Once upon a time, I read a snarky mommy blogger's asertion that there is no more obnixious thing a new mom can say than, "Oh, little Euphronia has just taught me so much!" And I nodded and laughed. Oh, how companionably snarky we two hip modern moms.
While it's true that a newborn isn't likely to impart much wisdom, except about how to function without sleep, the amazing infant poop color spectrum, or possibly the meaning of the phrase "projectile vomit," I have found growing children to be very educational. I make no claims to wisdom, but if you're paying attention, you can learn things from these quirky, uncivilized minds.
So, in no particular order:
Don't embark with your child on any fantasy fabrication that you don't have the creativity or mental capacity to support fully for at least 10 year.
For me, this is everything. Santa Claus... If you want them to believe in Santa Claus, you have to do sneaky things like hide the presents at the neighbor's house until Christmas Eve. Exhausting things like wrapping them all night so that they can appear as if by magic under the tree Christmas morning. I'm told some people scatter Crunchberries mixed with glitter out on the snow. Reindeer food. Mix tapioca with glittler and freeze it into little blobs to leave behind as reindeer poop. Who has energy for this kind of benevolent dupicity during the Christmas season?
I myself can't even get the tooth fairy right. The first time my son lost a tooth, I made the tooth/money transfer with the stealth of a ninja. The next two times? Not so much. The second time, I forgot to put his money under the pillow for a solid week until he gave up on the tooth fairy ever coming. The third time, I only muffed it one night. But I saved the baby teeth. Why? I don't know. Even I think that might be a demented memento. Anyway, I had them in a tiny box on my countertop. This isn't as glaringly stupid as it sounds. With the mess on my countertop, the odds of anyone finding that box on purpose, let alone seeing it by accident should have been farther out than the odds of getting struck by lightning... twice. But find them by accident he did.
"Hey! I thought the Tooth Fairy took my tooth!" he exclaimed.
My husband is shooting me "Are you that inept!?" looks from behind my son's head.
"Let me see that!" I grab the box from him. Stealthily, I switch the teeth for some fresh water pearl beads that also happen to be hiding in the countertop chaos. "No, look Charlie, those aren't teeth!"
So you see what I mean?
Mud never hurt anybody. But it does, occassionally eat shoes.
I guess I should probably qualify that statement. A little mud never hurt anyone. A lot of mud can raise a husband's blood pressure significantly if his wife is dumb enough to, say, drive the aircraft carrier sized Suburban off into a field of it and get it stuck up to the axels. Not that I know anyone who would do something that daft. Ahem,anyway...
A little bit of mud is good for the constitution. The mud around the edges of the pond behind our house, say? We went back there the other day to go fishing. We all wore our Crocs. Soon our Crocs had quadrupled in size with clinging mud. Did we go back to the house? Heck no! We took off our Crocs, let the mud squish between our toes, and caught a sassy, big bluegill!
As an aside, it is a good idea to educate one's children about shoe-eating mud before taking a trek like this. Back in the Spring, Abe was wearing his little rain boots back at the pond, and they got too heavy with mud. So he decided to "rinse" them. How? By throwing them in the pond, of course. And that kid can throw! By the time I realized what was happening, one boot was in Davey Jones's locker, and the other was singing, "Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me!" As we watched it sink, all I could do was laugh with incredulity. So much for that pair of boots. They'll probably make for a really really confusing fossil about a thousand years from now.
Where you have to watch out for mud is when it is innocent mud. But that's an inside joke.
Mud never hurt anybody. But it does, occassionally eat shoes.
I guess I should probably qualify that statement. A little mud never hurt anyone. A lot of mud can raise a husband's blood pressure significantly if his wife is dumb enough to, say, drive the aircraft carrier sized Suburban off into a field of it and get it stuck up to the axels. Not that I know anyone who would do something that daft. Ahem,anyway...
A little bit of mud is good for the constitution. The mud around the edges of the pond behind our house, say? We went back there the other day to go fishing. We all wore our Crocs. Soon our Crocs had quadrupled in size with clinging mud. Did we go back to the house? Heck no! We took off our Crocs, let the mud squish between our toes, and caught a sassy, big bluegill!As an aside, it is a good idea to educate one's children about shoe-eating mud before taking a trek like this. Back in the Spring, Abe was wearing his little rain boots back at the pond, and they got too heavy with mud. So he decided to "rinse" them. How? By throwing them in the pond, of course. And that kid can throw! By the time I realized what was happening, one boot was in Davey Jones's locker, and the other was singing, "Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me!" As we watched it sink, all I could do was laugh with incredulity. So much for that pair of boots. They'll probably make for a really really confusing fossil about a thousand years from now.
Where you have to watch out for mud is when it is innocent mud. But that's an inside joke.
It is okay to mix the playdough colors.
Or dip the brush into more than one color of paint, provided you have your own palette and don't try this with your brother's paints. On the surface, it's simple. You just never know what color you're going to get. While sometimes the color is old peas porridge green, sometimes it is also beautiful and arresting. Pur-fuschia swirl, or something of that sort. Deeper under the simple colors and creativity of the thing, though, is so much more. Life is no time for worrying about having to replace the playdough. Playdough is cheap. Creativity is priceless. Mixing the playdough is kind of one of the things life is all about.
Left: River as it usually is when we go wading.
Life is a journey of self discovery.
I am pretty sure some schmuck like Buddha said this before I did. But I found myself thinking it the other day at the river with the boys. They were throwing rocks in and wading in the water. I was chasing Abe's shoe that floated away and collecting mussel shells. And it came to me, like the fin of a river carp slicing through the current, that if I had gone about my life the way I thought I had planned back when I was 21 and knew everything, I never would have had this joy. If I had become an editor in some city and gone roller blading on the weekends with my dog and never gotten married... I never would've discovered the self that waited inside me who was able to derive moments of peace from a flowing river, shouting boys, and plans of tooling shells into pendants with a Dremmel. I probably wouldn't have found out I loved a lot of different, quiet, back woods adventures if my life had gone as planned. I might never have met my feral self. Viva que sera! Which is to say, celebrate whatever may come your way!
A quiet swimming hole in the "raging flood."
We're going to pretend there are no snapping turtles in this state.
And now a random litany of photos...
Trees have brains. No, seriously, this mushroom is called Treebrain.
Male American Rubyspot Damselfly
and random dragonfly montage
And how about a bunch of pictures of fritillary butterflies frolicking. Can butterflies frolic?
White Moth Mullein likes that I haven't been mowing my lawn.
Oh, you beautiful garden menaces, you!
And finally...
Tim Burton directs "My Back Yard."
(I hope this one doesn't have a headless horseman in it...)
Good night and good luck!
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