Kara's Adventures in Unadventureland

I came to the conclusion a while back ago that I am a strange sort of perfectionist. Not that I do anything perfectly (at all!) but that I often expect perfection out of myself, and even sometimes out of others as well. I won't go into how unrealistic and unfair that is of me... this time. No, today I am thinking about my strange perfectionism, and how I allow it to cripple me. So often I want to make changes in my life, but I am petrified of messing up or not having the desired outcome, so I fear to make that first step.

When I used to work my Dream Job, I would often counsel with students who were struggling beginning to write a paper. So often over the years I heard, "I just don't know where to start!" Perhaps somewhere along their life journeys they heard the absolutely wretched advice to "begin at the beginning... and go on till you come to the end: then stop"  (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). My go-to counsel for such a frustration was simply this: Start anywhere! Start in the middle, or even at the end! You can always go back and build around wherever you start. Sometimes it would take a lot of coaxing to get a student to relax enough to start writing a paper in the middle. Wasn't that cheating or somehow not following the rules? In one of my finer moments in teaching (tongue in cheek) I told my students that freewriting was like Outback Steakhouse. No rules. Just write (/tongue in cheek). I saw many students go from frustrated and bound with tight ropes by writer's block to writing fabulous papers.

*Ahem* I give others such very good advice... Why don't I follow it? I allow fear of failure to dictate how much of my life I am really living. I allow fear of getting in over my head to keep me from actually trying to accomplish my goals and desires.

I decided I'm going to try to break free from these constraints and start accomplishing the goals I set years ago. I'm trying not to be petrified of falling on my face in dirty old mud and risk looking like an imbecile in front of family, friends, and perfect strangers. I decided a good place to start was in the middle -- my blog... and writing, which has been a life-long goal -- and I can always go back and build around my small successes. I don't want to be afraid of taking that first step, or fifth step, or 100th step anymore.

Grind 'em Beans

Sometimes I get caught up bemoaning that my life doesn't seem, at first glance, to be spectacular or even interesting for that matter. The daily grind, the routine my life seems to follow, feels more like survival mode than experiential living. I'm stuck in the cycle of invariably chasing that next cup of coffee to get me through the day.

I'm mostly at home, unconventionally educating my son, chasing the tot... always getting someone a snack, always taking on the Laundry Monster (whose hp continuously regenerates), forever picking up toys and putting them in bins, only to turn around and see that one kid or the other has dragged out 10 more.

Even as I sit on the couch to write, I have my daughter offering me toys, and she resorts to bellowing when I'm not interested in pushing the buttons on her pretend phone for the 100th time. She's so offended that I would want to carve out a few minutes to write or check my email or stare blankly off into space pondering how I can survive the crazy years with my sanity intact. She hands me the phone, again, and I push a button, again, and she giggles over the obnoxiously peppy music that erupts from the speaker. Again. She's heard that perky tune 101 times now in the last 10 minutes. Why is she still giggling? Why doesn't she throw down the toy in disgust and say she can't listen to it one more time without being committed to the looney bin? She holds some secret I've forgotten.

I realize that I want to learn from her, even as I constantly mold her young, forming mind. She's watching me -- brush my hair, cook dinner, read to her brother, scoop up handfuls of small wooden fruit and put them away in the small, pretend market basket. And I watch her -- tuck her favorite doll under her arm as she searches for a hair brush, stand at her play kitchen piling play dishes in the play sink, hold a book in front of her doll's face, tuck the pretend market basket in the cabinet where it belongs.

We do this every day. And it is spectacular. If I could freeze these moments, I would want to go back a hundred or more times to look at them, to remember with fondness the wonder of this experience. Even though the daily grind can get monotonous and tiresome in its tediousness, I'm encouraged to grind away at these beans anyway.

Because after all, every peppermint frappuccino started out as a handful of beans that needed a good grinding.

When Things are Hard

"Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard" The Scientist, Coldplay. 


I was poking around some of my old music this past weekend, and came across my Coldplay collection. Coldplay is one of the few mainstream bands I can listen to without cringing these days (thanks to my Husbeast for turning me into a music snob), and several of the band's songs have especially memory-provoking attributes for me. Rob and I danced to "Green Eyes" at our wedding, so that song can almost always bring on a nostalgic tear or two. 


"Honey you should know
That I could never go on without you"


 When Annabelle was wee and jaundiced, I used to sing "Yellow" to her... 


"Your skin 
Oh yeah your skin and bones 
Turn into something beautiful"

There's something soothing about simple, heartfelt songs with meaningful yet uncontrived lyrics. When I listened to "The Scientist" again, I sat and pondered the difficulty of life at times. I know I haven't chosen the easier paths of least resistance in many cases. Often, I choose more challenging directions in life because I believe them to be more noble, more rewarding in the long run, more in line with my beliefs about life, love, parenting, generosity, peace on Earth... goodwill toward humankind and all that. Nobody said it would be easy. But wow, I didn't know it was going to be this hard. 


I had a conversation with Rob this weekend about the weather (aren't we a profound couple?). Tallahassee isn't known for its idyllic weather. Oh no, Tallahassee has despicable weather. It's chilly and dreary in the winter (but with no snow), and it's hotter and more humid than an arm pit in the summer. However, for a few very short weeks in the spring, and even fewer shorter weeks in the fall, Tallahassee has breathtakingly lovely, soul-nourishing weather. Those are the weeks when it is pleasure to be alive, sucking in cool crisp clean air and feeling warm beautiful sunshine on skin. 


Rob and I decided we were ready for for a little spring in our lives, a period of less stress, less blood sweat and tears, a time when we can just sit back and take a breather, even if just for a short while. It's hard to find that place in between too cold and too hot, much harder than one might imagine. But then again, nobody said it was easy. 

Miso Crafty

My attempts at being crafty are usually dismal failures. This truth has no bearing my my attempts.

Today's fun, messy, somewhat-successful project was dyeing three playsilks using koolaid and vinegar.

I started out with 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup of vinegar, and a blank silk scarf. Exhibit A:

I was going for a purple color, so I mixed  Black Cherry and a Blue Something Or Other Koolaid packets. The red definitely prevailed, and as I was stirring the mixture, I suddenly was reminded that this very same bowl caught my placenta when Annabelle was born. Good memories. Exhibit B:

I microwaved for three minutes, cooled for two minutes, and microwaved again for three minutes. I then soaked it in vinegar, and gave it a cool bath under some running water. After drying... Exhibit C:

Not too bad for an uncrafty craft-wanna-be!

I wanted something kind of teal/turquoise, so I mixed blue and green packets of koolaid. I could tell right away that the green would prevail (blue koolaid is totally weak. Next time I'll double the blues.)

But the green is pretty nonetheless.

The smell of baking koolaid enticed Micah into the kitchen. He wanted to try it too. This time I mixed two oranges and one pink.

I had to tell him several times that the mixture, as fruity as it smelled, would not taste good. He had fun stirring and microwaving, though.

I ran out of koolaid, but I am going to do this again! It's fun, and it worked!

Out-Bound Homebody

I've been thinking about my life these last 9 months I've been a mother to two children, and if there is one word to describe this point in the life of my family, "homebodies" would correctly articulate our lives for four reasons:

1. In May of '09, I left my beloved job of nine years to become a stay-at-home mom; 
2. In August of '09, my husband started working for his company at home rather than their business office; 
3. In November of '09,  I home-birthed my daughter; and
4. In January of '10, I pulled my son out of public Kindergarten and began our homeschooling journey.


If that doesn't make us homebodies, I'm not entirely sure what else we could do to epitomize that sentiment. 


As I approach my return to the workforce, I feel a nostalgic sense of how my life has been exponentially enriched by a life that is considered reclusive to much of mainstream society. During this time, I have 

(in addition to enlarging somewhat)

Watched my son grow from an only child to a big brother

Grown in my journey of becoming a friend and partner to my husband

Encountered awkward and challenging home-schooling moments 

Explored one hobby

(photography)

And another hobby (cooking)

Being a homebody has caused me to look within myself beyond a career woman, beyond a capitalist in search of the next fad to buy, beyond what most members of my society think of as routine mainstream ideas and lifestyles, and most importantly question and grow in my contribution to my home, family, neighborhood, church and community. 

Some of the answers that have revealed themselves to me haven't been easy ones to digest. On the contrary, I consider the last year one of growth and sometimes uncomfortable stretching, during which I've had to ameliorate my faith. 

Three years ago (to the month), I wrote about being on the verge of a great and monumental, life-changing cliff. Two months after writing that, I began a relationship with a young man who became my husband and father to my daughter. 

Today I have that feeling again: On the cusp of some life-changing happenstance (perhaps more cerebral this time), and again, I pray that I will have the strength, determination, and insight to deal appropriately and graciously with circumstances as they arrive. There comes a time when I have to leave the safety net of my home-bound perspective, and I am humbly thankful for the time I had to grow in understanding and be enriched by my homebody family.  

The Unlikely Pizza Pit

World Breastfeeding Week

This week is world breastfeeding week, and while I am not partaking in many festivities this year (other than the obvious: nursing my 9 month old), I'm happy to take this time to reflect on my breastfeeding journey.

I was 24 years old and single when my first child was born. I came to a vague decision while pregnant that I would try to nurse my baby for two main reasons: 1. It would be cheaper than using formula 2. It was natural. I didn't feel very strongly one way or another about it.

After my son was born, my mother came to stay with me the first week. It was a hellacious week. As "natural" as breastfeeding is, there was a huge learning curve for me. I had cracked and bleeding sores where no woman wants cracked and bleeding sores. Every nursing session was excruciating. I dreaded every time my baby boy woke up to nurse -- and he woke up every 45 minutes around the clock.

Near the end of the first week, I got up to nurse the baby. I sat down in the rocking chair my mother had lovingly refurbished for me and her first grandchild. When he latched on, I screamed in pain and thrust him away from me, very nearly dumping him in my mother's arms, sobbing incoherently. Just give him a bottle. I'm through with this. My mother encouraged me to give it another chance. She leaned over me and tried to correct the baby's lazy latch. That night I sat in the rocker and grit my teeth through the pain, determining right there and then to see this through to the end. I think it was that night I became a lactivist.

Despite the Unlikelihood of my success at breastfeeding -- a young, single, working mother -- I went on to meet my initial goal of nursing for 12 months, and then I went on to meet my secondary goal of nursing for 24 months.

Fast forward five and a half years from that night I became a breastfeeding advocate; I birthed a 6lb baby girl on my own bed in my own house. Moments after she was born, I placed her at the breast, confident that I could overcome the difficulties I faced with my son almost six years prior. Sure, nipples got sore, but I repositioned and re-latched until it felt better.

And then something was wrong. Two days, no wet or dirty diapers. Three days. Baby girl screamed painfully in between bouts of fitful sleep. Over a pound lost of her initial birth weight. Pediatrician visits. Heel pricks. The "Black Diaper Bag of Doom" -- filled to the brim with formula samples and serious conversations about failure to thrive, and "we'll have to hospitalize if this doesn't resolve...". But I was a lactivist. I had read the breastfeeding boards on Mothering.com for years. I took one look at my precious baby girl's gaunt, yellow face and warmed the formula and handed it over to my husband to syringe-feed our daughter. And I understood why some people give up. If not the sore nipples, the hungry baby.

Homeopathics, tinctures, hours hooked up to the double electric hospital pump squeezing out nothing but drop after disappointing drop, and nothing short of sheer unadulterated determination, and I am still successfully nursing my baby girl nine months later. I am three months from my initial goal of nursing for a year. I'm already planning on making our secondary goal.

If someone were to ask me why breastfeeding is so important to me, I might have a hard time coming up with an answer that makes sense. Sure, it is the biological norm for feeding a mammal infant. There's no denying that fact. Yet not as easy to enumerate, the bond I have with my nurslings is unequivocal and irreplaceable; the pride I have in providing nourishment for my babies is a warm, peaceful comfort in the often hectic, hormonal, harried days of motherhood. My baby's obvious lack of sickness in her short life in a nice bonus, and being able to calm many of life's bumpy moments with a snuggle and some milk is often reason enough alone for me to continue toward my goals. And if I am going to be perfectly honest, there's the lovely excuse of "I'm nursing the baby" to get out of other duties and responsibilities as I recline on the bed cuddling the cutest baby girl I ever birthed.

Reflecting on the journey of motherhood, and consequently nursing, is celebration enough of World Breastfeeding Week to me. That, and blogging while my little one nurses to sleep curled in the crook of my arm, peaceful and innocent.

(Now I'm off to go peruse  www.elegantmommy.com -- I hear they're having a 25%off sale Bravado!)