“Who me? Did I make this mess?”
Baby thinks rice is nice!
Author: Anna Eastland
I'm a homeschooling mom of 8 and write at "Just East of Crazy Land: Adventures in Parenting." My younger daughters share their art and writing at "The Passionate Pencil" and the older ones at "The Writing Sisters." Enjoy! :)
Late Night Waking
My little one wakes in the night
in search of a snuggle.
All day she runs and plays
talks and sings
dresses up and strips down
to toddle about in her diaper.
She seems like such a big girl sometimes
counting her toys:
“One, two, seven, ten, sixteen…”
and asking,
“What’s after ‘e,’ Mama?
But inside, in some ways,
she’s still a baby
only two.
And sometimes she needs to come home
find that spot in my arms where she fits just perfectly,
fuzzy warm head resting on my chest,
luscious eyelids fluttering like slow-motion butterflies…
After long enough to write this poem,
and give her many kisses,
her little comfort-tank fills up again
and she nestles into sleep.
Wild Garden, Real Me
I’ve been thinking a lot about personality this year, or character perhaps, or whatever it is that is essential and unique in each of us. How important it is to be true to that core of our being that is unlike any other. This is how we were made and who we are meant to be.
I was pondering that while sitting out in the playhouse in our back yard drinking coffee. Well, actually, it was pond water mixed with a scoop of sand, but lovingly prepared by my three year old girl, as I visited her toy kitchen.
I was looking out the playhouse door at our wild garden, with all it’s colourful rotting leaves and plants in various stages of fall transition, and thinking how lucky I am to have such interesting things to look at, ever changing. How much better like it than a perfectly manicured lawn, that looks exactly the same all year.
It’s a beautiful thing to be able to embrace our wild garden, and not feel the need to crop it and mow it and trim it until it matches surrounding lawns with golf-course-like precision.
How many of us feel the pressure to conform our personalities to this manicured model? How often are we willing to betray our selves for the sake of appearances, for the sake of fitting in?
How much more alive would we be if we didn’t? If we could really accept and embrace who we are, and know that to be true to ourselves is the best way to be beautiful?
It is a good thing to be comfortable in our own skin, even of it means other people might think we’re a little (or totally) crazy. Life’s more interesting when you’re weird!
I think when we can stand firmly where we are, confident in being ourselves, that we can begin to move forward to grow even better.
We all want to improve ourselves, and struggle with feeling inadequate at times, especially as mothers. But before we can improve effectively, we need to accept where we are, and be ok with it.
Being imperfect is really ok. We all are; no matter how much we think others have it more together than we do, everyone struggles.
So whatever kind of garden you like, whether wild or orderly, colourful or clean looking, live in it and enjoy it, no matter what the neighbour’s lawn looks like. Being you is best for you, and what’s best for them doesn’t really matter.
Adventures in Shopping
Life’s better when you’re prepared, so I tend to try to have the cupboards stocked up. When I don’t we end up eating interesting things like chocolate beet muffins (actually not bad!) or quinoa salad with whichever random veggies are left in the fridge…makes you creative! However, especially on these chilly fall days, it’s nice and comforting to know you have many nice things to feed your sweeties, and that you can stay safe and sound at home in your hobbit hole.
Keeping the cupboards stocked for a family of seven isn’t as expensive as you might think, especially when they are so little, but without a car it is a bit of a logistical adventure. Such shopping adventures have some benefits: you meet interesting people and you keep fit.
A few weeks ago I hauled a massive amount of groceries home in the double stroller. My baby rode on top of a blanket-covered mountain of groceries, and my bigger girls took turns holding my three year old’s hands while crossing roads. My toddler was napping at home with my helpful neighbour. Happily we live only about four blocks from the store.
It was a big shop, so about half way through passing up and down each isle in the store my exasperated 5 year old exclaimed, “Are we going to live here?!”
In the last isle, milk and frozen goods, a friendly older gent asked how many days a week I’d trade my kids for his red 78 Chevey pickup… I told him it sounded like a pretty good deal. I could use a truck to get our groceries home! He got my daughter to approve his purchase of a frozen chocolate cake: Christie’s I think.
“My favorite when I was little!” I said.
“I’m becoming little again,” he replied.
“Good idea.”
Near the checkout we were blocking the top of an isle with the double stroller. A lady pushing her little kid in a buggy turned to back up but I maneuvered the stroller out of the way and moved two of my girls with their mini shopping buggies. The lady turned the corner only to have my three year old pop out from behind the bread and step in her way.
“You’re ambushed!” I joked.
“A good ambush,” she said.
I could have hugged her. It’s nice to hear something other than, “Gosh, are they all
yours? Or are you running a daycare?”
We get do fun comments, too, by some familiar staff. “Brought out the whole army today?” a friendly grocer asked once as we paraded about the store with three mini shopping carts and the double stroller. “In full force,” I smiled, “Now let’s hope we don’t run over any little old ladies…”
You can see why we try to do a big shop, so that this Olympic expedition isn’t too frequent….this is my toddler after another shopping trip:
Pretty much sums it up!
Baby Boy
What a mystery life is…
this little ruddy-skinned bundle
asleep in my arms, phantom nursing
eyelids fluttering as dream sighs escape
and sleepy smiles flash across his face.
Whose heart will you one day hold
in your hands when you
let go of mine?
Crimson Beauty
What a gorgeous fall! Trees have such a talent for making dying so beautiful…going out in a blaze of glory.
I have been taking pictures when out walking lately. To see better. Notice things.
It is comforting to know that despite all the busy ebb and flow of life, if we stop to pay attention in the moment, beauty is always there.
Breakfast!
Hallelujah! My seven year old made breakfast this morning and it was her own idea. “I just thought to do it cause you always do it, Mama.” There’s light at the end of the tunnel…
I Want a Power Ranger Suit
The other night, literally as we were eating our Halloween candy, after having dressed up, done a candy hunt in the living room, danced to spooky kids music and painted our faces,
my seven year old daughter asked me, “When is the next holiday?”
Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!
That was the sound in my head.
Deep breath.
“Could we please just try to enjoy this moment before thinking about the next one? When I tell you you’ll start asking every day how many more days till…”
“I know, but is it Christmas? How long?”
Since then we have discussed at least three times what she wants for Christmas, as well as spent extensive time planning what to be next Halloween. So far a white cat, a ‘Spy Fairy,’ a princess with a sparkly but not hoopy dress, and a Power Ranger of unspecified colour. She told me with a sly smile on the bus, “Mommy, I want a Power Ranger suit.”
Sometimes I wonder if this it a bit what God feels like, being asked for stuff all the time, with little time for thank you’s in between the demands. Can you imagine the clamor of all our requests throughout the world:
Dear God, please gimme, gimme, gimme, and also why, why, why did you let this happen and not that….
One would imagine, if God were more like us, that it would be the source of an (al) mighty headache. Thank goodness for the infinite patience, mercy and generosity of God. Thank goodness that he loves each one of us, demanding as we are, having had us in his mind and heart from all eternity…as unique creations, singular expressions of his infinite beauty and diversity.
May he open my eyes to see my children with his loving eyes, especially on the days when they want so many things, and object to so many others. I guess it’s important to remember that they ask about the holidays a million times not to drive me crazy (-er) but because for them, the anticipation is half the fun.
There are other times when a sudden sweetness bursts through their busy little selves and makes me smile. The other day after mass I asked my five year old if she wanted to say a prayer together. “Let’s say the one we wrote for Great-Grandma.” It’s a song we wrote for her, to make her feel better in the hospital. We sent it to her with some lollipops. Cause that’s the part about going to the doctor that’s fun.
Here it is:
Love is love, and we love you.
Don’t you know it’s always true.
Don’t give up,
There’s always hope,
And we’ll love you forever.
Then she smiled at me with her big blue eyes and said, “Mommy, a heart is the shape of love.”
Today we stood at the bus stop in the chilly November air, munching some cheese and crackers as we waited. My daughter asked me for a cracker. It was the last one. I gave it to her, and after a brief moment she broke it and held it up, “Want half?” I couldn’t have been happier if she brought me roses. The little things…
The Garden in Me
Somewhere in the late summer garden
that is slowly turning into fall
the way a green fern curls into papery brown,
gently caressing it’s demise,
there is a poem hiding.
I can feel it.
I’m going to hunt for it,
like a leopard stalking it’s prey.
The poem leaps through the garden
like a little mouse jumping in tall grasses.
It’s hides in the little chickadee,
perched on an exhausted sunflower,
picking out seeds.
It sneaks with the sleek squirrel
between the playhouse stairs under the hazlenut tree.
It’s in the late afternoon sun,
breaking through the clouds
and making the white flowers glow.
It’s in the whispy tall grasses
that sway like tipsy paintbrushes.
Poetry parades in the gaudy orange nasturtiums,
holding up their pert round leaves like summer parasols.
There’s beauty in the watercolor rainbow
painted across the sky
as fine rain falls through the sunshine.
Sweet comfort in the sounds of the wood pecker
calling from rooftops, the brown chicken clucking,
the water fountain gurgling softly…
Poetry sprawls across the lazy blue sky
and laughs now the rain is gone,
how we scuttled about putting away things before they got too wet.
It flies in the sun shining silver on a seagull’s back
as it swoops over the graveyard behind our garden.
This poem, which has been calling me for days,
is in the grass, the dirt, everywhere.
And now, having devoured the garden with my eyes, it’s in me.
Giving Birth: Better Than You Think
This post is on honor of my friend who’s first baby is due today. “If pregnancy is this hard, what can labour be like?” she asked recently. Well, here’s a few reasons it’s better than you think.
Because, after all the waiting, the getting bigger, the feeling awkward, the heart burn and poor sleeps, labour sets you free. It is like an awesome thunderstorm relieving the pressure of dense dark clouds…and making way for the sunshine of your child’s first smile.
Because even if you’re nervous, you’re much stronger than you think. Your body is an amazing participant in the creation of new life, and you’ll discover your autopilot knows what to do.
And because weakness is ok. A delicate flower can open and reveal new life, and gentleness is one of a mother’s greatest gifts.
Because patience, which is love extended over time, will carry you through. Try to offer up each moment for a special intention; it will help the time pass. But ask for whatever help you need, whether it’s to hold hands, drink lemonade, be held tight or be given space. Embrace your labour for what it is, and don’t worry too much about how you planned it. Being at peace with how it actually is is even better.
Giving birth is wonderful because, in a way like never before, you’re husband is going to be completely awed by you, revering your ability to lovingly bring forth a miracle: your baby, the incarnation of your love. You will fall in love again, with your baby yes, but also with each other.
Because after all the tense waiting and preparation, as before the grand opening of an art show or piano concert, it ends in the revelation of your masterpiece. Applause! You will never see something more beautiful than that tiny newborn face, those little dark eyes looking at you for the first time.
So to all women who are due to give birth soon, many blessings of peace and strength be with you!
You can do it! And it’ll be more worth it than you can imagine.
Just East Of Crazy Land 