Tis the Season

Cabin fever has set in and we are only midway through December.  For the last several days our little family has been under the weather.  Runny noses, slight fevers, coughs, and feeling just so tired.  So we stayed indoors, kept things very simple, and watched way too much television.  Standards were definitely relaxed.

On Friday we were feeling much better...and the sunshine and first snow beckoned...and the temperatures were mild and tolerable.  I dressed Gabriel in his snowsuit, tied up my boots, strapped on the Ergo, and walked to the park. It was glorious to be outside in the fresh air. 








It was Gabriel's first time being able to play in the snow.

Cold snow!

They look so cute in their snowsuits!

Playing with ice on the  merry go round.  A free natural toy!

Mama and child.  (Keeping the mittens on was a losing battle)

Our little park is all wintered up

The woods. 

 

 

 

We played at the park for a little while.  Gabriel loved watching a group of kids have a little snowball fight.  It brought to life an illustration in his book Winter.  It is by Gerda Muller and features very sweet illustrations of children playing outside in the snow, ice skating, feeding the birds, making snowmen etc.

Afterward, we walked across the field to the little patch of woods at the edge of the park. We walked through the woods along the little path and came out on the other side of the neighborhoood.  We walked the few blocks back to our house and came inside as it was time to make supper.

The next day I woke up with a heavy feeling in my chest and a sore throat. My congestion was back and I was bone tired again.  I am not sure if it has to do with going outside or if I caught another little bug...but I was down for the count.

Yesterday, we were snowbound in the house.  Sickness and frigid weather and a winter storm kept us inside Sunday and Monday.  I took this picture of our street. 

view from our balcony

Why We Are Opposed to Electronic and Character Toys

On a recent visit to my in-laws the subject of Christmas presents came up. The conversation went something like this:

Us: No electronic and character toys for Gabriel please!

In-Laws: Really?  Not even a Tickle Me Elmo doll?

My Husband:  You can buy him an Elmo doll but we'll throw it in the trash.

Me: We're not throwing anything in the trash but we really don't want those kinds of toys for Gabriel.

In-Laws:  It's the parents' right to make those decisions. 

************************************************************************************

My in-laws are kind, generous, and loving. They are amazing grandparents. They are respectful and mindful of our parenting value, even if we do things a little differently than they are used to.  Their desire to possibly get Gabriel an Elmo doll comes from a place of love.  Elmo is cute and Gabriel has enjoyed watching him on You Tube from time to time.  So I can certainly understand why they asked about it.

The problem with an Elmo doll?   It will always be an Elmo doll.  Numerous studies have shown that when  children interact with character toys an important thing disappears from their play: creativity and imagination.

Children playing with character toys tend be quite rigid..  They stick to storylines and characteristics formulated by the corporations making the shows and movies. I would even hesitate to call it "play."  Play involves imagination, creativity, activity, and a sense of agency.  Intearaction with character toys is really more about imitation of the previously viewed content. 

When children play with plain old fashioned dolls they are more likely to use their imagination.  There is no authority figure (corporate media) telling them "how" the dolls are "supposed" to act, or what they can be, or what they can do.  I have fond memories of my dolls.  Sometimes they were babies in the cradle. Sometimes they were students in the kindergarden.  Sometimes I made them tea.  The play was creative and open ended.  It was possible to develop my own characters and storylines.

Character toys are designed for one thing only and it isn't to make children into healthy, creative, and dynamic human beings.  Character toys are part of a cyclical corporate adverstising campaign.The television shows/movies/DVDs are advertisements for the toys and the toys are advertisements for the television show/movie/DVD.

  Sesame Street may cry poor when it comes to pledge week on PBS, but they've made hundreds of millions off Elmo licensed products.

When parents buy a character licensed product--be it an Elmo doll, a Dora backpack, or a Thomas the Tank Engine sippy cup, or a Cinderella t-shirt-- we use our hard earned money to give a corporation free advertising.  In other words, we allow our children to be used as billboards.

Electronic toys are also detrimental to creativity and yes...even to learning.   The only thing a child learns from an electronic toy is how to push a button and make noise.  You can get the same effect from a doorbell. They are also extremely jarring with their incessant noise.  A child whose electronic toy is going off  loses the peace and quiet they need to exercise their developing brains through exploration with the environment through the five senses. 

  Corporations like to make plastic boxes that randomly sing the ABCs  or count to ten when a button is pushed. They call these "learning" toys. The boxes say things like "promotes number recognition" or "promotes early literacy."  What these toys actually do is deceive parents into thinking they are educational while creating completely passive children who aren't really learning anything of value.

The truth is that children are not going to learn  number recognition, and the concept of numerical amounts from hearing Elmo count to ten when they push a button.  They might imitate the counting, but they do not understand for one minute the difference between one and six. It is just a sound.

Children do not learn to read by hearing or singing the ABCs.  We don't say A-P-P-L-E when we want an apple.  We pronounce the word phonetically.  Electronic toys aren't going to teach children the encoding and decoding skills needed for literacy. The ones that  "read" for the child with the electronic scanner are quite scary.  Instead of working through a story by sounding out the words, a child can completely avoid learning to read. The magic wand does it for them. 

Parents buy into the electronic learning myth because they've been sold a bill of goods by corporations.  Vulnerable mothers and fathers are warned that the first three years are critical to learning (which they are) and that the best way to enhance this magical time is by purchasing electronic learning toys  and educational videos (which it is not).

The truth is so much more simple and so much more liberating:  Open ended toys and unstructured playtime leads to more creative, more curious, and more active children.  Childen who engage in the world around them. Children who use their imaginations.  Children who feel free to explore.  Children who come up with new ideas.

Pots and pans and wooden spoons.  Fingerpaints and paper.  Mud, dirt, grass, and sticks.  Simple dolls.  A ball.  Some blocks.  Play silks. Baskets. A wooden truck.  Legos.  Puzzles. Books.

The best toys are simple.  They don't require batteries.  They are free to be whoever and whatever the child requires at the moment.   They give a sense of peace and the purpose of them is endless.

A brief glimpse into the second week of Advent.

Winter in in the frosty chilled air.  The trees look barren and sketetal, all stick and bark and wind whipping through the branches.   Night increases.  Everything inhales, moves inward, and finds a quiet warm corner. A candle is lit, a nut is cracked, a jar of canned tomatoes is opened, an evergreen is brought inside: we are all waiting out the cold with our various promises and reminders of light and warmth, of sunshine and greenery, of life and abundance.

 We have entered the Second Week of Advent: The celebration of the Kingdom of Plants.  We added a little potted evergreen to our nature table, as well as a vase of winter greenery, and some pine cones to remember the plant kingdom created by God.  Another candle was lit on Sunday for the Second Week of Advent.

Actual candles are lit during prayer time but then blown out in favor of the battery operated ones...we have a cat and a toddler so candles are a rare and brief treat.

Angels now grace the nature table, as well as St. Nicholas who was added on the 6th.

These angels were thirty cents a piece at the thrift store.

I love the simplicity of this angel.

I am quite pleased with how well Advent/Winter nature table is going.  It is simple, peaceful, and speaks to the spirit of the season.  I love being able to add something each week...starting out with a simple bowl of stones for the Mineral Kingdom and now we have evergreen, holly berries, ivy, pine cones, angels, and St. Nicholas.


This has been a week for sickness in our little home.  Stuffy sniffly runny noses, coughs, and tired bodies. A time for hanging out in pajamas, watching "Little Bear," snuggling on the sofa while drinking plenty of fluids.  A time for tea and hot broth.

Thoughts on Marriage and Motherhood

Ever since I was little I had one main ambition in life: To be a wife and a mother.  As a child I loved to play house with my dolls. I remember my mother only letting me keep a few dolls and stuffed animals in bed with me; probably because she worried that I wouldn't have enough room to sleep. I felt so sad for the lonely bears and dolls sitting on the top of my toybox.  After she left the room and went downstairs, I can remember sneaking out of bed and getting all of my "babies" and putting them right into bed with me.  You could say I was a co-sleeping mama from the get go!

I loved taking care of children when I got older.  I took care of my little cousins during summers in high school.  I baby sat for children in our apartment complex during the school year.  I also worked as a nanny here and there over the years.  It was wonderful to care for little children and I have precious memories of the little ones, but at the end of the day, I was not their Mama.  It was not my home.
 

As I reached my twenties, my mid-twenties, and then my early thirties I watched so many women I knew start committed relationships, their families, their lives, their homes.  At times it became unbearably painful because here I was struggling to make it past 6 months in a relationship, struggling with major depression disorder and emotional regulation issues,  and there they were in their wedding dresses, giving birth, baking birthday cakes.

My pain morphed into jealousy and despair.  I ended a friendship with someone I still love and miss to this day because I couldn't handle that she too was leaving me behind to get married.  It was not one of my greatest moments as a person.  I wanted to meet the man that would love me, only me, and want to marry me.  I wanted a baby.  When would it be my turn?  It was the defining question of my life for all of my twenties and most of my early thirties.

And then it wasn't anymore. 

  I was single, I was working, I had a fantastic charming little apartment near downtown, I was thin, I had pretty clothes. I had resigned myself to my single childless state.  I could nanny in the daytime and have a life of sorts in the evening.  I convinced myself that I would never have a child of my own, a committed relationship.

Then in the summer of 2008, I met John.  We hit it off instantly.  We were officially engaged two months after our first date, just after we moved into together.  It was that fast.  And then we found out I was six weeks pregnant.  It all happened so fast.   It was as if I woke up in another life.

We spent the getting to know you stage of a serious relationship getting ready to have a baby.  That supposedly blissful time of pregnancy was filled with uncertainity, anxiety, and the stress of a very new relationship under an enormous amount of pressure.   Just as I relaxed into the idea of it all...I started having pre-term labor, pre-clampsia, and a premature birth by C section.  Trying to get to know my baby was hampered by a serious bout of post partum anxiety and depression. Once that was stabilized, the day to day caring and feeding of the baby demanded all of my energy.

In spite of all my nanny experience I was not prepared in anyway for motherhood.  Motherhood is all consuming.  It is at once wonderful and absolutely terrifying.  It is the most awesome responsibilty of your life.

Imagine you are given something wonderful that you always yearned for.  It is a precious gift, a holy gift from God.  You have been entrusted with a tiny fragile baby.  A baby is who entirely defenseless and entirely dependent on you for all of its needs, for its very survival.  Add to that sleeplessness, and it is amazing that any new parent survives the first year. 

We waited to marry until after Gabriel turned one.  I think it was the best decision for us to wait until we recovered a bit. They say the first year of marriage is the hardest.  It is definitely different being married, it is nothing like just living together.  So much more is at stake.  Marriage/Commitment seems to be the thread that weaves people together into a family.

We both struggle with anxiety, misunderstandings, frustrations.  We both walk on eggshells around each other a lot of the time  We are both moody and prone to dramatics.( I tend to think in terms of worst case scenerio a lot.)   I often do not fight "fairly."

  But I think the biggest struggle is this:  We were both single for a long time.We both lived alone and led fairly quiet lives.  We both got used to handling things on our own, our way.  We both never expected to find someone so quickly and start a family right away after that.  I think in a lot a ways we are reeling from the sudden and enormous changes that life sent our way. 

Re-Establishing Rhythm and A Simple Advent Celebration

Thinking of the holiday season brings to mind all the celebrations, gatherings, and special outings that come along with this time of year.  With all of this merriment and merry making  it can be quite easy for the daily rhythms of life to get thrown out of whack.  This is what has happened in our little household over the past week. 

Last Sunday, we went to Frankenmuth for the annual visit with my husband's side of the family. I honestly can't recall whether it was Monday or Tuesday we had lunch with my mom. Wednesday my sister came over to spend the day with Gabriel.  We went out to lunch and thrift store shopping.  Thursday was Thanksiving and an overnight visit at Grandma and Grandpa's.  On Saturday we went to a local German restaurant with my parents, brother, and sister.  On Sunday my brother came over to visit.  We ate lunch at a local deli and then walked over to the university art museum.  After we dropped my brother off, we went to the market and JoAnn Fabrics.

So much going on!   Today, Monday, we did nothing and went nowhere until after the afternoon nap and snack.  To be honest, we spent half the day in our pajamas but keeping to our regular eating and changing diaper rhythms. 

Then we went to Ikea. It seemed like a great idea at the time.  The house felt like it was starting to close in on me.  After eating a meal in their cafeteria and changing his diaper, we did some shopping. I needed a small table for Gabriel's room since we decided to get rid of his easily tippable bookcase. The back of the bookcase wasn't solid wood so a furniture anchor would not be a good solution.   We decided it was safer to put his books in baskets on and under a small table, as well as a smaller bookcase.

After Ikea we picked up Daddy from work.  We came home and I set to work reorganizing Gabriel's book area. Unfortunately it was past nine when the room was restored to a peaceful space, stories read, pajamas on, and teeth brushed. Poor little guy was so tired by the time we gave him Good Night Kisses and Daddy put him in the crib.  So while the intent was good, it was a bit of poor planning on Mama's part.

We, ourselves, are just exhausted.  The house is an absolute mess. Laundry piled up.  Toys strewn about.  Books stacked here and there and mixed about with this and that.  This is a household out of sync.  It is a household in desparate need of homekeeping and the re-establishment of our daily rhythm.  For Gabriel, for Mama, and for Daddy. This upcoming week, God willing, will be dedicated to restoration and rhythm. We are in need of an anchor, of peace, of a gentle and predictable flow to the days.

Last night, we had a moment of peace in the simple celebration of our Advent festival.  A single votive candle and a small ceramic bowl of river stones inside an evergreen wreath.  One candle for the first Sunday of Advent, the stones to celebrate the Festival of Minerals.  We also placed the first "candle" in Gabriel's felt Advent Wreath. 

We kept the explanations simple.  "Tonight is the first night of Advent so we are lighting the first candle of our Advent Wreath."  "We have stones to remember that God created all the Minerals of the Earth."   Then we said the Prayer for Advent and sang, "O Come O Come Emmanuel."  After we finished, an enchanted and delighted 19 month old said, "Again!"  And so we sang it again! 

Even a simple Advent festival can be beautiful

 

On the Eve of Advent

It seems that the season of Advent is beginning and I am woefully unprepared!   It is fitting in a way as Advent is a time of preparation that one should start out a bit unready at the start.One thing I love about the Church Year is that there are these times of preparation for the major holy days, that we do not go head first from Ordinary time into Easter or Christmas.  There is a sense of "getting ready" for something special.  And now we are getting ready for the Birth of the Christ Child!  And for the new season of Winter Time.  Candles and evergreens, chickadees at the bird feeder, old fashioned carols, shepherds and angels, the smell of gingerbread, the crunch of snow underneath our feet, a visit to St. Nicholas, placing baby Jesus in the manger.  For little children it is and should be a time of wonder and merriment.  There should be joy, awe, and delight in the season. 

I think keeping Advent is so important for this.  If we move headlong into Christmas right from Thanksgiving, by the time the Twelve Days of Christmas begin on the December 24th, then we risk becoming jaded and tired of the whole thing just as it is starting.  Instead of preparing our hearts to greet the Lord in the form of the Holy Infant, we treat it as a month long marathon of shopping, cooking, baking, and cramming in family visits by December 25th.  Yet, this is not how Christmas was meant to be celebrated!  It is not meant to be a one or two day whirlwind.

Christmas is so important to Christianity that the Church alloted the time from Christmas Eve to Epiphany to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  And nearly a month to prepare for the festival!  Yet, in our culture, just as the religious celebration begins society stops celebrating.  Everyone is sick of Christmas because it has been crammed down our throats since the day after Thanksgiving by retailers hoping to make it into the black.

It used to be traditional to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve and leave it up until Epiphany.   Nowadays people tend to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving.  This makes some sense with the extra Friday off.  If both parents work it can be difficult to find a time to prepare the house for Christmas.  And if you think of Christmas as ending at midnight on December 25th, then the rush to "get it all done" right after Thanksgiving can be understandable. Yet it doesn't have to be like that.

We can keep Christmas holy by keeping Advent holy.  We can slowly and mindfully prepare for Christmas by remembering to pause and light our candles, singing O Come O Come Emmanuel each Sunday of Advent. A respite  in between the cleaning and the decorating, the cookie baking, and the gift buying.  We can limit the amount of "Christmas" in our homes before the 24th of December, slowly unfolding the specialness of the season for our children.  Advent calendars are wonderful for little children.   Many Waldorf schools and families prepare an Advent Spiral or Advent Garden.  Of course, there is the traditional Advent wreath.  Some families wait until Christmas Eve to place Mary and Joseph in the stable, and place Baby Jesus in the Creche on Christmas Day.  The key is to slowly let the Christmas unfold so to speak.

Family and Economics

Once again I turn back to this blog after a great deal of time away.  October was a busy, stressful month. Worries about finances dominated a lot of my thoughts.  Compared to many people I know, we do not have a lot of money.  We are a family of three living on 25k and that is before taxes. My husband has been trying like hell to find a better paying job, but almost a  year of job searching has not born fruit in this area.  He's not looking for some crazy dream job--something that pays 35K a year would be awesome for us. 

We're starting to discuss the possibility of having to move out of state, or to another part of the state, if nothing turns up when our lease expires next year.  I've lived out of state twice, back in the 90's, for brief times.  It was sometimes really cool, but I got terribly homesick both times.  It was also before I had a family of my own. 

When you are single--living out of state is an adventure of sorts.  When you have a little one--you realise how important it is to be near family, to nourish those connections and for your child to develop relationships with grandparents, aunts, uncles.  My brother in law and his wife just moved back home from living down South and I love that Gabriel is finally able to develop a real relationship with them...Skype is nice but it doesn't compare to being able to spend real time with family. 

Last night, on Halloween, Gabriel was able to see all four of his uncles and one of his aunts.  It was great to see him interacting with everyone and everyone interacting with him.  It is something that I really want him (and any other children we might have) to experience: Growing up around family. 

Gabriel with my brother, Andrew

But unfortunately, our family lives in Michigan...a beautiful state that has fallen on hard economic times.  I am praying that my husband can find a better paying job here though....but I am also trying to prepare myself for the possibility of having to pull up roots sometime in the future.

That said...I was talking to my husband the other night as we were about to go to bed.  Compared to a majority of people in the world...We are quite wealthy.  We live in a two bedroom apartment with running water, electricity, and heat.  Not to mention major appliances.  We have secondhand furniture but it is all well constructed and sturdy.  We have comfortable beds with nice linens and blankets.  Our child has books, toys, and clothes to wear.  We may not be able to afford to shop at Whole Foods, but our cupboards hold healthy food.  We have books to read, a computer connected to the internet, and a television.   We also have a car.  Not only that, but we live in a community with mass transit and plenty of green spaces. 

Yet, it is a struggle because we do live in a kind of affluent community.  The kind of community where people drive Volvos and Saabs, spend 100 bucks on sensible Dansko clogs, and pay 14K a year to put their kids in Waldorf schools.  Granted, I have to admit that I would love these things, but I am not willing to put my kid in day care to attain them.  But I still want them.

 I just wish that I did not want them.   Once I saw a pair of Dansko clogs at the Salvation Army and was so excited...but I could not cram my wide post partum foot into them.  I was crestfallen.

When you are poor and have good taste--you have to rely on the charity of people with a good sense of style and class who happen to wear the same size as you.

  Years ago, I was friends with this guy, Paul.  We once talked about how we would always pass up acrylic sweaters at the thrift shops...searching for wool or cashmere.  We were totally snobby about shopping at Value World.  Paul is now a monk who probably doesn't even own the friar's robes he wears, but I still want nice things. I just want to find them second hand for less than five dollars. But I try to remember that I do have shoes...they may be three years old, and were bought second hand (so maybe older?), but they are in decent shape.  I have a car...it is seven years old and small, but it drives from A. to B.  And I can totally do Waldorf inspired homeschooling...if that is the path we choose for Gabriel...for way less that 14k. 

As you can see I am really struggling with issues of materialism.  I want some disposable income so I can shop at Etsy like a madwoman and go to the independent local shoe store in town.  I want some extra money to buy a Waldorf playstand for my son.  I want to take sewing machine lessons because I can't figure mine out to save my life and I just don't have the time to hand sew things anymore.

Want.   That little nagging voice that pesters me to shop, to buy, to desire, to think I need.  But I don't.  Not really. But sometimes it is hard to ignore the culture of consumerism around you.  Buy this.  You want this.  Look at this. 

So, I repeat to myself:  I am wealthy compared to the millions of people living in the third world.  I have a roof over my head.  My child is dressed warmly and was able to eat every time he was hungry today.  My husband has a job that brings in regular income.  We all have health care. 

We've been discussing whether to go ahead and continue trying for a second baby since I am now 36 and not getting any younger--in spite of finances--or to wait until we are in a better economic situation--but maybe not as fertile.  Both of us really want Gabriel to have a sibling.  I was an only child until my twenties and I spent two decades longing for siblings, especially when I was little.  We want our little family to grow, in people and in love.  And we really want Gabriel to experience all the benefits of having a sibling close in age.

Another thing we are discussing is whether to move back to the next town over. It is also a college town, but way less affluent and without the great public schools.  We lived here for many years and it has a lot of character, an active community, and is close enough to the more affluent town to enjoy its many amenities...plus they share a bus sytem.  The rents are somewhat more affordable.  In my head it makes sense. 
So, things have been somewhat tough fiancially.  Yet, there were blessings from Grandmas.  Both of Gabriel's grandmothers bought him shoes and clothes for the cold months ahead.  It was such a help to us!  My mother took me to the store and bought me a couple of sweaters, some long sleeved tops, and a pair of cords....another great help.  She also took me grocery shopping so I was able to stock up on some staples. And my stepfather helped us out with a major car repair.  So, there were definite material blessings.

And we had some other major blessings too:  Gabriel had to get an echocardiogram to determine the cause of a heart murmur.  The echo was clear and the murmur is innocent, thank God!  It was scary waiting for the results, and he had to be sedated during the procedure, but the experience went and ended well. 

Gabriel also had to get allergy testing this month.  His skin tests came back questionable for peanut, tree nut, and shell fish allergies.  But happily his blood tests were negative for these.  I was really worried because I know what a struggle it can be for parents and children who have these allergies.


In addition to all the money worries...I was struggling to keep my head above water emotionally.  Last week while Gabriel was napping I started thinking about all the little and big issues that come up in our marriage, in parenting, in housekeeping.  I started crying and could not stop for an hour.  My sister in law came over and we went out to coffee. As I tried to explain what was bothering me, it felt like I could not really articulate how I was feeling beyond a litany of complaints about laundry ending up on the floor and bills needing to be paid. And not being pregnant after two months of trying.  In my head it seemed so overwhelming, so profound.  But as I spoke out loud, it sounded so trivial.  Especially when I am talking to someone who is dealing with some very difficult issues in her own life.

It made me think of the time when I went out to dinner with my cousin, just a month after the unexpected death of my father.  She and her boyfriend had just broken up a few days before and as I listened to her talking about What Went Wrong in the relationship, I kept thinking:  "Ummm...yeah...you'll probably get back together.  And My Father Is Dead." 

Sometimes I feel like an idiot.




October, it was a long month...pretty though with the leaves changing...but I am glad to be into November.

Into October

Once again I have neglected my blog a bit, but I have a good excuse.  We have been busy enjoying this wonderful season of autumn.  Late September and October are such beautiful months.  I love the transition from summer green to all the beautiful fall golds, yellows, oranges, scarlets, and crimsons--there is a richness and complexity to the autumn landscape.  The word "texture" comes to mind.  There is so much wonderful texture to this season.  The scarlet flash of the leaves, the taste of an apple, the warm feeling of a wool sweater.  I just love it. 

We had our first visit to one of the local cider mills recently.  It was kind of a drizzly gray Monday afternoon, but John was off early from work so we ventured out.  Gabriel loved running around the petting farm.

Saying hello to the goats

Driving the tractor

Apples

Such a happy boy

Delicious cider

Preserves for sale

Little lamb

John and I enjoyed a grown up's night out to the Tiger's Game with my brothers-in-law and sister-in-law.  Grandma and Grandpa S. watched Gabriel for the evening while we went to a buffet dinner at an Italian restaurant and the game--compliments of John's employer who sponsored the evening out for its employees.

It was a chilly night, but it was a good game and good company.  Of course, we did the typical parent thing and left early when it was tied in extra innings.  We wanted to beat traffic and get Gabriel and ourselves home to bed.  Your priorities  sure change when you have a little one waiting for you.   When we got to my in laws, Gabriel was sound asleep, wrapped in a wool blanket on the floor.  We gathered him up and went home to bed. 

Last week, we made another visit to the botanical garden and their wonderful children's garden.  I am loving this place so much and trying to get out to a visit once a week until the weather turns.  Enjoying the flowers, vegetables, and all the wonderful things it has to offer...

Gabriel was fascinated by this whirligig

I detest lawns and loved this alternative grass that doesn't need mowing.

We made a block tower in the "builder's garden"

What a wonderful idea: outdoor blocks. Perfect for little kids.

An ecohouse

One section of the gardens had a display of several fantastical flamingos

veggies for the kids to pick!

green tomatoes

he loves the bells

some orange flowers...good bye summertime.

my sweet boy

a little pepper plant

scarecrow

daddy tracing gabriel's hand on the slate tablet

a pleasant looking squash

sunflowers

the entrance to the kids' veggie garden

kind of a monet looking flower garden

My little one is up from his nap and demanding some Mama time, so I will try and write more later.

A few weeks since...

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to post here.  Our computer went on the fritz unfortunately, but thanks to the generosity of my in-laws who lent us their old one until we can get ours fixed, we are back online.  I've missed being able to document the various details of our life.

September has been both a month of delights and dealing with my depression.  Some of the days this past month have been kind of bleak, to be honest.  One of the negative messages that I struggle with when I am in the midst of a depressive episode is:  You Aren't Doing Enough.   Which is often followed by the message: You Will Fail.  There are a lot of things I would like to learn to do, but my perfectionist tendencies make me afraid to try, for fear of failure.  So, I start to ruminate on that cycle and instead of action--I withdraw from working on things that could give me a sense of accomplishment, were I only brave enough to try them.  It is something that I desperately want to overcome in my life because I think it has held me back from being the person that I want to be.  Or rather from being my true self.

Like I said, September has been a good month in many ways, too.   We planned to do an overnight camping trip with my in-laws, but the weather wasn't too cooperative for sleeping in a tent with a toddler.  However, since the state park is not that far from our house, we were able to drive over and spend some time during the afternoon and early evening with the family. 



Gabriel playing with the bolo balls.



a grove of birch trees



an early sign of autumn



taking a walk with his uncle and a pinwheel

i love the smell of pine



the lake



Last week, I took Gabriel and my little sister to the Children's Garden at our local botanical gardens.  It was our first visit there and I was extremely impressed.  It is an absolute wonderland!  There is so much to see and do...this is only a taste of what we saw and experienced. 

Gabriel loved the little picnic tables!

Clapping in delight to the bells.

A giant box of dirt with buckets and shovels!

He loves climbing on benches!

One of the many garden beds

a fuzzy little friend



This exhibit is called "Stone Soup"  Gabriel had so much fun playing with the rocks and the pots and lids.



Windchimes

Inside the straw house

You can pick up a piece of slate and scribble with some chalk.

A lovely view

This was just awesome

Mama's fairy house

Gabriel making a house for the fairies.

Pumpkins!

Auntie Allison

Some of the vegetables growing in the garden

Hanging Gourd!

Gabriel trying out the just right sized chairs in the little log cabin.

Looking up inside the log cabin

Auntie Allison and Gabriel checking out the log cabin.

 I've done a little thrifting the past week or so.  Some of the treasures I found: a print of a medieval woman, a print of three birds in a gold painted frame, a fair isle sweater for Gabriel, some lovely baskets, and this hat: