More home, family, farm and neighborhood news coming soon. In the meantime, to tie you over:
For your reading pleasure and our scrapbook, I'll include the contributions made to The Tangly Woods News to date! Likely more are forthcoming, so if you don't want to miss them be in touch and Alida can add you to her list of subscribers!
#1…is that curating our children’s environment for safety would be so effective as to change their expectations and tolerance around physical damage to their bodies compared to what I expected as a child. This week I overheard Terah exclaim to her sisters, “I have so many injuries right now!”, and proceed to inspect her hand for barely visible nicks, scratches, and scabs.
#2…is that my young children would make a sport out of interrupting parental PDOA (Public Displays of Affection). Every time Janelle and I smooch in their presence, one and/or the other of the younger two is inexorably drawn to literal bodily intervention, wedging their self(ves) between us. Gleefully. I furthermore did not expect how much fun it would be to make a hobby out of eluding their sport and sneaking in kisses while they are distracted, and keeping at it until they notice. ;) Fortunately on this past week’s vacation there was a hot tub and a few hours in the early morning before they woke up, so any desperation on our part was admittedly contrived!
*CORRECTION* Last week’s column implied that Terah complained extravagantly over imperceptible injuries. Often that is true, but as it happens the incident described centered around an actual (though not medically concerning) clothes iron burn of which I was unaware. I do apologize.
#3 …was that I would have to forcibly expel and/or extract children from my bed in the evenings. Many nights of the week my bedtime is characterized by Terah and Alida delighting in trying to thwart the process of transitioning from our bed to their beds. Terah’s tactic of choice is to cling to Janelle’s arm–a discipline she’s perfected to an uncanny degree. Once I’ve finally succeeded in unwrapping her amazingly snaggy little fingers from Janelle’s forearm (by this point Janelle has dissolved into full-on debilitating laughter) while providing several Gs of tugging force to her abdomen, she writhes and contorts wildly, making it nearly impossible to carry her and sometimes enabling her to swing a leg out and snag onto the covers or Janelle’s clothing with her toes. If, while I’m unhooking her toes, she manages to reattach to her mother with her hands, we are back at square one. I did not expect this.
Then after Terah has been settled in her bed and I am able to return to mine, Alida is often to be found reading contentedly at her mother’s side. I slip in beside her and read a chapter or two myself, until sleepiness takes over. At that point we announce the end of the cuddle time. Sometimes (if we act serious) she’ll take the hint and transition peacefully if not exactly willingly. If, however, there is the slightest glint in our eyes or the merest crack in our resolve, she’ll burrow herself in deeper or hurl herself back into whatever space there might be between us (all the better if there really isn’t any), and make it her aim to stay for as long as possible. What ensues might need to be seen to be believed, with us pawing and kicking at her while she cackles with delight, being ejected from the space over and over, and never tiring of searching out a fresh angle of invasion. While she’s picking herself up off the floor or contriving her next strategy, we have been known to antagonize her by wrapping our arms and legs tightly around each other and smooching with abandon. This is unbearable, of course, and must be interrupted immediately by physical intervention, as mentioned in last week’s column.
#4 …was how much my children would like to read about being orphans or abandoned children. I admit it to be a tad disconcerting: Why are the Boxcar Children series, Enola Holmes, Pippi Longstocking, etc., so popular with children who have loving, present, available, alive parents? What secret escape fantasies must they be harboring to cope with the dullness of being cared for? One wonders if they would relish a birthday party theme where they and their guests are stranded in a train station with naught but a pocketknife, a sack of oats, and just enough money for tickets to Saskatchewan.
Then again, I guess it’s not that much different from adults sitting down in perfect comfort to watch survivalist TV shows and post-apocalyptic movies. And, truth be known, I spent my own luxurious hours as a kid reading greedily from the same bereft-but-resourceful genre. Sorry, Mom and Dad! I did (and do) love you! Really! And, now that I think about it, my mom, I seem to remember, once remarked with similar dramatic indignation on the same phenomenon. So…carry on, kids. Have fun. Then come get some warm supper and a hug.
#5 …was how little my children would care about money. Like in that it means pretty much zilcho to them. Opportunities to earn money are judged solely on whether they are interesting ways to experience time. Chores are accomplished not in response to whether they will be compensated in any way, but rather on whether they feel it is a reasonable role for them to fill and a reasonable expectation that they fill it, or on whether they enjoy doing that kind of thing, or whether they have energy for that task at the moment. Duck raising, chicken raising, the manufacture of greeting cards, child care, blueberry picking next door, cutting firewood, helping their father in his new business when needed, completing extra household work the parents can’t quite get to…all of these are potential enterprises, and all are judged with the same criteria: Does that sound reasonable, or like something I would enjoy? Talk of money sometimes comes into those conversations (almost always introduced by the parents), but seems to change the course of them not a wit. Or if it changes it, it is only to turn it from a natural and humane conversation into one that is less so, and therefore loses the interest or attention of the second-generation conversation partner.
For parents raised in a money economy, this can be a source of consternation, even exasperation. Will they ever learn financial independence? Are we ruining them for normal life? Doesn’t the power of money mean anything to these kids?
There is something so Zen about the gentle, matter-of-fact, consistent No that answers that rhetorical question. No. Just no. It doesn’t. It is paper and metal and numbers on a bank statement and it’s fun to spend it on treats from the co-op to share with everyone, or to replenish the paper supply for the card shop, or choose where they might want to donate it. That’s it. How many adults are working hard right now to learn to ignore the siren song of “safe”, money-based involvements to instead follow what their hearts tell them to be involved in before they find their life is gone and they have spent too much time at the office? We ourselves, in fact, have worked hard to live a life that doesn’t center money, but rather frees us and them from that bondage and centers the more enduring values. And…..*ding*.....I guess it worked. So maybe this is one I could have expected. But it surprises me every time.
#6 …was that I would spend so much of my life as the unofficial family garbage disposal.
You know that feeling when you’ve thoroughly enjoyed a delicious meal, and have successfully calibrated to your appetite such that the last bite of food from your plate–chased down with your last swallow of water–elevates your system to a plane of satisfaction? “Aaah!”, one might utter with contentment. In my case, that utterance is often preempted by “Daddy, do you want this?”
Before me will usually be a plate with some dregs from the meal scattered about on it, often smeared together in unlikely combinations. Above the plate will be a pair of forlorn eyes in full puppy-dog formation, said eyes having once again accomplished being bigger than the stomach they pertain to. Occasionally it will be, instead, some morsel–maybe a peal or crust or just a mangled piece of otherwise edible material–dangled between the thumb and forefinger and dropped with poorly concealed contempt onto their plate or mine. It is amazing how kids can make good food seem repugnant just by how they handle it or look at it!
Whatever the situation, I have a stock reply for such instances, which I employ nearly every time. That reply? “....ok, sure."
Haha!
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