Oh, the children--they grow up!

People say it goes fast, but in reality it goes achingly slow. When you are up at 3am cleaning vomit, changing sheets and soothing a sick child, the next day grinds along at the slowest possible speed. When a small child is piercing your skull with their screamy whine, while another one is crying and yet another is racing around the house with the pounding feed of a rhinoceros, everything seems to be happening in slow motion. When you are out in public, having finally sat down to visit with a long-lost friend and your baby's diaper leaks, sending poo running down the side of your leg, off the chair and onto the floor, time stands still.

And so it goes for the years of your children's infancy and toddlerhood, even sometimes into their school years.

What makes people say that the time with young children "flies by" is not the fact that it goes so fast when you're living it, but the intense sadness you have when it's over and the powerful longing to bring it back.

Why???? When you were living it, it seemed endless, timeless, grueling, difficult, a test of your endurance and your ability to function despite extreme sleep deprivation.

But we are human! And part of the human condition, one of the more forgiving parts that makes life so much more enjoyable, is our ability to forget: our astoundingly short memory for pain. As our babies grow and begin to walk independently, to describe their needs and wants, to take care of their own bodily functions, to clothe and feed themselves, we in turn begin to forget the difficulties of having a baby, of trailing after a toddler, of constantly monitoring a being that has no common sense and a seeming death wish. We forget that hefting the notorious "bigger than an ox" car seat and two tons of baby gear gave us carpal tunnel and bad backs. We forget that not sleeping for more than two hours at a time led us to mistakenly place frozen food in the fridge and leave the front door unlocked and buy nothing on our grocery list and made us cry at 5:30pm when a pat of butter fell on the floor. We so easily forget all that, all the misery, all the difficulty, all the feats of endurance.

All we remember is that adorable baby, the one who smiled rakishly in the half million pictures and videos we took. We remember the weight of a newborn in our arms, the smell of baby powder, the crinkle of a fresh diaper, little hands that wrapped around our big fingers, knees that had the most delicious dimples, thighs so impossibly gorgeous....

And when we remember, it seems like we didn't enjoy it enough. We didn't "seize the moment," we didn't glory in every smile or delight in every baby laugh or laud every baby step enough.

This is a trap. A cruel mind game we play with ourselves.

I am here to tell you--and me, mostly me--that we did our best. We did absolutely the best we could do. Some days were better than others, some moments lasted forever and some were better forgotten. In the midst of all the challenges, we did enjoy our babies, our children, as they grew.

What we wish for is to remember it all, but remembering it all would destroy the gift we were given. That gift is the gift of remembering those things that delighted us, those spectacular moments, those beautiful pictures, those baby cheeks, those wonderful smells, the mercurial magic of childhood, without the bad moments. In our minds we stripped away everything else and remembered what was most important to us: the essence of each child's babyhood.

Today I am telling myself it's okay to be sad that my babies have all grown up from their babyhood. It's okay to mourn over the end of diapers, baby powder, tiny hands, pea-sized toes, gurgly laughs, wispy hair, faltering steps, exploratory touches, exclamations of first delight.

It's not okay to accuse myself of not enjoying it: I did enjoy it. And I also found it aggravating, annoying, terrifying, harrowing, painful, depressing and seemingly unending.

A few weeks ago I was outside with my daughter. We were looking for the chickens and I asked her where her chicken was. She turned to me and with a mixture of absolute certainty and pride, said: "He's over there, under that bush, doing his best!" Innately she recognized the importance, the higher purpose, inherent in doing one's best--even for an animal.

Now, when I have those days of sadness and self-doubt, I remember what my daughter said and remind myself that I'm doing my best. And it's really the very best that I can do.

Incensed

I was two weeks post surgery when I got the call that my Grandmother had just had two strokes. She's the closest thing I've ever had to a mother and I desperately wanted to see her again before she died--and, from what I was told, it looked like the end was near. Talking it over, Jim and I decided that we would leave as soon as I was well enough and he had a break in his classes.

So two days after the doctor released me to drive, Jim and I packed up the family and began the long drive to Vermont. Thankfully, for my early birthday present, Pat cleaned out the van and helped me pack up everything our family of five would need in the Deep North.

There wasn't much I needed to bring other than clothes, some good books, my knitting and one fir-scented candle that I lovingly and carefully transported over 600+ miles. A good candle can soothe the soul and it's always nice to have the scent of Christmas in December. Also, the cabin we stay in is a converted hunting camp. The children call it "our cabinet" and it's not too much bigger than that: three "rooms" separated by walls in some places, but not by doors. That's part of the beauty of it, and another reason why a scented candle would be a useful thing.

One night during our stay at the cabinet, Jim came to bed and as we sat there reading I noticed a very strong perfume scent.
"Are you wearing perfume?" I asked, starting to sniff around for the origination of the odor.
"No!" he said as he self-consciously rubbed his hands together.
I grabbed his hands and sniffed them: the strong scent of pine emanated from them.
"Why are your cuticles green? Is that wax? Why do you smell like my candle?" I shot out of bed and into the kitchen where my candle sat on the table...only it wasn't my candle any more. Sticking two inches up out of the middle was one of those white emergency taper candles and the green wax from MY candle looked like it had been regurgitated by a chipmunk and piled up around the emergency candle.

Here's something you may not know about me: when I get really upset or angry, my voice reaches octaves so high only dogs can hear it. Instantly I reached that pitch, rounding on Jim.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY CANDLE? YOU RUINED MY CANDLE!"
I was livid, furious, turning red and purple and screaming at a pitch so high I could hardly hear myself.

Without moving, Jim replied, "If you had just waited two hours, you never would have known that anything had happened to your candle. I fixed it!"

"YOU FIXED IT? YOU DIDN'T FIX ANYTHING! YOU BROKE IT!"

"If you calm down and wait a while, you'll see that it will be fine," he said, returning to his book.

Eventually the vein in my throat stopped pulsing, the emergency candle burned down to the green wax and the candle reconstituted itself. Sort of.

The next night, we were again reading when Jim got up and went into the kitchen. Two minutes later I heard a thump, a crash and the tinkle of delicate glass breaking.

I didn't even get up. I knew what had happened.

"Did you break my candle?"

"Don't worry--I can fix it!" Jim replied from the kitchen.

At that point I resigned myself to the reality that the candle was no more and I went on reading. It couldn't possibly get worse....

I couldn't possibly have been more wrong.

For dinner that night, Jim had made himself spaghetti with a mackerel tomato sauce. He "fixed" my candle by replacing its glass housing with the tin can from the mackerel.

I now had a mackerel-infused fir scented candle in a tin can. I resisted the urge to get up and hurl it out of the window.

When I calmed down *again*, I told this story to my family. My Aunt Sarah listened intently, no sign of surprise on her face and, when it was over, she looked calmly at Jim and asked, "What was going through your mind the first time you messed with the candle?"

We all laughed...until we realized she was serious: she really wanted to hear the answer. "Because it seems to be something about men and candles," she continued. "They can't help but touch them. All my boys did. And I want to know what it is that makes you do it."

No Problem, Mon

Beach view, Negril, Jamaica

Just got back from a four-day Girls Vacation to Jamaica. No children, no men, no cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, no driving--for four whole days. Clear, jewel-colored water; fine, white sand; alcohol and food on-demand and nothing to do. Absolute bliss. I discovered a love of snorkeling and spent at least an hour watching the way sunlight ran across the rippled, sandy bottom of the ocean. Others in my party enjoyed the culture and nightlife of Negril, doing their best to learn a few Patois phrases and Jamaican hand gestures.

What struck me about Jamaica, aside from the breathtaking beauty of the countryside and ocean, was the authenticity of the Caribbean vibe. Stories of the laid back and chill nature of Caribbean cities, not to mention Reggae’s everything’s all right attitude, seemed exaggerated. No place could be so idyllic, so stress free.

Me, getting ready to snorkel

But visiting Negril and spending time with the locals, I discovered that “No problem, Mon” is more a way of life than a glib indigenous statement. It’s true that not much is a problem and no one is in a hurry. Even the nightlife is slow and easy--people smoking, standing around listening to music and leisurely drinking their Red Stripe. Places like Jamaica seem too good to be true, an impossible last place on earth where people aren’t rudely tromping on one another in order to arrive at their destination two minutes earlier. It was beautiful, serene and authentically easy.


And speaking of easy.... When a person is funny, Jamaicans say, “You are not easy, Mon.” An interesting turn of phrase: to roll along in an easy way, to go along with the conversation, is laid back. Humor puts a wrinkle in the fabric of our communication, one that makes us stop and laugh or stop and think. To the Jamaicans, this is “not easy” which makes a certain sort of sense.

Here comes the real conundrum, though. Why do people go to places like Jamaica, buy all the tourist swag and then wear it while they are still there? It’s not impressive that you have shorts on that say Jamaica when the rest of us are in Jamaica with you. We are all here and we are not impressed by your gift store goods. 

Take for example the gentleman who bought a Jamaican t-shirt, complete with large picture of a marijuana leaf on the front; shorts imprinted with “Jamaica” on the pocket; a Rasta hat in the colors of the Jamaican flag and matching bracelet and wore all this on a boat trip to a small, off-coast island: is he trying to impress someone? And who would that someone be? Is he trying to look like a local? That seems absurd: the locals don’t wear any of that stuff, nor could they afford it. Is it just consumer exuberance caused by being in such a dreamy place?

In addition, why would a person want to buy pants with “Jamaica” emblazoned across the butt? Those pants aren’t giving the country any respect and neither is the person wearing them. We’ve already covered the silliness of wearing such pants while still visiting the country, but then why wear them at home??? Here’s my thought: If you carry beautiful memories of the country in your heart, you don’t need to have the name screen-printed on your ass.

“Maybe they can’t remember,” Jim said when we were discussing this. “I can’t remember crap. And if I’d been to Jamaica, I sure as hell would want to remember that. So I’d buy something with the name on it. And the date, too, if I could find it. And if they could put MY name on it, too, that would be awesome because then I’d have everything I needed to remember in one place!”


Anyone care to explain tourist consumerism to me, especially the country-on-your-ass pants? I really want to understand.

Jamaica Lion of Judah Pants--even these are better than the ones I saw on the beach

Found Out

My husband found my blog.

I knew that day would come, but I had been hoping for a year at least before he discovered it...or even thought of looking. But as we all are when it comes to people talking about us, we MUST know what is being said. Even if it's bad. Especially if it's funny.

So he found my blog and here's what he said, "You have to put up pictures of the coop! It almost ended our marriage and you haven't even told people it's finished?"

He also demanded I take more and better pictures. Really I should but right now I don't have time. So you will have to be happy with these pictures of the finished coop that thankfully did NOT end our marriage:

From the front, with the door closed

From the front with the door open

Rear right-hand side with hanging feeder and egg boxes to the right

Chicken entrance to the coop

Side, with egg boxes. Sweet roof, eh? 

And, like children who are more thrilled with the huge box the toy came in than the toy itself, the chickens love being out of the coop perhaps more than they do being in it. Here's a picture of them dust bathing under the bushes:

I have the chicken coop of my dreams! That is something I never thought I'd say.... 

Now to get some eggs from these hens, which will happen sometime in...November. 

*sigh*

Imperfections

I make things.

Often my handmade objects don't come out perfect. By often, I mean almost always. It is a miracle if something comes out perfect. A seam will be crooked or a dropped stitch picked up the wrong way or a smudge in the middle of an otherwise brilliantly executed sketch. (I only sell the perfect things.)

There are many people who think part of the beauty of a handmade thing is those small imperfections, especially if it’s made by someone you know and love. It has been hard for me to learn to embrace the inevitable mistakes of my own handmades...but I am learning.

My Grandmother is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met. As I child I was in awe of her house, filled with all her creations, most of them made out of “found” items like metal shavings, driftwood, dried weeds, old beads, pieces of discarded plastic, empty jars, uneven tapestries.... 


Her imagination remains limitless. On a recent visit, I saw mobiles she had made of neon plastic beads--you know the ones at the craft store, those ugly ones that seem to have no purpose?--and wire. These mobiles were at least two feet in length, maybe more, hanging from her living room ceiling. They moved so delicately, beautifully. It was a strange kind of irony: those cheap neon beads and the graceful lines she had molded them into that moved with natural fluidity. I was fascinated. 

This same grandmother showed up at my lonely apartment years ago--long before I was married and had kids--proudly carrying a bag full of leaves and sticks which she promptly transformed into a gorgeous mobile. She hung the mobile from my living room ceiling and it made me think of her every day after she left. A few years later my boyfriend thought I was crazy when I told him to be careful as he moved it. 

“What? You’re taking this? This is a piece of garbage! It will never survive the move!”
He obviously doesn’t have a grandmother who makes custom installation art.

Ever since I was tiny Grandma has been giving me amazing, one of a kind birthday gifts fashioned out of whatever material currently held her fascination. One year I got a huge, square wreath made out of straw and plastic cranberries. Another year I received the most darling little hand-painted boxes with handmade purple polymer clay roses on the top. Still another year my present was a box of woven and knitted handmade Christmas ornaments (I still put them up on the tree every year). In recent years I’ve gotten calendars and photo books and cards featuring her photography and handmade paper. (She now sells her photography at Fiddleheads.)

It never occurred to me that Grandma may have given handmade gifts because she had to, because they were cheaper and easier than store bought gifts. I always thought she gave those gifts because she loved me and she loved making things. Then one year she and Grandpa came into a little money. My gift that year was a perfect, snowy, miniature ceramic lighted house: a lovely, store-bought and probably expensive tchotchke that broke my heart.

I remember opening the package with enormous excitement and anticipation...and then dissolving into inconsolable tears. I cried for three days. And I am not a crier.
My husband, upon seeing my tears, was at first concerned and then very confused: “Why are you crying? Look, she sent you a very nice gift!” 

It looked something like this. [Attribution]

To this day I get teary when I think about it--earth shattering disappointment mixed with the terrifying thought that my beloved, creative, amazing Grandmother no longer loved or cared for me enough to send me something handmade! It was terrible...so bad that my husband called my Grandmother (after three days) and told her about my despair--a thing I couldn’t do and had told him not to do. I didn’t want to make Grandma feel bad or--God forbid!--guilt her into making me something. 

Not long after he called, another package arrived in the mail, this one containing completely homemade and outlandish gifts that absolutely soothed my soul. All was right with the world again.
I try to remember this when I am making things--imperfect things, things I begin to hate because they aren’t living up to the vision I have in my mind. 


The handmade thing has a life of its own after it is created. I often make things and wonder what the heck I will do with them. Some are bizarre, like the five pointed orange felted monstrosity of a “purse” I once knitted. Some are mundane, like the washcloths I can’t keep myself from making. But they all, eventually, find their purpose.

In the midst of some of my more difficult and imperfect projects I find myself wishing I were more anal, that the stuff I make could be closer to the ideal than an ordeal. But I have learned an important lesson from my Grandmother and my children: it is the imperfections, the mistakes, the rejects, that are sometimes the most lovable. 


When I visit my mother, I go first to her reject pile of handmade jewelry--what I find there is always my favorite stuff. And my children, of all the handmade things they own, the most flawed are their favorite. The pieces of my Grandmother’s art that I have loved the most have also been the ones that others thought were “ugly” or weird or “useless,” like the mobile made of twigs and leaves. 

A few years ago I began knitting a very soft baby blanket out of two yarns that I loved. Despite adding on ball after ball of yarn, I ran out less than half way through the blanket. To make matters worse, every place I added a ball of yarn there were several of funny pieces of yarn sticking out because they refused to stay in place.  Finally, admitting defeat, I cast off. The blanket was more the size of a small hand towel when I’d finished and I threw the disappointing thing in my reject pile, hating it more every day. What a waste! I thought.

Then my daughter was born. A little over a year old, she found the reject blanket while crawling around in my craft room and adopted it as her very special blankee. The little ends that stick out have become her favorite parts of it: she weaves them through her fingers as she sucks her thumb and soothes herself to sleep. My mistakes have become her comfort. And every time I see her move those fibers softly through her fingers I am reminded that mistakes can be more more beautiful, more loved than perfection.

Estella with her much-loved blankee

Second Hand Clothes: The Beast of Burden

A friend of mine is having a baby. This little baby boy is a much-anticipated baby: he has been five years in the making. All of her friends, family and closest acquaintances are thrilled, as evinced by her baby shower of epic proportions. The food could have fed three or four times the guest list. The gifts had to be transported home in not one, but two trucks. The candy coated almonds, which matched the invitations in both color and theme, featured tiny hand-painted owl faces. The cookie table, a Pittsburgh tradition, would have shamed some weddings. It was astounding.

As I sat in my friend’s living room the other night, staring at baby paraphernalia peaking out from behind her living room furniture and spilling quietly into the dining room, she told me about another gift she received. A surprise gift, after the shower: four large garbage bags of baby clothes, sizes 0-24 months, from her cousin whose boy had long outgrown the clothes. My friend sighed as she told me about this “gift” and threw her eyes around the room, looking at all the baby stuff she already didn’t have room for. We looked at each other. I had the good sense to remain silent. For the moment.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful. I mean, I’ll have clothes for this child for a long time. But then my sister and my mother had to come over to help me sort through it all, pull out the ones that were too stained and put away the ones that were too big....”

My heart went out to her. One of the greatest gifts I received when I had my first baby was six boxes of hand-me-downs ranging in size from newborn to 7T. It was also one of the biggest burdens. I remember another friend gleefully handing me a huge, black garbage bag full of baby clothes a couple of months after my son’s birth. At my squeal of excitement and attempt to thank her, she replied, “Are you kidding me? I’m so happy to get rid of those you can’t even imagine! You’re the sucker!” I had no idea what she was talking about.

Now that I have three kids, I know exactly what she was talking about.

Don’t get me wrong--hand-me-downs are great and I have always been thankful to get them. On the flip side, though, they are a curse. And here’s why:

1.) That adorable pink outfit that a friend loved and can’t bear to give to anyone else’s child but mine is now so worn out that it looks atrocious. No mother would want her kid in it. This cannot tactfully be said to a friend. So I am forced to take the worn out pink thing (sometimes boxes of them), expressing my gratitude and remarking on how lovely the outfit must have been.


Then I do the work of giving the outfit(s) to charity. I see myself as the arbiter of loved items to Goodwill. An Ambassador of the Unwanted, taking loved things and doing what the giver cannot do: getting rid of them. 

That princess sleeper that your princess slept in until it is pilled and discolored and reeks of urine no matter how many times it has been washed? I have no use for that, nor does my child. I certainly will not treasure it like you or your child did. Either keep it forever or throw it out! But so many parents are unable to do this. They cannot take that final step of admitting that a beloved item of clothing has reached its limit of usefulness and throw it out or give it to charity. So I do it for them. As do countless other mothers/parents who take hand-me-downs.

2.) The lie of “play clothes.”
How many times have you heard this line, Mothers Who Take Hand-Me-Downs:
“I know it’s stained, but [your child] can use it for play clothes!”

Here’s the thing, though: clothes children play in are also clothes children wear when they go on an impromptu shopping trip or clothes children end up in when their father dresses them and doesn’t know the difference between play clothes and regular clothes. 

Play happens.

Play clothes are bullshit. 
If kids aren't supposed to play in their clothes, what are they supposed to do in them? All clothes are play clothes if you are a kid and that's how it should be. I don't want my kids so worried about their clothes that they are afraid to try new things, run in the grass, make mud pies, have squirt gun wars....

My kids have nice clothes that get stained or ripped or both. If there are clothes I don’t want them to ruin, I save those clothes in a secret place and only bring them out for church on Sunday. 
Don’t give me stained or otherwise ruined clothes because those clothes are...well...ruined.

3.) Hand-me-downs are not clothes I picked out. 

As a mother of three, I don’t so much care anymore if someone hands me a box of perfectly good, stain-free clothes for my children and the clothes aren’t exactly my style. But my friend--this is her first child, perhaps her only child. Her cousin’s idea of what looked cute on her baby maybe 7 years ago is not my friend’s idea of what is going to look cute on her baby in 2012.

4.) You only get to dress your child for 2, maybe 3 years.
If you are the kind of parent who enjoys conflict and is obsessed with how your child is dressed, you might be able to--with a great deal of anger, frustration and stress--manage it for 7 or 8 years. But there is going to come a time when your child refuses to wear the clothing of your choice. 

My daughter just turned three and if I put clothes on her that she doesn’t like, she takes them off and goes naked. I prefer her clothed. And I’d rather save my battles for the times I have to win, for the times that are really important, like dinner or not running the street.

When your baby is small, it is natural to want that baby to look adorable, to look the way your want him or her to look. Hand-me-downs stand in the way of this, unless someone with your exact taste and sensibilities bought the clothes and the clothes were hardly worn. This rarely happens.

The advice I gave my friend?

“Give away or throw out any clothes that are stained or otherwise ruined. Also give away all the clothes that you think are ugly or not your style or simply something you don’t want to see on your baby.
Because life is too short. If you wake up one morning, reach into the drawer and pull out an outfit for your baby that you don’t like, it’s going to be a bad day. And you don’t need another bad day with a baby.
You should dress your baby how you want. You should put only the clothes you think are cute on your baby. And never feel guilty about it. This is your baby.”

What I've Learned About Coops

It has been four weeks now and our chicken coop is not finished.

Chicken coop frame

The old adage that everything takes twice as long as you think it will is wrong. In our case, everything takes five times as long as we think it will. 

Despite good directions, adequate materials and basic skills, we have run into constant problems. Digging out for the concrete piers we ran into large roots and at least one electrical wire. We also discovered how difficult it is to get a nine foot by six foot coop frame onto seven sunken concrete blocks so that the frame rests perfectly square on the blocks. Difficult? Try impossible. Then we discovered that poultry staples are bastards. They seem more perfectly designed to ensure smashed fingers than securing wire placement. I learned that when Jim says his saw is dull at the beginning of the project, he will forget that by the middle of the project and will be cursing and swearing and wondering why the #$%@^ he can't make a straight cut. A new $5 blade could have saved us hours of heartache. 


I also learned that I need a great deal more patience than I have: more knitting is in order. 

And now that I think of it, I probably could have knitted this coop a lot easier and faster. Something to remember for next time.

Here are a few other things I have learned:

When Jim says, "Wash that linoleum glue off your hands right now while it will still come off," he is only being hopeful. The linoleum glue will never come off. Or at least not until I get in the shower: then it will come off in my hair.

It is not easier to shovel wet dirt. Our dirt turns into clay when it gets wet. Evil, sticky, world-domination type clay that sticks to everything: rakes, shovels, hoes, picks, shoes, crocs, socks, tools, cords, netting, fencing, pencils, grass, fingernails.... This clay takes days to remove. Best not to bother the soil. Ever. Again.

Tool belts are handy things.

The directions are always wrong. At least once. Maybe more.

Lumber is not cheap.

The people at Home Depot and Lowes will laugh at you when you tell them you need linoleum for a chicken coop. Then they will regale you with urban farming stories of their own. Good times!

It might not seem like there's a deadline, but when the chickens are flying and the bathroom stinks like chicken poo, the deadline is real and it has already passed.

Here's the #1 Lesson I learned from building this coop--and the one I most want to pass on to those of you thinking of starting your own backyard flock:

Buy the pre-fab coop online! Pay the $500 (or more). It will be cheaper in the long run. And it will probably save your marriage.