The Other SouleMama

Despite the fact that school is officially out for the summer, you have some homework to do. Please visit The Original SouleMama at: http://www.soulemama.com/. Come back to see me when you're done...




Amanda Blake Soule, author of both The Creative Family and Handmade Home is a resident of Maine, mother of three? four? knitter, seamstress, photographer, maker of homemade laundry powder, builder of fairy houses, and generally a woman the likes of which I am not. And, I absolutely adore her blog. Her snapshots of her home/studio/family life are a colorful and interesting collage of a life that cuts across the divide of homeschooled vs. public schooled, fairy-house building vs. Lego constructing. I am fascinated by her work, and the beauty she always seems to pull from each project or family outing. Although I'd like to say that I stumbled across her on my own, I can't. A friend of mine from college mentioned the SouleMama blog to me a few years back when she was Googling (pre-Facebook) to see where I may have landed in life. Sadly, I was unable to claim it as mine, but became a fan of this SouleMama who I was most definitely not.


The Original SouleMama, as I've come to think of her, has a keen sense of how to capture and portray all that is beautiful in life. But, being The Other SouleMama, I'm a touch skeptical. Where is the real Amanda Blake Soule Mama in all of this? Where are the meltdowns that don't make it into the blog? When it's 4:00 in the afternoon and her baby is tired out, does she ever throw down the needlepoint, lose her temper, curse the dirty diaper? Or is it really truly all ice cream and sandy baby feet? Is she just better than I am at the glass half-full thing? One thing is for sure, I know that when I blog I edit out moments that don't fit the picture because that's what you do when you write. You present a certain narrative.


So what is the narrative I'm trying to present? Honestly my world looks almost nothing like hers. (I'll admit to you that I'm a little jealous.) Of course, there are the fleeting moments of beauty while getting the kids ready for daycare/preschool/elementary school, or on the weekends in between laundry and groceries and more laundry. But homemade laundry powder? Really? For me the challenge is finding time to get to Target to buy a bottle of High Efficiency "Up and Up" brand detergent. For the love of god! I've got an Excel spreadsheet telling me where Child No. 1 is to go on what day, during which week of the summer (with, might I add, a per week cost calculated in the bottommost cell of the table!) To The Other SouleMama, this is a thing of beauty. All joking aside (actually, the Excel table really exists) the last time I actually made something was almost a full year ago. It was a small collage for a friend, and something I worked very hard to squeeze into my evening, much like this blog.


So what's a mother to do? This stay-at-home mama/working-outside-the-home mama distinction is reality. Whether at home or at work, I believe all mother's struggle with The Decision. What other decision is there to make? Come on folks, where is the part-time work with benefits? Where is the schedule with afternoons off so that your child too can participate in special after-school programs like chorus and art studio? The Decision weighs on us all heavily. We wonder, what is it the "right thing" to do? Is this what is "best" for my children? There are days when I am certain that my children are happy, my work is of value, and I am satisfied with my choices. Other days, the anger bubbles to the surface, and the "choices" appear to me as two closed doors to which I have lost the key. While I don't necessarily begrudge The Original SouleMama her beautiful knitted baby vests and homemade rompers in vintage fabrics, I would like just a peek or two into the messy sewing basket. Is her life really so, so composed?


While at work a few weeks ago, I was busy processing and logging papers into a database. As you can imagine, the work had my full and complete attention so much so that I started to eavesdrop on a conversation two temps were having a few cubes over. Temp #1 was informing Temp #2 that she was getting out of town, leaving for the big city to find a job, get a place to live. Temp #2 listened to her plans, smartly offering the correct amount of admiration for this move away from the hometown. Temp #1 proclaimed confidently, "There's just nothing here for me." When I got home that night, I told my husband the story of the temps, and how it made me chuckle inside to hear this young girl desperate to head out into the world, to find something different, to make a move. It made me chuckle because I could relate to her story, having fled the Midwest at 22 for similar reasons. My husband asked me, "So, knowing what you know today, what advice would you give to her?" Without hesitation, I said, "No matter where you go, you are still there."


The same holds true for mothering. I will never have a blog like the SouleMama blog. I grew up eating ground beef-a-la-Sloppy-Joes, and thinking the beach was something you looked at through a car window. I've gone hiking once in my life (in Arizona; it was really hot) and have never once set foot in a kayak. I can crochet a long, narrow, crooked scarf that no one would ever want to wear. And although I've never built a fairy house, when I was little my sister and I would float dried leaves in the rainwater pooling in the gutters that lined the sidewalks. It was magical to my three-year old self.


If I've learned anything from my adventure out into the world at age 22, or from mothering each of my children as they chart their course it is this: Seek beauty. Truth is hidden in the details. Pay attention at all costs.


[Hats off to The Original SouleMama on this Wednesday evening, soon-to-be Thursday morning. Thanks, for inspiring The Other SouleMama to create a blog of her own. Good Night, all.]

Father's Day

It is 1941. My father is three (or is it four years?) old and his young mother and much older father live in an apartment building in downtown Detroit, mere blocks from the river bearing the same name. Rail lines back up to their apartment building which is located on a street busy with both living and making a living. Wartime industry is still chugging and grinding and forging in America. His father is a crane operator, his mother is learning to be a homemaker, learning how to cook simple meals from her husband. Money is tight. His father brings home the money. It is his mother’s job to make it last, stretch it out, buy shoes for the baby.

Now, picture a quiet Saturday morning in spring. My father has crawled out of bed early, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He is awake much earlier than both his mother and father who are still huddled beneath cool sheets. The sun is just beginning to appear in hazy pinks and smoky yellows through the small window above the kitchen sink. Pigeons are perched, or pecking here and there in the courtyard, and from where my father stands, on a chair he has pulled up to countertop/kitchen sink/window, my father (happy, eager boy) watches the pigeons in delight.

My father sees the special treat his mother has left on the countertop from her trip to the market. (Donuts!) The bag rustles as he takes one cake donut from the first row of the tray. The crumbs spill down upon his little boy belly, and a few crumbs land on his toes. But he is a good boy who listens to his mother, and so he picks up a few crumbs to tidy up. (But the birds! They look hungry too!) My father notices the window is ajar, and a slight breeze ruffles his soft-still-baby-hair. He tosses the crumbs out into the courtyard and watches as one pigeon flies over to peck at the crumb of cake donut. (What fun!)

Chewing his donut, he thinks to break off a larger piece for the pigeon in the courtyard. The pigeon steps closer; my father leans out the window to toss the piece of donut at the bird. (But look! Now there are two pigeons!) Delighted, my father throws the remaining half of his donut into the courtyard. Three more pigeons swoop down to join the excitement. My father is smiling, and laughing his little boy laugh, eyes bright with the wonder of the treat and the birds. He reaches into the bag again, and lobs a whole donut through the window. A flock is forming! (Look at all the birds!) In a flurry of excitement he reaches into the donut bag again and again, until there are no donuts left at all. The birds swoop and peck and eat donuts with my father.

His father is awake now and enters the kitchen to see crumbs/open window/birds outside. There is a pause, then soft laughter. “Well, I guess we need to buy more donuts.”

N.B. When my father tells the story, he builds it bird-by-bird, describing the exact number of donuts left in the bag, the exact number of pigeons at the window. By the time he reaches the climax when all of the donuts are gone, you can actually picture him as a small boy quivering with excitement on his tiptoes leaning out the window to feed the birds. I love this, my father’s story, because he is four again when he tells it. When he spins his tale, my dad laughs this huge laugh that sounds like a lion playing a baritone. He laughs and roars and laughs so much that he cannot stop laughing. I think it comes down to this: What matters is the laughter, of my father at age four, of his father standing in that kitchen, of my sons as they listen to grandpa’s story about the donuts.

Pediculosis Capitis

In celebration of Memorial Day weekend, my oldest invited over a few friends from school. (Well, actually about 10-15 friends and approximately 200 of their viable offspring.) And I really wasn't prepared for the sheer number of guests in my home and the utter demands they would place on our family. Honestly, our house guests insisted that we bag up all of the children's stuffed animals, blankets and even the sofa cushions. They requested that the entire house be vacuumed. (Well, it did need it. Who am I kidding?) And they demanded that every last scrap of bedding, bath towels, and clothing be washed in very hot water and dried even hotter. Annoying little buggers, really. Yes, my friends. We Had Head Lice.

Apparently head lice is "going around" my son's 2nd-grade classroom, and let me gripe for a moment that the nurse's notice about the same failed to reach my doorstep. (How was I to know that the "gnats" I'd noticed a few nights earlier --That's funny! They must have flown into your hair when you were on your scooter!-- weren't gnats at all.) In retrospect, it was not funny. At all. Head lice is/are (for the love of god there are so many, I think I need the plural here) something you don’t want to know about, or be an expert in, or find yourself Googling frantically about for some fool-proof method of certain death for the lil’ critters. I've learned that there are two camps in the battle with head lice. The first camp likes to use products from the kitchen (mayonnaise, olive oil, even peanut butter) in combination with Saran Wrap, and/or plastic shopping bags and/or shower caps. The second camp goes straight for the chemical treatments like, RID or Lice MD. I'm a big peanut-butter lover, and enjoy scooping it out by the spoonful on occasion so the thought of trapping lice and nits in a perfectly good jar of Skippy just seems wrong. I went straight for the chemicals.

Unfortunately, lice have become resistant to the chemicals. So, instead of killing the lice the RID (WalMart $13.94 for 8 fl. oz) just makes them a little woozy. They drift down onto your child's forehead after basking in the chemical pool and act a little stunned, moving just slowly enough so you can pick them off. Now, I have to stop narrating to say that during all of this, my son was very matter-of-fact. No, he was more than that. He was a champ. I hate that term, but seriously there's no other way to describe it. As he was holding the washcloth over his eyes, waiting for the ten minutes to be up, he only exclaimed in mild panic once stating, "Mommy! I can feel them crawling!"

I on the other hand had a freak-out of epic proportion necessitating some nerve-calming pharmaceuticals. (Yes, yes. This was out of view of my sweet, infested boy with whom I tried my darnedest to appear calm and in control of the situation.) Post-medicinals I really set to work figuring out next steps. The "treatment" as people like to say in the World of Lice, isn't going to treat the whole problem. There's the house to clean (see paragraph 1) and Don't Forget Your Car! Head lice purists know that there is really only one way to end the madness. Through careful, thorough, persistent nit-picking you will ensure the lice are gone for good.

Now, I think of myself as "nit-picky" about certain things. For example, I don’t like it when the hand towel falls on the bathroom floor, or when people spit toothpaste into the sink and forget to rinse the bowl. (Who wants to look at a blue glob of goo when washing their hands?) Never mind the irritation caused by a crooked picture on the wall. (Can someone get me a level, seriously?) Okay - so there's a bit of OCD in the mix. Whatever. Back to the blog: These sorts of things get under my skin; they annoy me. But nothing compares to real nit-picking. Picking nits off your child's head, which takes hours, gives new meaning to the phrase, "go over with a fine tooth comb."

My husband has become a champion nit-picker. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, you should consider giving him a call. His particular dose of obsessive behavior that in the past enabled him to comb through architectural drawings, shines through in his nit-picking skills. He is thorough, meticulous, and very, very calm. I am still impressed; we are still combing and checking. In the course of one day he picked those 200 or so nits from our son's head. (I think there’s a job opportunity there.) Apparently other people have realized there is money to be made in doing a task nobody wants to do. "Hair Fairies" located in LA and Chicago will pick your nits for $75/hour. No hair fairies on the East Coast. I checked. Here's the full story if you're interested: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6556831

As of 10:20 p.m. on this all-is-getting-calmer Thursday evening, I am hopeful that we are through the worst, that the rest of the family has been spared, and that some day soon my home will not smell like Lysol. Until next Thursday, friends. Please keep your fingers crossed our house guests don't return.

Revolving Doors

If you’ve ever lived in a city, you know there are certain unspoken rules of operation for things like revolving doors. For example, partitioned revolving doors are not meant to be shared (even during rush hours) rather they are meant to spin continuously in order to allow as many people in and out as needed during busy times. Emily Post has written up some specific rules of etiquette about the use of revolving doors (see: http://www.etiquettedaily.com/2009/05/revolving-door-who-goes-first-2/) which seem to have something to do with men and women and upper body strength. But I’m not really headed in that direction. I’m really headed in the direction of way-finding.

Generally speaking, city living teaches you about making your own space because there is so little to go around. A city demands that you find your own way. Although nature seems to get all the attention in terms of educating our children, I think there’s something to be learned from our cities. (A few important lessons come to mind: Don’t make eye contact with a homeless person unless you feel like chatting or opening your wallet. Don’t wait until you’re first in line at Dunkin’ Donuts to order; shout over the heads of the three people in front of you when the lady in the purple and orange hat calls out, “What can I get you?” Don’t hesitate to hold up traffic while parallel parking on a busy street. Damn it – that spot it yours!)

In my current life of overgrown lawn/corporate office edu-job I think about the real urban education I want for my kids. As a Midwestern-born suburbanite who couldn’t wait to get out of town and move to a big city (romantic and naive as it now seems to have done so at age 19, and again at 22) I am troubled by my children’s upbringing in a place so lacking in diversity. Living in New Hampshire, I find my children responding to “difference” as well, “different.” And this bothers me. What’s so wrong with difference anyway? How many parents have likewise taken the approach of, “Yes, you’re right. He is tall/short/fat/thin/different. And isn’t that amazing that there are so many different kinds of people in the world!” Because that is what I have done with my children – in the grocery store, at the gas station, at the playground often in loud tones so as to soften the very direct statement my little one has just made.

But back to way-finding– what do my kids really need to know in order to lead happy, productive lives? Is there some preferred distribution of rural and urban skills similar to fund selections for your 401(k)? Let’s see, we’ll do 35% Suburban Sidewalk Skills, 25% Urban Dwelling, and 40% Rural/Outdoor Education. Do class field trips to an apple orchard, or planting a tree in the yard count for Rural/Outdoor and/or Suburban Sidewalk? At what point does Urban Dwelling become possible, age 18? Does a trip to the New England Aquarium count as partial credit toward the Urban Dwelling category? What I do know is that I want my kids to participate in as much as I can make possible, and find time for— baseball leagues, summer camps, Saturday pancake-making, scooters up and down, and up and down the sidewalk, walks around the block, trips to Boston, or Manchester, or Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

My youngest will be turning one in another month, and I’ve been trying to grab at every moment I can with her, my last baby. What will she want out of life? Where will she go? How will I help her get there? A wise old person once told me that as parents, the best we can do is to give our children a compass, and point them north. I want to tell him what great advice it was, and how hard it is to do every day when the world is spinning past with so many complicated and often unspoken rules to consider.