Last Mom in the Woods

An incredible thing happens when I take my children for a walk through the woods:  I remember how very amazing they are.  It's not that I forget that they are wonderful, but sometimes, well...  yeah, I kind of do forget.  In the bustle of home and school and everything else, sometimes I forget that these four human beings are full of marvelous complexities and wonders.

But then we go for a walk in the woods.

As I watch them tromp through the woods, sometimes rushing ahead, sometimes lagging behind, peace fills my heart as curiosity fills theirs.  One stops to show a younger sibling how to use a walking stick.  Soon after, one stoops to pick up a rock that has caught his attention.  The littlest discovers the magic of pockets, secreting a rock or a leaf into his newly discovered lair.  All the while, they interact with each other and me with a strange blend of peace and excitement.  They are tiny, yet powerful parts of God's vast creation.  It is as if they know by instinct that they hold a crucial role in this amazing world full of towering trees and tucked away beetles.  All the conflicts and insecurities of daily life dissolve in the sweet air of the forest.

As for myself, I marvel at my children.  I cherish tiny milestones, like Luke's discovery of his pockets and his first leaf collection.  I promise to remember quietly observed moments of sibling cooperation and realize that these kids, however much they may have bickered earlier in the day, really, truly love each other.  I feel, too, that however much I might worry about how they'll turn out, they will most likely turn out just fine - and then some.  They are, after all, amazing little people, full of marvelous complexities and wonders.

Since first sight, I have been intrigued by the title of a book by Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods:  Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.  I haven't read it yet, but it's on my mental list of books I ought to read.  After yesterday's walk through the woods with my children, a walk especially sweet for reasons understood and inexplicable, I wondered if someone ought write another book, entitled Last Mom in the Woods:  Saving our Mothers from Nature Deficit Insanity.  A few posts back, I wrote about making peace a part of normal motherhood, and I wonder if mothers are not in need of nature as much as their offspring.

Not having read Louv's book, I can only imagine what he has to say, but as a (sometimes worn-out, exasperated, on the brink of a meltdown) mother who never fails to feel refreshed after a walk through the woods, I say such time in nature is not only worth our time, but perhaps essential to peaceful, clear-minded motherhood.  If it comes to mothers abandoning the woods en masse, I volunteer to be the last mom in the woods.  In the meantime, I vow to be there more often, because the gifts of serenity, joy, and confidence I find within the woods are worth putting in my pocket and taking home with my children's rocks, leaves, and sticks.

Relief

It's three in the afternoon, and already it has been a long day, fraught with emotion.  I'm glad to say, though, that the day's prevailing emotion is relief.  After nine years of watching Andrew's weight and wondering off and on if his lightness might be a sign of something more or less serious, he is in the clear.  While we still await the results of some tests, his doctor is optimistic about Andrew's health.  Neither blood work nor today's upper endoscopy has revealed anything about which we need be concerned.  Subjecting him to blood work and various tests, especially today's scope, has not been this mother's idea of fun, and the thought that we can lay our concerns aside, having ruled out major disorder or disfunction, leaves me with one reigning emotion.

Relief.

After worrying that Andrew would not weather his endoscopy with grace, I smiled - even laughed - at his cheerful attitude and pleasant banter with nurses.  After fearing he would come out of anesthesia a roaring lion, I puzzled as he asked, "Where's the balloon?" and nodded as he told the nurse he was dying his tongue red with the popsicle that kept falling from his hand so he could stick his tongue out at the doctor.  "Sure, honey...  and if you don't see him before you leave the hospital, you may stick your tongue out as we pass his office."  Hey, we're adults.  We can handle a stuck-out tongue from the kid on this of all days.  Really, the boy was amazing.  I was a little worried that he would be a most uncooperative patient, but his nurses couldn't stop telling each other how smart and funny and cute he was.

Amused, proud-of-my-boy relief.

Sitting around Levine Children's Hospital, I saw parents and presumably grandparents come and go or sit together waiting to hear how their child's surgery went.  Some faces were grim, worried, teary.  One family, strain evident upon their faces, pushed a wheelchair to their daughter's room.  I almost felt like an intruder.  I don't know why anyone else was there, but we were there merely to rule out the possibility of treatable disorders that would involve nothing more than dietary changes.  Despite my uneasiness about what the doctor might find and how Andrew might feel upon waking and what changes we might have to implement, I knew that at worst we would be dealing with something life-altering - and that's a far, far cry from life-threatening.  Fretting over my child's diet is nothing compared to worrying about his very life.  And as it turns out, my kid is healthy.

Thankful, teary-eyed relief.

And then there was driving home, remembering how I woke at 5:30, showered, dressed, made my coffee, packed everything into the van, woke Andrew, brushed his teeth, put on his socks, and tucked him into the van with his pillow and blanket.  That's a long sentence for one single, incredible fact.  I woke at 5:30.  Normally, I wake up between 7:30 and 8:30, but I think I've done alright.  It was kind of, sort of fun... in a "Woo-hoo!  I'm up before the world!" sort of way.  Still, 5:30 is early, and I'm glad that my job as a stay-at-home, home-educating mama does not require me to rise every morning at that ridiculous hour of darkness.

Sleepy, looking-forward-to-seeing-my-bed-again relief.

The High Price of Creativity

This will be brief.  I've been cleaning up while Geoff and the boys are out of town camping, and one truth, in addition to the truth that I miss them like crazy, has hammered itself into my head.  Creativity is costly.  I am a firm believer in providing children with ample opportunity to create - in play, in word, picture, in random three-dimensional sculpture.  I am also a firm believer in allowing children to explore and discover nature - leaf collections, rock collections, and yes, the occasional bleached squirrel skeleton, compliments of Tiny the Ferocious Feline.

These cherished beliefs of mine, however, are not without price.

While the cat freely provides rodents to bleach and mount, I don't dare calculate the amount we spend on art supplies.  Paper, crayons, markers, paint, play dough, clay (because it's not the same as play dough), beads, pipe cleaner...  I honestly could fill a cart with art supplies and still wish for more, as could my children.  If the cost of these things was only monetary, it would be a small price.

But money isn't everything.  Sanity is at stake here, too.

Try stepping around squirrel vertebrae when you tuck in your sweet little boy.  Try finding a skull as you clean his room, or another vertebrae among your freshly washed clothing.  (At least we bleached the thing... Next time, we'll use stronger glue to mount it).  Try finding homemade books in every phase of composition, and then try to figure out what to do with them.  Try to figure out just how many sets of crayons, markers, and colored pencils are floating around the house - and then try to keep track of which ones are truly washable and thus less threatening in the hands of an "artistic" two-year-old.  Try keeping the rock collection out of reach of little hands that might rearrange the carefully sorted specimens.  Try teaching four children in varying stages of competency to distinguish between "keepers" and "tossers," and then try figuring out where the "keepers" should be kept and teaching your prolific little artists and authors to... get this... put everything away where it belongs, even and especially if it belongs in the trash can!


It's enough to make a mother understand why trash bags are made by a company called Glad.  But that can be our little secret...

The Annual "Why Did We Come Again?" Festival

So every year, our town puts on this little shindig. Vendors set up booths throughout the downtown area and the crowds come because...  because...  because, as far as I can tell, they can.  I hope local residents will read this understanding that we go every year and buy some funnel cake or Italian ice or whatever strikes our fancy, and will forgive me for saying that after eight years, we've pretty much seen what there is to see.  Eight times.  As far as festivals go, it's alright.  But it's not spectacular, and once you've been, you've been.

As I headed out this morning, I wondered as I have in years past why I was bothering to go downtown.  In the process of pushing a stroller and monitoring a walking four-going-on-fourteen-year-old, I let the question remain unanswered.  Besides, the answer would surely be nothing more profound than, "It's something to do."  Our town is a nice enough place to live, but it isn't exactly bustling with activity.  (For the most part, we like this aspect of our town).  Anyhow, I put the question out of my mind in the interest of supervising the young lady now walking beside me, now lagging behind me, now rushing ahead of me.

We made the rounds...  a new artist's shop, a bag of candy from a local church, observing and narrowly escaping participating in the pony rides (she didn't have the courage to act upon her slight desire to ride, which suited me perfectly), Italian ices, a chat with a friend, the car show (quietly appreciated by the youngest male of our clan from whom I almost expected a Tim Allenesque "Ar, ar, ar") , a minor disagreement about going in the bouncy house, and then the promised balloons, one of which caused great heartache after caressing a holly bush to its detriment.

But before the balloon popped, I looked at my big girl balancing her way along a low brick wall, her bright red balloon floating behind her beautiful, curl-fringed pink face.

And I guess that's why we go every year.  Our children won't remember the crowds, the cluttered streets, the old worn out sights of the festival.  They'll remember marveling at the old cars, watching the ponies, getting a long-sought for balloon, and mastering the brick wall balance beam.

As for me, I will remember Luke walking among antique automobiles, looking as comfortable and big as everyone else.  I will remember Elisabeth debating whether or not she wanted to ride a pony, and feeling relieved that she was content to wait.   I will remember her balancing on the wall, demonstrating so perfectly the very essence of childhood, carefree, determined, sticky, and beautiful.

And I'm sure we'll go again next year, not because the festival will offer anything new or exciting, but because our children might.

Failure, Fragility, Fear, and Faith

I came across a funny little picture the other day.  It depicted a horror-stricken woman, clutching her chest and her hair, with the caption, "Oh, no!  I forgot to socialize the children!"  As a home schooling mother, my first reaction was to laugh.  Socialization is a bit of a joke in the home educating crowd, for reasons I won't elaborate upon in this post except to say that we tend to think that what people think of when they cry out that our kids need to be socialized is a bit over-rated.  It's not like we huddle under the basement stairs, cringing with every footfall of the quickly-approaching monster called "Real Life."  Our kids get out, they have friends, and if nothing else, they have each other.  Siblings are amazing teachers of all things "Real Life."

So I laughed.  And then I didn't.  I'd had many concerns brewing in my mind that week, from one child's physical health to another's emotional health.  The socialization issue was simmering just beneath the surface as I contemplated whether one child in particular was developing solid, positive friendships.  As much as I may laugh at the whole socialization thing, I do believe friends are important in that they give one an identity outside of the family.  Family is great, but let's face it...  Sometimes family is crazy, and you just need to get away!

So the picture of the frantic mother who had forgotten to socialize her children hit a nerve.  Besides feeling like maybe I needed to do more or differently on the socialization front, I began to wonder if I should have done more or differently in the realm of another child's physical health.  I began to feel like the mother in the picture, except that I didn't limit myself to having forgotten to socialize the children.

Rather, I put my entire career as a mother on trial.  This is, for the record, a very silly thing to do, especially at two in the morning, but it brings me to something I'd been meaning to write about before I wrote my last post about, ironically, reuniting peace and motherhood.

Failure, fragility, fear, and faith...

Failure is unavoidable.  Even with careful planning and preparation, we are bound to fail.  The first rule of motherhood might as well be, "Nothing will go according to plan."  Mind you, this isn't always a bad thing.  Sometimes, it's a very good thing.  For good or ill, though, our plans almost never fall entirely into place.  And that's on a good day.  The house will never be entirely clean, nor will the children.  (And if they are, take a picture - quick!)  It isn't all that hard to look around, see all that hasn't panned out like we had hoped it would, and feel like a partial, if not a complete failure.

At other times, fragility reigns.  We may be at peace with a messy house, grumpy children, and sleep depravity, trusting that relief will come soon.  Or maybe we have managed to keep the house relatively clean, the children predominantly pleasant, and the coffee sufficiently invigorating.  We may not "have it all together," but we're content to have "this much" together and feel able to do the important things well enough until the time comes when we feel refreshed and recharged - and up to the task of tackling all the things we haven't "got together."  Peace sits precariously upon the edge of our hearts, giving us enough strength and grace to keep going, but not enough to run carelessly ahead, solving all the word's woes.  We recognize our need to live moment by moment, worrying about neither the past nor the future nor anything else beyond our realm of influence.

I found myself, not long ago, in one of those moments of fragility, feeling tentative, yet calm.  I could not deny my failures.  Everywhere I looked, I saw them.  Clothes piled up in the hallway, awaiting their turn in the washing machine; toys swept into a pile and tossed into a basket until I had time to decide whether to keep or toss; doors closed because I had not the courage to face the clutter; books unread; lesson plans altered; children running carelessly and loudly through the house...  But none of it really bothered me that much.  As I tried to figure out why I wasn't flipping out over all of these shortcomings, something quite simple occurred to me:  I was not afraid.  Plenty of times, similar circumstances have brought tumult to my mind, tears to my eyes, and knees to my floor in desperate prayer.  This time, though, I had faith that everything would be alright in the end, even if it was a complete mess at present.

And that, I believe, makes all the difference.  Fear or faith?  Will we give into our fears of failure, or have faith that even in our greatest fragility, God works for our good?  And if we chose the way of faith, will we accept the testing that inevitably and almost immediately arises to deter us from this way?  Will we stand up to the challenges of motherhood and life when they threaten to send us hurtling onto the path of fear?  Will we insist on walking in the faith that covers chaos with peace?  Life will not stop when we choose faith that gives peace.  Instead, it will throw new challenges our way (and sometimes dredge up old ones), and we must ask ourselves again whether we will fall under fear or walk in faith.

Fear or faith?  It is a choice we must make...  and make again.  And this simple choice will make all the difference.

Whales, Mermaids, and Me

A recent article comparing whales and mermaids, (i.e. large women and small women) is making a splash on the web.  I read it.  I understand the sentiment of enjoying and cherishing life being more valuable than a perfect figure.  I agree that women should worry less about appearances and live life fully, unhindered by self-consciousness.  For extra measure, I'll even say risk corniness by saying that a woman does not consist in the shape of her body but in the fullness of her heart.  I completely get all of that, and agree that it's time for us, as women and as human beings, to celebrate true beauty. 

Still, something about the article irked me a bit.  Well, more than something.  Some things.

First, obesity is a problem.  Without doubt, we women need to lighten up on self-loathing, but that doesn't negate our need, in many cases, to lighten up physically.  Health should be our goal, whatever our weight, but we can't ignore that some weights are healthier for an individual than others.  (And yes, "healthy weight" is not a one-size-fits-all).  Should we celebrate not being able to attain mermaid perfection or even our own "healthy weight"?  No, we should do what we can to live as healthfully as possible.  Sometimes, life circumstances make healthy living more difficult than we'd like.  Accept some limitations, challenge others.  Don't look at a mermaid and say, "I'll never look like that, so bring on the cake!"  Do what you can to be as healthy as you can.  Don't beat yourself up about the rest, and don't give up all hope and effort.  Live well.

Next, whales are all that and a bag of chips, a slice of cake, and a large soda...  Really?  

Some random whale facts for you:

1.  Whales gestate for 12-18 months. (That's about twice as long as I can patiently bear pregnancy).

2.  Newborn whales are weighed in TONS and measured in FEET.  (Try birthing that).

3.  Whales eat fish, krill, squid, and plankton.  Yum. (Notice there's no ice cream, coffee, or chocolate on the list).

4.  People hunt whales. (No thanks).

5.  Seven out of thirteen great whale species are "endangered or vulnerable." (Again, no thanks).

6.  Whales have holes in the tops of their heads.  (I need to be a whale like I need another hole in my head).

7.  Whales carry barnacles and lice.  (And I bet they smell as fishy as mermaids do).

I'm not sure being a whale is all it's cracked up to be, which brings me to my next issue with the article...

Why do we have to be a whale or a mermaid?  Can't we just be women?  In discussing the article with a friend, I had to admit that I'm not sure I fit either category.  I know where I would put myself most days, but I don't know that I'm being fair to myself.  If I'm honest, I'm neither thin enough to be envied, nor fat enough to garner much sympathy.  Where does that leave me?  I think it leaves me an ordinary, average woman who is no more content to settle for being a figurative whale than she is hopeful of being a literal mermaid. 

Finally, why aren't women, large and small, offended by this whole thing?  By saying that fat is the result of an overflow of knowledge and wisdom, the author implies either that large women's brains are miniscule and thus unable to contain ordinary knowledge and wisdom, or that thin women lack those two lovely treasures.  Either option is pretty offensive to someone.  Besides, the whole notion that fat is really stored knowledge and wisdom is pure scientifically-flawed baloney...  and you know how I feel about baloney.  (Insert gagging sound).  

 So, you can have your mythical creatures and endangered sea mammals.  The choice is perfectly clear to me:  I want to be a woman.

Redefining Motherhood

I was barely paying attention to the radio when a a chance phrase jolted me to attention and caused me to evaluate modern motherhood.

"A stressed-out mom..."


That was it, an oft used phrase stuck in the middle of a long list of stereotypical descriptions of members of all levels of our society.  I had heard these words strung together countless times in various discussions before, but this time, I cringed.  I paused.  And then I got just a little bit mad.

It has been said that people live up to our expectations of them.  If this is true, I'm at least mildly perturbed with our culture for holding such crummy expectations of mothers.  By promoting the image of "a stressed-out mom," running every which way as she tries to balance marriage, children, career, and self-fulfillment (not necessarily in that order), the media and society at large have given us a model that is frankly not worth emulating.  Nor is this model fulfilling in any way.  She has no peace.

I don't deny that the modern mother is stretched like the gum on her seven-year-old's fingers as she juggles her roles as wife, mother, worker, and woman.  Nor do I deny that it is hard, much harder than any of us imagined when we stared at our first positive pregnancy test.  I'll be first to admit that motherhood is filled with challenges, and that I often fail royally in every single one of my roles.

But I resent the notion that motherhood and lack of peace go hand-in-hand, and I wonder if the prevalence of this notion in media - radio, television, film - sets real-life moms up for more difficulties than they need endure.  Motherhood is undeniably full of challenges, but challenges don't require us to lose all sense of peace and order.  The mother we see on television and in movies and hear about in the occasional radio commercial is not handling those challenges particularly well.  She is, as they assure we notice, stressed-out, and I wonder if that might seep into our own ideas of how we ought to live.  After all, if the model of the modern mom is stressed-out, we must be doing something wrong, missing some huge, crucial element of motherhood, if we don't feel the same - and those mothers who do exude serenity must be doing something "extra"to experience the peace the model mom and we ourselves find so elusive.  At the least, the stressed-out model makes the frazzled condition seem normal.  This is what being a mom looks like.  I'm pulled in a hundred directions, scrambling to keep up, and I need...  a latte, a glass of wine, chocolate, a night out, a manicure, a massage.  I need something to ease the pain of being a woman with offspring who just can't do it all.  She might lead a mom to think, "This is normal.  This is motherhood.  I'm just going to have to live with feeling stressed-out for the next eighteen to eighty years."

I think we can do better, and many do.  I know what it is to be "a stressed-out mom" and how much support, encouragement, and rest such a mom needs and craves.  I don't want to downplay the very real pressures facing the modern mom or the emotional turmoil those pressures stir up.  They're real.  We can't ignore them.

But I also know that this mom gig isn't all that bad and that plenty of moms handle challenges beyond what I can fathom with amazing grace and tranquility.  Whatever our situations, I'd say most of us are pretty good moms who, despite the occasional crummy day or crappy week, have learned to do what we need to do - and to do it pretty darn well.

I want to hear more about these moms and see them more on television and in movies.  (They aren't entirely absent).  I want culture to celebrate moms who smile at the end of a long day, not because they finally get the peace and quiet of which the day has deprived them, but because they were able to create and cherish moments of peace in the midst of the busyness of the day.  Because they know their day has been well spent.  I don't want to hear about "stressed-out moms."  I want to hear about moms who are facing the challenges of motherhood head on, with grace, dignity, and peace.

Among breastfeeding advocates, there is a move to alter the language of breastfeeding.  In this article, Diane Wiessinger argues that if breastfeeding is to become more socially acceptable, people - from moms to physicians and everyone in between - must stop speaking of the "benefits of breast-feeding" and begin speaking of the "risks of artificial milk."  The reasoning is that if we speak of breast-feeding as the baseline (i.e. the standard by which all options are measured) it ought to be by virtue of being the biological norm, (that which woman was designed to do and the means by which the babies were designed to receive nourishment), then breast-feeding would regain its rightful normalcy and popularity.  (Not "jump up and shout" popularity, that is...  I mean "it's the thing to do" popularity).

I say peaceful motherhood, as much as if not more than breast-feeding, needs to regain normalcy and popularity.  I don't know how we can do it, except by real-life mothers refusing to settle for media's image of a frantic, stressed-out mom as the norm.  Let us refuse to fulfill society's (and sometimes our own) expectations of mental exhaustion and chaos.   Let us choose to say "no," to forgive ourselves when we can't get anything together, and to celebrate when we do have it all together - even if just for a moment.  Let us willfully choose to create peace in our own lives and spread it wherever we go. Let us, and especially those of us who claim to belong to and follow the Prince of Peace, make peaceful motherhood the norm.