Lovely Halloween

I have a confession to make-- I usually hate holidays, even silly fun ones like Halloween. I always have to jury rig a costume in under 24 hours because of my procrastination-- cursing over the sewing machine. Sewing is all about the finished product for me, there is no zen purpose to it like knitting. And so I rush through it, without cutting things properly or pinning anything and NEVER getting to ironing the pieces.



But I think Ro's Alice in Lunderland costume turned out quite nice. The dress I found at the thrift store for a buck, it was made for a 10 year old. I cut off the bottom and used that to make the ruffles for the apron. It has some serious quirks and eccentricities, and I wasn't sure if it was going to work at all until I got it on her. The headband is some simple finger knitting. The only thing that would have made it more awesome would be some black mary janes, which I didn't have and couldn't afford at the moment.

We went to the same Tree Streets trick-or-treating thing we went to last year. My dad was sweet enough to take us. Last year was bad. Really bad. I got panicked from the people, and at one point we just ran to the car. This was not long after I just screamed, "NO!" in Rowan's face over some trivial matter and made her burst into tears.

Thank God for this new perspective. I got annoyed ONCE. I put something in her bag and she kept standing there trying to figure out what it was, just standing and standing. I don't know why it irritated me, looking back on it. But when I realized I was having a control freak moment, it subsided. On the way back, she was sooooo hyper from all the candy, she kept singing in the car. "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, AMEN." It was so funny the way she kept mixing stuff about black cats and pumpkins with church songs. She was LOUD, but for some reason I wasn't really bothered. I thought it was hysterical. So did my dad-- we just let her be Ro.

I think after seeing how effective this is, I'm ready to give up all the stupid little daily battles and just let her be Ro all the time.

No Ro Tooth!

She's lost her first tooth. It was so tiny in my hand, so much smaller than I thought it would be. She giggled as though she understood this milestone-- I think she does.

I did the whole tooth fairy thing but felt a little weird about it. She was really excited when she woke up to find a dollar under her pillow though, and it made me glad I didn't kill her joy.

She wants to be Alice in Lunderland (her pronunciation) for Halloween. I found a dress that would work, it was gigantic so I had to alter it. Rather half-assed, I might add. I made an apron with ruffles from cutting off about 8 inches from the bottom. The results make it look much more like a hotel housekeeper than Alice. I'm working with the original illustrations here, but... something is wrong on the planet Wormulon.

Yum.

Rowan often "gives me a birthday." She did this today, and I was the proud recipient of this stellar Playdoh cake!

I've been stressed. Due to a lot of factors. Mostly my issues with depending on others, my feeling of helplessness due to not having a car. I lost my temper with her this morning, I feel like maybe we went back a few steps. It's hard, this situation.

Cabin fever eats my brain. The walls are closing in. I am screaming internally, the very core of me is repelling every attempt I make to remain calm.

I was in a slump.

It was obvious to me. Everything I said or did seemed stupid, trite, empty. It branched out even more frighteningly when I realized that I could no longer connect to anyone. I didn't see the beauty in people anymore, I didn't look them in the eye, and so I thought the same horrible things about everyone else as I thought about myself. I talked about the people in my town as "zombies," that they looked right through me. I, however, did not look at them even on the surface. I went through checkout lines with downcast eyes. Although some of these cashiers were just Rude-- flirting with the bag boy the entire time and not saying one word to me even when I spoke-- I realize a big part of it was my tension and indifference.

It feels good to get out of this slump. To realize that my interests are still there, that they are still valid, and are still interesting. I no longer think that everything I say sounds stupid. If someone else does, I'm more likely to be okay with that. I y'am who I y'am! Before, a negative comment would make me angry and resentful, but I didn't say anything. Now, I either just brush it off (truly, even on the inside) or I say something about it, instead of stewing.

The last few days I have stuffed myself full of information on unschooling. I've been reading on Yahoo Groups, Unschooling Discussion, and Sandra Dodd's articles. I've found a wealth of inspiration in Ren Allen's articles. Ren is located in Jonesboro, Tennessee, about half an hour away, and I really hope to meet her soon. I've read a lot of her replies to questions in various places and she's so insightful! What I like most about her style, I think, is how she takes a common word and dismisses its meaning as nothing more than a label that holds us back. These are words that I would have never thought of questioning. I'm starting to do this same thing just a little, and it's mind-expanding.

Okay. I have been online learning all these wonderful ways to enrich my family while sort of using the TV as a babysitter. I really need to log off for a couple of days, and put this stuff into practice.

Introductions are in order

I thought you guys might like to meet my family, if you haven't already.


My little Boo Bear


RoRo making some sort of mystical gesture


Me, in a typically fidgety stance

Give 'em some slack.

It's funny how when I give my kids some slack, I get some slack in return.

I get a mellow relief from the guilt I've felt for so long. I still feel bad for the experiments in punitive punishment that went horribly wrong, the yelling, all the irritation and above all the indifference I displayed. But when I give my kids some slack, start to say "Yes!" to them more, it fades a bit, into the background. The guilt that I have felt my entire life for no reason? Yeah, that's slipping away too. And good riddance.

Tiny exercises....

Overlooking the baby's unsnapped onesie when he wants to run around or sleep on me.
Not completely losing my cool when Rowan crunches a pickle in my ear.
Saying, "Sure, here's the bottle of glue," and leaving her alone with it. Mad trust, that.
Apologizing when I do lose it, even for a second. It helps to regain composure to realize it, recognize it, and acknowledge it verbally very quickly.
That miniature unit of time I have before I respond-- and remembering what I have learned about responding vs. reacting.
Responding to their needs right away whenever possible. Expecting meltdown when it's not.
Letting them both do more things for themselves, even if it takes forever.

The SubGeniuses have something right-- We totally DO need a Day of Slack.

It's wild.

Part of "growing up"-- or the part that has hit me lately-- is that I can get rid of the running away from childhood, and just... remember. Now I am grown, and I don't have to prove that anymore.

I remember what it felt like to be a little kid now. I'm not sicked out by the thought of my giant hairbows situated in my crimped hair, while wearing a neon-tye dye and green bicycle shorts. I liked what I was wearing. This, quite obviously, is what makes it so easy to relate to my own kids lately. I can feel their pain, which is awesome, because for so long I've been an empath to other people and not my own children. I've been more concerned about my kids "bothering" someone than making sure they aren't bored or restless.

I have some goals.

I want to keep the worry about my kids bothering others to a minimum.
I want to step away from my own interests often enough that they don't feel deprived.
I want to learn once and for all the power that just a few minutes has-- whether it's spending just a few minutes with my kids when they're lonely, or hollowing out a few minutes to myself to play guitar.
I want to work on being mindful-- a lifelong goal.

I feel positive about the future. I'm moving away from traditional You-Will-Show-Me-Respect-Now parenting, and into a much brighter Way.

Party for Tommas at the Down Home

We laughed, we cried, we played music, ate food, had some beers.

Tommas would have been proud. He was a dear, dear friend of mine, truly the most rare kind of person. We played a lot of music together and also sat in a wealth of silence together. (Details about the party can be found here.)

I handled the kids very well. I was overjoyed to be at the Down Home, once I got over the initial shock of being somewhere. They wanted to run and run and climb and climb. A bit disrespectful, under the circumstances. I was glad that Rowan's dad, Jason, was there to handle her when the baby wanted to go in the opposite direction. I helped Boo Bear get in and out of every single chair that was there, I believe. This was all while Rowan was crawling around on the floor on the other side of the Down Home with the other kids being the Queen of the Kitties. So yeah, we used some teamwork. I was a bit frazzled but it never reached any crazy capacity.

The whole evening made me feel proud that I knew him.

Why am I starting yet another blog?

I'm in a real period of growth. I have decided to homeschool my son, who is 18 months. I feel like learning has been going on since birth, much longer than I've been reading about homeschooling. His sister is 4, and in Head Start now. I don't think she'd take kindly to me pulling her out of there as she loves every minute of it. She deserves to have choices. My hope is that in a year or two she'll see that it's not all hopscotch and finger painting, and she'll express interest in wanting to experience the world in a different way.

I'd like to keep a record of lessons learned, and a blog seems to be a good way to do that, since I've been doing the same thing with my love of craft by keeping a knitting blog. I feel like I'll be a bit of an unschooler, and with that will come questions from all sides-- "What have you been learning?" I'll even be asking myself those questions.

I also figured that when the family starts to ask questions, it would be good for them to have a list of information that they could check into at their leisure. I will be establishing a link list on the sidebar for just this purpose.

I am amazed at how much calmer I am, in all things. I have started to see my children's curiosity and complete bewilderment of the world, and come to identify with it. I now remember what it feels like to be so little, so confused by the world-- having all my needs go through an adult before they were met, having so many questions and sometimes met with exasperated answers. It's hard to be a parent, but it's also hard to be a child.

Some are concerned about what will become of me. To them I say, Relax! I was planning on going to the university to learn, not to necessarily get a degree, although that would be nice. I would be getting that degree because I thought I had something to prove to others. And possibly myself, since I have nothing better than a GED. The learning was the main focus when I was going to class, always. I feel like I will be learning more by looking up how everything works with my kids. I forgot all I knew about inertia. I can't remember stuff about photosynthesis. As a child I devoured that information, and as an adult I will do the same, by my children's side. I'm thinking that I can get a work-from-home job-- I've been checking some out that don't look too much like scams. I'm thinking that I can go to school part time once the baby isn't so little, that maybe I can get my degree finished by the time he's 10. I have something to focus on, and I have time for creative endeavors. I will focus a lot of energy in a rotating yet chaotic melange of music (instrumental, vocal, and songwriting), blogging, getting to be a more fabulous knitter, and above all my little ones' wonder of the world.

A move is inevitable-- we must get out of this isolated location in the next year, or I'm afraid this will not work as successfully as I hope. It's beautiful here, but I don't know anyone. I don't think there are any other people like me here, no other kids like mine.

The plan is laid out in my mind. I can see myself getting there, with focus, patience, and a bit of The Dhamma.

The day was Fine.

I couldn't help running outside this afternoon. It had just quit raining and the stormy sky was a perfect backdrop to the changing leaves.









This is some natural chalk that I've found in my yard, Rowan has such a great time digging it up and drawing on the crazy mossy cinderblock wall.





Rowan found that the little chalk rocks fit perfectly in the cracks of the walls, she calls them her "rock cubby." I was going to look up how chalk is formed and tell her all about it, but then I decided that knowing that chalk comes out of the ground is a good enough lesson for a four year old.

I've been happy.

I've been enjoying these wonder-chilluns.

It all seems brighter.