Mama's Day Musing

You know, I'm not one to get in to random holidays, particularly ones that seem rather driven by consumer culture like, say, Valentine's Day. I like birthdays and I like holidays laden with old traditions, even if the traditions are just ones you've made up in your own family, and "old" is relative to how long your family has been celebrating it. But the Hallmark Holidays? Totally not my thing. And yet, I like Mother's Day. I don't like it so much for it being about honoring me, the Mama, because I don't need a day printed on the calendar for that (and I can't help but think of all the other women who aren't mothers and are no less for it, or the people who don't have mothers with or near them anymore, or the people struggling with any number of heartaches around the very complex and often messy circumstances of motherhood). No, I like it for the kids. I like how excited it makes my children to consciously celebrate that they are my children. I love their sweet, open faces as they pour a handful of crushed dandelions into my cupped palms. I love the ecstasy you can see in them, in knowing they have thought and worked on some small token that has brought a smile and a squeal from their Mama.

I am thinking about this particularly this year after seeing Benjamin's Kindergarten class at the Tea they put on. All of those kids were beaming at their mothers. All of them were so proud and so transparently full of delight in loving and being loved by that person who came to be honored. Sometimes there is a humility necessary in stepping away from "I don't need XYZ because of a calendar date" and allowing someone to honor you because they want to. And that's Mother's Day...it's about them to be about me at all. It might be called Mother's Day but it's the children who make you a player in it.





It makes me think about how every year on Sophia's birthday, it always feels like it's the day two people were born. My first child slipped out of my body but she birthed me as her mother in doing so.

I am not the same person I was before I called myself a Mama. I am continually, constantly glad of it.

A few nights ago Benjamin was cuddling to sleep with me in bed, and he was rambling in the way he does and he somehow got on the topic of What Happens When We Die, which is something he mulls and seems pretty appropriate to his age. He asked, again, as he does, "Do you think we all start back over again and again, Mama?" and I said, as I always gently do, that I just don't know for sure. And then he said, "When you die and I die, I'm going to hold tightly to you so that if we start over you will be my Mama again." And I said, "I always want to be your Mama."

And that was enough for both of us.

Mother's Day Tea, and My Daughter Has A Cooler Haircut Than I Do

This is Benjamin and I after the Mother's Day Tea at his Kindergarten, with the poem he gave me. There was also a poem recited and a very cute song sung. When I arrived he met me at the door, took me to my seat, and pulled my chair out for me. He also picked me flowers and we had tea and punch and cookies together. I wish I could show you how all their little faces were beaming with such joy and excitement in what they had planned and done for us, their Mamas. I actually get rather teared up when I think of his proud and loving little face this afternoon. It was so much more than I ever expected it to be.






Lately it seems like we have been sick constantly. Seriously, it has been one thing after another between us...I cannot remember a year EVER where the kids have been sick this often. I thought maybe it was having two kids in public school now, but other people tell me it's been a bad year for them, too. You can see how being sick brings the little hellmonkeys down. Right now Sophia is getting over an ear infection and we're all starting to feel better after a stomach bug.






We did find time to get the kids' hair cut recently, and now it seems my eight year old daughter has hipper hair than I do. If I looked good in short hair I would totally steal her style. She loves it, too, except she's lobbying hard for blue highlights now. I think the coolness has gone to her head a little. She also recently told me that she's "not in to pink anymore, Mom" and prefers "dark colors for nail polish." Hmm.






Have I mentioned my red shoes? ?!! They were my birthday gift (you know, the kind where Clint came home from work one evening in early March and I said, "Oh, honey, thank you for the birthday gift you ordered me from Zappos today! They're exactly what I wanted!!" and he just nodded his head and was glad THAT ordeal was taken care of), and they make me irrationally, indecently happy. They're made by Ecco and are thus also one of the more comfortable pairs of foot attire I've ever worn. There's not much that brightens up my day to day like interesting footwear. I have a drawer full of colorful and often striped socks, too.

Yesterday I went to get ready and pick the kids up from school and discovered I had no underwear clean. This was extremely ironic as I had actually been doing quite a lot of laundry (something I can't always say for myself) but had somehow neglected my own underwear. Now I know this is going to bother you, and you are wondering in your mind if I went out in public with no decent undergarments, so I will tell you that I went and got a pair I had just put in the dryer and went at them with the hairdryer. Scorn me if you will, but sometimes I think I win at life.

And I get to hang out with this:

Something Blue

...on a gray, cloudy day. This is our bedroom in the new house, with our new bed that I am wildly in love with. I painted the room right after we got the keys, before we moved in, and I also love the color. It's a bit darker in person than the photo shows, probably because I took this today, when it is gray and rainy and the flash had to burn out extra bright, and it feels like relaxing in a sea of blue, or perhaps that shade of summer sky in the deep part of a particularly clear afternoon.





Here's a picture from Benjamin's birthday party, as he opens presents still wearing his Indiana Jones hat.



And here is Benjamin's cake that we made him. He very decidedly picked out pink icing. And I cannot lie: I love that he did. We are a family very attached to color, I think.

Long Time, No Type

But quite a lot has happened around here. First of all, we bought a house and moved into it. I really was set against buying, but Clint was very determined and we were somewhat unhappy with our renting arrangement (mainly just about the money) and so I find myself in a house that we purchased. It's a 1923 bungalow, and I do love it. It feels very strange, though. I confess to having moments of feeling extremely claustrophobic about it all. Until now, it has always been relatively easy for us to pick up and move wherever with very little notice, and I have to say I miss that. I feel rather tied down now. But the house is great. There are some things that need fixed up, but nothing we can't handle.




What else? Good things first, I think. Benjamin turned six!! This seems supremely shocking to me, but maybe that's just a Mama Thing. We had a party for him at the house which he enjoyed very much, and made me extremely tired. He dressed up as Indiana Jones (he wants to be an archaeologist now) and ran around in the brilliant 60 degree weather with his friends. (Oh, that brilliant weather? Today it is snowing. Hmph.) He received lots of Bakugan and some Ben 10 stuff and Indiana Jones Legos (his newest obsession) and the last season of Avatar.

He recently picked out a group of 3 chapter books to be read aloud, beginning with Bunnicula, and both kids are enjoying them very much. Sophia is reading the first Harry Potter book on her own and we're slowly reading through Coraline together. The kids are also both into board games now, which is very fun and means we can have family game nights.

Our other big news is that Clint will be leaving for Afghanistan some time in July for a 12 month deployment. As you can imagine, we are gearing up for that in various ways and it will no doubt only get busier from here on out. I plan on using this blog a lot more...hopefully Clint will have some sort of internet access over there and using this blog to post about our days will seem like we're sharing it a bit more with him -- and with you too, of course.

Right now I have to go get dinner out of the oven and settle a dispute about which movie to watch, though. :)

Holidays!

We put our tree up last night, and the cat is having herself a grand old time climbing it and laying in the middle branches, casually batting a paw at nearby ornaments from time to time. The kids are getting excited; there are plays at school coming up and cookies to bake and ornaments to make and there is snow on the ground.




We had neighbors over for Thanksgiving...lots of neighbors. Five adults and eleven children filled our house, and it was wonderful. I love my neighbors. Right now their husbands are deployed to Iraq, so it was nice to be all together, with the kids playing and being loud and jolly. Clint even successfully carved his first turkey.

So that's pretty much what we're up to here. Work takes up a lot of my attention, unfortunately. Holidays in retail suck a little of the general joy in mankind the season should be bringing, but I'm thankful for the schedule they give me (because it could be so bad, really) and the extra paycheck that is helping us along with holidays and another Big Thing coming up, and also for the fun coworkers I have. So we'll be spinning madly through December, and hopefully come January I will be slowing down and be more "present" in other areas of my life. I'm looking forward to that.

Oh Autumn!

Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness, indeed! Autumn is giving us thrills here in upstate NY. The weather is gorgeous, the leaves are magnificent swirls of color, and the area is ripe with possibilities for our weekend adventures. Last weekend we went to Behling Orchards and picked 34 lbs of apples! We went with our good friends and neighbors, and all had a blast.










We've made apple pies and applesauce. We might try an apple cake today. And more applesauce to freeze, of course. Today is also pumpkin carving day. Thank goodness the kids are off from school today, or I' not sure how we'd get all our fall fun done!





Ode to Autumn
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Productivity? Nah.

I'm trying to think of what I've accomplished in terms of crafty stuff, or creativity in general, over the summer and it's kind of embarrassing. I made a tote bag for Sophia's best friend as part of her birthday gift, but didn't get a picture of it. But! Look, I did make these curtains for our living room. Finally, WE HAVE WINDOW TREATMENT. It's a big window, as you can see, and the room just needed something bright. So I got this Robert Kaufman fabric from Sew Mama, Sew and whipped these up. It wasn't exactly hard...I almost feel guilty bragging about it.



Anyway. I think they do add some sunshine to the room. I bought some of those little rings that hang on the curtain rod and clip to the fabric, so I didn't even have to worry much about my top measurements since the rod doesn't actually run through the fabric. See? I'm lame.

The kids are staying with their Nana and Papa in West Virginia for probably about 2 weeks. That seems like such a long time...I feel a little weepy about them being gone for so long, but they were very excited about it. And! And! I start a job at Border's next week! I really wanted this job. It's just part-time right now, but that's perfect as we transition Benjamin into Kindergarten and Sophia into 2nd grade and we all get used to it.

And this week? I'm going to clean the house. And what I clean won't be immediately demolished as soon as I leave the room. And I'm going to read. A lot. Yes.