A muddled goodbye to 2015

Tonight Chase and I went through our books.  We have a lot of books.

 

This is about 3 shelves worth of over 25 shelves...

Touching the books, feeling their weight, flipping through their library-scented pages always makes me want to read more.  I should sort my books every day and I would read a lot more!  But then I wouldn't be living life, would I?

 

We talked tonight about how great it was to have a few years of our lives fully devoted to intellectual pursuits.  We had 4 years of college and we both completed graduate school before we had kids.  What a gift those years were!

 

In many ways I feel much less sharp than I did 6 years ago when I completed my master's degree.  Those parts of my brain feel rusty, dim, cobwebbed.  (Is "cobwebbed" even a word?)  I think I'm stupider.  (Is "stupider" a word?  ...Mabe I'm just less sharp.)

 

But then in so many ways I feel like I know SO much more.  I know better now what is trivial and what is really important.  I know the drudgery of grocery shopping, how long it takes to wash a full counter of dishes, how many days I can go without showering and still go out in public, and how unnecessary cable TV is.  I know what it is to see a tiny face for the first time and fall so helplessly in love that I can't remember what it was like before, even if before was just minutes ago.  I know what it is to power through on a few hours of sleep night after night, because that is the new normal.  I know what it is for "normal" to change on a weekly and sometimes daily basis as we all grow, develop and learn. 

 

I know better now what I don't know. 

 

I don't have it all figured out, and I can embrace that.  I am learning still and always, making 1,000 adjustments a day. 

 

I know that the greatest impact I can have, the grandest legacy I can leave, is to love my children well. 

 

As 2015 comes to a close, I've been ruminating on the fact that the decisions we make early in life, very early, can affect our children and by so doing can affect our children's children and even beyond. 

 

The friends we make when we are in grade school and high school can affect our grades and our social behavior.  Habits we begin in high school usually carry over into college, and often in college we meet or marry our spouse.  And so that friend I made in 1st grade, and the peer pressure we put on each other throughout our growing up years, affected who I married.  And who I married REALLY affects my kids and me!

 

And there are so many things like that - decisions we make when we're too young to even understand that we're making a decision, and they can have great impact for generations. 

 

So how can I help my kids make some of those early decisions well?

 

(This next bit has 2 parts that circle back to the above question, so bear with me.)

 

[Part 1]  One of Mr. Rogers' (of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood) quotes has popped up a few times this year:

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

The concept of play being work has changed the way I look at play with my kids.  I'm generally a task-oriented person who thrives on structure.  I like structured play - blocks, playdoh (with a rolling pin and cookie cutters), board games.  And during the day I often do structured work while my kids play independently from me. 

But I've started working at playing in a less-structured way - letting my kids do the work of play rather than always keeping them to the structure I want to impose.  I can see that play is preparing them for life - play kitchens, tool sets, dolls, instruments, and pets make sense to me.

But then I wonder... 

[Part 2] 

I can't find the exact quote at the moment, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked in a speech about a future in America where technology would provide time for leisure.  (Little did he know how true that would be...)

We have leisure almost all the time as compared with previous generations.  I don't have to boil water to do laundry.  I don't even have to hang it out to dry!  I don't have to cook - I can go out to eat.  I don't have to clean - I can get a vaccuum robot that will do that while I'm gone.  I don't have to meal plan or make shopping lists - I can subscribe to an online service that will do that for me.  I don't even have to shop!  I can get just about anything delivered to me. 

And I can Facebook, or Instagram, or Pinterest, or a zillion other things any time on my smartphone.  I can literally be "watching" cable TV while playing a game on my Kindle, Googling something on my phone, and blogging on my computer AT THE SAME TIME!  That's 4 methods of leisure all at once!!!

I work outside the home a couple of days a week, yes.  At a school where I spend most of my time on a computer.

[Bringing it all together...]  Is that what being an adult is?  Spending hours a day on a computer at work only to come home and spend more hours in front of a screen for play?

If that's what being an adult is, then I'm not exactly sure what kind of play I ought to be encouraging in my kids if their play now helps prepare them to be adults later. 

Should I let my kids sit in front of screens all day to prepare them for their futures?  The experts say that's really bad for their brain development!

As I help my kids measure ingredients while we make cookies, I wonder Will this be useful for them someday?  Surely it will be.  But what practices do we have today that will be completely obsolete by the time they're adults?

One that has changed since I was a kid is the phone book.  I don't have a phone book.  But my parents had one, and we used it all the time.  My mom would put a piece of scotch tape on the edge of the pages that we used the most so they'd be easy to find.  We'd look up phone numbers, of course, but we used them for other things, like pressing petals and leaves or as a booster seat to make us taller.  Lily, Connor and Spencer will never know what a phonebook is.

I think it's true to say that we've been moving from a culture of mostly work toward a culture of mostly leisure.  And to be really honest, that scares me.  Leisure without work isn't appreciated.  And too much leisure simply leads to trouble.  There's a lack of purpose in leisure if it's had too often that can eat away at ones soul.  And really, that's what scares me most. 

I want my sons to have work to do, real work, that makes them feel manly and become manly.  I want them to find purpose and feel like they have something valuable to contribute to the world.  Because I know they have something to contribute to the world, but they may not know that themselves.  And I want the same for my daughter!

The Copy Cat

 

This guy... (*ugh!* Isn't he just to die for!?!  He is so handsome and cool!) This guy does absolutely whatever his big sister is doing.  From the toys she's playing with, to the things she eats, to the places she goes, he is all about being just like her.  That won't always be the case, but right now it is.

 

Today the two of them were at the table finger painting.  She made a particular sound when she wiped her hand on the rag I'd given her.  He picked up his rag, and attempted to make the same sound as he wiped his hand.  It was adorable!

 

And this girl...

 

This girl is my little "mini-me."  The other day we were sitting at the table and someone did something outlandish.  Lily said, "Oh, for goodness sake!"  Chase and I looked at her.  We asked where she'd heard that.  She responded to me, "You say it after 'Good Heavens!'"  And you know, she's right.  I do say that... 

 

So she copies me and he copies her, and what I look into each day are the eyes of my little mirrors.  But these little ones have minds of their own, wills of their own, and purposes all their own to accomplish in the world.  My job is to help prepare them for those purposes.  But I don't know how to do that!  This world is a fickle, changing, complicated place, and I'm not sure at all how to get them ready for it.

 

Looking Back and Moving Forward

Today as I changed Spencer's diaper, he looked up at me and grinned the biggest grin, then cooed at me.  And I was grateful I could see his smile and hear his sweet voice. 

 

I walked into the kitchen to Connor's bellowing "MOOOOOMMMMM!" When I looked at him and said, "what?" he shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room.  And I was grateful his strong lungs could bellow and my legs could carry me to his [albeit] unnecessary call.

 

I snagged Lily as she tried to sneak past me.  I tackled her and tickled her till she laughed a true belly laugh.  And I was grateful for strong arms, and a girl to hold in them.

 

Spencer balanced in my lap, as Connor tugged on my pants, and Lily demanded "Read, Mom!" while I sat on the couch trying to manage them all post-nap.  And I was grateful for noise, stinky diapers, high-pitched squeals, messy faces, uncombed hair (theirs and mine!), dirty laundry, unmade beds, mac n cheese and hotdogs, early mornings, late nights, toys to trip over, and a million other things that could be daily annoyances. 

 

2015 was pretty awesome.  It had it's moments of difficulty, but on the whole, it was a really, really great year.  I have no idea what 2016 might hold.  Someday I may look back at it as a year with great difficulty, or perhaps it's a year that will blur into so many others as just "normal," or maybe it'll be "The Year" - that stellar year we'll talk about for the rest of our lives! 

 

At this point I can't know.  But I do know that I will cultivate a household of gratefulness.  Gratefulness for even those things that seem like challenges or difficulties, because we always, always have something to be grateful for.  And expressing that gratefulness helps put other things into perspective. 

 

So as we say goodbye to 2015, here are some pictures of Christmas - one of the best Christmases I can remember...

 

She decorated a bunch of cookies by herself!

 

Snow on Christmas Eve.  <3

 

Santa came!

 

These two sat and opened stockings together and admired
one another's presents.  They were excited for each other,
which was so fun to watch as a parent.

 

So very grateful that he walks this crazy life with me!

 

They are the best.

 

Christmas at Gram's.

 

What a great family!

 

Santa's helper.

 

Ready for stockings.

 

The evening talent show.  Lily got a saxaphone,
and wanted to play it alonside Grandma.

I feel like this post is very muddled.  I'm processing, and clearly I have more processing to do.  But for now, I'm grateful for the time I've been given and I look forward to the time ahead.  Here's to 2016!