Learn from the Past, Live in the Present, Prepare for the Future

Some days I long for the time when I no longer get puked on, peed on, pooped on, drooled on or snotted on. That Shangri-La-like future when no one head-butts me by accident or tries to climb me as if I am a human-shaped ladder or piece of playground equipment. The golden days when the only daily hygiene tasks I perform are my own. The moment of zen no one insists on joining me in the bathroom. The tender moment when I no longer get fishhooked while trying to snuggle. The relaxing mealtime when no one, upon deciding they do not, after all, like the food they are eating, removes the partially-masticated mass from their mouth with their fingers and expects me to take it in mine to relieve them of it. Right. Now. When I am not expected to lift or carry anyone on a routine basis. When no one needs me to wipe anything. When I finally feel like my whole life no longer smells like shit, and I mean actual shit, not a metaphor for anything.*

But the day will come when I can't lift or carry them. When no one will let me pick out their clothes. No one will want me to hold them on my lap in the rocking chair and sing to them before bed. At some point not only will they not need me to help them with grooming, they won't ask my permission -- or even my opinion -- before getting a haircut (or tattoo or piercing). So when parenting gets rough, I try to think of the coming days as an incentive to cherish the ones I have now.

My own dad has a philosophy about parenting: that it reflects the relationships in the business sector. When your kids are babies, you're a line worker. You're on the factory floor every day. You're so essential, the place couldn't run without you. If you don't do it, it doesn't get done.

When they get a little older, you're more of a foreman. You provide direct supervision, but they do most of the actual work themselves. You set up the framework or system for what needs done, but your kids take care of it on their own.

Then, as teenagers, you eventually become upper management. Oh, you still call the shots, but if you're good at your job you don't micromanage or concern yourself with minutiae. If you've fulfilled your role well, then they will do the same.

Finally, when your kids are adults, you become a consultant. They only call you in on special projects when they want your expertise. They may listen to your advice, but ultimately the decisions they make and the lives they lead are their own.

There are ways to keep your children dependent on you for longer than necessary, but frankly, that's not the kind of mother, or person, that I am. My sister-in-law picked out the clothes my nephew wore each day until he was well into high school. By contrast, by the time I was in high school, I was doing all my own laundry. (By choice. My single dad, who I lived with, had seriously f-ed up a couple of my things and was forbidden to wash anything of mine after that.) I guess I was just raised that, once you can do for yourself, you do it. That independence is a virtue unto itself.

I'm aware that before I know it, I'll be less of a necessity and more of an accessory in their lives. I know it's true, though right now it's hard to believe, that I won't be mired here in wiping hell, feeling constantly distracted and running behind, forever. So for now, I'm trying to learn to relax and enjoy my time on the floor.


*Actually, it would be a simile, right? Using like or as to compare something?

Couldn't See the Forest For the Trees

I've mentioned before that we live in the woods. Our house is remote, in the sense that it's difficult to get to (our driveway is half a mile long, steep and unpaved; UPS won't attempt it) and very secluded (we have no curtains or window coverings in any rooms except the kids, and there only because they nap and go to bed before dark half the year; we don't need window coverings because no one can see our house).


But it's also not remote (what the hell is the antonym to "remote?" for Pete's sake?), in the sense that we are minutes from a grocery store, from a nearby highway, from "town," and not even that far from a mall. I drive only half an hour to work. The Hubster, less than ten minutes.

So we have a great balance between rural and suburban (I won't go so far as to say urban, although I can get to urban in under an hour). We're remote enough that people are surprised to find that we don't have a septic tank or a well, but we are just connected enough that we don't have a septic tank or a well.* (In fact, the only public utilities that we are too far removed to get are cable and non-wireless broadband.) I like to call it the best of both worlds.

My point -- and I do have one -- is that this summer we've been trying to carve just a little more civilization out of our woods. We've been in this house just over five years, but haven't been able to really garden, or do any landscaping, or much outside at all, because our acreage has been, from my inexpert calculations, 98.666666666666667% wooded. However, a couple of weeks ago we (finally) paid an excavator to clear about an acre of the woods close to the house, so we are now only -- again, I'm not a math teacher -- about 93.33333333333333% wooded. But that, as Robert Frost said in one of my all-time favorite poems, has made all the difference.

Anyway, my sub-point here is that the past few weeks I've been busy dealing with a) mud, b) dirt, c) sticks, d) branches, e) felled trees, f) other organic debris, and g) yard work (like roto-tilling, grading, raking, seeding, watering, etc, etc.)**, which has resulted in h) lots of beer drinking after dark and i) being too bloody j) busy or k) tired to post.


* We don't have septic or a well because of the crazee people that built our house, spared no expense, and then lived here only two short years before they sold it to us. Maybe someday I'll tell you more about that wackiness.
**And ohsweetmotherofarnold we have about two more years of this to do.