Cicada

08 May, 2011

Mother's Day

Black River Falls, October 2007

Last summer, I was sitting with a friend and we began to talk about our kids. He said to me in a very honest but lighthearted way that, if you do all the math, kids are almost always a bad decision. They cost you a ton of money, they take up all your free time, they spend most of their lives under-appreciating you, they cost you sleep, they test your patience, and they make it all but impossible for you to enjoy those activities that make you feel more like you, like running. Banjo lessons. Jam sessions. Beer.

Today is mother's day, and as I sit here in my living room I find myself thinking back to that conversation last summer. What did we do today to celebrate the joys of motherhood? Well, honestly, Chris took the girls to Lake Shabbona to spend this beautiful day fishing, throwing rocks in the water, stomping in the mud, and walking through the woods. Important to note here is that I did not go with them. No. To celebrate the myriad maternal joys in life, Chris let me pretend for one afternoon that I am, in fact, not a mother.

So why do we do this? Why do we have kids? Exactly what is it that makes up for the laundry list of complaints my friend only semi-jokingly shared with me one year ago?

Oh, but isn't that a hard one to answer? Is it always concrete? I've been sewing this afternoon, pacing the apartment, cleaning up, sewing some more. And I have tried to come up with a list that counters his.

For one, my kids love me more than anyone else does in this world. And I can see that in their eyes (almost) every day. They don't really care if my breath smells. They don't notice if I gain weight. They brush it off when I'm grumpy and nasty. They take me completely as I am and they love me.

Second, I love them in a weirdly instinctual, animalistic sense. When Bela was first born I had strange visions of myself licking her clean, like a mama cat. But there is little else in life that compares to that biologically intense love I have for those girls.

Third, they ground me. They might fight all day, complain about everything, whine till I lock myself in my bedroom, but they are my family. And like fellow combatants in war, my family and I have a deep, unbreakable bond. Our common tragedies and triumphs join us together in ways I never understood as a kid. Everything we experience together becomes part of our story, part of our family culture. Feeling that deeply connected to a group of people is utterly satisfying and spiritually enriching.

So maybe my list isn't as funny as my friend's. I completely agree with everything he said, and some days that really weighs on me. But today, I can also remember why kids are a good reason. If anything, they help you remember that this world is so much bigger than you alone. And when you can reach out and feel closely connected to a group of people who love and depend on you, being so small doesn't feel so huge.

So happy mother's day to all those moms (and dads) who went ahead and had kids anyway. I feel very thankful for the women, and the children, in my life.

And you know what? I wish I had gone to Shabbona today, too.

06 May, 2011

This Moment

Hey there, it's Friday. I'd like to share a moment from our week and wish you all a happy happy weekend.

04 May, 2011

Girlfriends

I've had many close friends throughout my life, and now as a thirty-something I appreciate deeply the moments I have shared with each and every one. As the only girl in a family of three children, my girlfriends played the role of sister, sparing me from the torture of my older and younger brothers. My girlfriends did not knuckle punch me in the arms; they did not noose up my cabbage patch dolls and hang them from the door frames; they did not crack raw eggs on my head; they did not call me thunder thighs.

Instead, they indulged my deepest "barbie time" fantasies, let me borrow their barbie convertibles, taught me how to ride horses, wrote and recorded bad country music with me, took me on their family vacations. And the older I have become, the more cherished my friendships are - the more we share in each other's lives.

Let me introduce you to Karen, friend extraordinaire. Karen is the kind of friend who will come over to your house and help you clean. She is the kind of gal who won't look at you funny when you decide, at 8 1/2 months pregnant, to repaint an entire apartment. In fact, she (at 4 1/2 months pregnant) will climb up on that ladder and help you do the parts you can't reach. (Because you're, you know, much shorter than her.) She'll walk 35 New York City blocks with you with her small toddler strapped to her back. She'll show up with a drill and a level and help you hang those really heavy framed prints in your kids' room. She'll sit next to you when you give birth to your second baby, and she'll ask that you be present when she does the same. And she'll get on a plane, fly part way across the country, and run a Spring marathon with you that--who are we kidding?--neither of you trained especially hard for.

My hope is that my daughters develop that same friendship with each other - the kind that can carry you through ugly times and revel with you when things are looking pretty sunny. Because what in the world would we do without girlfriends?

The girls wait patiently for us at Memorial Stadium

Finished!

good friends.

Thank you, Karen.

29 April, 2011

These Moments

It's Friday! It's time for This Moment, except that this week, I have a lot. Let's call it This Day, or These Moments. Have a great weekend.

27 April, 2011

The Long Winter

'Mary' and 'Laura' Ingalls, 10/2009

The girls and I recently finished the 5^th book in the Little House series, The Long Winter. Well,

technically speaking, it is the 6^th, but since the protagonist of Farmer Boy (book 2) was, in fact, a boy, Bela and Mae had no interest in hearing me read it. I think this one really made an impression on them. Bela would demand I read 50 pages at a time, and some nights I would look up after our family reading session and realize almost two hours had passed since we started.

In case it has been 25+ years since you last entered the world of Laura Ingalls, let me refresh your memory. The inhabitants of De Smet, SD suffered an atrocious winter that pummeled them repeatedly with crippling blizzards. The snow was so deep, the storms so severe, that between early December and April of the following year, the fragile outpost lost all train service. The stores were not supplied, the food ran out, the families had no fuel, no light, no heat. The Ingalls survived on cod gravy and brown bread, the grain for which they had to grind morning noon and night in their minute coffee bean grinder.

Bread for breakfast. Bread for lunch. Bread for dinner. Such was their lot, as they were limited to the supplies they could scrape together from within their home.

Did you happen to read my post regarding our new budget? As it turned out, we were throwing away our money as fast as we were depositing it. Realistically speaking, it would have been more efficient if we had had our paychecks direct-deposited into the till of the cash registers at Whole Foods. We reduced our grocery budget by 30% during the month of March and, big surprise, we did not go hungry. We didn’t have as much luck during the month of April.

A weekend trip to Wisconsin that included steaks on the grill and special treats for the girls, combined with a delicious Easter dinner we hosted for friends and family, quite nearly destroyed our food budget. I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t change the steak, the ham, the lemon pound cake for the world. But now we find ourselves here, in the last week of April, having maxed out our limit. What to do?

We will not, as Chris suggested to the girls, eat Cat (Mae complained that Cat does not, in fact, taste very good.) We also will not, as I suggested, blow our budget even more. Instead, we are playing a game we have come to call “The Long Winter.”

Last night, the left-over ham hock and some dried beans became U.S. Senate Ham and Bean soup. This afternoon, the girls took cold mini pizzas to school for lunch. Tonight, we are having edamame, bacon, tortellini in chicken broth. Tomorrow? A can of garbanzo beans and some shavings of dried parmesan cheese? A pound of easter eggs? A jar of hot sauce? A can of coconut milk with a side of red quinoa?

Or maybe just some coarse, brown bread. With cod gravy.