Today that song, in 5 very different renditions, was playing on 5 different blogs I visited. It was strange. I used to sing that to myself as a child, mess up all the lemondrop words, and get yelled out for annoying the crap out of everyone.
Lemondrop words. That's how I saw the song, in sweet yellows and tangy crystallized notes. It was the first time I remember associating colours with music and words. This is how I write poetry, the words are painted together very carefully. Sometimes I do this with prose too, but not as often. With poetry, meter and rhyme mean less to me than colour spectrum.
Thursday 5 June 2008
Random Thoughts: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Mother, wife, sister, friend. This is our second year on the farm, a dream we've had since we were first married. We unschool, AP parent, and grow our own food (or try to).
Tuesday 3 June 2008
Sweet Things She Does and Says
Yesterday Dearest broke (shattered) a glass mason jar in the kitchen. While he was trying to clean up the shards, Lil'Bug comes racing in barefooted. Sweetie there is glass, why do you keep insisting on coming in here. Her reply, "My tricycle is in here. I keep yearning for it."
****
Sunday morning she got up and out of bed, headed to the kitchen and back up again. She climbed into bed with me, bring three apples. "Breakfast picnic in bed, Mama," and then she explained to me that there was no other food we could eat because we'd been gone for four days, that we'd have to just eat apples forever.
She was right. No other food. She had ransacked every cabinet looking too.
Mother, wife, sister, friend. This is our second year on the farm, a dream we've had since we were first married. We unschool, AP parent, and grow our own food (or try to).
In One Week
We were at the hospital four days. In that time my heiloom rose bloomed......
The iris burst open......
These iris were planted in the rotted middle of a maple tree stump. It just looks so magical, the picture does it no justice.
I predict the best raspberry crop ever. The berry buds are not much to look at, but the branches are laden with them.
Columbine is such a strange flower. It looks like an alien to me!
Mother, wife, sister, friend. This is our second year on the farm, a dream we've had since we were first married. We unschool, AP parent, and grow our own food (or try to).
Learning the Hard Way
How is Lil'Bug doing? I started this post the weekend we went into labour, but most of it is still right on.
These last weeks have been hard on Lil'Bug. We are usually on the move, go go go. But my inability to drive made us house bound. When Lil'Bug would ask, "Can we go to x,y,z today?" I'd say, YES! But now I have to explain over and over that I can't drive right now and how about we wait until Dad gets home or offer various other activities around the house.
Several lovely friends had graciously come over to relieve out tedious days, however.....yes, there is a however, Lil'Bug is so wound up and grumpy that these play dates ended early and/or with injury. Some of these incidents are with good friends that she usually plays well with. I could not continue to ask these friends to come over and subject their children to her fits. You see, she has taken to biting again, something we haven't seen in about two years. She has taken a chomp at just about every family member and several of good friends. She even bit me at the hospital.
As I reflected on this, I understand it. Her whole life is changing. Much the way she changed our lives almost 4 years ago, her little sister has changed hers. She is nervous and scared and anxious. She doesn't want to make me unhappy or worried so she is taking it out on everything else. It is ironic, I observed the same behaviour in another family who was expecting and I never thought twice about it, except that my kid is so different from them. Well, maybe not so much.
What can I do about it, really? I continue to be patient and loving, but I am tired and scared and worried too. Half the time she is really trying hard to be mature and thoughtful and helpful, and then suddenly it is too much and she explodes. I feel that way too, but my explosion is in frantic laundry folding and tears instead of fists and fangs. What we used to do when things got rough was take a walk in a quiet park, but none are nearby and if she runs off I can't chase her and she knows it. She can't even sit on my lap because she slides off my knee. She has cried herself to sleep several nights in my arms.
The hospital stay was rough. The room made her nervous and she'd open the door and take off down the hall, she was so disruptive she couldn't be there as much as she or we would have liked. She cried a lot and said she missed me being home. The only thing that actually helped was me coming home.
She has asked to go back to being a family of just Mama, Daddy, and Lil'Bug and then in the next 10 minutes will gush about how much she loves and likes her little sister. I know how it is possible to feel both, I'm the oldest of my sibling group too. I've talked to her about that, how I felt when Aunt Bee was born, what I did, and how I acted. This seems to have given her permission to talk to me about how she feels. Sometimes it is painful to hear the things she says, but she trusts me enough to say these things and that is really important to validate.
She really is a good big sister, I know it has been rough on her. Things are getting better, for all of us.
These last weeks have been hard on Lil'Bug. We are usually on the move, go go go. But my inability to drive made us house bound. When Lil'Bug would ask, "Can we go to x,y,z today?" I'd say, YES! But now I have to explain over and over that I can't drive right now and how about we wait until Dad gets home or offer various other activities around the house.
Several lovely friends had graciously come over to relieve out tedious days, however.....yes, there is a however, Lil'Bug is so wound up and grumpy that these play dates ended early and/or with injury. Some of these incidents are with good friends that she usually plays well with. I could not continue to ask these friends to come over and subject their children to her fits. You see, she has taken to biting again, something we haven't seen in about two years. She has taken a chomp at just about every family member and several of good friends. She even bit me at the hospital.
As I reflected on this, I understand it. Her whole life is changing. Much the way she changed our lives almost 4 years ago, her little sister has changed hers. She is nervous and scared and anxious. She doesn't want to make me unhappy or worried so she is taking it out on everything else. It is ironic, I observed the same behaviour in another family who was expecting and I never thought twice about it, except that my kid is so different from them. Well, maybe not so much.
What can I do about it, really? I continue to be patient and loving, but I am tired and scared and worried too. Half the time she is really trying hard to be mature and thoughtful and helpful, and then suddenly it is too much and she explodes. I feel that way too, but my explosion is in frantic laundry folding and tears instead of fists and fangs. What we used to do when things got rough was take a walk in a quiet park, but none are nearby and if she runs off I can't chase her and she knows it. She can't even sit on my lap because she slides off my knee. She has cried herself to sleep several nights in my arms.
The hospital stay was rough. The room made her nervous and she'd open the door and take off down the hall, she was so disruptive she couldn't be there as much as she or we would have liked. She cried a lot and said she missed me being home. The only thing that actually helped was me coming home.
She has asked to go back to being a family of just Mama, Daddy, and Lil'Bug and then in the next 10 minutes will gush about how much she loves and likes her little sister. I know how it is possible to feel both, I'm the oldest of my sibling group too. I've talked to her about that, how I felt when Aunt Bee was born, what I did, and how I acted. This seems to have given her permission to talk to me about how she feels. Sometimes it is painful to hear the things she says, but she trusts me enough to say these things and that is really important to validate.
She really is a good big sister, I know it has been rough on her. Things are getting better, for all of us.
Mother, wife, sister, friend. This is our second year on the farm, a dream we've had since we were first married. We unschool, AP parent, and grow our own food (or try to).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)