“his name is Fuzzy!”

Living on our little farm, I have been blessed to witness my children’s love affair with animals. Other than a few snails found in the cat food, or the wolf spiders that stalk our swimming pool, my kids have a genuine affection for all of the hairy, furry, feathery, slimy and scaly creatures we are privy to on our land. Not only do my children love to witness, hold, and pet these critters, but they want to have them. As in, keep them. Inside my home.

My babies all grew up being licked and loved by two crazy dogs much bigger than their teeter-toddling selves. So it seemed natural that as the kids got older we would take the next step in pet ownership: we bought a gold fish. Things were running pretty smoothly at that point. The kids were responsible for feeding the fish and I was responsible for feeding the dogs. It was simple really. Then, on a cool and cloudy day when I was minding my own business, I discovered a very sick black kitten squeaking piteously under my van. Following equally pitiful squeals from my daughter, “Mama, pwease, pwease can we keep the kitty?” we decided to at least nurse the poor thing back to health. One week later and one bottle of eye drops down, much to the delight of my very responsible four-year-old daughter Brooklynn, we owned our first farm cat. Six months later, our kitten had kittens.

Watching our cat grow round and, for lack of a better word, leisurely, was great fun for us. We remembered seeing a large gray tomcat around the property a month or so back and guessed why our formerly playful, romping kitty was suddenly more interested in lounging on our porch steps. A gentle palpation of Miss Blacky’s belly confirmed our suspicions. We called our vet that very day in order to schedule for the post-pregnancy spaying, and our ultimate lesson in animal husbandry had begun.    

Four healthy kittens were delivered in the wee hours of a Friday morning, on a full moon. I remember this only because I had gone to a Harry Potter premiere with a friend that evening, and had arrived back home at 3am to see Miss Blacky standing in front of the garage meowing strangely. Her belly felt especially heavy as I picked her up and I could feel her little ones writhing around in there like earth worms fresh from the soil. I locked her in the garage that night and woke the following morning to the sweetest little peeps coming from the far corner of the garage. I found four squeaky clean kittens, sleek and talking, with one stillborn disturbingly silent and frozen beside them.

As a self-professed dog person, I have come to adore our cats. We still have Mama Cat, as we so fondly call her now, and a couple of her babies. Squirtle and Summer found a new home at a farm one town over, while Little Blacky and Nala continue to roam our property as if they own the place. Mama Cat thinks she is an indoor cat, though she has never spent more than fifteen minutes in the house. My allergies are not conducive to indoor cats and I also prefer to find her dead presents (moles, birds and the like) outside rather than inside.

So in the blink of an eye, our home became a little farm. In the past three years we have experimented with many different pets. We currently have two dogs, three cats, several chickens, a horse, a bunny and various snakes, lizards, turtles and pond minnows found on our property. We had ducks a couple of years ago, but have definitively decided we will never try that again. A Jurassic-sized turtle in our pond picked them off one by one, and I made the executive decision that that circle of life need not be repeated for three small children and a mother with a soft heart. (See my blog post from April 2012 love and lost: our duck hell http://www.todayisagooddayformarshmallows.blogspot.com/2012_04_10_archive.html

This spring we welcomed our first bunny onto our farm. His name is Carlos, and he has taught me the delight of rabbit ownership. Best bunny ever. He jumps around our screened porch from pillow to pillow, eating carrot bits from my daughter’s hands. Mama Cat naps next to the bunny hutch each afternoon, which only seems fitting since they are the two most docile and sweet natured pets that we own. The fact that they both belong to my daughter, the most sweet-natured person I know, also seems appropriate.

Toads hop in our garden, barn swallows nest in the barnyard, and a cute little bird family has set up shop in our fern outside the front door. Even with dogs barking, cats stalking from the roof, and the constant slamming of the screen door as people come and go, the little bird family seems happy enough. When I find myself lounging on my porch, surrounded by this menagerie of pets, loud cacophony of nature, and peaceful laziness of safe animals playing, I realize that this is exactly what I had hoped for when we bought this land. On a daily basis I find nests built with hair from Daisy Girl’s mane, collect fresh chicken eggs for our breakfast, and always have a dog or kitten willing to rest a tired head on my lap. It cannot get any better than this.

Here’s the zinger: when you open your arms and your home to so many animals, and consequently wind up with so many pets, there is bound to be the bit of wildlife that comes home to you that you wish had not. You know the type: slyly held in your kid’s hand or stuffed into their pocket, sneaked in when you are not looking. It is the critter you could have done without. Well... his name was Fuzzy.

It was seven in the morning on a school day, and I was in the shower. My husband was seeing to the last few minutes of breakfast with the kids before I was to pack them in the minivan and take them to school. As I was applying my conditioner I heard the bathroom door fly open with a bang and Brooklynn proudly announced with a happy screech, “Mommy!! His name is Fuzzy!!”

What?!?

I pull the shower curtain aside to find my daughter gripping one of my kitchen Tupperware containers. Inside is a ratty, grey fieldmouse. It seems that on her way out to feed her kitties that morning, Brooklynn heard squeaks of terror coming from the bushes that line the front porch. To her utter dismay she found her cat Nala with a little grey mouse in his mouth, playing with the mouse like a kid plays with a lollipop. Screaming bloody murder, she rushed to her daddy and insisted he save the mouse. He obliged. Then he put the mouse in a kitchen container, handed it to my daughter, and left for work.

From my position in the shower, hair conditioner still in the palm of my hand, I answer her, “Brooklynn...did you say Daddy just left for work?! After handing you a potentially disease carrying rodent to deliver to your mother in the shower?! I thought so.”

Needless to say, Fuzzy (as he was so lovingly referred to due to his disheveled and quite frankly nasty appearance) was dropped off a mile from our home. We found a quiet little spot in the woods with some shady trees, a little stream, and some pretty wildflowers growing nearby, which seemed the perfect place for a mother to convince her three children to offload an unwanted fieldmouse. Of course we still look for him when we find ourselves on that walking trail. He will forever be remembered as part of our farm family, whether he resides here or not.

“Homegrown kids” I call them. Kids who know that their breakfast eggs do not come from a Styrofoam container at a drive-thru; Kids who know that the cats need to be fed rain or shine, on warm or bitter cold mornings, whether you are sick in bed or not; Kids who know the songs of nature as well as they know the Top 40. Giving them these experiences is not without stress or hard work. In fact, it can be extremely stressful and is mostly hard work. No one wake up with the sun and wants to muck a horse stall. Yet our love for these animals endures and the wish for more never ends.

Today I received a letter from my son, Tristan. It read, “Dear Mom, I really want to have a bearded dragon for a pet...”

And so the fun continues.

sneak peek

The first thing I want to do is formally welcome all my new readers. The number of blog hits on my webpage doubled between January and today, even while I took a break from mommy blogging. Tracking where you have come from these past six months has been fun and educational.  It assured me that I still have my Top Mommy Blog status, www.topmommyblogs.com which is very important to me, and it also showed me what topics you are most interested in reading about: crazy farm fun and motherhood anxiety.

As with everything else in this great big beautiful world, motherhood is messy. It is equal parts stress and joy, frustration and love. Therefore, while brainstorming my next Big Book Project I discovered that I actually have two projects in the works.

The first, with witty charm and plenty of sunshine, will be called Homegrown Kids. This book will be a compilation of essays focusing on the pure joy I find sharing my life with three fun and lovely children and the crazy adventures we have on our little hobby farm. Brandon and I have chosen to raise our children with  an emphasis on healthy homegrown or locally grown food, animal husbandry, and downtime spent leisurely on our pond, in our porch, on biking trails and around a campfire. Just this morning my children found a baby red-bellied water snake, a rock lizard, a garden toad, and three disgustingly huge tomato horn worms in our backyard. In just thirty minutes. My “homegrown kids” are also videogame junkies and snack food fanatics. This book will hopefully set the record straight as to how we manage to live honoring both realities and also might explain how and why we choose to ”live like Aunt Jemima,” to quote a friend.

My other book project is near and dear to my heart in a very different way. Today Is a Good Day for Chardonnay - A Mother’s Admission, will be a painstakingly honest memoir about my struggles suffering with stress illness. Mine is a life where Xanax has become a reality; as has yoga, meditation, long walks, and the occasional glass of wine when nothing else works. My own health issues are complicated by the fact that although my children are lovely they are also terrible sometimes.  Yes, I said terrible. They bicker non-stop, commonly get physical with each other, and are obsessive compulsive over electronics. This is in direct contradiction to their mother’s desire to have a happy home, so you can imagine that conflict arises from time to time. I am acutely aware that 99.9999% of you can relate to these stresses, some of you are hardwired to find peace in the chaos, while the amygdala housed within my brain tends to head straight toward despair or anger. That complicates things.

So why do I feel the need to share the nitty gritty with you? Because in my heart of hearts I believe that no one wants to read about the perfect family. But everyone wants to know that the imperfect family can still be very, very happy.  Our kids antagonize each other endlessly while swearing their love and devotion to each other in the same breath. My husband and I have many differences of opinion and differing abilities to stay calm, yet we share similar hopes and dreams for the future and a deep desire to see this marriage through. I will cover it all. Unless my hubby deems it Too. Much. Information. Oh yes, I give him editing rights. That is part of the “seeing this marriage through” bit.

So to make this easy for you all future blog posts will be tagged either Homegrown Kids or Chardonnay, to guide you should you prefer one topic over another. Please keep in mind that although you may not suffer from a psychosomatic pain syndrome, most of us moms deal with stress in one way or another. I will cover topics both specific and broad. And although you may have never dreamed of wanting to muck barn stalls or grow your own summer vegetables, there will be much to laugh over and enjoy in my twenty-two pet farm-related posts.  

And remember, if you enjoy my blogs please share them with your friends.

Happy reading & God Bless,

Kristi

 

Cheesy-sausage legs? Hell no.

We are fourteen days into the New Year. That means we are fourteen days into our New Year’s resolutions. Some of us are making incredible changes, while others of us are fourteen days into failing to make changes at all. As my political lean goes, so go my resolution successes. I’m a moderate.

As I drive through town I notice that every gym parking lot is bursting with cars (not mine), and at the grocery store yesterday I was shocked to find the spinach and leafy greens shelf almost empty. Never ever have I seen that before. Like ever. (A shout out to Taylor Swift here, from my daughter.)

Ninety percent of Americans make resolutions for the New Year, while only thirty percent are still working on them come May. We all do it differently. Some of us set specific goals such as no late night eating, while others favor to-do lists to jumpstart spring cleaning or household projects. Regardless, our resolutions are all in the flavor of having a fresh start.   

I find that the New Year feels like the ultimate cleansing shower.  I begin by officially forgiving myself of the bad habits I fell into, leaving my pre-frontal cortex’s dry-erase board wiped clean. It is similar to the feeling I get after visiting my priest for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is definitely a “Yippee!” moment.

In addition to a sort of exfoliating shower, I begin the New Year with a stiff drink laden with bold hopes and dreams for the coming year. My goals this year are two-fold. Some are on an energetic level, or spiritual level. They are food for my soul. Others are purely physical in nature, and will inevitably give me a run for my money.

I decided not to be too overzealous this year with my resolutions.  In years past I would categorize my goals for the year, listing financial, spiritual, health-related , family, and personal goals. I even prioritized within the categories. It looked really nice and covered the gamut of things I wanted for my life but it felt very unforgiving. It was too black and white, with hard edges and tall cliffs to fall from. In the end I found it scary and repulsive.  So this year I am in a forgiving mood and decided to list only a couple of things that will greatly improve the general health and happiness in our home.  

I came across this quote the other day and have decided to make it my mantra for 2013: “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”  Thomton Wilder said it, and I am going to live it. So first I decided that my heart is not conscious of anything other than survival when I am pursuing high intensity, strenuous physical exercise. So this year, for my physical goals, I have decided to embrace some of my innate comforts. Slow, long, mindfulness exercise such as yoga, meditation, long walks, and farm chores are on my list. I am leaving triathlons to my husband.

As for seeing and appreciating the treasures around me I am looking closely at my precious little family and making goals for more ease and enjoyment out of each day. “Less on our plates” is a physical goal referring to ice-cream portion sizes, while it also encompasses the goal for our family’s calendar. Fewer afterschool activities will leave more time for cuddles with Brooklynn at bedtime, and testosterone-rich activities such as boxing and wrestling for my boys. Daddy gets to referee.  

Another resolution for the New Year involves my hubby. After seeing the movie This Is 40 together over the holidays, we have decided to bring the fun back. Tree climbing, skeet shooting, and trail riding are a few of the ideas we came up with to enjoy each other sans kids. Spending time together uninterrupted by Star Wars conversations will be good for us, I think.

So that is it. New Year, new fun, and happiness in abundance. Oh, and I am swearing off cheese and sausage because I ate so much of it in Wisconsin at Christmas time that I’m afraid my legs might begin looking like cheese and sausage. And no one wants that to happen in 2013.

Xanax has met her match

Dear readers, I have missed you. I feel as though I blinked a bit too long and sixty days of my life have gone by without a record of it having happened. No blog posts, few (if any) emails, and even Facebook has been eerily vacant of my witty ramblings, loveable links, and photo books of the ever-adorable Hellenbrand kids. October has a way of doing this to me each and every year. 

While I was busy running around with an errand list as long as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, girlfriends have begun calling me concerned I am home dying of some fatal disease because why else would I not have joined them for coffee!? TopMommyBlogs.com went so far as to send me an email implying I can no longer call myself a blogger with a recent activity of “None”. It happened when my kids were born, it is happening again: I have fallen off radar. This would be a good time to rob a bank and head to the islands.

Here is the thing…when I wasn’t running around with my To-Do list, I was actually relaxing. Sitting on my porch knitting toys for my daughter, trail-riding on Daisy Girl, leaf-blowing my yard… all of these activities require quiet time to accomplish them. All of them mean I must turn off the ringer on my phone and be in the moment. I wish I could say that I found balance in an otherwise full schedule, but at least I gave it a shot. And although a satellite could not find me these past sixty days, my children could.

For those of you still hoping to hear back from me… please know that I do not wish you ill will. Both my mother and mother-in-law have - in differing degrees of niceness - told me that they are fed up with waiting to hear from me. The tone of their voices suggested that I must be intentionally ignoring them, or trying to hurt their feelings. This is not the case, of course. I have just been detained by my overscheduled life and Keeping In Touch took the brunt of the hit.

Here’s the other thing… I feel guilty already. So guilty that Overscheduled has invited her friend Anxiety over to play. When your Gastroenterologist prescribes you Xanax, it is time to give up the guilt game and rob a bank and head to the islands. Or… schedule more quiet time.

My yoga DVDs are back out in full view, my blogging fingers are taking some time off to work on my next highly anticipated Big Book Project, and my dogs are thrilled with all of the long autumn walks we are going on. Xanax does not fit into my equation, so my phone will be turned off.

As fall rolls into town and trees burn with red and orange leaves, I wish you all peace. Take time to find your island.

sepia

Brooklynn lounges on the old stone steps, smiling at her collection of acorns and acorn bits. “Mama,” she says, “This one looks like a pear, but this one looks like an ice-cream cone.” She licks her lips as though she can taste the delicious ice-cream it resembles. My neighbor Cheryl, tired from a long afternoon of yard work, looks at my daughter with delight. “Oh, I love this girl.” she dreamily states.

Cheryl is a lover of nature, much like my little Brooklynn. With her home nestled amongst acres of Georgia pine trees and wild magnolia, Cheryl feels as though she is already in Heaven. Wild birds sing from the tree tops, squirrels skitter across her stony walk probably looking for the very acorns my daughter is now hoarding in the palms of her hands.

It is peaceful here in Cheryl’s yard. The gradual descent to her home on the long, meandering driveway with the gentle canopy of leaves overhead, feels protective. Miniature stone figurines of children and forest animals reflect a maternal touch, while long-rotten logs and mossy outcroppings suggest a respect for the natural order of things. Her home is suggestive of a carefree life, which of course is too simple an assessment to ever be true. Her yard is a little bit messy, and yet so very beautiful. In all likelihood, a good metaphor for her life.    

From the other side of the yard come the sounds of raucous laughter and the snapping of sticks and twigs underfoot. “Come here Tristan…,” taunts my son Blake.  My boys are having a sword fight, their royal blue school shoes crushing leaves and mushrooms while they chase each other through the underbrush. “No way, you dirty patootie!” Tristan retorts, barely escaping his brother’s blade. Giggles erupt.

My neighbor sits next to me with her hands on her knees, serenely watching my three children make themselves at home in her yard. Her eyes water a bit as she tells me about which trees her son used to climb, or which path a huge Snapping turtle once took back to the creek after laying a nest of eggs in her yard. Her husband, John, sweaty and tired from a day on the tractor, is ready to move from here. Maybe to a piece of land that is smaller or easier to manage, or possibly closer to family. But Cheryl will hear none of it. She grins and tells him to be sure to come and visit her.

We continue to perch on her front steps, the hour seeming to gently dissolve away. A dusty, old photo album now sits on my neighbor’s lap, filled with pictures of her once-little girl in her ballet leotard. My daughter is soaking it up:  the costumes, hair, and makeup, even the strong limbs stretched to impossible heights, puts her in awe of this young lady she has never met. Brooklynn has just begun taking ballet lessons herself, so when Cheryl insists that we buy her tickets to our first performance, my daughter spins her head in my direction.  A look of pride and excitement flashes across her face. Then just as quickly she softly resumes her study of her acorns.

Cheryl pauses for a moment, tilting her head toward my boys deep in her woodlands and then gently on my daughters bent form with quiet chitter-chatter heard barely above the sounds of the forest. “You will miss this one day, you know,” she states simply to me. I slowly nod, gazing at my surroundings. For a brief moment it seems the world is in sepia.

quintessentially my father

First, let me send out a sort of disclaimer. Some blogs have very clear target audiences. For example, If you want to read about couponing, this is not your blog. I spend way too much money buying really awesome food at Fresh Market, and I do not feel one ounce bad about it. Second, some blogs are more like twitter posts than personal essays. If you want to know what I ate for dinner last night, you won’t read it in my blog unless I am discussing hoeing, sowing or harvesting from my garden.

I think of my blog page as my professional portfolio. Full of Individual vignettes, reasonably well-written (we can only hope), about what moves me on any given day. I share experiences that have changed me in some way, or at least given me pause. Some of the moments I share are beautiful ones where I did something right, and others are extremely ugly moments where I seriously failed myself or the people I love. I put it all in there. Unless my husband edits it out. More on this in a future post.

Yes, I want an agent to find my blog page,  read It, and love it. So share it. Send it to your coworkers, your girlfriends, your neighbors. One of them might be an agent, or know an agent. Or a publisher. These are hopeful magazine articles, future chapters in my next book, and (admittedly) ramblings of a thirty-something woman who finds solace and inspiration from the act of writing.

Today I am going to share with you an essay featuring my father. He is my lifeline when I do not know who else to turn to, or when I feel too crazy and nuts to share my worries with anyone else. He listens when I need him to listen and he is brutally honest when I need that as well. He is flawed, but lovely. He is my hero. Enjoy the post, and may God bless all parents.

quintessentially my father

When I was fifteen, my parents decided to divorce. We had a yard sale.

Everything other than some necessities was sold: every Barbie I had ever played with, baby toys from deep in the attic, board games galore. In some way I think of it as my childhood having been sold. Twenty years later, my father has decided to move from his retirement state of Montana to my beautiful state of Georgia, in order to be closer to family. He is packing up his entire life on a small U-Haul trailer and moving into a place one mile from my home. Anything not deemed worthy to make the trip will be sold in a small-town auction next month, meaning that everything from my childhood that is quintessentially my father has a pretty good chance of winding up in a cardboard box being sold in a batch designated “man stuff”, for less than ten dollars.

Now, my dad is a collector. Of books mostly, but he also has many small knickknacks from various interests during his life. For example, he currently owns twelve different wrist watches. One is his father’s watch, having sentimental value. Another one he simply liked the blue color of the face, and added it to the pile. He changes which watch he wears on a daily basis, in the same way a woman changes her earrings. He hopes to add a deep sea diving watch to his collection, for no reason other than deep sea diving might be on his bucket list. I love this about him.

Back in his twenties my father was a navy man. He has saved several memorabilia from those fondly remembered years to include navy figurines, photos of ships, and various trinkets. He also collects things that move him. Some are garage sale finds that simply spoke to him, such as an old fashioned scale resembling his astrological sign Scorpio, or a statue of The Thinking Man that sat in his den for my entire childhood. These items are still in a box in his garage in Montana, from his move there ten years ago. The box is labeled “Dad’s Small Stuff”. These are the things that were not allowed to be on display in my childhood living room, but were allocated to his den, the bar, the garage. I can relate to this, as my husband’s Green Bay Packer stuff and bar paraphernalia is allowed shelf space in our guest room, but not in our living room. It is no wonder that men have man caves.

Thinking over this big life-changing move that my father is making is complex. My left brain books a one-way flight to Montana to help him drive the U-Haul. It calls the babysitter and sets up childcare seven weeks in advance. My right brain has a harder time with things. I am overjoyed at the prospect of having my father so close to us. I am picturing family dinners on Sundays, with Papa Roger in regular attendance. I envision him at the boys’ swim meets and I can picture him surprising my daughter at school for a lunch date. My right brain also has the ability to gallop off to a scary place where one day he won’t be here. Will not be on this earth. See, one day I will lose my dad.

One day I will only have memories and a few of those little knickknacks to remember a great man. A great life. One we shared. So now I see some value to all of that stuff that was only allocated to the den or basement. I feel sentimental about the prospect of him packing up his life. My husband, Brandon, understands. If his own father, heaven-forbid, left us suddenly or simply downsized to a condo for some retirement living, Brandon would be on the first flight to Wisconsin in order to make sure that the contents of his father’s tool shed and garage were not yard-saled away into oblivion. I need to do the same. I need to talk with him about those mementos and the memories they represent. One day they will be all that I have to remind me of the complex, complete man that is my father.

 I do not need a lot of material things, just a few special ones. It would be wonderful if some of the items were able to serve a function here, some book ends maybe.  I am also fine with them only serving as a spark for a dear memory, though: a votive holder from his old desk, or maybe a navy print of the ship he sailed on to show where his love of the ocean began. My boys are magnetically drawn to the ocean, to the endless horizon it offers each morning, maybe they got that love passed down a couple generations from my father. Maybe they will one day set sail themselves.  

So, today I will hunt down a few thousand frequent flyer miles, book a trip out to Montana, and reminisce a bit with my father. I can share with him a few of these memories while he is still around to hear them. He can gift those small items to me rather than some estate person doing the same after the business end of his life is taken care of. I’ll enjoy this more. Less bittersweet and more simplysweet.

So, Dad…get ready for some good times. A few tears, maybe, while we pour through your old stuff, but also an excitement as we prepare you for your next step in this life: where Georgia is your home, Montana is your past and Wisconsin is your vacation destination.

Dedicated to my father, who may inspire my bestseller one day.

Wine Book Barn

Okay ladies, we all read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Upon reading it, we realized that we all wanted to eat to our hearts content, that we should all be praying more, and that somewhere there is a hot Brazilian guy that would sweep us off our feet if this marriage thing does not work out. That is all fine and good except 1) my twenty year reunion is coming up and I want to fit into my skinny jeans 2) praying is hard no matter what and 3) I kind of like my husband and prefer to keep it that way.

So I have come up with Wine Book Barn, instead. This little cluster of words is far more than just words. They are the things that keep me from stomach ulcers, panic attacks and from ringing my kids’ necks. They are my refuge when I am overwhelmed and my lifeline in case I swim out too far from shore.

I know women who hit the pavement for a ten mile run with a group of their best gal pals, and others who seclude themselves in a quiet room and practice yoga. Moving, breathing, and exhaling our troubles are the general idea, of which most of us humans need to do from time to time. That is, unless we fall into the group of people who deny our troubles and worries and wind up stewing in them until we resemble green beans in a southern buffet: limp and lifeless, tasting only of the salt we have simmered in for the past twelve hours.

To read the full post, click on this link http://www.peachstatemomsblog.com/. I am their guest blogger today.  : >

eighteen hundred miles to happiness

Having just driven eighteen hundred miles roundtrip from Georgia to Wisconsin in a minivan with over two hundred thousand miles on the odometer and three rowdy school-aged kids in the backseat, (whew) I have decided to reflect on how we pull it off each year and why we continue to make that trip several times each year.

 A week before this year’s annual 4^th of July trip to see our family in Wisconsin I was mentally running through our packing list. Having taken this trip for the past thirteen years, you would think that I could pack with my eyes closed. Nope. I am continually amazed at how my packing list has morphed as twins were added to the trip, than a screaming baby daughter that hated every car ride – let alone a nine hundred mile one. I fondly recall the years before children that I would pack a bag of magazines, books, maybe my knitting needles, and a few crossword puzzles to distract me from the highway miles. In contrast, this year I spent an entire afternoon packing crayons, paper dolls, drawing pads and princess paraphernalia for my daughter, along with half a dozen new chapter books, an old fashion Star Wars video game box, my Kindle (newly loaded with Angry Birds), and four stuffed animals each for my eight-year-old boys.  

Never mind the backpack that each child packed secretly with things they felt they could not survive the week without.

 In case of quiet, rainy days I also pack a few favorite board games and (sigh) a new, unopened box of Legos. That was my husband sighing, by the way. He feels that the 5,768 Lego bricks that we already own should be sufficient enough to pack for a Wisconsin rainy day. I disagree. As a Lego aficionado myself, and cohabitating with two brainy eight-year-old boys who love the first assembly process almost as much as I do, a new Lego set at each of our vacation destinations usually turns out to be my favorite souvenir. I may be a middle-aged mother, but somewhere hidden beneath the newly developing wrinkles and insatiable thirst for coffee, a kid still resides.  

So the minivan is loaded up with every essential, and three extra backpacks. Our five bodies are stuffed like sardines next to suitcases, laptops, Coleman coolers, and pillows. We drive the first five hundred miles without incidence, other than the potty stops every forty five minutes for Daddy. Too much caffeine in one hit and that man leaks. We make it to Louisville, Kentucky which is our half-way mark, and we begin looking for a hotel.

 Let me first say what is obvious: children can be…let’s say, difficult to please. The wrong color of a lollipop, the wrong presentation of a sandwich, jeans with buttons instead of snaps – these are all things that can drive a kid insane and a parent to contemplate just how early in the day a glass of wine is deemed inappropriate. This fickleness does not apply to hotels, however. Just about any hotel on this planet is deemed awesome by the under twelve set. As long as there is an elevator and a free continental breakfast with one of those waffle makers that you get to flip over and wait for the beep, my kids are ecstatic. Add to the equation their mother’s promise that hotel beds are meant to be jumped on, and my children think they have died and gone to Heaven when we pull into Fairfield Inn.

After a wonderfully comfortable night in a bed with more pillows than I currently own in my entire home, and a morning where everyone wants to shower because it is a different and “neater” shower than ours, we resume our journey having Wisconsin on the brain. Mommy is in the driver seat with her cup of coffee, while Daddy is already nodding off again in the passenger seat. This is when things get unfair. As the driver, navigator, and ultimate authority in the vehicle, I really want to listen to a new Kenny Chesney CD that we purchased for the trip. The pipsqueaks in the back row, however, want to watch Spiderman on the DVD player. Upon hearing this, my husband awakens enough to haul his two hundred plus body into the backseat to watch it with them (while Mom gets to listen to Spiderman for the next two hundred miles.) A bag of M&M’s purchased by the grumpy mother in the driver’s seat seems to bring some comfort - until the backseat notices the M&M’s and requests the bag be sent back, never to be seen again. (sigh)

 That bag of M&Ms could be an entire blog by itself by the way, discussing the various methods of finding comfort midst the chaos that is Having Kids. (Use the COMMENT BOX to share your own comforts or let me know if you are interested in hearing mine in a future post.)

 The last two hundred miles of our trip take us up through the beautiful Windy City. Our somewhat unreliable GPS thinks we want to be Chicago tourists so we wind up ridiculously close to the heart of downtown, ambling along at 5mph on the expressway. Trust me, I do not miss the irony.  Lovely.

After having a five minute temper tantrum about something none of us can pin down, my daughter finishes her outburst and falls into a blissful sleep while the rest of us mend our bleeding ears for a bit. I am still driving due to my touch of motion sickness being exceptionally bad this trip when my hubby is behind the wheel. So I have not picked up a book, magazine, or even my laptop for the entire trip.

As we approach the Wisconsin state line, the excitement mounts. The boys are waiting to see the “Welcome to Wisconsin” sign they have come to recognize. Each of us begins to wonder what our destination will look like. No snow on the ground this time of year, but corn and soybean fields will dominate the landscape. Who will be there to greet us at Nana and Papa’s house? Will the cousins be coming? Will Papa have the waterslide up? Will Nana cook us the world’s best cheesy eggs? The underlying thought, the unspoken inquiry is will we have the kind of fun that makes this nutty drive worth it?

Our trip this year really did go off without a hitch. I remember last year when we were three hundred miles into our trip when my son Blake discovered that he was not wearing shoes. Nor did his mother think to pack extras. So a run to Famous Footwear was plugged into our detour feature on the navigation system. That was not as traumatic as our pathetically dying car battery in 2009, the flat in the middle of the night (God help us, on an interstate) in 2010. And thank goodness we have only experienced one Christmas blizzard where Kentucky closed down I-24, forcing us to spend a night in what has been called my Bate’s Motel. Picture a full-sized bed with twin one-year-olds tucked between their mother and father in a room with a broken room heater. We slept in our coats, our hats and our mittens. I remember crying on the toilet seat because I was: So. Damn. Cold. Relatively speaking, this trip was akin to a cruise to the Bahamas.

We do this drive at least twice each year. We do it rain or shine, through snow or ice, come hell or high water. Why? So our children get to see their grandparents while they share lives on this great earth. So they get to play with abandon surrounded by cousins. We do it to touch in with our own parents, our siblings, our dear childhood friends. We may live in a different time zone, and Brandon and I may get so carried away with our own life’s responsibilities for 50 weeks out of the year that we forget to call or forget to send birthday cards to those we love. But we budget, schedule and scheme to make it up to Wisconsin to see them.

My dear sister opens her home to us, knowing full well the chaos we will bring. A couple of my sister-in-laws make countless trips to our old hometown just to see us for the little bit of time that we are there. Parents accommodate our diet preferences, clean their homes for our arrival, and have been known to sit up into the wee hours of the night to greet us upon our arrival. An old friend adjusts his own travel plans so that we might see his little baby girl. Another friend opens up his lake home to us so that our kids might experience their first time tubing.

There are other friends and family members that we did not get to see this trip. Each knows, however, that they are on our short list when the holiday rolls around and we do this all again. We make this trip for so many reasons. We want our children to know how important family is. Through thick or thin, rain or shine, family comes first. We also want them to know what cornfields, ski hills, and trout fishing looks like. This is why we do it. And this is why we leave December 23^rd to do it all again.

she-monster meets dharma practice

I am fragile tonight.

Meaning I am feeling a little punchy, a lot exhausted, and I am seriously contemplating having a wine instead of a coffee during my weekly writing session with a friend.

I blame my daughter for this miserable state I am in. Wait. I do not mean that. I blame my own inability to handle my daughter's emotional highs and lows. I blame the button that resides in my psyche that she so eloquently pushes when my darling little six-year-old crosses her arms, stomps her feet, wails with indignation and generally gives off an ugly she-monster vibe.

I hate that button. In fact, I would give my right arm in order for that button to go away permanently. I have yet to find a surgeon who will perform the surgery and guarantee the desired effect, however. I suspect that doctor would be rich if the technique was perfected.

In the Great Quest for happiness and calm in my life, I have spent many years testing a number of techniques to curb my anger and frustration while increasing my patience and reason. Prayer has worked on several occasions, seeing me through my fears and uncertainties with a promise of protection and forgiveness. Mother Mary is my go-to gal when I need a little mothering myself, and if I feel threatened I have found that a prayer to my guardian angel is reassuring.

In my studies of the Catholic faith and through my (admittedly limited) Bible study I came to discover however, that despair - a feeling in which I am intensely familiar with - is considered to be a sin. Hmm. I would like to share an observation with you: when in the throws of despair the last thing you want to be told is that you are sinning simply by feeling the way you do. When I discovered this, I honestly felt like damaged goods. Pathetic and unworthy. This was not helping.

A few months ago I stumbled across a book club led by a dharma teacher. In actuality it is less a book club, and more a life coach session. She instructs us on the essential rules of a virtuous life. We talk about the human condition of self-grasping ignorance, meaning that it is our human nature to be more concerned for ourselves than for anyone else. This explains why we get impatient in the drive-thru line when the car in front of us takes a full eight minutes to put in their order because they are too busy chatting to the barista. Our internal conversation goes something like this, “Seriously!? I cannot believe this person does not care that there are three cars behind them. I mean what are they chatting about? Eight minutes! I cannot believe this! Great, now I am going to be late to work!!” Never mind that the woman in the car in front of you might have a child in the hospital, or might have just lost their job. Maybe they really needed to hear a friendly voice over the intercom asking if she's having a nice day. Maybe she did notice your car waiting and she felt so bad that she paid for your drink in order to make it up to you. This actually happened to me, of course.

Our instructor talks about dharmic principles such as patience, forgiveness, self control, honesty, and the absence of anger. All of which, if practiced regularly, result in greater happiness for me and for the greater world in which I live. She tells us that our lives inevitably have highs and lows. My husband will upset me or let me down, it is just a matter of time. My daughter will passionately disagree with me, showing anger and resentment, it is just a matter of when. My son will flop around in the restaurant booth, annoying me and everyone around him. Of course he will. The universe will always test us, and we must be up for the challenge. Our reaction is what is important. Dale Carnegie talks about this in his self-help books, he just calls it by another name. Knowing, no - owning that our current upset is only a transient state that will eventually resolve itself helps the despair factor and defuses our own reaction.

Admittedly, in these sessions we also discuss other Eastern principles such as reincarnation that I am slightly uncomfortable with. I am mature enough, however, to take what I need from these sessions and leave the rest behind. There might be Eastern terminology spoken, but I hear universal principles.

So the she-monster has nothing on me anymore. Her release of tension and frustration is a transient state that in no way defines my lovely daughter's soul. Reflecting on this for the past hour or so, I realize that I am no longer fragile. I am powerful. I possess the knowledge and the determination to meet that little girl toe-to-toe and to left hook her with a hug instead of a rebuttal. To show her unconditional love, patience and forgiveness. To practice this learning each and every time I am met with an inconvenience.

My children are the sand in my oyster. They may rub me wrong sometimes, but I cannot grow in virtue without them. They scrub away my rough spots with every trying moment they present. And just like the coffee drive-thru lady, they often reward my patience and restraint with loving acts of kindness. Brooklynn just told me tonight that I'm her favorite girl in the whole wide world. And she is mine.

dads: their roman catapults & nasty gym shorts

To keep with the spirit of the upcoming Father's Day weekend, my good friend John asked me to guest blog on the topic of fatherhood. Note: I am a mother. Now, this may be payback since he guest-blogged (marvelously, I might add) for my website on the topic of Mother's Day. He probably wants a turn to kick up his feet and drink a few Corona beers this weekend, or maybe he just has writer's block. Either way, I am happy to oblige.

Warning!(here comes the disclaimer...) No, I have not suddenly sprung a pair. Therefore I write this piece from an overwhelmingly estrogen/progesterone perspective. I do not hold an academic degree that makes me any kind of expert on fathers and will not pretend to know even a smidgeon about how it feels to be a father in these modern times. I will, instead, muse on what it looks like it feels like.

To read the full post, please click on John's blog link below...
http://dudeyoureadad.blogspot.com/

John Pfeiffer is the proud father of three and author of Dude You’re Gonna Be a Dad, available at amazon.com. You can check out his fatherly advice (and gripes) and ramblings at http://www.dudeyoureadad.blogspot.com/ and follow him on Twitter at @johnpfeifferdad .

Ode to Summertime

Hello friends,
I have been invited to guest blog on a local site called Peach State Moms Blog. Please click on the link below to read today's post "Ode to Summertime".
http://www.peachstatemomsblog.com/family-fun/ode-to-summertime/

i am mom, hear me purr

In case we have never met I am the woman with crumbs in my car, dirt under my nails, and worry lines on my face. My kitchen floor is sticky – okay, all of my floors are sticky - my furniture is dusty and my kitchen sink is always full. But if you are up for some boardgames Monopoly is set up on the porch, UNO is on the coffee table and Angry Birds is on my Kindle. I am a mom, after all.

I hope you enjoyed my guest blogger's post last week. John is a genuinely nice guy and is a very involved father who thinks he knows something about us mothers. Ha! Little does he know that we women prefer to keep our men guessing and therefore anything he thinks he knows about us moms is subject to change. Frequently.

Given that my entire blog page, book and Facebook musings are mostly devoted to the multifaceted subject of motherhood, I must choose carefully which bit of his writing to comment on this week. Although I definitely have some thoughts on more creative Mother's Day gifts, stupid bumble bee cards, and that cute little dress we reserve for date nights, I am going to address the question he posed, “But do [moms] want it all?” It seems like a nice place to start.

I was twenty-seven years old and six months from graduating chiropractic school with my doctorate degree when it was suggested that I not open a new office from scratch. The reason given by my professional consultant had nothing to do with the difficulty in attaining a business loan, the monstrous task of building out a space, hiring staff, or the hours required to run a successful practice. The reason he gave – the only one – was that he thought I might change my mind once I had kids.

To be fair, I was six months pregnant at the time and noticeably uncomfortable sitting for the duration of the twenty hour conference. I probably got up from my seat at least a dozen times attempting to increase blood flow to my lower extremities. Though I was trying to be inconspicuous about my discomfort, he caught on.

After picking my chin up off the floor at the pure audacity to assume that motherhood would cause me to stray from my professional goals (!!) I lifted my chin, gave him a quick shake of my head and said, “You don't know me. I'm driven. Stubborn. I won't change my mind.”

And then I did.

Many of us mothers find ourselves reevaluating things after our home is blessed with the pudgy munchkins of joy that are our babies. Partly we are just too damn tired to consider board meetings or deadlines. We also spend a lot of time sitting with our new baby whether we are nursing, feeding, or playing and we fondly begin to remember just how good it feels to sit down. We love the physical closeness we feel with our babies napping on our shoulder and the emotional connectedness when we catch their first smile or laugh. My babies are now eight and six, but when I watched this Johnson's commercial released for Mother's Day, it was as if all of those beautiful moments happened yesterday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yotq4zr0dRc

Inevitably though, as the weeks become months, sitting becomes dull and the house becomes too quiet. Or not quiet enough because the poor little baby is colicky and the crying is driving us mad. We get tired of doing laundry, dishes, and mopping followed by more laundry, dishes and mopping. We begin to yawn during the Mommy & Me programs at the library because we have just sung Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for the (honest-to-goodness) 100^th time. Same hand gestures. Same off-tune moms. It is no wonder that we start to feel nostalgic for lunches with coworkers, happy hours, and even a good brainstorming session that involves something more complex than Dreft vs. Tide Free detergent.

It is my humble XX opinion that during these early years of motherhood women need to be intellectually challenged, emotionally and physically stimulated, and we need to keep our creative juices flowing. Probably for the entire duration of motherhood, in fact. This is why most mothers are not sitting at home watching soap operas and eating bon-bons. We are running half marathons and selling Mary Kay products while we lead 4H groups, Girl Scout troops, soccer teams, swim teams and volunteer in our children's classrooms. It is also why some mothers elect to go back to work. Our brains need flexing as much as our muscles do.

So do we “want it all”? Setting aside the very real possibility (and probability) that a woman returns to work because she has to help support the family financially, the answer is more complicated than yes or no. I believe that initially we do in fact want it all. We have been raised in a country where it is expected that we are better off than our parents were. We are told that any economical hurdle can be overcome with diligence and hard work. Ultimately we want the white picket fence in a gated community with tennis courts and a swimming pool. We want the minivan with dual DVD players, a patio table with a 13' umbrella and decorator pillows, and a cleaning lady to mop our floors and clean under our kitchen appliances.

We also want intelligent, talented, superior children and therefore we expose them to every sport, hobby and activity we can find. We sign them up for Baby Sign Language, piano lessons, football and chess club. We buy them bikes, skateboards, zip lines and ponies in case one of those things is their destiny. We spend five hundred dollars on a summer swim team membership and another three hundred on football gear for fall. All budgeted in under the category “Kids” on our Quicken program.

These years are fun, for sure. It is lovely and awesome to watch your child go into a hobby or sport as a beginner and come out of it truly talented. It is rewarding to see them open up and engage with the other players and to learn the meaning of teamwork and camaraderie. When our infants sign to us that they are hungry, we applaud. Yes, we want it all.

Or do we? I hazard a guess that some of us want less. We want fewer carpools across town, fewer Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties, and more time to spend with our children. Sadly, in the midst of our busy work and recreational schedules it is easy to forget to schedule in some play time as well. Not a play date. Just play time. Time to imagine, ponder and build Lego sets on the porch. Time to catch fireflies at dusk and chase frogs from the pond. Time to sit alone under a tree and just think about things. By the way... eight-year-olds will do this if given a chance.

How easy we forget that in the same way that parents want some time to relax and kick up our feet, so do our children. They want to play in their rooms without instructions or oversight. Maybe they just want a pick-up game of kick ball on the lawn. They want time alone to read, build puzzles, and to draw or create. These things don't cost a dime. And I would argue that they define a truly happy and carefree childhood.

No, I do not want it all. I no longer desire a “perfect” home, car or designer pillows. I want a few nice things, sure. It is easier to relax when surrounded by objects of beauty. So we have an old sun-bleached hammock hanging on our deck and a patio table on our screened porch to enjoy dinners outside. I appreciate fresh flowers from my yard and I display them in my kitchen, I love fresh fruit and vegetables from my garden to put on our plates. I want friends to come by for coffee dates and family bike rides to the park.

I keep myself mentally challenged by seeing a handful of chiropractic patients each week and developing my career as a writer. I also volunteer a lot of my time to my church and community. I take long walks with our puppy to keep my body flexible. And I have been known to sneak a Girl Scout cookie from time to time but have never indulged in a bon-bon.

No John, I do not want to “pump breast milk at the board of directors meeting” or break through a glass ceiling. Some women may and I applaud them. For their strength, their determination and their commitment to their children's health. I, however, have found a balance in my life that seems to work for me right now. I want less maybe, but I enjoy more.

Share your thoughts and comments, please!

a dad's musings on mother's day

Hello, how are you? Happy Mother’s Day! I was honored to be asked to be a guest on Kristi’s blog. She asked me to share a few of my thoughts as a dad about Mother’s Day. I hope I don’t get myself in trouble.

It seems to me that Mother’s Day started out as something simple and sweet when in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing the second Sunday in May as “Mother’s Day”. Perhaps mom got the biggest serving of porridge for dinner that night, or everyone chipped in to handle her chores. 

Eventually these quaint niceties changed. As we know, more recently creative marketers turned Mother’s Day into an opportunity to spend lots of money on Mother’s Day cards with cute insects on the cover proclaiming Mom is the “bee’s knees” and an excuse to go out to eat at your local “TJ O’Brady’s”. But now I think in light of our brave new world we have realized that those traditions are half baked like the meatloaf at your local chain, and aren’t really representative of what the day is supposed to be about.

As a function of its title, Mother’s Day has to be about women. Somewhere during the first Mother’s Day, some foolish Dad probably made a joke along the lines of, “A day just for Moms? What next? Women will get to vote? HA HA HA!” And a revolution was born. Now women, in my humble XY opinion, seem to have outdone themselves. Now you are waking up at 4 a.m. to train for your marathon and pumping breast milk during the board of directors meeting, you know, because you have “come a long way baby!” and you can “have it all”. Nice corporate marketing slogans, but do you want it all? I know men didn’t. Back 50 years ago when we were in charge we just wanted three martini lunches and a cute secretary. But since Dolly Parton made “9 to 5” and sexual harassment rules changed (for the better) women have made great strides for themselves.

Today the women’s revolution has progressed farther than the wildest of Suzie B’s dreams. But as a father to three daughters I think about what kind of world I would like my girls to live in with more than a passing fancy. Actually, it’s more like I think about it with abject fear. That is because women today still face a myriad of issues like breaking through the glass ceiling and/or being elected President, being told what to do with their body, pay inequality, discrimination, abuse in its ugliest forms, and being whistled at as they pass construction sites. Those are just the one’s I came up with as a man.

Whew. Just thinking about tackling those issues is exhausting. I don’t know how women got this far. But if nothing else we have learned just how strong and determined women can be. Just as I am determined to get back to the reason I have the opportunity to write for you: Mother’s Day.

As a dad, Mothers day can be stressful. It is yet another opportunity for us men to show that perhaps we do not understand you, and an opportunity for our ill-conceived expression of thanks to disappoint you. At least this is how things work in my world. So, keeping budgetary concerns in mind, I am always faced with an intimidating challenge: finding a meaningful Mother’s Day gift. All I know is to shoot higher than the lint in my pocket and lower than a new car. This is mostly because my wife would responsibly return the car so we could all go on vacation, not because she doesn’t deserve it. As for the lint, I just do not feel like I did my job as a husband if I show up with absolutely nothing. So it’s with that in mind that here I will make an attempt to thank Mothers everywhere with the cheapest and most powerful of gifts: words.

Mothers are awesome. You are caretakers, leaders, titans of industry and cleaners of spills and bedrooms. Although any involved dad knows parenting isn’t easy, you often make it look that way. You seem to have special reserves of patience and resolve we Dads wished we had. Moms have passed me on the road on their way to crossing another item off their list, and they have passed me on the trail, yet another “do it all” mom smoothly sailing by me during the Peachtree City 15k. Women, you have the power inside to accomplish anything.

Mothers are beautiful. Whether it is the pajamas you are wearing while you secretly put together Christmas gifts or the fancy outfit you put on when we finally get a date night, you glow with the vibrancy of a woman who knows who she is and is living life to its fullest, even if it is overwhelming sometimes (and it is!). As a mom you are sophisticated, refined, and just a little crazy. We can’t get enough of you.

Mothers are the core of the family. I feel like that is the essence of motherhood. Mothers are there for us not because of duty or responsibility, but because they simply couldn’t imagine being anywhere else than helping their children, young or otherwise. Whether their kids need an ice cream sundae or a kick in the pants, Moms seem to know just what to do. For this and everything else you do, we thank you.

So to any men, however many Mothers you find in your life, treat them a little extra special this year. Write them a story where they are the hero. Plant them the vegetable garden they have mentioned wanting a few times. You and your musically gifted kids get together and sing her an off-key song. Find a way to let her know she is special.

Besides, Father’s Day is just around the corner.

John Pfeiffer is the proud father of three and author of Dude You’re Gonna Be a Dad. You can check out his fatherly advice (and gripes) and ramblings at http://www.dudeyoureadad.blogspot.com/ and follow him on Twitter at @johnpfeifferdad .

and kisses for your mom

Each day that I spend with my children on this great Earth there are a hundred different ways that I tell them I love them. Speaking the words out loud comes very naturally to me. “Good morning, my love,” is usually whispered softly in their ears each morning as I rub my hand gently across their foreheads and down their cheeks.

Almost daily I tell them I love them through song. Now, I'm a pathetic singer. In fact, I'm the person that hums the happy birthday song at parties and silently mouths our hymns at church for fear of scaring people. My mother-in-law, however, assured me when my first babies came into this world that, “You are ridiculous. They do not care if you sing well. Mothers sing to their babies.” Point taken.

Little love taps as I walk by them in their classroom, ruffling their hair while they relax on the sofa, squeezing next to them on the chaise lounge while gathering them onto my lap are all tactile expressions of my love. Thankfully my kids are all young enough to enjoy these moments still. I'm nervously awaiting the first time I get The Look though, and I am already careful to rein in this demonstration of love when their friends are around.

If you have ever read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, you know that everyone feels loved in different ways. http://www.5lovelanguages.com/resources/books/

Acts of Service is one of my love languages, meaning that if my husband busts his backside cleaning up the house he is feeling especially loving that day. I respond accordingly, usually fulfilling his primarily love language of Physical Touch. Yes, ladies. Sex is an actual love language. If it happens to be one of your man's top love languages they will feel unloved without regular entertainment in the bedroom. Or shower. Maybe in the hammock, or car...whatever floats your boat.

Until recently I was not aware that there is an offshoot of the book entitled The Five Love Languages of Children. Essentially the same categories of love are discussed, with importance given to implementing them for small children. For example, my daughter does not consider my sitting around the breakfast table with her each morning as Quality Time, even though I categorize it as such. I'm oftentimes thinking that I could really, really use a shower right now if I'm going to get out the door on time and not wear pajamas through the car drop-off line at school. She is thinking that of course every other mother on the planet sits at the table with their daughter to chit chat each morning.

Quite simply, my children think it is my duty to feed, clothe, wash and take them places rather than an Act of Service which deserves appreciation. And in many ways those things are my duty. The above and beyond is my love. The extra time I spend preparing healthy food, clothes washed without harmful chemicals, or the special trip to the Herb Shop for toothpaste without fluoride is of limited importance in their mind. The love note I tuck inside their lunchbox, the special t-shirt I wash and have ready for Monday morning however, does get picked up on their radar. These are called Words of Affirmation and Gifts. Pure love to most children.

Gifts, gifts, gifts... it kills my husband that each of my children has a primary love language of Gifts. (Never mind how much I sometimes wish that his love language was Gifts instead of regular hanky panky...) Blame Santa, the Easter Bunny, and their gift-happy mother but these munchkins of mine do very much appreciate an unsolicited present from time to time. A prize for having learned the Star Wars Theme Song on your guitar? Sure! Here is a Star Wars toy! A dollar tucked into their pocket for a run to The Dollar Tree simply because I love you and it is raining out today? Why not!

Does it have to be your birthday to get a new box of markers, a packet of Bella Sara collector cards or a new stuffed animal from the local thrift shop? Hell no. Not in the Hellenbrand house. Have I created monsters? Maybe. On some days I would argue yes. On others I would say that I have some of the most happy and secure children on the block. They know they are loved. Without a doubt. On good days and bad. When they are right, and even when they are wrong, they know that I have their back. That has to be powerful.

Last night after homework and dinner hour I drove to our local library and participated in a writer's circle. Somewhat similar to a book club, there were a dozen writers gathered around tables set up in a large circle. Books, essays, manuscripts sat open before us. We had all come prepared to critique each others work.

One of the pieces we were reviewing was written by a woman originally from India. Her piece was a fictional story about a young lady who had reached the age where her father wanted to purchase a couple of pieces of beautiful pottery to commemorate her maturity. It is a cultural custom to do this, apparently, much in the same way that Catholic eight year olds are bought rosaries for their First Communion. Or American children are given a car when they turn sixteen.

In various places within the text the author inserted a bit of Bengali terminology. I suggested that the she use a few Bengali passages within the dialogue between the father and daughter as well. I though it might be a way to “show, not tell” the love between father and daughter. (This show, not tell thing is something every writer strives for and frequently stumbles on) After hearing my idea the author paused, hummed a bit and gently shook her head. “In my culture we do not say 'I love you.' Never did my mama tell me she loves me. She is gone now, but I know she loved me without her ever saying it. This is the way in India. “

I feel conflicted hearing this. I wonder if I tell my children too often how much I love them. I wonder if deep inside this woman wishes her mother had said those three little words “I love you”. Even just once? But then I remember as a young mother reading about the importance of teaching children to give and receive love. Marie Hartwell-Walker has written a beautiful article about this very topic. http://psychcentral.com/library/id445.html

She writes, “One of the most important things we can teach our children, perhaps the most important thing, is how to be loved and loving. We can't protect them from the many difficulties, even tragedies, of life. But we can teach them how to surround themselves with support and love. People who are loved have people around them to celebrate the good times, to share life's triumphs, and to manage the rough spots. People who have solid relationships are seldom lonely and seldom lost -- no matter how challenging or painful their life's course. People who are loved have a security deep inside that makes it possible to take risks and to accept defeats. People who are loved during life die satisfied.”

So... in the name of growing three satisfied and happy children who feel strength when they are right and support when they are wrong I am going to continue flooding my children with love. I will blow them kisses across the house and wink at them when no one else is looking. I will bake them cookies on any ole' weekday even if their Daddy thinks it is silly and should be saved for special occasions. I will hug them after a temper tantrum and tell them I love them anyway.

Each morning on our way to school there is a little song I sing as we pull into the school driveway. It is grossly simple, yet instructive. And it is wrapped with love. “Seat belts off, backpacks on, and kisses for your mom.” They haven't missed a day yet.

loved and lost: our duck hell

When we moved to our small farm, I expected to learn a few things. I expected to figure out how an underground well works, how to sow a garden, install and utilize an outside laundry line, stock a pond and shoot a BB gun. I knew there would be pasture fence to repair, piles of leaves to rake, and a lot of lawn to cut. We spoke about the possibility of having a horse or a goat out in our pasture, but ruled it out as an endeavor that was simply too much for a family with three young children to manage.

Two years later, we have two horses out to pasture, twelve chickens in the barn, one pregnant cat, and our two dogs Tyson and Copper. Oh, and did I forget to mention the four ducklings that my husband begged me for? Apparently Tractor Supply Co. did some pretty effective marketing when he was there buying animal feed, and the tiny, yellow, fluffy ducklings were too cute to pass up. The picturesque image of our very own ducks paddling on our pond, eating Cheerios from our children's outstretched hands was just too much for Brandon to resist.

Ming-ming was the first yellow duckling to join our family and warm our hearts. His sister Daffodil, named by our little five-year-old daughter Brooklynn, was next. Then came a tiny brown one that did not live to see two consecutive days in our home, as our dog Copper decided that a bird for breakfast sounded nice. We never got to name that one. The last duck we named Lucky since he was the last duckling at Tractor Supply Co., stuck in a bin with a bunch of baby chicks. My boys decided that it was “just not fair for him to be stuck with all those chickens,” and so he came to be the lucky duck to come home with us.

Some might call our place a hobby farm. Except that we are not yet sixty-something retirees with a bunch of time on our hands. No, we are thirty-somethings trying to fit in baseball practices, gymnastics, boy scouts and swim meets. (In between homework, dinner and bedtime - mind you.) The kids all love their respective sports and activities, not yet feeling overwhelmed, though their mother does at times. They also love their animals. They love chasing them, feeding them, naming them, carting them around in the wagon, and generally loving on them. I am “the best mom in the world,” they have informed me, simply because “Maggie's mom won't even let her have a fish!” Sorry, Laura. No “Best Mom” award for all of those tadpoles you raised on your front porch a couple of years ago. They have already been forgotten.

So even though we did not plan on having this menagerie of sorts, the pleasure that each of us get from the various animals – all for different reasons – makes it worth it. The chicken droppings scattered throughout the lawn is tolerated due to it making excellent fertilizer, but also because we get nutritionally excellent eggs from the girls. The horses are entirely cared for by the young girl who owns them, leaving us to simply enjoy watching them, petting them and feeding them apples and sugar cubes from time to time. They whinny when we drive in, come when we call them, and fertilize our garden with their waste. We adore them.

The small, sleek black cat that graces our home is one that we rescued from under my mini-van on a brisk October afternoon. It was a tiny little thing, sick with green eye boogies and an ear infection that was so bad she could not walk without falling and rolling over. Of course we took her home. We gave her a bath, washed her eyes with saline for a week, and dropped our favorite ear remedy Wally's Ear Oil in her ears to cure the suspected ear infection. In one weeks' time she was as healthy as any kitten I have ever laid eyes on. Her disposition has been nothing but sweet and unassuming ever since, instantly earning the nickname Best Cat Ever. Given that I am not a cat person at all and allergic to boot, she is a miracle pet. It turns out that I am only minimally allergic to her, being able to hold her on my lap and getting in return the loudest purring I've ever heard. Her name is Miss Blacky and we will keep her forever.

One small hitch in that equation occurred when our cat was just a “teenager”. A large gray and white tom cat came prowling around the farm. We responded by locking Miss Blacky in the garage at night, and we kept her close to us during the day in the hopes of deterring the boy cat. Remember, we were newbies with cats. We will never make this mistake again, - she has since been spayed. But that was after we accidentally locked her in the garage with the boy cat, and found ourselves with a pregnant cat that for all intents and purposes was still a baby herself.

Nine weeks later, in addition to our perfectly wonderful Miss Blacky, we now had four itty-bitty kitties named Nala, Summer, Squirtle, and Little Blacky. Summer and Squirtle were taken to an acquaintance's farm who happened to have a mouse problem, while Nala and Little Blacky decided to stay with us. Nala has been renamed Grayson, by the way. We discovered that he is in fact a boy and a Lion's King reference to a girl lion was no longer appropriate.

So our little farm was clipping along with whinnies, barking, meowing and clucks. When Brandon's little wifey gave in and agreed to the ducklings, we also had some quacking. The ducklings spent the first week in our house in a large Rubbermaid bin, the weather outside being too cool for their tiny little bodies. The chicken feed dishes doubled as duck feed dishes and the smell in our living room was atrocious. Ducks are filthy birds, sleeping where they poop, eating where they poop, and also just plain pooping a whole bunch. They eat and poop it out about twenty minutes later, I think. Or at least it appeared that way.

The second week we moved the Rubbermaid out to the front yard. We filled up a kiddie pool with water and daily introduced them to their makeshift pond. This was when we discovered that Lucky wasn't so lucky after all. He could not stay upright in the water, leaning severely to the left when made to float. The resulting position of his neck was awful to even look at, let alone to live with. Upon inspection of him more closely, we found a neurological problem with one of his feet and a laxity in the knee on that side as well. To put it plainly, one of Lucky's webbed feet curled in and couldn't keep him upright in the water. So we tipped the pool a bit to allow for a more shallow area for him to play in, and we continued to love him.

Soon thereafter Daffodil was caught by one of the dogs. Innocently enough, she wandered into the backyard for a look around and was quickly “herded” and shook. This was the beginning of what I now refer to as Duck Hell.

I know that earlier it may seem that I made light of the first little brown duck being eaten by Copper on day one of our duck adventure. It was no small matter, however. Trying to explain to the children where the duck went, hunting in the backyard for the remains (which we never did find) was a deeply difficult thing for me. Up until living on the farm, I had had very few experiences with the loss of a pet. Our dog Oakley had been hit by a car five years prior and it took me almost two years to come to terms with the loss. Before that I had had a hamster that drowned in a sump pump when I was ten years old. That was the extent of my experience with the cruelties of mother nature. Not exactly a “seasoned” farmer. The circle of life that I had sung about with my daughter during the Lion King movie had never really felt like anything other than a movie to me. I was having to play a fast game of catch up now, however.

Daffodil was Brooklynn's duck, so I had to call Brooklynn out to the yard in order to carry her still warm dead duck to the backyard to bury it. If there had been a way of replacing the duck without her knowing, we would have done it. But Lucky had been the last one at the store, as you recall. So Brooklynn learned a hard lesson that day about loving and losing. She once had an earthworm that died in a Dixie cup she was carrying around. It was a traumatic event for her. You can imagine how burying Daffodil went.

But life moves on and we still had two ducks to care for. And care for them we did. There have never been two ducks more nurtured than Ming-ming and Lucky. We took them for strolls – or waddles – through the yard, we even introduced them to Tyson, our ailing but amazingly gentle Boxer-mix dog. I have a photograph of Ming-ming nose to nose with Tyson, both just looking at each other, somewhat indifferently. It is a favorite of mine.

The time came when the ducks were too large for the Rubbermaid container and kiddie pool, so we hauled them out to the pond in the extra-large dog kennel we found in the garage. Locking them up at night, while allowing them the freedom to swim and explore during the day seemed to be the next logical step for responsible duck ownership. A hitch in the plan surfaced, however, when we discover that the ducks could squeeze through the lower kennel rungs and escape. So the covered dog house was brought out for them, placed next to the pond for easy access in and out of the water and the realization that nature would have to take its course at this point was followed by a quick prayer to God to watch over our ducks. Mama could not take another cruel circle of life event.

But circle it did.

It turns out that a Jurassic Park-size snapping turtle lives in our pond. With spines on its shell like a stegosaurus and a neck as thick as a softball, that damn turtle hunted our ducks. Poor Lucky didn't stand a chance.

That was it. Cue the tears. Up until losing Lucky I had done a pretty amazing job of being strong in the face of all of the death and destruction that we had witnessed on our farm. Hawks circling overhead, hunting my chickens day and night, leaving carcasses spread wide open as if they had had a two hour feast took me some time to get used to. It bothered me that the hawks only plucked out the lungs and eyes but left the meaty breasts and thighs for the bugs to devour. I couldn't help but think it was such a waste.

One of my chickens gave our dog Copper a run for his money earlier that year. Feathers were scattered all over our pool deck, and Copper was exhausted from the chase. Ultimately though, you can imagine who won. With each consecutive chicken caught, I became more resilient to losing them. Fewer, if any, tears fell. Burials became quicker, and newly purchased chickens were never allowed to be named by the children.

This duck thing was different though. Ducklings were pretty needy babies. I had spent weeks feeding them, swimming them, and cleaning up after them. Ducklings are preciously cute too. They had come to know us so well that they would follow us around the yard. They trusted us, and would eat the bits of food that we threw out for them. They would swim in the pond near to where we were sitting. None of that helped when we would lose one of them.

A decision was made. When Brandon was at work, I packed up the last duck in a cat carrier and the kids and I took Ming-ming to a public park in town. I had seen another pure white Peking duck there a few weeks prior and thought maybe it would accept Ming-ming into its flock. So straight out of a story like Charlotte's Web it seems, my kids had to say their goodbyes. I told them we would come and visit Ming-ming, to check on him. I told them he would have a friend. We lifted him out of the carrier and placed him near the water's edge, only twenty feet or so from another group of ducks. When we turned to leave, tears streaming down my children's faces, Ming-ming quacked in a very disconcerting way and tried to follow us. We had to run to escape his attempt to join us. It was a terribly sad afternoon.

We did see Ming-ming again, on several occasions. We saw him swimming around with the other Peking duck for awhile. Then we only saw one large white duck and decided it was him. Of course it was him. We could not afford to think otherwise.

We will never again have ducks. Although the realities of life and death are powerful things for children to learn, there was nothing powerful about our experience that spring. In fact, if it had gone on much longer, I'd be concerned that the kids would become desensitized to death. There is nothing to be gained from that.

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It is now full spring in 2012, a full year since having lost little Lucky and the other ducks. A few more changes have taken place on the farm. After we lost our lovely dog Tyson to what we think was cancer in his belly, we eventually warmed up to having a new pup. Her name is Savannah, she is a beautiful Labrador Retriever with hazel-colored eyes, now five months old. She is brilliantly smart, endlessly mischievous and a warm snuggle each morning as she begs me to wake up already. We also now have three horses on our pasture since Daisy Girl has joined our farm family. She is my very own horse, a stunning Palomino Tennessee Walker and I joke about how she is my mid-life crisis purchase. No big screen TV for me, thanks.

The chickens are gone, our pup had a taste for their “fertilizer” which was something we simply could not get used to. We do miss the free range eggs however and plan to build a new enclosure where my son Tristan hopes to invest in a small flock and sell the eggs. I will probably have to fight his innate desire to name the hens, his heart is always wide open when we invite new animals in.

My daughter currently has five frogs out on the porch, all with names of course. All rescued from our salt water swimming pool. She also has a tiny turtle the size of a quarter. He is a baby snapping turtle, caught in our pond, and is named Quicky. In all likelihood he is probably offspring from The Duck Eater, but we pretend to not think about that too much. He'll be released across town when the time comes.

In conclusion, we Hellenbrands love our animals. We greatly appreciate their company and the kids are learning the responsibilities of caring for them. Powerful stuff.

Other than the occasional mallard or goose that stops by for a quick dip, our pond is only home to blue gill, large mouth bass, a couple carp and probably one really fertile, ancient turtle. It is better that way. As cute as the ducklings were, as fun as it was to watch them grow, there will be no more ducks for us. There are at least five Peking ducks now residing at the lake across town. When we visit the children's park there, we watch them with fond memories. Ming-ming still lives on. Just in case though, on the off chance that my lovely husband should walk past a cute display of small water fowl, he is no longer allowed back into Tractor Supply Co. I now take care of that errand, happily.