I'll Do It!!!
Good evening everyone (: As your summer has passed spring by and warmed you up quickly, our “autumn” has come and cooled us off. I expected blustery cool days, but the sun still shines quite strong in the day time. The days aren’t so long, but it’s still warm enough to hang clothes on the line. If you could stay outside the whole day, you’d never be cold wearing a long sleeved shirt or sweater. Inside, in a house mostly shaded by big trees it can be quite chilly. Often, we’ll wake up and put three layers on. By 9 or 10am we get outside and realize how warm it really is. This is very conducive to getting work done in the garden.
Although I talk a lot more about the garden than I actually work, I feel quite accomplished in the garden this week. I planted about 70 potatoes with no shoots about two months ago. It was a grand failure and since then, we have planted different things on top of the potatoes. The thought was that, maybe not now, someday they will grow. Every week or so, a new potato pops up and makes me smile. Michelle spotted some new pea seedlings, and some carrot and onion seedlings that we had given up on. We think the garden is crawling along due to the third week of no rain.
We watered in some compost tea, sprinkled ashes from the fire place and gave it a good watering so perhaps we’ll see more life springing forth next week. I leveled out the fifth terrace paths, throwing the extra soil on top of the bed. This soil is rich mainly because it lies beneath Keith’s old burn pile, and held years of ash and rotten logs waiting to be burned. We planted nothing, but transplanted a lot of broccoli seedlings. We also began planning a mandala garden, with its main purpose being herb production, but also creating more beauty in a flat, hidden spot on the land. Michelle and I started ordering seeds for the garden, but it will be a long time coming, especially due to the beginning of construction.
As I have mentioned we are adding on two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen/living room. After perhaps a year of contemplation and studying construction, Matt has now built a mini-house out of popsicle sticks, and is ready to go. He is still working a lot at the bank but in his spare time, he has leveled the ground, and is almost finished lowering the level of the land (by a few inches), not for the mini-house, the real house! I actually starting helping a little bit, transporting the roots Matt dug out to the mulch heap, picking up trash, and shoveling dirt. I don’t know what’s next but you can bet you’ll hear next week.
We are finally over all illnesses, yay! It’s a good thing because we’ve needed the energy for a busy week. Throughout the week, I was cramming to finish knitting Jess my first pair of socks for her birthday. I did finish on time, good thing. On Monday my knitting friends came over and later on we visited the Murphy’s and then checked out a piano for sale. On Tuesday Jess and I took the bus for the first time to visit Michelle and Rory (25 minutes by car, 50 minutes by bus). Jess loved the bus and is already asking to do it again. Hmmm…Wednesday we gardened and picnicked with Rory and Michelle, then choir in the evening. Jess had a blast at home with dad and pop, and I didn’t put her to bed! Matt did, which was lovely for all of us. Thursday we rode my bike into town and went to play group. Friday was the big day, Jess’s birthday, and today, Saturday Matt and I took her to an interactive “Porpoise Pool,” to see the dolphin show. We got kisses from seals and dolphins, fed seals, penguins, turtles, kangaroos and emus.
Friday June 2 was Jacinta’s second birthday and for the first time, she shared the date with my Mom and George’s 9th wedding anniversary which is on June 1st. How do two different dates occur at the same time?? A fourteen hour time change, that’s all you need. She woke to balloons and streamers that Matt put up everywhere and had a pancake breakfast as a treat, with maple syrup and everything. Matt worked at a pancake restaurant in Sydney year ago, so his pancakes are quite good and he knows it. She opened a few gifts sent from my family, and the day had begun. “Birtday!” She knew it was a special day, especially when allowed to taste the cake batter over and over. At one point she stopped licking the bowl, looked up and smiled ear to ear, and jubilantly exclaimed, “Birtday!” Carrie and Otto called, Grandma and Dja Dja called, Aunt Lecia called, and later on Grandpa and Grandma Gordner called. Lucky baby, she felt loved but still couldn’t tear herself away from her new barn and puzzle o talk on the phone. Rory and Michelle came to spend the day cooking and gardening with us, and that brought the energy level up even higher. It was hard to nap (for Jess) and hard to finish cooking the meal (for Michelle and I) but by 6:45, Mary and Matt were home, the food was cooked and we finally sat down to eat our hand made tortillas, beans, rice, salsa and salad. Keith’s truck broke down after work so we didn’t start birthday cake until 8pm. It was a long, lovely crazy day. At one point I had to calm Jess and Rory down in bean bags next to the fire, reading books, I think perhaps I needed it more than they did.
Jacinta is now two and just to prove it, she learned the phrase, “That’s mine!” She says it with such pride and pleasure, repeating it over and over while my ears cringe in fear of the selfish phase. Over the past few years in planning how to make my child LOVE to share and give and walk lightly on the earth, I planned on keeping this word out of her vocabulary. I wanted to squelch ownership. When she obnoxiously grabbed something away saying, “mine!” I planned on telling her, “No Jacinta, it’s not yours, you’re just using it for a while. It came from someone and something else, and it will later be passed on to someone else. Eventually it will go back into the earth from where it came.” I tried that tonight…do you think she got it??? No, she’s two! She also hears us using possessive adjectives and thus she follows our possessive example. I wonder how they become obsessed with the word “mine” when I constantly talk about whom things belong to. I think it was my experience in Senegal, living with a reasonably well-off family with four children who shared everything, that made me so conscious of this possession. Things were just things, they were not Sira’s books. They were just books and they were much easier to share. Although I saw this way of life and was able to take on a few aspects of communal living, my culture is a possessive one. I learn more as time goes by that even though I mock it, I am a product of my culture.
Jacinta wants to do everything herself, no shocker for other parents, but just for new parents. She’ll cry if you turn off a light, “No…..(whine whine) I’ll do it.” If you start calling the dog to come, she’ll say, “I’ll call him! Jedda! Jedda!” She takes on the appropriate tone and facial expression, sounding very authoritative. She uses this same tone when telling adults to do things. I’ve just realized that it must be hard to understand why you talk to a dog one way, and to an adult another way, but this she is learning. She crawls into her own car seat, into her high chair, puts on her own bib and fusses if not allowed to do it herself. In fact, she had a thirty minute all-out tantrum after being carried into the house on Monday night, and she hadn’t yet turned two! She is beginning to understand that some things are “mommy jobs,” and this has helped a bit. Given her independence, she still can’t poop on the potty. Although she is wearing training pants most of the time now she is still scared of doing anything but sitting and enjoying the scenery on the potty. I’ll admit, it is cold in the bathroom, so cold that when you pee steam rises off of the cold water. People always talk about children standing in a corner to poop because they are ashamed, and that’s what she does. They talk about the “Terrible Twos,” and they have arrived. Yes, teaching her to love and that she is NOT in charge will be hard, but it is wonderful to watch her become whatever she is becoming.
Hope all is well with you lovely people and that you’re enjoying the warmth of spring/summer. We missed you this week and will still miss you next week (:
Although I talk a lot more about the garden than I actually work, I feel quite accomplished in the garden this week. I planted about 70 potatoes with no shoots about two months ago. It was a grand failure and since then, we have planted different things on top of the potatoes. The thought was that, maybe not now, someday they will grow. Every week or so, a new potato pops up and makes me smile. Michelle spotted some new pea seedlings, and some carrot and onion seedlings that we had given up on. We think the garden is crawling along due to the third week of no rain.
We watered in some compost tea, sprinkled ashes from the fire place and gave it a good watering so perhaps we’ll see more life springing forth next week. I leveled out the fifth terrace paths, throwing the extra soil on top of the bed. This soil is rich mainly because it lies beneath Keith’s old burn pile, and held years of ash and rotten logs waiting to be burned. We planted nothing, but transplanted a lot of broccoli seedlings. We also began planning a mandala garden, with its main purpose being herb production, but also creating more beauty in a flat, hidden spot on the land. Michelle and I started ordering seeds for the garden, but it will be a long time coming, especially due to the beginning of construction.
As I have mentioned we are adding on two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen/living room. After perhaps a year of contemplation and studying construction, Matt has now built a mini-house out of popsicle sticks, and is ready to go. He is still working a lot at the bank but in his spare time, he has leveled the ground, and is almost finished lowering the level of the land (by a few inches), not for the mini-house, the real house! I actually starting helping a little bit, transporting the roots Matt dug out to the mulch heap, picking up trash, and shoveling dirt. I don’t know what’s next but you can bet you’ll hear next week.
We are finally over all illnesses, yay! It’s a good thing because we’ve needed the energy for a busy week. Throughout the week, I was cramming to finish knitting Jess my first pair of socks for her birthday. I did finish on time, good thing. On Monday my knitting friends came over and later on we visited the Murphy’s and then checked out a piano for sale. On Tuesday Jess and I took the bus for the first time to visit Michelle and Rory (25 minutes by car, 50 minutes by bus). Jess loved the bus and is already asking to do it again. Hmmm…Wednesday we gardened and picnicked with Rory and Michelle, then choir in the evening. Jess had a blast at home with dad and pop, and I didn’t put her to bed! Matt did, which was lovely for all of us. Thursday we rode my bike into town and went to play group. Friday was the big day, Jess’s birthday, and today, Saturday Matt and I took her to an interactive “Porpoise Pool,” to see the dolphin show. We got kisses from seals and dolphins, fed seals, penguins, turtles, kangaroos and emus.
Friday June 2 was Jacinta’s second birthday and for the first time, she shared the date with my Mom and George’s 9th wedding anniversary which is on June 1st. How do two different dates occur at the same time?? A fourteen hour time change, that’s all you need. She woke to balloons and streamers that Matt put up everywhere and had a pancake breakfast as a treat, with maple syrup and everything. Matt worked at a pancake restaurant in Sydney year ago, so his pancakes are quite good and he knows it. She opened a few gifts sent from my family, and the day had begun. “Birtday!” She knew it was a special day, especially when allowed to taste the cake batter over and over. At one point she stopped licking the bowl, looked up and smiled ear to ear, and jubilantly exclaimed, “Birtday!” Carrie and Otto called, Grandma and Dja Dja called, Aunt Lecia called, and later on Grandpa and Grandma Gordner called. Lucky baby, she felt loved but still couldn’t tear herself away from her new barn and puzzle o talk on the phone. Rory and Michelle came to spend the day cooking and gardening with us, and that brought the energy level up even higher. It was hard to nap (for Jess) and hard to finish cooking the meal (for Michelle and I) but by 6:45, Mary and Matt were home, the food was cooked and we finally sat down to eat our hand made tortillas, beans, rice, salsa and salad. Keith’s truck broke down after work so we didn’t start birthday cake until 8pm. It was a long, lovely crazy day. At one point I had to calm Jess and Rory down in bean bags next to the fire, reading books, I think perhaps I needed it more than they did.
Jacinta is now two and just to prove it, she learned the phrase, “That’s mine!” She says it with such pride and pleasure, repeating it over and over while my ears cringe in fear of the selfish phase. Over the past few years in planning how to make my child LOVE to share and give and walk lightly on the earth, I planned on keeping this word out of her vocabulary. I wanted to squelch ownership. When she obnoxiously grabbed something away saying, “mine!” I planned on telling her, “No Jacinta, it’s not yours, you’re just using it for a while. It came from someone and something else, and it will later be passed on to someone else. Eventually it will go back into the earth from where it came.” I tried that tonight…do you think she got it??? No, she’s two! She also hears us using possessive adjectives and thus she follows our possessive example. I wonder how they become obsessed with the word “mine” when I constantly talk about whom things belong to. I think it was my experience in Senegal, living with a reasonably well-off family with four children who shared everything, that made me so conscious of this possession. Things were just things, they were not Sira’s books. They were just books and they were much easier to share. Although I saw this way of life and was able to take on a few aspects of communal living, my culture is a possessive one. I learn more as time goes by that even though I mock it, I am a product of my culture.
Jacinta wants to do everything herself, no shocker for other parents, but just for new parents. She’ll cry if you turn off a light, “No…..(whine whine) I’ll do it.” If you start calling the dog to come, she’ll say, “I’ll call him! Jedda! Jedda!” She takes on the appropriate tone and facial expression, sounding very authoritative. She uses this same tone when telling adults to do things. I’ve just realized that it must be hard to understand why you talk to a dog one way, and to an adult another way, but this she is learning. She crawls into her own car seat, into her high chair, puts on her own bib and fusses if not allowed to do it herself. In fact, she had a thirty minute all-out tantrum after being carried into the house on Monday night, and she hadn’t yet turned two! She is beginning to understand that some things are “mommy jobs,” and this has helped a bit. Given her independence, she still can’t poop on the potty. Although she is wearing training pants most of the time now she is still scared of doing anything but sitting and enjoying the scenery on the potty. I’ll admit, it is cold in the bathroom, so cold that when you pee steam rises off of the cold water. People always talk about children standing in a corner to poop because they are ashamed, and that’s what she does. They talk about the “Terrible Twos,” and they have arrived. Yes, teaching her to love and that she is NOT in charge will be hard, but it is wonderful to watch her become whatever she is becoming.
Hope all is well with you lovely people and that you’re enjoying the warmth of spring/summer. We missed you this week and will still miss you next week (:
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
11:58 PM
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