Tell me, what else should I have done?
Lots to do, but I can’t seem to organize it in my head. So update it is. We’ve been having fun lately, and I’m feeling more and more like that’s the most important thing… you know, just as far as our day to day goes. Like, yeah, I could can a bunch of salsa and be all stressed out because it’s a big old struggle with the kids undertow, or we could just go collect leaves and make fall decorations…
It’s so nice to be able to do these things with her. It was a perfect walk, just enjoying the sunshine and having no agenda or timeline. We picked leaves, hunted for pine cones (which were surprisingly scarce), discussed the Halloween decorations -which were kind of confusing and scary for her, which is an interesting thing for me to witness, having never really celebrated the holiday. I dislike her being scared by that stuff, and I much prefer the Day of the Dead kind of traditions… even though that’s not my culture. Is it bad to borrow traditions from other cultures if they feel better to you? See, I don’t think I want to abstain from celebrating it or talking about death and dressing up and all that, but I don’t really like the way it’s currently done. I don’t like all that crazy awful candy (I know, I know, horrible party-pooper), and I hate her being scared or seeing the yucky gory murderous stuff… but I do like that I get to make her a fairy costume that she’s all excited about (her choice! She said she wants a fairy dress, fairy shoes, fairy wings, fairy crown…) Anyway, I’m working on it. It’s tough with holidays- especially with kids. It’s not as simple as just not participating. They get bombarded with these messages, and so it’s just more complicated than just abstaining or participating. Like, I have to cleverly use this situation to facilitate the learning of our beliefs and feelings about different aspects of the culture, and also finding ways to let them have a good deal of fun and the feeling of inclusion… it’s a tricky task. Anyway. LEAVES. Oh the leaves.
The thing I don’t have any qualms with is celebrating this season. This season feels enchanting to me, always has. One of my favorite crafts was taking leaves and things and ironing them between two sheets of wax paper. At first it doesn’t look like much…
… but then you put them up in a window and it’s just so pretty!
We’ll be doing more crafts as the weather gets cooler. She loves it, and it’s really really good for me to have a reason to do stuff like this.
—
Sweet pudgy baby. This was right after he pooped in my lap and peed on the rug. I thankfully managed to catch it in his little onesie and only get it on my hands, but still. Sort of lacking in common sense right then… nursing him all naked and squirmy without a diaper underneath him… But he’s so CUTE right now, even after a poo-splosion.
Stinker.
I kept not harvesting onions… probably due to being all newly postpartum and stuff, but it’s really sad that we actually waited so long that they started to sprout. So, no cold storage for these babies, but we can use them in all the last of the soups and salsa, and also cut them up and freeze them. So, still good. They remind me that it’s time to plant garlic!
Free-ranging. Odette and Little Yellow were over by the last of the tomatoes with Vera in her "tent". They’re all so overgrown that it creates this little kid sized cove for her. Anyway, this was the first time we just let the roam with the dog in the yard. Maya is totally fine. She got a little frisky for a minute and we corrected her, and now they’re just all out there sniffing around. So great. Now I don’t have to worry about keeping Maya in while they have yard-time.
So much nasturtium. Pesto pesto pesto. Thank goodness for pesto.
My sweet pup, all happy and loving the chickens.
And now it’s nap time and I can get some of this salsa underway while they sleep. I won’t be back until Wednesday, there’s just too much to do, but I’m still reading when I can. I’ll leave you with this great poem I read recently:
The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
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OH! The beautiful leaves!!!!!!!
and that poem – is now branded in my heart.
Thank you
I know, right? That poem just leaped at me! Love it, I’m glad I could share. 🙂
those leaves are sooo pretty!
and Asa is getting big!love his smile:)
Time is seriously flying. How far along are you now?
Over 15 weeks, by my calculations, but I didn’t have a dating ultrasound, so that could be a bit off. My uterus is already two fingers below my navel, so I don’t think I’m less…maybe more? We’ll see:)
I love your leaves in the window…I think I will make some too!
Do it! They were so fun and easy. You should post pictures of yours if you can. 🙂
Awe! I love the leaf decorations! I miss the fall. We do have some changing seasons here, though not as dramatic as in MI. I like the winters as they are cool and rainy. A nice break. I do enjoy the silly over-the-top gory stuff on Halloween…I would probably feel different if I had a child.
I am going to have to drive a bit into Los Angeles National Park and find some leaves…
Love the poem…
Yeah, it must be quite a change- MI seasons are always so different from each other. I’ll take lots of pictures for ya. 😉
As for the Halloween thing, I replied to brigittefires down there, and I wonder if you have any thoughts. I know so many people who call it their favorite holiday, so they must be on to something!
Yes. I want pictures!
In terms of Halloween. I haven’t taken the time to reflect on bloody and or graphic decorations and costumes, and what they mean to me. I really see both sides of the spectrum. I understand that the images are violent, and perhaps shouldn’t be glamorized or what have you. But I also think that in my personal experience, it hasn’t affected me in a negative way. I’ve always loved to dress up scary, sometimes graphic and sometimes just silly. (Really what I can’t stand are the sexy-_____ costumes!)
You are a wonderful mother with a wonderful partner. The decisions you two make are the right ones for your family. So, I hope you don’t feel the need to defend your choices in the matter.
You better post pics of your cuties all dressed up!
Thanks, you are always so empowering and validating. You remind me that I can trust myself. I so often forget to! And yeah, you’re right, the sexy-this and sexy-that costumes are so sad! (not to mention sooo cold!)
I will definitely post pictures. 🙂
While I certainly agree with you that the candy thing has gotten way out of hand, I’m not sure I understand the dilemma. I mean, sure, you don’t ever WANT to see your child afraid of something, but I think that sheltering her from the activities of people around her because she’s scared of them would be inappropriate. There’s a lot in life that she’s going to be scared of because she doesn’t understand it, and my personal opinion is that if nothing else this would be an opportunity to teach her a valuable life lesson: Most fear is based on lack of understanding. If you’re afraid of something, learn as much as you can about it until the fear is gone with the lack of mystery. Show her that the spider webs aren’t real, and teach her why real spider webs aren’t scary (for humans ;). Show her that the decorations are just for show/not really blood and gore, like a 3D painting. You’ll already be teaching her at age-appropriate times about things like slaughtering chickens, which I think takes a lot of the mystery and therefore thrill and fear out of those gory decorations. But in the meantime, it could help even doing fun craft projects that could look like blood or body parts (eyeballs, etc). where she’s seen what all went into it and then it’s pointed out that it could look like those decorations outside, to illustrate that those decorations aren’t real.
I guess I also don’t see the difference between representations of dead bodies and display of dead leaves. 😉
I’m curious, are you taking her trick or treating? Maybe now would be a good time to get together with parents with similar values and start a yearly Halloween party. One where even if it has treats, they’re ones that come from your gardens, your farms, and your kitchens. Plenty of kids go to parties rather than trick or treating for one reason or another, and if there is something fun to do instead of walking around picking up HFCS bombs then she won’t likely miss it. A lot of the paranoia around with kids picking up candy from strangers really took a lot of the fun out of it for me anyway. Plus I was always stuck with all this crap I didn’t like and even as a kid it felt like such a waste. I suspect yours would feel similarly, given the way I see you raising them.
Forgive me, Halloween is just my favorite day of the whole year. I love the Celtic traditions and the modern American ones and all of the Death/Harvest celebrations in between all over the world. And I think that if there is a way of celebrating that speaks to you, you should just go with it even if it’s not a culture in which you were raised. That’s one nice thing about living in the Great Melting Pot, you can pick and choose the things that speak to you.
Well, sure. I don’t want to shut her off from what’s going on around her- I want to talk to her honestly about it. I guess, while I wasn’t allowed to celebrate Halloween at all, I’ve been questioning my perception of the holiday because I don’t have much experience with it. But I guess my reflections on it are this: there are many aspects of the holiday that are fun and healthy- the harvest portion, of course, then the dressing up, the talking about death and ancestors and spirits and stuff… I don’t mind any of that. It’s the part where there’s like bloody axes and eyeballs and stuff. It makes me think of horrible murder and needless violence. So… is that part supposed to be fun too? I guess I’m open to that, but I can’t help but see the difference between that and fallen leaves or skeletons or carved pumpkins. I mean, am I supposed to teach her to ignore those instincts about how horrible that would be, and tell her to have fun with it instead?
I mean, when we were taking our walk, I showed her this display and touched all the parts and showed her it wasn’t real, and then we talked about skeletons, spiders, webs, ghosts- each element and what relationship it has to us. But there are displays out there that are really scary because it brings up images of cruelty and disrespect for life. I mean, there’s a difference between a fake murdered body hanging from someone’s fence post and some dead leaves, or even skeletons… I don’t know that I’m articulating this well, but I hope you know what I mean.
Thanks for this comment, because it actually helped me whittle down my issues with it- they really come down to the crappy HFCS-laden candy (and the taboos surrounding homemade candy, so I can’t even hand that out… looks like I’m handing out apples!), then the consumerism side of it (which bothers me about most holidays), and then the desensitizing of needless and graphic violence.
There’s a lot about it that I really like. The history of the holiday is really interesting. Still, I do tend to gravitate a bit more to the Day of the Dead traditions, where it’s about costuming and food, etc., but they also all go party in the graveyards and talk about their loved ones and decorate everything with amazing colors and marigolds everywhere. Perhaps it’s just an aesthetic thing…
Also, it’s great that you mention about the party idea. We have a few families who’ve been throwing that idea around. We’ll try to pull it off, I think. At least next year. And I like what you say about choosing traditions/making our own. This could end up being one of my favorite days, too! Anyway, feel free to let me know your thoughts on anything I wrote, I really am open to learning and getting a new perspective. 🙂
I love Mary Oliver, and I love your leaf decorations in the windows. I can remember doing that craft project with my mother and my sister when I was a kid. We would sometimes also put crayon shaving in ours–they melt with the heat of the iron and add little scattered bits of color.
Thanks! Oh yeah, the crayon shavings! I forgot about that. We’ll have to remember that for next year. 🙂
Love that poem, love the pictures of the rapidly growing kiddos and! love love love the leaves!!! That was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. Leaves don’t change dramatically like that here..I have seen a few trees changing colors though. I’m going to try and snag a few leaves next time I see some. I miss real fall something fierce sometimes! I miss teh way michigan smells in the fall. it’s so so good.
Per Halloween, maybe look into more of the real tradition and basis behind Halloween. Dressing up to confuses the bad spirits, it being “the one day that the dead can contact the living”, honoring those who have passed away, as well as combining that with celebrating the harvest. Maybe go more the Samhain route versus sugar-bombed and overly violent displays.
Aw, I wish I could send you a package with fall smells and colors… I’ll just have to take pictures for ya. 🙂
I think that’s definitely the route we’re going to take. We’re actually just planning a harvest party with a bunch of great people, lots of good food and sweet stuff we are okay with, a little scavenger hunt for the kiddos… I think it could be a really nice tradition. 🙂
I should do some leaves in wax paper for Ben. I think he’d have a great time playing with them and pointing to the colors in the window.
Asa is so much bigger now and look at that beautiful smile! You’re a lucky mama 🙂
Yes! It’s a really fun and simple project. I think we’ll do it every year. 🙂
Isn’t that a special poem? I think it might make its way into an art project destined for a wall or something…
I know, she’s really entering kid territory, lately, and I’m all wistful about it. 🙂 Your girls are looking so big too! It’s great to watch them grow- I mean, that’s what it’s all about- but it’s a little bittersweet, isn’t it?
Your boy is looking so chunky and beautiful lately! I hope you haven’t had too many poo-splosions on your end!
I love that poem! I am totally resharing it! 😀
Nice pics. 🙂
I used to love pressing leaves in wax paper. Your pictures took me back to Grade One. I should totally do that again – we can still be kids!
Halloween to me is about remembering my departed loved ones and inviting them back to my world without being afraid. I’m not sure how you can reconcile that concept with the way Halloween is presented to children. Halloween is meant to be spooky, because there is something scary about not knowing for sure where those spirits are, how they see us, how they move, how powerful they may be, and what their true intentions may be. The Other Side is a super powerful force to me. I’m headed there, eventually. It feels like my life is a lead up to it, and that makes me wonder how deeply powerful it is. So when I call forth those on the Other Side, I do so with some trepidation, maybe fearing they will drag me back before my time?
eeek.