Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
benefits of waiting
So, for some of my (five) dear readers, it will seem utterly sensible that I kept the placentas from both boys' births in the freezer. We were waiting to be able to plant them under a tree, hopefully on a new piece of land that we would own. Well, we had lots of hopes over the last years about some goals that we'd like to meet.
We really wanted to expand the house for a second floor, for more information, see various tortured writings earlier on, when it was still in the rotation. We really really wanted a place, some land, to call ours, and to plant a little yurt on. We had several grumpy new years, one particularly memorable after Rowan was born, when I was being my normal list-happy self and asked George what kind of goals he wanted to write on the list. He, in a foul manner i may add, said that he was writing NO LIST because the thing he wanted still hadn't changed!
Well, yes.
So, as you can see, there will be no list again for George, because we didn't get a magic pass to get land. BUT.
A few years ago, our beautiful, old crabapple that took up the back half of the yard got fireblight and died slowly. We denied it a long while, until one of the large limbs fell off while we were in the front yard. (thank goodness)
As my wonderful friend in CT said, maybe good, maybe bad. Well, it opened up the whole back of the yard when George put on his chainsaw pants and went to town, and then tortured his body by using a huge stumpgrinder to take apart the stump. (picture a large circular blade bouncing up and down on burled, hard old wood stump)
We sparred over what would go back there:
me, GARDEN BEDS! CHICKEN COOP!
george, NONONO, COMPOST BIN,PLAY GYM, ROOM FOR SOCCER and GRASS!
somehow, as often happens, we found the middle ground, got a new garden bed, a chicken coop, a compost bin, a new play structure (as the boys call it) room for soccer AND grass! yowza!
and then a couple of shade-less years went past, me demanding fruit trees! and eventually just asking for ANY TREES! A tree for mothers day! a tree for graduation! a tree for my birthday!
And as the year is now winding up, I turned another year older, and the placentas filled out their 5 and 3 year marks in our freezer (well noted on the package) George DUG HOLES!
And then and then, this very day he moved the car seats to the jeep, packed up the boys and came home with two beautiful trees. a pear, and some kind of purple leaf cherry. Neither make fruit for people, but both flower in the spring. !! We don't think we can fight the insane squirrels in the area, even if we actually shoot all the ones we can see. (we don't shoot them, though I wish I did sometimes)
The boys each assigned themselves a tree. Naturally Rowan took the bigger one, the pear, and Milo, the red-leafed cutie. I couldn't believe it was happening, but took the placentas out of their long home at the bottom of the freezer, and let them defrost. George dug and dug and prepared, and measured, and tamped, and dug and mixed soil and dug (in the hot sun). The boys watched from their perch on the play structure. I took lots of pictures. We let the sausages on teh grill cook too long, because now all of a sudden we have more than an hour less of sunshine, and set the root balls in the beautifully constructed holes over the top of their buried placentas, and voila! we have new family members here on the corner. They will keep us good company, and I will try my damndest to get them water so that they can thrive.
The benefit of waiting was that each boy helped cover his placenta (and yes, they know what they are) and then watched as this tree was set over top. it was like a little belly button in reverse! May these trees grow strong, and well, and old.
And our little boys too.
We really wanted to expand the house for a second floor, for more information, see various tortured writings earlier on, when it was still in the rotation. We really really wanted a place, some land, to call ours, and to plant a little yurt on. We had several grumpy new years, one particularly memorable after Rowan was born, when I was being my normal list-happy self and asked George what kind of goals he wanted to write on the list. He, in a foul manner i may add, said that he was writing NO LIST because the thing he wanted still hadn't changed!
Well, yes.
So, as you can see, there will be no list again for George, because we didn't get a magic pass to get land. BUT.
A few years ago, our beautiful, old crabapple that took up the back half of the yard got fireblight and died slowly. We denied it a long while, until one of the large limbs fell off while we were in the front yard. (thank goodness)
As my wonderful friend in CT said, maybe good, maybe bad. Well, it opened up the whole back of the yard when George put on his chainsaw pants and went to town, and then tortured his body by using a huge stumpgrinder to take apart the stump. (picture a large circular blade bouncing up and down on burled, hard old wood stump)
We sparred over what would go back there:
me, GARDEN BEDS! CHICKEN COOP!
george, NONONO, COMPOST BIN,PLAY GYM, ROOM FOR SOCCER and GRASS!
somehow, as often happens, we found the middle ground, got a new garden bed, a chicken coop, a compost bin, a new play structure (as the boys call it) room for soccer AND grass! yowza!
and then a couple of shade-less years went past, me demanding fruit trees! and eventually just asking for ANY TREES! A tree for mothers day! a tree for graduation! a tree for my birthday!
And as the year is now winding up, I turned another year older, and the placentas filled out their 5 and 3 year marks in our freezer (well noted on the package) George DUG HOLES!
And then and then, this very day he moved the car seats to the jeep, packed up the boys and came home with two beautiful trees. a pear, and some kind of purple leaf cherry. Neither make fruit for people, but both flower in the spring. !! We don't think we can fight the insane squirrels in the area, even if we actually shoot all the ones we can see. (we don't shoot them, though I wish I did sometimes)
The boys each assigned themselves a tree. Naturally Rowan took the bigger one, the pear, and Milo, the red-leafed cutie. I couldn't believe it was happening, but took the placentas out of their long home at the bottom of the freezer, and let them defrost. George dug and dug and prepared, and measured, and tamped, and dug and mixed soil and dug (in the hot sun). The boys watched from their perch on the play structure. I took lots of pictures. We let the sausages on teh grill cook too long, because now all of a sudden we have more than an hour less of sunshine, and set the root balls in the beautifully constructed holes over the top of their buried placentas, and voila! we have new family members here on the corner. They will keep us good company, and I will try my damndest to get them water so that they can thrive.
The benefit of waiting was that each boy helped cover his placenta (and yes, they know what they are) and then watched as this tree was set over top. it was like a little belly button in reverse! May these trees grow strong, and well, and old.
And our little boys too.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Even grandpas get them
The boys' grandfather goes to tournaments all over, and does trap shooting, and has really gotten into it lately. Last one was hosted in their hometown, so naturally he had to be there.
What did he get for competing? why. A TROPHY of course.
What did he get for competing? why. A TROPHY of course.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Likeable=agree, unlikeable=disagree?
So I just got the info on R's first soccer game. And I'm all in a tizzy, which I must work out before I have to actually talk to anyone. But a cursory search brought me this very post.
http://www.mommasaid.net/mommablog/2009/08/31/lets-stop-giving-trophies-just-for-showing-up/
I can't do the trophy thing. Why do I always have to be the one who sounds like the asshole? In Spring, r's first season, I felt so lucky to be on one of those teams where the kids go to the games (where they don't keep score) and then they finish going to those games and carry on to the next fun thing. And now, new coach, new plan, 6 dollars for a showing up trophy that represents many things that I don't agree with.
I have read too much Alfie Kohn. I have too much of an idea of intrinsic motivation, I am admittedly inept at any and all team sports, I am a crazy mother who wants trophies to make sense. I have a friend who wrote a damn thesis on motivation for her Masters in Education.
The real problem isn't my views. If you know me at all, you know that I generally wander from the main line, and I negotiate the world in a fairly healthy way. But the thing is, that I also just want to be friendly with pretty much most people I meet, and I also have a pretty deep need to be liked. Even by strangers, but moreso by people I know.
And I don't think I'm the only one who equates "agreeing" and being likeable and then of course "disagreeing" as the very unlikeable way to be.
So now, is there a likeable way of disagreeing? there must be, for someone with way more social finesse than I have. For now I will be quiet and think. I will try my damndest to feel it all out, and then see what happens. I've been working on this. And now, you can see, that you have not been spared my late-night writing--but have been thrown right in the damn middle of it.
Don't even get me started on the furniture in the living room so that I can deal with our new TV.
Even without late-night canning I am still awake at 11. Hrmph.
http://www.mommasaid.net/mommablog/2009/08/31/lets-stop-giving-trophies-just-for-showing-up/
I can't do the trophy thing. Why do I always have to be the one who sounds like the asshole? In Spring, r's first season, I felt so lucky to be on one of those teams where the kids go to the games (where they don't keep score) and then they finish going to those games and carry on to the next fun thing. And now, new coach, new plan, 6 dollars for a showing up trophy that represents many things that I don't agree with.
I have read too much Alfie Kohn. I have too much of an idea of intrinsic motivation, I am admittedly inept at any and all team sports, I am a crazy mother who wants trophies to make sense. I have a friend who wrote a damn thesis on motivation for her Masters in Education.
The real problem isn't my views. If you know me at all, you know that I generally wander from the main line, and I negotiate the world in a fairly healthy way. But the thing is, that I also just want to be friendly with pretty much most people I meet, and I also have a pretty deep need to be liked. Even by strangers, but moreso by people I know.
And I don't think I'm the only one who equates "agreeing" and being likeable and then of course "disagreeing" as the very unlikeable way to be.
So now, is there a likeable way of disagreeing? there must be, for someone with way more social finesse than I have. For now I will be quiet and think. I will try my damndest to feel it all out, and then see what happens. I've been working on this. And now, you can see, that you have not been spared my late-night writing--but have been thrown right in the damn middle of it.
Don't even get me started on the furniture in the living room so that I can deal with our new TV.
Even without late-night canning I am still awake at 11. Hrmph.
Up and running
Well, we did it. by some stretch of a miracle, both boys got into the school I was sure they needed to be at (despite pretty large odds) and I found a job that fits the best it possibly could into the space that school for the boys has made.
I spent many sleepless nights writing obsessively in my journal (you were spared) and many days obsessively searching library jobline (again) and then my other scattered moments trying to figure out how to reconcile a career with this job of raising our children.
I think that this task that all of us, but especially mothers are asked to do -- is to walk on a tightwire. Between getting swallowed up somewhere, or somehow managing to make a space that holds us true. I know that having children can swallow up some folks. and others it sort of maybe feels more like suffocation. I heard a small piece on NPR which was the recordings of kids moving into their new places to live for school starting... the older students moving to a new apartment, and then... the freshmen, with their moms. Saying goodbye, and trying to make sense of this new phase.
One of the moms said point blank that she needs her kids more than they need her, and another was so glad to be seeing this day of goodbye. It's the whole spectrum of how we do parenting, and how we have these relationships in our lives...
It was extra powerful for me, listening to those kids and moms--having just dropped the boys off at school, and made my way straight home... to do... something, everything, nothing!
How can I do all three simultaneously?
After finishing school, and having a crazy wild fabulous summer of all sorts of events and unusual happenings, I think the boys are big fans of knowing what the hell they will be doing when the wake up, and where they will be doing it. I for one am trying to figure out how to have my work, keep up with the Friday folders, volunteering, lunches, and time frames oh yeah, and feed us all. Even with G's help, it's a lot for us both. Last night, apple sauce. Canning at midnight is much harder with the 6am wakeup, that is for sure. I can say it is such satisfying work though, to be cooking something that will fill our bellies when there is no apple growing in this state for the next 9 months.
Soccer is gearing up again for R and G. that means... practice Friday night, game for R sat, game for G sun.
Doesn't that feel like a lot of soccer to you? I'm really of half a mind to not sign the kids up for anything, even really fun stuff, because it just means more running around. and then our eating together gets all crammed up, and we are more strung out. Luckily, this is only 10 weeks, and then I mean it--nothing else!
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