knitting the ravelled sleeve of care

[mamagotcha]

ahhh, finally the pie hole is starting to feel better... left hip is better... had a talk with bill and julia last night, had a stumble today but generally it feels like things are moving in the right direction...

linc now says "boo" for spoon, and he's standing and walking like he's done it forever. he "reads" from his books to us, and has been asking to nurse almost every hour... i think we have new teeth on the horizon. i've been rereading Rahima Baldwin's "You Are Your Child's First Teacher," and it was cool to see that we'd done a lot of the things she recommends for the first year already! i guess, after almost 18 years, i am starting to get this mothering thing down.

clayton is writing more these days... he's g4n0nd0rk if you're curious. the latest bit has a paragraph that just blew me away... i'm going to encourage him to work on expanding it into a story of its own. the nature class he wanted to do was filled up but we're on the waiting list, and gym class starts again next week.

gave cordell a haircut, he's also shaved off most of his beard. he's looking quite presentable and i'm hoping this is a prelude to some serious job hunting. he's been playing some pickup indoor soccer, he starts reffing next weekend, and he's still doing the japanese, so he's not being a total lump, but MAN i wish i could light a fire under that boy! still, i know he will do what he is meant to do in his own time... sometimes i'm just not very good at being patient, though. well, i've emailed the local red cross volunteering his strong back and my van... perhaps we will be of some help in the coming weeks.

julia (jedusor) has been a busy bee lately... she got a job at the local renaissance faire, she's applying to work in a local coldstone creamery, she's just added her twelfth unit at school... the honors seminar! woo hoo! along with algebra, french and english composition ... , she's sitting a couple of times a week for a struggling single mom, she's helping tons with linc, she's writing some cool stuff, sewing on her ren outfit, running the local library's teen writing club, participating in the library's teen advisory board and the chess club, doing student activity council work as the college's "diversity chair," designing a logo and helping with a student government group, and even pulled out her violin and played it a while ago. wow. she blows me away. i am so proud of her, and it's so cool watching her blossom into this incredible young woman. she keeps asking about getting her driver's permit, though, and i'm not quite sure how that's going to go...

bill, cordell and i have gotten hooked into this nifty puzzle game, sudoku. it's really easy to learn, but it's challenging to get good at! the trick is, NEVER GUESS. don't put something down unless you are POSITIVE it belongs there. of course, i regularly trip myself up and have to start all over again, but i still love playing it. try it out!

the homeschoolers are planning a trip to the zoo on tuesday... if it's not 100 degrees out there, i might load up linc and clay and do it. there's a new white tiger, and four baby lions, plus a bunch of new additions and upgrades. i'm torn about zoos in general: the idea of driving an animal crazy so i can stare at it at my leisure is pretty sad, but the thrill of seeing them up close brings their kind closer to me, and gives me the impetus to participate in more conservation efforts. well, the animals will be there whether i go or not, and we do learn a lot about them every time we go, and our money is being used to create better and larger habitats for them...

every sunday night, the local public radio station has a nice space-agey music show "Night Tides," sort of like "Hearts of Space" but lasting for three or four hours instead of just one (and it's preceded by HOS, too, so the whole evening is pretty mellow). we got linc asleep on the bed and i settled down in the sunroom, surrounded by my flourishing plants and lilting music, and pulled out my knitting. i've hardly knitted at all in the last few months, which is a bummer because i have a ton of things i want to knit! tonight i finished my third rainbow ball (i'd link to a photo but apparently "flickr is having a massage").

anyway, it was nice to sit down and knit in a calm place. one thing that happens when i'm knitting is that my thoughts can gently wander as they will, and i can sort things out that otherwise get set aside in the tumble of daily life. one thing i was brooding on tonight was the fact that a bunch of the local homeschool families here have decided that, since last year's fiasco with julia, our family is poison. several of them have been cool towards me, and last week one was actually fairly hostile. it's hard to let go of the idea of trying to fix things, because this situation just isn't fixable. i have to learn to live with the fact that there are just going to be this certain number of people in my community who think i'm a sick person, a terrible mother, someone to be pitied at best and hated at worst, to be avoided at all costs.

this is not a terribly happy thing for me to consider. i know the facts of the matter, but i've also heard the rumors that the kids have spread about julia and our family, and there is just no way to combat the image that this has created of us. i have to relax, let go, be at peace with this situation. and while i'm not really interested in forgiving them, i would like to get to a place of acceptance where i can quit fretting about it.

i wish i was better at meditation. the buddhists are great at this kind of conundrum (as opposed to, say, 99% of the churchy folks here who think we are goin' straight to the hot place). the unitarian church has been a good place for me... lots of families with little guys there, and i've found an attachment parenting group i might be able to hook up with. it's better than hiding in the dark until we finally get to leave this place.

another hard thing about trying again to build community after having the first one crash down around us is that we ARE going to leave, in two years at the earliest. why plant a nice garden if you're just gonna rip it out in a few seasons? i've been planting in containers just because of this... but really, i don't have to rip everything up. i can leave my plants here... i can carry friendships with me.

so, instead of bringing all my potted plants indoors this fall, i think i'm going to put the hardiest ones in ground and mulch 'em nicely and let my garden grow where i am. i'm going to call some of those new moms i met and try to join a playgroup. i'm going to keep on appearing at the homeschool events that i want to go to, and keep my head high, and try hard not to let the glares and cold shoulders bother me. i'm going to do my best to appreciate the good people who have stuck by me through the whole mess.

and i will not mourn any longer the lost friendships. they couldn't have been very good ones, if they didn't last through a bump in the road, so no big loss anyway. it's gotta be stressful for them to maintain those glares and anger, and i will try to have compassion for them even as they snub me. i can choose to not let them affect me anymore... it will be up to them when they choose their way to peace. that's not my problem or responsibility. i wish to be free of the bad feelings this episode has caused. that freedom is mine whenever i choose to accept it.

i'm a good mom, and a good friend, and a good writer, doula, event organizer, juggler, knitter, cook... what they think doesn't have an iota of effect on what i really am.

it's OK to move on. that's what i was thinking as i finished up my little knitted ball. it felt like i was tucking in all sorts of loose ends, literally and figuratively, and it felt good.

time for bed. goodnight, folks!

Comments

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Good to hear all this.

I hear you on the "why plant a nice garden?" For years after I moved to CA I tried to grow tomatoes in pots. they sucked. Last year I decided, "if I move...I'll just move." I cleared out space behind the apt. and planted my tomatoes in the ground. I had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with all fall.

It sucks to have to live with hostility. But at least you know that the haters are 100% wrong, wrong, wrong.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

My daughter (only child) turns 21 on Sunday. One of the fun things about having my offspring that old, is the well-that's-all-over relief on seeing people with younger teenagers. When you think your world is going to cave in and they're going to destroy themselves or be forced to live with wolves when they move out, when actually, it's just part of everything about maturing. My daughter for years would tell me about the stuff she did 6 months or a year before, and my hair would stand on end. It's been a while, but I still think, ok what are you doing that I'm going to find out about a year from now? And we still fight, but it's not so personal anymore.

Another fun thing is the inner smile when parents whose kids are all under the age of 10 have opinions on child-raising and how *their* kids are never going to act *that way* because they're being raised with the proper loving/strict/religious/NewAge/whatever parenting. I love how the humility sets in over the years. Your younger kids have the advantage of your experience, which your older kids couldn't have.

Me too on the meditation. Clearing the mind right now would be a good thing, but I have trouble with that even in yoga, except in the most difficult positions. I like what you wrote about not worrying so much about what other people think. Wish you could wave a magic wand and make it so for both of us. Letting go and moving on is so hard.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Your younger kids have the advantage of your experience, which your older kids couldn't have.

Yeah, but Cord (my older brother) is a late bloomer, so I'm taking the brunt of the parental learning process. (Not that I'm not making my own share of mistakes, but as the teen in question, that's my job.)

Link better appreciate this :)

[qarin.livejournal.com]

I discovered Sudoku a couple of weeks ago, and spent two days working various puzzles and eventually finishing the rather hard one I'd started out with, and then I guess was over it, or made myself be over it. I can't let myself fall into an obsession of that sort right now.

And I think you're a great friend, and a great mother and doer and organizer and etc. And what *I* think DOES matter. :)

[lunchboy.livejournal.com]

Feeling like people hold unjustified negative opinions about me that I can't do anything about is one of the most aggravating things I can imagine. If there were a lot of those people, I would start throwing things. I'm sorry you have to put up with those twits for two more years. Perhaps you can console yourself by remembering that you will eventually get to leave; they have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives.