homemade time

words for spring

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:18:00 +0000

Yesterday it was 70 degrees in Annapolis. Gabriel kept asking if we could do some gardening. Why not? It sure felt a lot like spring: mud underfoot, warming sunshine, and a landscape dotted with confused green buds and shoots.

On the heels of this fun project, we decided to plant some more seeds to grow on the kitchen windowsill. I let him pick three kinds from our basket of last year's leftovers. Kale, lovage, and field peas. But how to know which is which? With labels, of course, which Gabriel painstakingly, proudly wrote out after each small group of seeds had been carefully covered with a thin blanket of dirt for a seedy siesta. (Oh my, that sounds like a nefarious way to nap, doesn't it?)

As his skills progress, words and letters are beginning to have more meaning for him. Consider it from his perspective: you can write these mysterious symbols in a certain order to create meaning, then cut them out, then tape the new word you made onto something, and it becomes really real.

Yesterday I read something that Thomas Merton said. It stopped me in my tracks.

What am I? I am myself a word spoken by God.

Can God speak a word that does not have any meaning?

It is joyful to share growing language skills with young children, in part because the link between words and creation is so powerful for them. All that word made flesh stuff didn't make much sense for me before children--it's different now.

Merton's words touched me also because lately we are trying to help Frances accept herself and her limitations more peacefully. It's interesting how perfectly God's love for her makes sense to me; how my children are particular, intentional words spoken by God. But it doesn't always sit so easy when I think about myself that way. A word spoken by God? Really?

But why should I be any different? At the very least, my unease helps me to empathize with my little girl. And parenthood has given me a tiny glimmer of insight into what God's love for us all must be like. Boundless, complete, unconditional--simply because we are. Just like the love we feel for our children. Like the love I feel for my best friend and her new baby, who just arrived on Tuesday. The fact that they are is miraculous. Forget doing. Just being is enough.

calling all women who rock

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:53:00 +0000

I forgot to bring my earphones to the gym this morning, and so found myself flipping through the discarded magazines on the shelf behind the elliptical machines, looking for something to read on the decidedly uncool (yet somehow alluring) stair climber. I settled on the December issue of Rolling Stone.

It's a magazine I flip through probably once or twice a year, just to confront the extent to which I've lost touch with popular culture. Sometimes I catch a reference and feel a little bit better. The cover story this morning promised at least some name recognition: the 100 greatest rock guitarists of all time. Yes, I do believe I've heard of Eric Clapton!

Curious, I began flipping through photographs of bare-chested rock gods and the accompanying appreciations written by fellow rock gods, and around #58 (was it Slash?) I realized there was not a single woman on the list thus far. Surely there would be a few fine women from the entire history of rock n' roll that made it on? I kept flipping pages, and only at #78 did I hit Joni Mitchell. Bonnie Raitt was also on the list (#80-something). That's it.

I'm no expert. I don't play guitar. And I realize that rock music has traditionally been male-dominated. But two out of one hundred? Come on. Joan Jett? Carrie Brownstein? Kathleen Hanna? That woman from Heart? Surely one of those ladies could rock just as hard - or harder - than Slash.

Before I had kids, I would have found this kind of thing harmlessly irritating. But now I have an observant six year old daughter who frequently articulates the differences she perceives between men and women. The rock music we listen to at home is mostly sung and played by men. If she'd seen that feature, it would have sealed the deal. As it is, she has already come to a handful of disturbing conclusions about how men and women behave. For example, after I cracked a joke that was met with silence:

"Men are really silly, aren't they Mama? Have you noticed that men are silly and funny, and women aren't really...?" Um, Frances, did you even read Bossypants?

The mouths of babes drive home the powerful influence of gender roles to me like nothing else. My children will sometimes remind us (when we stray from type) that Mamas act one way, Papas another. It makes me cringe. I am so grateful for our friends and neighbors that buck that trend by living out the many ways of being a woman and being a man. I especially cherish the women in my life who show Frances and Gabriel that there are endless ways be a mama: my kids know some mamas who choose to stay home, others who choose to spend time away from home being teachers, doctors, nurses, priests, and writers, and others - oh yes, indeed - who can really rock out.

What I want for my children - at school, at church, in their broader community, and in the stories and songs of our fast-infiltrating popular culture - is to be surrounded by a riotous diversity of human life. A hundred million excellent ways to be a man and to be a woman everywhere they look. It's part of why I miss city life. But, living where we do, I'll just have to seek it out more intentionally. And keep Rolling Stone away from my kids.

p.s. Just curious. Rock n' roll mamas out there: who else do you think should have been on that list of awesome guitar players?

team kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:50:00 +0000

Banana bread is something, not unlike chocolate chip cookies, that everyone seems to have a favorite go to recipe for, an approach that never fails to satisfy. So I don't know why I'm bothering to share this recipe with you...maybe it's because Gabriel and I enjoyed making and eating it so much. I just had to share the love. This stuff definitely ranks up there with peanut butter on the relish-able scale.

Part of the fun stemmed from my decision to accept the mess, embrace the unpredictable process, and cede a lot of kitchen control over to my able three year old assistant. After I found a whisk and a spatula dripping in batter in the (clean) cooking utensil jar, I explained to Gabriel that it would be better to put things on the counter when he's finished using them. He thought about that.

But Mama. Then we'd have to clean off the counter.

Yes, but now I have to clean the jar.

He looked at me with an expression that said: ...and? The counter clearly seemed a more difficult mess to deal with. We all have our own ways in the kitchen, don't we? Our boy is already developing his.

Behold, cracking eggs!

Operating machinery!

And, for the first time ever, washing dishes with me at the sink afterwards. I think I actually saw his chest swelling with pride when we finished the job and ceremoniously removed our well-spattered aprons.

This recipe for banana bread is adapted ever so slightly from the Fresh From Central Market Cookbook that my mother gave me a few years ago. Lancaster Central Market, we love you.

2 cups white whole wheat flour (in our case, we leave a bit of room in the second cup and fill with ground flax seed - probably about 2 or 3 tbsp's worth)
2/3 cup raw sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg*
3 large, ripe well-mashed bananas
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs
6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
2 tsp vanilla

*We used heaping spoonfuls of all spices and were very happy with the result.

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. In large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg.
3. In medium bowl mix mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer until fluffy.
4. Fold wet mixture into dry ingredients, then mix until just combined and thick.
5. Spoon into a greased loaf pan.
6. Bake at 325 for about 70 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for a few minutes, then let cool on a wire rack.

Slice, eat, relish.

what's going right

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:41:00 +0000

Today I helped at Gabriel's preschool. While the children ran and climbed on the playground, his teacher and I stood back and watched him playing with a friend.

He is such an amazing kid, said Miss Kim.

I looked at her. She meant it. I know, I said. He really is.

So often the worries and difficulties of parenthood are louder than anything else; they take center stage while all that is going right quietly continues off in the shadows of stage left. Why is that? My diaries from adolescence are filled with woe; I only thought to take them out and write when boys and friends and inchoate aspirations were confusing and/or depressing. I call my mom when I'm sick. I never call her to tell her that I'm healthy. Wouldn't it be nice if I did, though? Hello, Mom? I feel great! Just wanted to let you know!

But watching my dear boy today--capable with a clementine at snack time, exuberant running through the meadow at school--I determined to turn the mental volume down on all that is going wrong and notice all that is going right. I am a practiced worrier. I fear it may even be a default mode sometimes with my children: am I a deficient enforcer of cleaning up? are their diets awful? will that nose ever stop running? do they have enough friends? And when a problem resolves, often I don't even notice. We parents can't take a minute to celebrate the end of sand-throwing on the playground or needing help in the bathroom because we've already moved on to the next thing.

So what is the opposite of worrying? Peaceful reflection? Quiet, joyful contemplation? Whatever it is, today is the day to do it. Here is my list of all that is going right:

*Frances sitting by herself during Gabriel's soccer class yesterday, absorbed by Ramona the Brave
*Gabriel's new confidence and skill in writing his name
*improving health, family-wide
*getting in the car last night after a meeting, the concluding item of a very busy day, and being greeted as soon as I turned the key in the ignition by the opening bars of The Cure's Close to Me on the radio (Oh, those horns! They accompanied me in the dark all the way home.)
*abundant winter sunshine
*discovering the delight that is a massaged kale salad (all of you with raised eyebrows out there: take my word for it. It is seriously, seriously good.)
*finding a delightful hour to make play dough dogs and cats with Gabriel yesterday
*the excitement on Frances' face when a letter arrived yesterday from a friend who has recently become a pen pal

Okay, your turn. What's going right today in your life?

p.s. The gorgeous illustrations are from Thimble Summer, written and illustrated by Elizabeth Enright. (That poor girl up top can only feel the weight of what's going wrong, though I am glad she has some sympathetic company to help her bear it.) I was excited to share this one with Frances (I've never read it) and when I showed it to her, she scurried away with it tucked under her arm, explaining that she'd like to read this special book all by herself. Her independent, passionate relationship to books is another thing going right -- though it hurts my heart a little to watch her grow up and away.

hating on mama

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:26:00 +0000

This is how the children chose to spend the last twenty minutes before naptime today: hurling ice chunks and snowballs at the sliding glass door separating us. They were aiming for my head. Get her!! they yelled with maniacal grins on their faces. The monster, the witch! The mean lady who denied them a second video, who makes Gabriel take a nap every dang day, and who, come to think of it, fails consistently to meet expectations in the role tacitly ascribe to her, that of Supreme Alleviator of Every Imaginable Discomfort.

They love to team up against the powers of Mama. When I slid open the door to tell them they had five more minutes before it was time for stories, Gabriel looked at me with wild eyes and announced "We're destroying your house!" Two flushed faces looked at me with held breath and crazed, fixed smiles. Then the snowballs began to fly again.

I quickly shut the glass door. Ha ha ha ha ha.

It actually made me smile a little. What the heck, I'll be the bad guy. Their naughty act is pretty cute (sometimes sibling solidarity is so pleasurable to witness, I'm willing to pretend I didn't notice minor rule-breaking). Plus, life is hard, and when you're a kid slowly but surely confronting this, someone's got to take the rap. I'm often the first person to pass through their line of vision when something goes wrong. I mean, moms disproportionately get blamed for everything that goes wrong, from forgotten homework to bad weather to existential loneliness. (My poor mother! I'm sorry!) Maybe my attitude is too defeatist, but I don't expect it to be any different for me.

I had to start counting to get Gabriel inside for his nap. When he'd finally settled on the top bunk, I asked if he was mad about something. I am mad! he said. And then, in his pouting-est, maddest voice ever, with arms outstretched for a hug: I love you Mama.

Oh my. It's hard to love each other. And thankfully, it's hard to stay mad. Afterwards I sat down to write this post, and Frances sidled up to me and asked to read some of my blog. I went way back in the archives, and we ended up watching this video six times in a row, laughing and clutching each other every time Gabriel said "a lolly!". Such a dear 18 month old! We talked about how we wanted to hug and squeeze him - the person he was then. How we missed that big baby.

What powerful ties we feel to one another. How do I hold tight to them, and how do I let them go?

jailhouse bunk bed blues

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:59:00 +0000

This morning I woke up coughing, way too early. So I finished my novel, then stared at the final page for a long while, listening to the dark murmuring house. The murmurs grew louder after six: the heating system whooshed, bed springs down the hall creaked, and when Mike clicked on the gas burner beneath the red kettle to make coffee I finally slipped out of bed, determining to have a peaceful, quiet morning with Gabriel. We had a rare day with nothing on the calendar. Time to stop running around and get over this cough.

Fast forward two hours. I'm shouldering large pieces of furniture up and down the stairs, hunting for stray washers, and sweating up a storm. Gabriel is following me around with tools in hand. How did this happen?

Friends had given us their son's old bunk bed over the summer. We painstakingly took it apart at their house and moved it piece by piece to our basement, unable to then muster the reserves needed to reassemble it in Gabriel's room. Months passed, and it never seemed like the right time to tackle the big black beast. When I asked Gabriel what he'd like to do together this morning, he suggested we put together his bunk bed. Between his spontaneity, bright enthusiasm, and sparkling eyes, I was persuaded. A surge of confidence moved through me, despite the daunting task before us. Yes. Yes we can.

About an hour later, surrounded by enormous pieces of black bed leaning precariously against the walls of his room, Gabriel cheerfully announced: I'm in jail, Mama! Mama, look at me, in jail! So am I, kid, I thought, my initial optimism about our abilities wearing dangerously thin. The deeper we got into this, the more my limitations made themselves known: my cold, my tenuous grasp of spatial relationships, my uncertainty around tools. But we had come too far to turn back, and my kid needed somewhere to take a nap. I began talking to myself like a crazy lady. I accepted all tools, light sabers, screws, sticks, and costume pieces that Gabriel tirelessly passed in my direction.

There were a couple of moments that teetered on the edge of despair, but we eventually managed to somehow get the frame together. I sighed with relief and stood back to take in my masterpiece. Then Gabriel flashed me a what-are-you-waiting-for look. Now go get the mattress, Mama!

Oh, right. I went down to the basement and almost cried when I saw it. If you've made it through your twenties, chances are you've experienced the agony that is moving a futon mattress up a flight of stairs. I'd never attempted it on my own before today. (I don't recommend it.) It was the final, most daunting hurdle of the morning and I did not go quietly into that torment. All the grunting and moaning completely freaked my formerly cheerful assistant out, who opted to find some toys in a corner and ignore the disturbingly expressive and sweaty woman on the stairs. Wise move.

During the entire upward slog (and not for the first time this morning) I kept thinking how one crazy choice led to another. How I knew this whole endeavor - to assemble a large piece of furniture with a three year old by my side - was wrong-headed from the start, but persisted nonetheless. How my back would break any moment now (I'm old enough to know it), but I had to keep dragging that monster to Gabriel's bedroom.

Why do I do these things? Could it be I am determined to control one thing, one measly bunk bed, just to show my control-defying life who's boss around here? It was a super human, super stupid feat of stubborn, unreasonable persistence. And I did it.

When it was time for stories before Gabriel's nap, he asked if we could read them in his new bed. This was something new; you can't snuggle up to read together in a crib-turned-toddler bed. Gabriel chose The Little Prince and a story from the library based on the movie Cars that I think was written and illustrated by a computer in China. He seems to enjoy both books equally. I try not to judge.

He asked me to read the first few chapters of The Little Prince again. He loves to hear how grown ups always mistake the author's drawing of a boa constrictor who has swallowed an elephant for a picture of a hat. That cracks Gabriel up. Those dopey grown ups!

We read for a long time. It was perfect. Stretched out next to my big boy in his big bed, I was suddenly exceedingly glad to have plunged blindly into ill-advised bunk bed assembly.

Frances was glad when she came home, too.

The unanticipated jungle gym aspects of the bed draw the kids to it like moths to a flame.

operation rainbow house

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:58:00 +0000

I have often been neglectful of my environment. I haven't given everyday beauty its due in our varied living spaces, instead finding a kind of strange, adolescent satisfaction in the hodge-podge effect that years of hand-me-downs and thrift store shopping creates. Mid-century modern? Art deco? Country? Sure, those are fine decorating styles, but why don't we ever read about Eclectic Rescued-from-the-Sidewalk Chic?

Though our budget is limited as ever, when we moved to this house something changed. After years of cultivating an urban adult identity, I found myself smack in the middle of the suburbs, complete with a split level house from the 60s. The situation demanded action. We could not be passive about this living space. Especially since I spend so much time at home with the children, I feared that without a creative approach, this place would break me.

And since I really do believe the stakes were and are that high, Mike agreed that painting the kitchen pink was a good idea. And the bedroom purple, the living room blue, the playroom green, and the bathroom fuschia. That's my decorating style: rainbow. It could be that I am overly influenced by the six year old girl who lives with me, but I don't think so. When we came here, I wanted light and color everywhere, the most vibrant and cheerful surroundings manageable. With the addition of a gorgeous piece of Finnish fabric-turned-tablecloth pulled from a basement and donated to the cause by a friend over the weekend, I think I finally, officially have my Rainbow House.

Mike started it, you know. He surprised us all when we first moved in by arranging the books in the big shelf neither alphabetically nor thematically but by color. Rainbow order!! we exclaimed. The crazy quilt that once adorned a wall in my dad's office helped inspire us too. So we still live in a house of hand-me-down and thrift store treasures (example A below, the most recent find, resplendent orange corduroy!). But there is a greater, more beautiful organizing logic in place.

I used to think simmering soup all day was all it took to make a house into a home - but now I think the surfaces, colors, and piles of books bring a defining comfort all their own. Something about that tablecloth tipped the scales. We're staying the course, creating the rainbow house I imagined when we first arrived.

terrible horrible no good very bad

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:48:00 +0000

Yesterday started out just fine. My mother was here and played with the kids while I went to an early morning yoga class. Then we went together to a friend's house who is moving and was looking to give us some old clothes and toys. All good things, right?

But then we bid adieu to Gramma (after the usual drawn out goodbye, during which Frances clings to my mother's legs like a determined barnacle). I remembered that Mike would be working all day, and looked at the piles of laundry and dishes to be done, and suddenly the mood turned south.

Gabriel resisted his nap. Frances declared she was mad at me (for reasons unknown). I started in on the laundry, marching a little too loudly up and down the stairs. Later as we walked Frances to a neighbor's house to play, Gabriel moaned, Why didn't you make me wear my gloves? And Frances said Why won't you let me walk by myself!? And then a minute later, Why aren't you going to stay with me while I play?

Because I'm a bad, bad mother.

And the bright orange nail polish I put on the night before wasn't quite dry when I went to bed and now my garish nails were the texture of fine grit sandpaper. And I left the brownies in the oven too long (tragic). And Frances was devastated by the menu for dinner and in response sang her own very rude lyrics during our Johnny Appleseed grace and had to have a time out. And I really need a new wardrobe. And an iPhone. And a week on the beach. And where did I get all these gray hairs from, anyway?

Everything was unrelentingly bad, bad, bad. Our nightly poem (like nearly all poems, as it turns out), was about love and that old goon, time. It was beautiful, by W.H. Auden. Here are a couple of verses:

'O plunge your hands in water,

Plunge them in up to the wrist;

Stare, stare in the basin

And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

The desert sighs in the bed,

And the crack in the tea-cup opens

A lane to the land of the dead.

Suffice it to say, in my small, mean way all I could do was let my hair fall like a curtain and cry a bit, listening to Mike read it aloud to the silent, still children, and pretend that I wasn't crying.

At bedtime Frances complained about the way I did our routine and I snapped at her. Then I went to the bathroom, feeling awful remorse, and finally slipped back inside her darkened room to make it right. I love you, I whispered and smoothed her hair. She laughed.

Mama. Did you only come in to tell me that?

Yes.

But Mama, you've told me that like 10,000 times!

10,000 and one, now.

Well, okay, but I don't think you should sneak in here after my bedtime just to tell me that anymore, just when I'm trying to go to sleep. Next time wait until the morning, okay?

Okay.

On a good day I would have smiled at her response. But in the moment it was more than I could handle.

Some days are like that. Even in Australia.

relish this moment

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Gabriel listened to the entirety of All of a Kind Family with us, despite the fact that his sister and I shared reading duty and that it is about a family of five girls who occasionally indulge in anti-boy talk (I resisted the urge to cover his tender ears). The ethos of a big, loving Jewish family living on the Lower East Side in 1912 is what drew him to this story. It suits him perfectly. The descriptions of close family life and in particular the centrality of food resonated in his little big heart. I do believe Gabriel is happiest at home, surrounded by his family, standing on a chair at the kitchen counter, stirring and tasting away.

When I read how Charlie relished his potato kugel, Gabriel stopped me. He knew the noun relish, but not the verb. What did it mean?

Like when you close your eyes at dinner, I explained.

When Gabriel is really enjoying his food, he throws his head back and closes his eyes. He's been doing it since he was a toddler. I can imagine no greater compliment to a cook than the sight of this boy, face upturned, eyes shut, slowly and smilingly savoring each bite. When he's finished chewing, he gradually lowers his chin and then opens his eyes, looking as if he's returned to us from another planet.

Last night he "helped" me make the peanut sauce for noodles and tofu, which really meant pressing the button on the immersion blender repeatedly and dipping his fingers in the sauce to taste it, all the while soaking up the kitchen ambiance of steam and chopping and smells. At one point I saw him contemplating the open jar of peanut butter on the counter and smiling. Convinced he was about to stick a whole hand in, I asked what he was doing.

Mama!! I can't wait for breakfast time in the morning when I'll have peanut butter. It smells so good!

I reminded him he was also having peanut butter at dinner. In response he threw his arms around my waist and squeezed. (The photo of Gabriel above is from this morning, enjoying the much-anticipating morning sandwich).

We should all have one such happy sensualist in our lives, reminding us of the small joys of cooking and eating together. He'd fit right in with those five little girls around their crowded family table. As it is, I'm very glad he has a place at ours. Gabriel, by his example, helps us all to remember to slow down, close our eyes, and relish.

love hurts

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:22:00 +0000

This is one of many arresting acrostics I've received from my dear literary daughter. It's evocative and unconventional (moonlight!), but then ... hmm, kind of strange with the mine business...and then oh dear, always mine makes it sound like it's coming from the pen of a poetic stalker. Or just a very direct, earnest little girl.

Lately Frances has been possessive and particularly resentful of the attentions her super cute little brother gracefully receives. Alternately a pretend baby and a shockingly accurate adolescent-in-training (she matter-of-factly told me she was taking the shoelaces out of her sparkly sneakers yesterday, except that's not what they're called. Mama! I have told you a hundred times they're not called sparkly sneakers!), Frances seems to be uncomfortable in her own six-year-old skin.

She worries that she's a bad person. She worries that she's so bad her parents might not love her, so she clings and demands and baby talks and pushes away. How did my baby girl come up with these fears? And why do they persist despite our many gentle yet firm talks with her about her infinite goodness and the necessity and okay-ness of mistakes?

Oh, why do some of us have a harder time than others accepting the gift of unconditional love?

Though she has rarely been relaxed when it comes to receiving affection, some of the things that have come out of her mouth lately would make more sense on the lips of a recovering addict at an NA meeting. Someone who's done some serious harm in her life, not a child who spilled the maple syrup and is having a hard time mastering the cartwheel. Frances struggles to accept her own loveable-ness. It breaks my heart.

The worst part is that the behaviors that stem from her fear and discomfort are just plain irritating. It's not easy to give affection that's demanded of you. I fear my responses reinforce the problem. At this point, all I can do is look for ways to affirm that are about showing, not telling. Thank goodness for books.

Today we snuggled and read three chapters of All of a Kind Family, a favorite which Frances may soon have memorized. There is absolutely nothing like sharing a story we both delight in to take the pressure off and reconnect. Frances especially loves Henny, the rebellious second sister in a large family of outrageously well-behaved and loving girls. We laugh together over her funny and clever refusals to be good like her sisters. I can only hope that our shared, genuine affection for a grand, independent, sometimes lazy, sometimes selfish, always loveable child like Henny is healing for my extraordinary, dear little girl.

craftlandia

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:21:00 +0000

Feast your eyes upon the balance board that I made for my family for Christmas. Yes, I made it! And yes, those zig zags are nothing more than duct tape painstakingly applied over a much longer time than one would think necessary, something I could never have seen through til the late-night end without the support of friends who came over to drink wine and make balance boards with me.

It's weird that it took me this long to organize some adult crafting. I love making stuff with my kids, but that requires valuing process over product, flexibility, tolerating messes, and navigating the limits of their patience. Making things with an adult crowd is so different. I can indulge my perfectionist tendencies! And laugh at them with friends--while still refusing to slow down the perfectionist train!

I was probably inspired in some way by Crafternoon, a book and terrific concept (which is, as far as I understand it, getting together to make stuff with your friends) promoted by the best pal of one of our best pals. Of course, with little ones around, crafternoons are not always possible. But post-bedtime crafting? Some encrafted evening? A craftastic night? Lordy, somebody stop me. But you get my meaning: it was super fun. I'll do it again.

I say this even though we recently watched the first season of Portlandia (now streamable on Netflix). I laughed so hard I cried, especially during certain sketches that hit way close to home. I don't live in Portland. I don't freak out over whether my fresh pasta is locally and organically made. But during one episode a dumpster diving couple cries when no one will come to their dinner party (again!), at which they're serving lentil cabbage stew with cumin. This after a (cross-dressed, absurd) woman can't get in the mood because she's confronted with a large cardboard box on the floor beside the bed. All that packaging! What a waste! So she leaps up to make a hat and halter top from the bubble wrap. The self-recognition made it all doubly hilarious. Painfully so. Let's face it, the sad truth is I can't stand to let a cardboard box head out in the recycling without making something out of it.

But really, look at that kid playing with the balance board. Yesterday she told a long, serpentine tale to herself using the board as a prop and general story-stoker. It was all about an orphan girl and boy who are very very poor and have to fend for themselves in the big scary world. There were rags involved. Also going barefoot and living off of bananas and crumbs. But then the two find a cow, learn to milk it, start making yogurt, and everything gets better from there.

She's doubtlessly inspired by classic themes of parent-less children and triumphant self-reliance from children's literature, and maybe also by my latent urban homesteading fantasies. Or love of cardboard boxes - though I don't think the children made themselves a house out of cardboard. At least not in this story.

This was when the girl and boy have to swim across a cold, treacherous lake.

The end was happy, despite what this pensive gesture suggests.

I was watching Frances, lost in her story and surfing that simple board, surrounded by so many pointless toys, and it hit me: less is more.

Friends, I propose less stuff and more stories in 2012. And more lentil stews and more recycled craft projects too! Just let me know when you're ready to come over.

p.s. Have you liked Homemade Time on Facebook yet? Please do!

fresh intentions

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:06:00 +0000

I'm a year-round maker of resolutions. The varied commitments I privately, persistently make - everything from drinking more water to giving more to charity, from reading more poetry to eating more kale - have at times set me teetering on the edge of pathology (maybe it's already in the DSM? Self-improving Personality Disorder?). So no, I'm not making any resolutions today. Instead, I have a few lines to share with you that have been coloring my vision over the past few days, lending me a sense of fresh intention about motherhood.

The first I encountered in a book loaned to me long ago. Everyday Blessings had been collecting alarming amounts of dust on my bedside table until I picked it up and shook it off recently, opening to this quote:

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

-Rilke

So much of the work of parenting is negotiating (and accepting) the distances between our children and us: knowing when to draw closer, and when to refrain from drawing closer; figuring out how to be alone together and how to be together together. With toddlers it can be downright comical (pick me up! put me down!) but with older children there is more nuance to our fluctuating, back and forth intimacy. Right now, I think I need to hold my oldest a little closer and refrain from holding my youngest quite so tightly. Intuiting, being present, listening...the stuff of daily life easily knocks these modes of becoming attuned to those we love-and the distances between us!-right off the table. But under a blanket, watching the grey clouds gather outside, surrounded by the quiet of the first day of the year? Today, I can try to listen.

And here is the other quote that has been following me around. It's from Pish, Posh, said Hieronymous Bosch by Nancy Willard (a new favorite, recommended by the wise and lovely proprietress of Dutch Hill Farm). In the book, Hieronymous Bosch's housekeeper has been looking after him and all the bizarre creatures from his paintings (that also live with him) and it's too much. Fed up, she packs her bag and flees, only to discover 22 miles down the road that some of the creatures, unwilling to be parted from her, have stowed away in her suitcase. She throws up her hands in resignation and smiles down at them all, saying:

They're not what I wished for: When women are young

they want curly-haired daughters and raven-haired sons.

In this vale of tears we must take what we're sent,

feathery, leathery, lovely or bent.

Oh, I love these lines. We don't get what we wish for; children (and all sorts of loved ones, for that matter) simply arrive. They are who they are, and there's not much we can do but love them in their singularity and strangeness. Why fight it? Let's take what we're sent! I am hoping to channel that housekeeper's bemused, accepting affection with my dear ones in 2012. Because really, that which sometimes makes them insufferable also makes them extraordinary! They're figuring it out, and I could stand to allow them a bit more space for all the necessary stumbles along the way. Plus, they're a heck of a lot cuter than Bosch's two-headed bats and pickle-winged fish.

Happy new year to all of you! May this year bring you peace, happiness, and the grace and good humor to enjoy all that you're sent.

merry and bright

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 18:53:00 +0000

The holidays are upon us, and it is all very, very lovely. I am a little tired and over-sugared, but in a good way--nothing the bright sunshine outside can't cure. My sister and brother-in-law have come all the way from Iowa with my sweet Cindy Lou Who of a niece, Louisa.

She just ate her first bananas with adorable gusto, while five adults hovered, laughing and applauding every time she opened her mouth like a baby bird and swatted at the spoon, before being whisked off to Grandma's house where we will go tomorrow. It is a joy to see the cousins together!

While we were watching the Louisa Banana Show, Frances and Gabriel were busy making a little restaurant in the playroom using the wooden play kitchen that arrived this morning from friends who were ready to pass it on. As you can see, the pizza on offer was cheep for Christmas. Only two dollars a pizza.

This holiday season I'm feeling grateful to be part of a community of giving, noticing how we are the recipients of an easy generosity that is not limited to this particularly lovely season but somehow illuminated by it. The unexpected kitchen, the baby car seat a friend kindly dropped off for Louisa to use during her visit, singing carols and drinking wine with neighbors last night. The holiday cards in the kitchen from friends near and far--many featuring the faces of children who we love dearly--are especially precious in this immaterial age. Watching Frances run across the street with cookies for our neighbor all by herself. It feels so good. It feels like the way life is supposed to be.

Happy holidays to all of you, dear readers. May these days be filled with light where you are, too.

providence

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Shortly before Thanksgiving, I had a glass of wine with a new acquaintance, ostensibly to figure out if there was a way I could volunteer with the innovative nonprofit she leads. We had lots in common, including Dallas (where I was born), and her interests and approach to social problems resonated for me in an energizing way. Deciding we'd talk more after the holiday, I wished her a lovely Thanksgiving with her family in Dallas.

She sent me a text a few days later, telling me that her parents had known my parents. They'd gone to the church where my dad first worked out; her dad had a note he'd saved from my dad! That's it up there. I was able to open the attachment for the first time this morning, and it took my breath away. My dad wasn't much of a note-writer; I have precious little in the way of handwritten documents. This is like hidden treasure that I didn't have to lift a single shovelful of dirt to find; it unearthed itself, shiny and perfect, and landed conveniently in my email inbox.

So not only did I find a new story about my beloved dad, who died nearly sixteen years ago, I found a new friend AND a new way to re-enter social work. As of this month, I'm helping her nonprofit with their Hispanic families. It feels great. I cannot help but wonder at the connections through time and space that somehow, incredibly, made this happen.

To mark the occasion, I thought I'd share some of my dad's voice with you. This is from a story-sermon about Toadie Olie, a bright orange bean bag frog that a little boy named Abe received mysteriously (no card) on his seventh birthday. His older brother Vic suggested Toadie might be magic; he might eat nightmares. Abe clings to this idea, as he is terrified of the dark. When he has Toadie in bed with him at night, the monsters don't come out from under the bed.

Eventually, Toadie has to come everywhere with Abe. If there is a place Toadie can't come, Abe won't go- it's too scary without his magical protection. All until the summer evening described here, in which Vic and Abe are home alone and Vic wants to walk over to his friend Steve's house. In the dark. Abe is unsure that Toadie can handle the dark outside his house and refuses to come along--but staying home alone without Vic is equally terrifying. So, crying, he agrees to come along, pressing Toadie to his eyes and stumbling along in the awful darkness. Here it is, the final part of God, Temptation, and the Frog by Kit Howell:

Vic said, "Abe, this is ridiculous. Open your eyes. You can see to walk."

"No," said Abe. "Everything is too dark."

"Of course it is," said Vic. "You've got that frog over your eyes. Now pull it down and open your eyes."
"No," said Abe.

"Let's sit for a minute," said Vic. ... He sat. Finally Abe sat too. "Abe," said Vic, "What do you hear?"

"Nothing," said Abe, not wanting to hear anything.

"Listen-don't open your eyes-just listen. Can you hear the crickets?"

Abe let himself listen just a little. "Is that what that is?"

"Yeah. What else can you hear?"

"The breeze."

"Abe," said Vic, "Can you lean over close to the grass here, real close, and just peek at it?"

"No."

"Just peek. Move the frog away from one eye and peek."

Slowly, ever so slowly, listening all the while, Abe peeked. He was right over the grass. He could see. He saw the grass blowing inches from his face. The grass danced in the wind. It glowed.

Suddenly Abe looked up. He had to. He simply had to. And for a moment everything stopped. The world held its breath while Abe saw. For the first time in his life he saw the dark. He saw that everything was different in the dark, but not changed. He saw that everything was different in the dark, but it was still what it was.

In that brief moment, Abe saw that the night trees blow more gently than they do in the daylight. He saw the grass on the golf course glow in the moonlight so that the light seemed to be coming up from the grass itself rather than coming down from the moon. He could see his own house and all the other houses in the neighborhood somehow softer than in the daytime. Abe looked at Vic. He seemed pale. Still he was Vic. Vic broke the silence and the world took a quiet breath. "Look down at my shadow," he said. "See how much more jumpy it is at night than in the daytime. Abe looked and it was so. His own shadow was the same in the moonlight. It seemed more its own creature, dancing across the grass.

Vic said, "Come on." And Abe went, looking at everything, watching the night fill the spaces the day never touched. Vic ran to the top of one of the greens with Abe behind. But before Abe got there, for some reason, he turned and looked behind him. He saw his own footprint in the grass. There was dew in the footprint glistening in the moonlight. Suddenly, a ball of excitement as big as the world rose up in him. Abe went along with it. He ran to the top of the green and tried to jump at the moon and the stars and the sky. As he jumped, Toadie Olie slipped from his fingers.

When he fell back down, his hands were empty. He was free. Vic jumped up and down. He clapped. Abe looked up. Everything was clapping. The stars clapped. The trees clapped. The whole universe clapped and sang its own noise.

Vic walked over to Abe. "Abe," he said, "The world might be scary sometimes. But it is always better than Toadie Olie."

"Yeah," said Abe. And the two of them went to Steve's house to play.

That night when Abe and Vic came home, Abe took Toadie Olie and put him on his shelf. And that's where he is to this day.

Just in case.

In a world without end, Amen.

in the bleak midwinter

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:39:00 +0000

After the Lower School's holiday concert, I had plans to run errands with Gabriel and knock a few items from my to-do list, which has been buzzing around my head with more intensity than I'd like of late. But then the concert was very long, and Gabriel was very grouchy and hard to maneuver through the school parking lot, and in the end we scrapped it all, stopping at the library (which is not even on my buzzing list!), and eventually coming home to paint.

The concert was, as I expected, very beautiful. The first, second, third, and fourth graders sat in groups on the floor of a gym, forming a wide circle, the center of which became a stage. They played music, danced, read stories they had written, recited poetry, and sang. The grande finale featured the Upper School Chamber Choir singing one of my very favorite Christmas hymns, In the Bleak Midwinter, along with the younger children. (You can listen to a particularly beautiful version here). Surprisingly, it was not watching the children's faces singing this song--one so beautiful and melancholy, evoking a sense of being humble, stripped bare, with words (by Christina Rossetti) that you would not think to place in the mouths of babes--but the faces of their music teachers, who kneeled before the seated children on the floor, gently conducting and mouthing the words for them with wide, sparkling eyes, that brought tears to my eyes.

All children need adults who kneel before them and look at them with such single-minded focus in their lives. I am very grateful that my daughter has them, and somehow an awareness of our great fortune in that regard brought on a bout of nearly painful awareness of my own (and my children's) fragility. (What can I give him, poor as I am?) Despite the sunshine outside, I carried a bleak midwinter within--earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone--which is why I couldn't bear to drag a grumpy three year old through any more parking lots today. And why instead I retreated home with a much relieved boy for a gentler morning at home, warming ourselves by the fire.

me party

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:59:00 +0000

This project caught my eye a few days ago, especially because it involves cutting and painting cardboard, which--and I don't mean to brag--happens to be one of my family's specialties (see here, and here). But coming off a less-than-satisfying interlude decorating the Christmas tree with my children on Sunday, I determined to dive into this simple holiday project with nary an expectation of my kids. Whether or not I had cheerful and willing co-crafters, I was going to make a Christmas tree garland. And I'd like it.

I began by cutting cardboard trees from one of the many Amazon boxes that have been arriving at our door this month, and waited for someone to notice. (Okay, I suppose I secretly did hope for helpers...but I wasn't going to advertise it). My dear son took the bait. Hey, could we paint those trees, Mama? Why...what a good idea, Gabriel!

It was also a good idea to cut out another shark, glue on a sequin eye, and give him a bloody red mouth since he had recently taken part in a cardboard shark battle. (Give and take, people). But mostly we stayed with the tree theme, mixing in glitter and gluing on lots of sequins. We never hooked Frances, but that's okay. These past two days she's had homework to do after school, plus she had to dance to the Muppets soundtrack all over the playroom.

For those of you who've seen the movie, you might have recognized the title of this post: we love the disco beat of 'Me Party,' an anthem sung by a determined Amy Adams and Miss Piggy about having a grand old time all by your lonesome. The kids and I danced around like crazy people today to that song, and to all the others that we love while dinner simmered upstairs (Tex Richman's hip hop turn remains Frances's favorite).

I was ready for that garland to be a me party sort of project, which might be why Gabriel easily joined me in pursuing it. I didn't announce to the kids that they were going to make something special, and as far as I know I didn't lay on subtle pressure to have a good time holiday crafting with me or else. So in the end it all came together naturally, and the four of us really like our new garland. Even though my skills begin and end with painting cardboard, it's freeing to recognize that I like crafting. It's not all about the kids, though I have them to thank for the abundant crafting opportunities in my life. Whether or not you have a three year old by your side, making stuff is fun.

What are you making at your house today?

homeless hair

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:07:00 +0000

Today while I was having my biannual haircut I chatted with the hairdresser about cutting our kids' hair. This was my second cut with Kristin but I feel as if we go back way farther than that. She is tall and thin with a bit of Elvira-esque glamour about her: long, straight black hair with a bleached bit on top, witchy black heels, and, in a punk take on the classic beauty mark, a tiny stud sparkling in the piercing just above her upper lip. She tells me I should wear legwarmers. She tells me the burgeoning gray hairs along my part look good. Scissors firmly in hand, she is not even a little intimidated by my unruly hair. In short, she's a keeper.

In our talk about kid haircuts, she told me with exasperation that her four year old has homeless hair. "I always say to her, why is your hair so homeless?" She might have meant that her daughter's hair looks unwashed and uncombed, as if she's been sleeping in the streets for weeks. But if that were it, Kristin might have asked her why her hair looks like a homeless person's hair. The expression made me laugh so hard because I think Kristin was complaining about an innate quality common to many little heads of hair, including Frances's (though as she gets older it--along with the rest of her--seems to respond to social pressures and expectations). It's that wispy, weird, perpetual ragamuffin look, the baby fine hair that slips out of every ponytail holder and barrette and in certain weather looks as if its owner may have stuck a fork in a socket. Different parts of it seem to grow at different rates, and it tends towards mullet no matter how you trim it. I think homeless hair refuses to bend to convention. It doesn't act like it lives in a house; it acts like it lives in the wilderness and like a wild animal, cannot under any circumstances be controlled.

Today we brought home a Christmas tree, and after Gabriel's nap we set about stringing lights and hanging ornaments. I put on Christmas music and prepared for a rush of holiday spirit to engulf us. And why shouldn't it? I had a new hair cut, there was a few years' worth of homemade ornaments to unwrap and remember making with fondness, and as everyone knows, children simply adore Christmas!

But Frances has this new habit of singing "opera" at odd moments, warbling in a particularly ear-splitting style. She spent parts of today weaving bits of blue string scavenged from the Christmas tree lot into weird nests and wrapping them in paper, proudly showing off the fantastic gifts she'd made for her baby cousin. Gabriel, as he is wont to do, spent time tackling (unexpectedly) anyone in his field of vision. After a number of such tackles, he finally occupied himself by throwing lightweight wicker ornaments onto the tree to see how high he could get them to stick.

These passing behavioral tics usually slide right off my back. But today? Today I found them impossibly irritating. Instead of nimbly hanging ornaments like sprightly Christmas elves full of good cheer, my children were rough housing, hoarding "their" ornaments, and bickering over hanging rights. I found myself picking fights right along with them, wondering with exasperation when Frances would stop mistaking junk for treasure and when Gabriel would learn to channel his aggressive energy in more acceptable ways. I mean, why weren't they cooperating with my vision? Why is their hair so homeless?

In the end, the tree was trimmed, dinner was eaten without complaint, and by the time we were snuggled up and reading stories I was beginning to forgive my children for being--uncompromisingly, regardless of my fantasies--themselves. The new addition to my bedtime routine with Frances really sealed the deal though. It's called the Hair Trick. After the songs (2), sprinkle dusties (9), hugs (6), and good nights at the door (10), I walk back to her bedside and wordlessly run my fingers underneath her fragile little skull, gathering up all that homeless hair into a loose twist behind her on the pillow so that it won't tickle her neck. It's a rare quiet moment, and when I encircle her small perfect head with my long fingers I am telling her that she is precious and that I will keep her safe. Even if she shatters the windows with her opera.

giveaway winners

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:59:00 +0000

Erin Stephens-Marner, Milena Smith, and Christen Coscia all get a lovely CD from The Good Ms. Padgett! Congratulations.

Would the winning ladies please send me (meaganhowell@gmail.com) an email with address so I can send you a package?

(This is the cover of her forthcoming album; if you make it to one of her shows with Elizabeth Mitchell you might hear some of the delightful stories from it live!)

the book nook

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:53:00 +0000

My grandmother consoled my mother, who was steeling herself to leave a place she loved for a place she was deeply wary of (Fort Lauderdale, where a church community was waiting for my dad to become its new minister), with these words: home is wherever your family is. I can get with that sentiment (however ineffective I suspect it may have been, comfort-wise, at that moment). It prioritizes relationships over any particular address or possession. A place, even a great one like Providence, can't be home if your family isn't there with you.

The house we now live in would make a good test case for my grandmother. It was in foreclosure when we bought it nearly three years ago. When we came to see the house, it was grim: the bank set the heat just barely warm enough to prevent the pipes from bursting, and had painted every wall the same dirty off-white color. Hardly anything grew in the yard, and in the dirt just in front of the big kitchen window lay a curious pile of stones that had been painted bright yellow.

Was it home when we first moved in? Though my beloved family surrounded me, sometimes it was just plain creepy. Neighbors told us that four or five undocumented immigrant families had been living in the house before it went into foreclosure. We'd find small plastic children's toys in the basement. I wondered about the kids who had played with them, and where they were now.

But it was ours, and little by little we made it feel like ours. I am not always good at acknowledging the importance of our environments (I'd buy myself a pair of shoes - no, a hundred pairs of shoes - before I'd buy my house a lamp). But every time we make a small gesture towards personalizing this space, making it more beautiful and more comfortable, the resulting satisfaction runs deep.

On Friday I had the gas fireplace (yes, the kind you turn on with a switch!) in the playroom maintenanced and checked for safety. It had sat quietly all this time gathering dust. But once we got it working, I felt the primal tug of the hearth and by Saturday we'd rearranged the furniture, rolled out a rug that had been in the basement, and moved a bookshelf. Gabriel and I started these spontaneous efforts, and at a certain point I stood back, very pleased, and said, Look at this cozy nook we've made!

He started giggling uncontrollably. You...said...NOOK!

It is a pretty funny word, when you think of it.

So the children named our new spot The Book Nook. My family and I spent much of Saturday and Sunday morning reading and crafting by the pretend fire. We love it. It's amazing, how a small single thing can create a new way of being in a physical space, new habits and new modes of being together. We got the fireplace turned on, and now we have a cozy book nook.

Maybe home is more than where your family is. Maybe it's the place you create with your family: the place where you read, cook, sing, sleep, dance, create, argue, make up, move furniture around, and welcome guests and neighbors. When we first moved in we could have invited a priest to exorcise the place or a shaman to wave burning sage around, but instead we took the traditional route and just settled into living here, making incremental adjustments as the children grew and we were able. I guess it worked, because when I sat watching Frances read fairy tales in the book nook over the weekend I realized something with surprising clarity: we're home.

don't give up!

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:47:00 +0000

Gabriel and I made some of our favorite cookies on Friday, and I just munched through three of them, happy to be home after a quick jaunt to Lancaster to see my mother's latest directorial triumph. More on our weekend soon, but first: I am sorry that many of you have had trouble posting comments in order to enter The Good Ms. Padgett's delightful CD giveaway. My technical limitations are being exposed in a serious way. Suffice it to say I'm working on it, and in the meantime...don't give up!

If the comments section isn't being nice to you, don't bother with it. Just like Homemade Time & The Good Ms. Padgett on Facebook, and leave a comment on the Homemade Time Facebook page so I'll be sure to know you've entered. I'll announce the three winners at the end of the week.

Enjoy this last little bit of weekend, everyone.

good songs

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:09:00 +0000

Years ago, it was my turn to help out in Frances's cooperative preschool class. The only problem was she was sick that morning, and had to stay home with her baby brother and my mother, who had graciously agreed to babysit. Frances was sorely disappointed but I was secretly relieved, because cooping with that kid was never easy. At the tender age of three, she harbored an intractable fear that if I helped out other children I would become their mother and she'd be left out in the cold. If I had those suspicions, I'd probably scream whenever my mother bent over another child's shoes, too. But just because I could understand her distress didn't mean I liked dealing with it.

Despite the challenges of being in the classroom with Frances, I really did miss her that morning, most especially because we had a guest visit during circle time. A warm and lovely woman wearing bright red pants joined us with her guitar and sang and told stories. I particularly remember her reading a version of The Little Red Hen and singing an impossibly catchy refrain in the voice of the title character, who asks for help but is turned down time and time again by her lazy friends. The hen's song - anthem, really - stayed with me. I sang it for Frances and Gabriel and Mike at dinner. We all loved it. It entered into our family repertoire, where it has resided ever since.

Fast forward nearly three years. I have returned to the cooperative preschool, this time with Gabriel, and guess who I met there? Yes indeed, the singing/storytelling lady! Her name is Anna Padgett. She is a parent at the school, as well as a fantastic musician and dedicated kindergarten teacher. Here is a picture of her:

Well, it is a very nice artist's rendition of Anna, and you can find some actual photos on The Good Ms. Padgett's (her children's music name) Facebook page. The picture above is the cover art from her first eponymous album which is full of zany and sweet songs for babies and their adoring, long-suffering parents. There's something about these songs that transported me right back to being exhausted and crazy in love with my tiny babies. You need a good song and good laugh when you've got a baby. Well, you always need those things, but you really need them with a napless eight month old who looks good in hats, eats her feet, and proudly identifies her nose (all are the topics of songs on this album). Gabriel, who sometimes channels a baby named Tofu with an absurd sense of humor, really loves to listen to these songs. So do I.

Anna happens to be married to Miggy Littleton, who is another fine musician and the brother of Daniel Littleton, who is another fine musician who happens to be married to Elizabeth Mitchell. (Readers of this blog know how much I love her music). Anna and Miggy have been playing some tour dates with Elizabeth Mitchell this fall; maybe you've seen them? And the Littleton's father was a much-loved tutor at St. John's, where Mike teaches, and I think at this point you are beginning to see how satisfying the connections are for me!

Soon The Good Ms. Padgett will release a new storytelling and singing album, The Little Red Hen, but before that happens she has graciously agreed to give away three CDs (of her first album) to Homemade Time readers. It would make an awesome gift for new parents, or for old-timers like me who like to get all nostalgic and hug and squeeze their big kids too much.

If you'd like to participate in this first-ever real-deal giveaway on Homemade Time, here's what to do:

1. Like The Good Ms Padgett and Homemade Time on Facebook.

2. Leave a comment here, so I know you've entered.

Spread the word to your music-loving friends! And local readers: Anna will be playing this Friday (tomorrow, Dec 2nd) at the Leeward Market in Eastport around 6:30 pm. We're planning on being there, and hope to see some of you there too.

football for softies

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:53:00 +0000

It all started with this fella, upon whose abundant dreadlocks I gently placed a single seashell hat.

"It's a football helmet! He's on the Cowboys!" enthused my dear boy, who has permanent sports-on-the-brain.

Yesterday we hosted three of Gabriel's friends from preschool, so I made a big batch of our favorite play dough. (There really is nothing like manipulating this stuff; it's a shame we adults don't have more opportunities to squish and roll and flatten in our lives.) Then this morning I had a sitter come over so that I could work on the child abuse prevention article I mentioned recently. In the freakishly springlike sunshine I walked to a cafe, where I got to feel independent and productive, sipping coffee from a wide elegant cup and typing away with only the sounds of muffled adult conversations and frothing milk to distract me.

I returned when the weather turned gray and windy to find my smiling boy covered in mud and ready for lunch. After a quick meal, we sat down with our freshly made play dough, the nature basket, and a CD of some new favorite story-songs (that I'm hoping to tell you more about here soon). For awhile we sang along and planted pine cones in the play dough, waiting for inspiration. But after I made that first long-haired football player, more and more teammates followed.

It was a perfect morning, balancing outside and inside, movement and stillness, being alone and being together, creating and caring. I'm trying to be more intentional about noticing these moments of abundance, rather than ruminating on what I lack, resisting the urge to ask Why can't life always be like this? in favor of another kind of question: Isn't it a gift that life is like this today?

Now the raindrops are bouncing lightly off the deck railing outside our big window and the gutters sound like a burbling mountain brook; there is something reassuring about it. Do you think it is possible to yearn always for greater, more glorious things and yet feel a whisper of completeness in the present moment? To be deeply rooted and pulled out and up at the same time? Motherhood is the hardest job, but when I remember to slow down and be attentive, sometimes a window cracks open, offering a glimpse of what that kind of fecundity might be like.

Like I was saying: play dough is the best.

grateful

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:21:00 +0000

Before we went to my mother's for Thanksgiving on Thursday, we took a much-needed Family Day, organized around two special events: going out for breakfast in the morning and going to a movie in the afternoon. Funny how things that were once part of our everyday (pre-children) lives have become nothing less than momentous. All the better to appreciate them! And it was our first movie-going experience as a family, which is something to grin about no matter how you slice it.

If it had been any other new release, we might not have taken a chance with our sensitive three year old boy at the sensory extravaganza that is the movies these days (oh, it is loud!). But The Muppets had just opened. We'd watched some of The Muppet Movie at home, but the thirty-year-old jokes and pacing seemed hard for the kids to access. Kermit the Frog is universally appealing; Steve Martin as a surly waiter is not. I hoped this new movie would call to my kids in a voice they could respond to.

Parenthood, for me, has been a time of suspicion towards pop culture. My sensitivity to crassness, meanness, loudness, cynicism, bad music, bad books, and bad art skyrocketed within minutes of giving birth to Frances. I wanted to keep everything ugly and stupid away from the perfect seven pounds of person that had been entrusted to us. When I read Jonathan Richman quoted saying that he didn't want to play music that would hurt a baby's ears, I knew exactly what he meant.

We mined pop culture for things we could delight in as a family: the Carter Family and Pete Seeger, the Beattles, the Kinks, Little Richard. Elizabeth Mitchell is a favorite; she does the work of curating and translating popular and folk songs for us. There are always more and more good children's books to discover (most recently, The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright). But television and movies? That has been cloudier territory for me.

But once the interminable advertisements and trailers were finally over and The Muppets began, sitting in the dark, looking down at Frances and Gabriel and Mike, I felt not even a tiny bit of ambivalence. Something about the exuberant song and dance numbers hit me so hard; watching them was nothing short of joyful. Holding my kids' hands during this opening song, my own childhood memories ran smack into the present moment. Oh! It was just great. I felt proud that people my age had made this movie happen (love, love that Bret McKenzie), bringing all the adults and kids around me to a similar transcendent movie-going experience.

And now? Now my family has a shared pop culture gem to share. I guess we did before, but this one feels different. We all encountered it for the first time together. Mike downloaded the soundtrack so that we could listen to it on the drive to Lancaster Thursday morning, which we did--twice--and all four of us were transported. Imagine Frances grinning in the backseat, ducking her head to the beat like a miniature gap- toothed Beastie Boy, absolutely delighted by bad guy Tex Richman (played by Chris Cooper) rapping about being rich (I'm so rich I gold-plate my gold/I even I gold-plated my cat/I don't regret much but I do regret that). I wish you could see it.

Mike and I probably have no less than thousands of songs, ad jingles, cartoons, and 80s movies in common. A lot of it is crap, but nevertheless it still makes up a landscape of references that we share and that serves as shorthand on an everyday basis. Now we have new, quality little ditties to add to the mix, and our kids know them just as intimately as we do. I love it. We can't stop singing around here. Life's a happy song, friends.

magic

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:44:00 +0000

Frances: Mama, will you just tell me? Is Santa Claus real? Is it just you and Papa who put presents in the stockings?

Me, caught off guard, looking up from the winter squash I have been hacking away at: Well...what do you think?

Frances: Mama. You always say that. Just answer, yes or no.

I look at her. I have no idea what to say.

Frances: I hate lying and secrets, Mama.

Me: Me too.

Frances: So please just tell me.

So I did. I told her that Santa Claus is just a story. She got me with that bit about lying and secrets, which is why for the first years of parenthood I felt squeamish perpetuating the Santa Claus myth, unable to meet my eager toddler's eyes when the subject of elves came up. Over the years though, her delight trumped my qualms about lying. When she was about 18 months old, Frances discovered the Santa Tube, which is her direct line to the North Pole. Mike had casually picked an empty cardboard tube that had recently held gift wrap up off the floor shortly before Christmas. Gently placing one end on Frances's ear, he had whispered through the tube: Frances. Hello, Frances.

Eyes wide, her face registered a shock of immediate recognition. Santa??

After a few beats, during which Mike and I looked at each other over her wee head with raised eyebrows, he whispered Yes. What else could he say?

She asked him all kinds of improbable things, and he answered kindly. Then it was time to hang up, and the tube became a piece of cardboard again. Every year since, there has been at least one Santa Tube incident. Frances sits there, sometimes watching Mike speak into his end of the tube, and though at age five at least some part of her growing rational mind realized that the voice she heard was most likely her Papa's, a louder, imaginative and exuberant part of her knew it was Santa.

Last year she also wondered often about whether or not Santa was real. But we never went all the way there; she didn't really want to know. But after she lost a tooth a few weeks ago she asked me point blank if I was the tooth fairy. I told her the truth. I should have known what she'd ask me about next.

After I told her this afternoon, she turned back to her book and I turned back to my squash. A few minutes later she looked up and plaintively asked, Really Mama? Really?

I nodded. I couldn't turn back now. Her lower lip began to tremble. Then the words tumbled out: Mama, now I can't believe any magic is real! You shouldn't have told me; now for the rest of my life there won't be any magic!

All I could do was sit down next to her and pull her into my lap. She clung to me and said that now that there was no tooth fairy and no Santa, how could any other magic things be real? Her days of believing in magic had come to a sudden, tragic end.

I heard myself say all kinds of awful things about how miraculous nature is and how magical Christmas morning with my family is for me. Terrible, thick-headed, adult sorts of things, and Frances finally stopped me, explaining that that stuff is not the kind of magic she was talking about. Fairies, elves, wizardry, trolls, centaurs, magic potions, gnomes, Narnia, Hogwarts, all of it! It is a beautiful way of looking at the world, colored by the expectation of real magical mythical stuff that very well may be lurking behind any old tree in the backyard.

Well. I think we resuscitated that mode of anticipating magic, one that I was very attached to myself as a child and never quite let go of. When I told her that I thought magic is hidden, and that we adults are probably too busy, too loud, and too mired in multi-tasking to notice it (which might explain why I haven't encountered any fairies lately), I wasn't lying. I told her that children, who can be quiet, observant and dreamy all at the same time, are the people most likely to encounter magic. It was easy to meet her gaze. So she accepted that, and a few minutes later jumped off my lap to develop some new yoga asanas with Gabriel in the living room. (The sort that involve leaping off the couch.)

Then later when my sweet girl was getting tearful at bedtime, exhausted yet unwilling to go to sleep, my eyes caught this little notebook on her desk. If you can't make it out, it reads:

Meagan
67 inches tall
very sick and maniac
clean nose
slow heart beat

I started laughing. I remembered that I had agreed to be the patient for her and Gabriel a couple of days ago, and without my realizing it, like a good and thorough doctor, Frances had taken notes. I yelped like a wild dog when I received my fake flu shot; apparently that's what my 'maniac' diagnosis was based on.

I know it's not the same as meeting a Fairy Queen, but there was something about reading that medical note that was no less incredible. I now know better than to make such a claim with a six year old, but I can share this with you.
It is magic that my daughter wasn't before, and now she is. I lived twenty-eight years without her and then all at once she arrived, an alien, endlessly fascinating being. Frances came from us, but she is not us. She is utterly, completely herself. How irrational, unexpected, beautiful, and strange. How very, very magical.

a shout out to all the villagers

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:32:00 +0000

I've been working on an article about child abuse prevention efforts in Maryland over the past couple of weeks. The United States has the worst record on child abuse in the developed world; a congressional report cited 2,500 child abuse-related deaths in 2009 alone. It's hard to wrap one's head around a figure like that, and hard to understand what it is about the particularities of American life that leads to such a disheartening reality.

When I interviewed the director of a state-wide nonprofit dedicated to preventing abuse and neglect, she told me it wasn't just up to their programs. She said ensuring children grow up healthy is everybody's business: the mail carrier, the bus driver, the elderly neighbor, the checker at the grocery store. It made me think of Mr. Rogers and his unique emphasis on being a good neighbor. Everyone was part of Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, including the viewer, and everyone had an important role to play. The model of community Mr. Rogers shared was one of deep interpersonal connections and mutual responsibility and care.

The director of the nonprofit told me that reducing isolation and education were the central ways that her programs helped parents manage the stress of raising children. Because no matter where you live or who you are, being a parent is hard. I didn't know I could feel rage--coursing through my body, making my hands involuntarily curl into claws, I-could-strangle-someone style rage--until I became a mother. It is a job that tries you in every conceivable way. Like so many of you, I am blessed with a caring partner and supportive friends and family members. I've long recognized that without them, I'm not sure I could have always managed to protect my children's bodies from those moments of rage.

But talking with this director made me realize that it's not just about our intimates. It's about our neighbors! I think of the octogenarian great-grandmother who commiserated with me in line at the post office when my children were behaving badly, a woman who exuded warmth and humor and helped me put things back into perspective. The librarian who volunteered to help us find a special book when one of the kids was about to tantrum and I was about to cry, kindly steering us away from the edge of the cliff. Or the man who ran up to me with a peach-colored rose as I pushed a crying baby in the stroller past his garden, explaining that it was the last one on the bush and he wanted me to have it.

The whole 'it takes a village' thing is often seen as a warm and fuzzy idea, the kind of thing a person who likes potlucks and church bazaars and community theater (check, check, check) might pronounce. A fine bumper sticker indeed; an excellent guiding principle for organizing family life!

But there is so much more at stake. Maybe it takes a village to keep a child alive. Maybe every time you meet someone's eyes or offer a small gesture of support, every time you tell a new mother how beautiful her baby is, hold a door, or ask if you can help, you are doing something huge. Critical. You are being a good neighbor, and perhaps good neighbors reduce isolation and educate parents better than any formal program. And given our country's stats, we are all in need of a bit more neighborliness in our communities.

To the villagers in my life, many of whom I have met only once: thank you. I am so grateful. Thank you for my beautiful, healthy children.