Sometimes I get the feeling that Mother Nature is the ultimate wise ass mom.
Why else would it be, that when brushing wet hair that I’m not supposed to be brushing because it’s more likely to break when wet, the only strands that seem completely invulnerable to that rule are the adamantine threads that have turned a silvery gray?
Thing2 and I were sitting on the couch Friday evening, bombarded with ads from jewelry stores and department stores guilt-tripping kids and husbands into all the things they should buy if they really love their mom.
“Can I have some money to buy you something special?” Thing2 asked after one ad suggesting that $1200 for a diamond necklace was a reasonable purchase for your dear mom.
“You never need to buy your mother anything,” I answered, trying not to set a precedent.
“But I want to do something – ” Thing2 stopped mid-sentence, obviously remembering the something special he must have made in class that was still sitting in his backpack. The commercial ended, and he snuggled up with me.
By the next commercial, Thing2 was nodding off, and he wrapped his arm around me. Before the commercial was over, half on and half off my lap, he was snoring. I was pinned in an odd position, but I didn’t move. We stayed like that until shortly before the Big Guy was due home from his play.
There won’t be many more times when seven-year-old Thing2 is willing to snuggle up like that. But having that quiet time on the couch was all the mother’s day present I needed.
The war is my To-Do list, and, lately, I’ve been waging extreme peace. Instead of picking battles, I’ve been letting the fights come to me, if I can’t absolutely avoid them. Even my favorite “battle”, my garden, is only being fought because it’s the beginning of May, and this may be the last time this summer I have a jump on the weeds.
For the last 13 summers, I’ve had a decent sized garden – about 1600 square feet of beds or rows, depending on how artistic seven-year-old Thing2 and I are feeling when we lay out the veggies. We get a lot of food out of our good earth, but thanks to the wild raspberry bush that apparently escaped from a Little Shop of Horrors set to squat at my garden gate and the weeds that begin to invade rows and paths alike, we also get a big mess by the end of the summer.
This year, in an homage to middle age, I’ve decided not to not climb that hill, but rather to move it to a smaller, more manageable spot.
Thing2 was not happy with the announcement – he loves to have a hand in the garden design. I could try trotting out a cliche for him about how good things come in small packages. I’m hoping, however, when August gives us a slightly smaller crop and a lot less work, he’ll figure out that sometimes victory is as much about identifying the goal as it is about expending blood, tears, and sweat.
For me it’s a few months of fresh picked salad without taking on a third or fourth career.
Thing2 floats above and around the kitchen table. A moth might be drawn to the pendant light hanging over the table, but my seven-year-old flutter-bug isn’t attracted to light. He makes it on his own. I think it’s light anyway and not a repressed need to go potty.
What isn’t repressed is the energy that keeps him dancing around the single worksheet that’s assigned for the night. He does a row and then he needs to examine a bump in the dog’s fur.
“Is that a tick, Mom? I need to hug you.”
“Sit down and do your homework.” He smiles and slide-spins back to the table. He never struggles with the numbers – only the sitting. Another row of problems is done.
“I can’t get that song out of my head,” he tells me.
“You’re supposed to be having math problems in your head,” I answer. Before his butt gets too far off the wooden seat I say, “Sit down and do your homework.”
The next three rows go faster. He’s remembered something he wants to do when it’s done, but we have one more round of distraction and reseating before the flutter-bug is done with his assignment.
“Mom, I can’t wait to go to school and see my friends,” he says as he finishes the last row, “but why do we have to have homework?” He flits over to me to get his worksheet initialed. The numbers are surprisingly neat and accurate.
“I thought you liked homework,” I say as he dances back to the kitchen table to get his spelling list.
“I hate it,” he says slipping the yellow sheet of words into my hand. He pirouhettes away from me, waiting for the first word.
“Crumbs,” I say. Thing2 is now concentrating on an arabesque, but he manages to tap out the letters, finishing the word with a kick and a leap. He flutters from one end of the great room to the other as he taps out the letters for the next ten words, and I don’t bother trying to get him to sit. The last letter of the last word gets a special flourish and I get a hug that should squeeze me down a jean size. Yeah, he hates homework alright.
For the first two and a half years of making doodles for my blog so I don’t have to pay for someone else’s royalty-free visions, I’ve steadfastly maintained the idea that I’m not an artist. That label is something from a dream I dreamed in another lifetime. I finally got tired of worrying about labels and decided to create an e-book of my doodles.
At first I wasn’t sure I had enough pieces to cobble together into anything. I was hoping to get 20 or 30 sketches together, but after spending a few weeks going through drawings and paintings, that number got a little bigger. It got to over one hundred, and I realized that I spend a lot more time doodling than I’d ever thought.
Some of them I love. Some look like something I could have done in high school. But all of them tell me one thing. She who doodles, is a doodler – but also very much an artist. That’s not a label or a dream. That’s my life.
I have a love-hate relationship with this time of year.
I love watching the grass pop out of it’s winter nap into an orgy of green. I love shedding layers of clothes (not too many after my winter of sloth).
But as Katy the wonder dog wanders in with the first tick of summer, I remember all that grows is not grass. The bug population is booming again. And as I pick the tick with a paper towel and throw it in the woodstove, the back of my neck begins to itch.
Our little corner of Vermont is still getting plenty of showers, so this month’s Common Thread Give-a-Way is a much needed punch of color.
Jane McMillan, is this months artist. She’s giving away a felted fruit pin cushion – and you get to choose from the collection above. With the exception of the Strawberry cushion, all the cushions are filled with crushed walnut shells which keep pins sharp. The Strawberry is stuffed with polyfil.
To win a fruit pincushion of your choice, just leave a comment at Jane’s blogLittle House Home Arts.
When you’ve been to Jane’s blog, take a few minutes to check out the rest of our artists: Bedlam Farm, Full Moon Fiber Art,and Pugs & Pics.
