I let him lead. We spent almost and hour in this toy store, basically it's like walking into a Nova Naturals catalog. Then we walked around the Main Street twice until settling on Paul and Elizabeth's for lunch. I hadn't been there since lunch on the day I got married, and not almost five years later I was sitting there with my son.

A few hours and one warm chocolate chip cookie later we ended up at home to a delicious and good looking meal that Kevin created, involving pasta, sundried tomatoes, eggplant, sunflower seeds and some other goodies.

No.. and why we don't use it

'No, don't do that," Grandma quietly reprimanded Alder the other day while they were eating. He looked at her incredulously wondering what was so wrong. A spoonful of yogurt on his sweater was only part of eating wasn't it. Each time he eats there is one less spoonful on his clothing and one more time that he decides to wipe his own face with his napkin.

Grandma meant no harm, he was just trying to get him to keep clean, she wasn't angry at him or annoyed. No was just the first word out of her mouth, it's instinct to say No to kids. To halt them in the middle of what ever process they are in because something doesn't fit with our adult perception of how their situation should play out. No falls so easily from the lips it comes to mean stop and halt and don't do that to the point where the language learning child only sees the emotions behind the word (bad child) and gains no understanding.

So we avoid No as much as possible in our house. If what he is doing is not harming him, others or the place we are he basically can do what he likes. Rather we try to help him to understand when different sorts of activities shouldn't happen. Grabbing Mama's legs while she is pouring pasta into the colander gets a "hot" while throwing the pile of bills on the desk gets "find something else to do." He understands these words and phrases not just as cues and as ideas. "Finding something else to do" usually sends him off to get a pan or a toy to play with, without confrontation or feeling like we are mad with him. I know he isn't trying to mess up the important papers, he doesn't even understand what they are other than a tempting stack to be knocked over. If we aren't in the middle of something, like the pasta, we immediately help him to find something to do that we are both happy with.

Of course, often these cases are really just that he needs our attention and love. I am always amazed when I remember to play with him for a half hour uninterrupted before I cook dinner or do some other grownup thing how much easier it is for him to be content to occupy himself'. On days we spend the whole day together I always make sure there is a lot of Alder chosen activities interspersed with my needs. If we have errands to do during the day I know that it's better to do them early ending with a park or hike for a while. If it's nasty out a long bath is always good for smiles so is play-dough or dried beans in a bowl of water. I don't feel that we are here to train our children to only fit our needs, we should be spending our time learning them, understanding what makes both of our days happy and peaceful.

Are we perfect? Of course not, especially when we are tired and grumpy it is easy to forget and slip into No mode. That doesn't help the situation, barking off No at random for actions that are usually okay or met with gentle or some other cue only frustrates and confuses him. This usually ends in tear.

There are times we use No on purpose, they are rare and are only when his safety are involved. Knives and traffic seem to be the main ones but everything else there is always time. (I should say we don't leave knives around on purpose but occasionally Alder has climbed onto the dinning room table while we're setting or clearing it and has grabbed the knife).

There is a second reason that we avoid the word No, and it is been successful. It seems that so many children it is one of their first words and then they go around saying it a lot, and I really wanted to avoid that. We figured if we were not saying it all the time then he might not use it as much. So far this has worked, while he might shake his head if he doesn't want a certain food or piece of clothing, the words he has right now don't include any negative. We have: yeah, teeth, shoes, eyes, tree, cat, ma(more), ha (hot), Papa and Mama, Mom, and Momi!

Sure he can be a wild monkey but our wild monkey also loves to line shoes up in rows and is starting to clear the table on his own volition.