Paper Doll Tales

Dirt Rocks: A Mom’s Manifesto

By Beth · Comments (4) · May 7th, 2013

I’ve discovered this totally awesome thing about dirt: it doesn’t age. Better yet, most of it doesn’t mold, spoil, or flit away on other errands. Once it lands someplace, it pretty much stays put without even a “pretty please.”

Dirt rocks. Because I can totally ignore it, and it’s not the least bit offended.

Here I’ve spent the past four years of Little Friend’s life anxious about whether or not I’ve given the dirt in my house enough attention. I didn’t want to hurt the dirt’s feelings if I played too much with the new baby. I didn’t want to miss out on any new things the dirt might be doing while I was preoccupied with dirty diapers and teething drool and tickly tummies. I didn’t, under any circumstances, want to give my poor dirt an inferiority complex.

So I felt guilty all the time. If I was playing with the baby, I wasn’t cleaning up the dirt. If I was cleaning up the dirt, I wasn’t playing with the baby. I just couldn’t find the perfect balance of happy for all of us: me, the baby, the dirt.

And then something unexpectedly amazing happened: The baby changed into a kid. And the dirt stayed…dirt.

Yeah. Dirt pretty much rocks.

The dirt in my house looks just like it looked yesterday. And four years ago. In fact, when I’ve put forth effort and whisked it away, it always comes right back home like faithful old Lassie. It hasn’t learned any new words, given me hugs lately, or brought me gifts of dandelion flowers. It’s just biding its good old time waiting–stolidly, messily waiting–for me to turn my attention back to it.

I plan on giving my dirt attention in, oh, five more years.

That whole “cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow / for babies grow up, we’ve learned to our sorrow” thing? I feel a thrill of freedom when I declare that my cleaning and scrubbing will officially wait for many, many tomorrows.

For now, I’ll clean house enough to be livable. To be hospitable. But as soon as I hit the bare minimum of happy and welcoming in my house, the rest of that dirt can just snuggle in and make itself cozy for the long haul. I’ll reaquaint myself with it some day when the echoes of little feet running to catch the school bus fade from my front porch.

Maybe then, and only then, will I finally get to the small handprint smudges on doors. Then again, I know something about dirt–it will stay around for awhile. And I know a thing or two about those little hands–they won’t. So maybe even later, the dirty handprints will be the first thing to welcome you at my front door.

Comments (4)

Spring is here

By Beth · Comments (2) · April 12th, 2013

A snowdrop wilts behind grandma’s ear. A bowl of maple tree flower buds is offered up on the altar of my kitchen counter. A star gazer lily slowly loses its exuberance for life after the exhaustive thrill of Easter. In these small ways, I note Spring’s arrival. Some winters I get so used to the freeze and the sweaters and the cocoon of inactivity and hearty stews that I wrap around myself to hibernate through the worst of the barren season, that Spring sneaks up and surprises me.

I have two girls here who do not yet know the damage a season can wreak on a life. The way the month on the calendar and the weather of the skies and the tragedy of a day can all stitch together into a scar you can cover up but never completely erase. I have two girls here who do not yet know what it is to dread the change of a season. I have two girls here who can still embrace change with the exuberant thrill of a star gazer lily. Like the lily, their excitement for change wafts through my home, scenting my world with spice, hope, and love.

So we collect fistfuls of crocuses and mangle them into pretend wedding bouquets. We tuck little snowdrops behind grandma’s ear. We tackle the carpet of maple tree droppings on the front porch with a bowl as a scoop and a twinkle of wonder in our eyes. We stand at the open front door and lick, yes lick, the storm door glass in anticipation of bursting through winter to spring.

We pack our bags and point the car south to warmer skies and flowerier springs and summer recipes of fish on the grill. We kick winter a swift boot in the pants to send it lurking behind darker months of the calendar. We open our mouths, hands, and hearts to embrace the healing that comes with new life, second chances, and sunshine.

This post is shared with the brilliant community of writers at Five Minute Fridays. Thank you, Lisa-Jo Baker, for leading the charge in pondering “Here” this week.

Comments (2)

A Day in the Life of Little One

By Beth · Comments (3) · April 3rd, 2013

7:17 am: You wake up. Unlike most mornings when you replace the monitor static with coos and chortles and yelps, you cry. Overtired from an Easter weekend away from home, perhaps. Lonely for some family, perhaps.

7:18 am: Big Friend opens your bedroom door. Cat scoots in. Cries stop. Coos begin. You wave and wave and wave to your beloved cat.

7:27 am: You nurse greedily, making up for the twelve hours of fasting.

8:09 am: You climb the steps. Joy of joys.

8:15 am: You get the unaccustomed privilege of waking up Little Friend. You pat her back (whap, whap, whap). You ruffle her hair (snarl, snarl, snarl). You urge her to wake up (Coo! Coo! Coo!). When she wakes up, she extends a sleepy hand to your face. You rub your cheek against her hand.

8:59 am: You head out to the car to chaperone Little Friend to preschool.

8:59 1/2 am: You head back inside to get the carseat that was taken in with all the luggage last night. Bare head, no coat, a wintry April morning.

9:05 am: Little Friend delivered safely to preschool, your head swivels back and forth watching all of the other parent/kid traffic in and out of the church. I tweak your cold, red nose as we leave. You wave over my shoulder to the older woman walking out behind us.

9:17 am: You yawn. You head back to your nursery for an early nap.

11:11 am: You wake up chattering. We tackle a diaper that looks like a deviled egg may have exploded in it.

12: 09 pm: The check out clerk at the grocery store says, “Look at his big blue eyes!” In her defense, you were wearing a blue shirt. It had a pink pig on it. But still.

12:09 1/2 pm: We’re chased down by a pimply grocery clerk. He informs me you’ve lost a shoe. We backtrack to the lost and found where the wandering shoe is unearthed from a bin. A form is filled out, and I have to sign for it. Yes, I sign to regain ownership of a baby shoe.

12:30 pm: You chow down on some lentil chili. Very proud of feeding yourself some fistfuls. You narrate in babbles while Little Friend and I make berry gummy snacks.

1:15 pm: After gnawing on the head of a Snow White toy, you break into tears when I poke my head into the playroom. Naptime.

1:59 pm: Still awake and talking in your crib. Then, over the monitor, I hear a long silence and some sucking noises as you and your magic blanket drift to sleep with a little help from your thumb.

4:00 pm: You wake up. We deal with another exploded deviled egg.

4:25 pm: Back outside to spring sunshine and winter temps. With just a few minutes to freeze nose, fingers, and toes, you watch Little Friend and her friends run around the yard, blow bubbles, and draw with sidewalk chalk. You jump up and down on my lap, urging your little body to frolic with their big bodies.

4:59 pm: You eat a few gummy snacks.

5:47 pm: You eat a few crayons while we pick up the play room.

6:00 pm: You eat a few bites of chicken, couscous, and spinach. You end your meal by tensing your whole body, arms and fingers spread wide, yelling at the top of your lungs. It’s pretty clear this is “All done!” in Little One language.

6:07 pm: For whatever reason, you snuggle in my arms and give me five hugs in a row. Just because.

6:11 pm: You attempt to hula hoop. It goes about as expected.

7:19 pm: Done with your bath, laughing with Little Friend over nonsense and running and nakedness.

7:42 pm: You pause, mid-nursing, to sign “All done.” You smile. You hug. You attempt to break free and make a run for the door.

8:01 pm: After some crying that escalates instead of settles, you are saved by Big Friend. You quiet and nestle in his arms in the rocking chair.

8:23 pm: Asleep for the night.

Comments (3)

Remember, my Rip Van Winkles

By Beth · Comments (3) · March 22nd, 2013

Remember when your hair stood in a mohawk fringe after being raked through with a handful of hummus?

Remember how you chortle with a conquerer’s joy when you climb into your small rocking chair to stand, hands gripping the back, rattling the rocking mountain with your energy?

Remember how you turn around and negotiate your way back down from chair to floor, your 10-month-old brain performing a marvel of mature mental acrobatics to figure out the puzzle?

Remember the way you wave with a clump of fist?

Remember the way you tilt your head against my shoulder and give a sweet, winsome smile to another adult?

Remember the hugs you give me in the middle of the night when I find you standing in your sleeping bag of a blanket, gripping the bars of the crib, face pressed as close to the freedom of the doorway as the wooden slats will allow?

Remember.

Remember the way your hair tangles in a nimbus around your head, and I spend moments of gentle strokes in the morning tucking strands back into place so I can uncover your eyes?

Remember when you wake with night terrors, body rigid, mind and mouth yelling “NO!”, and you finally quiet when I tell you about a super big juicy booger lurking just inside your nose?

Remember when you taste the booger and pronounce it good?

Remember how we end our day, one-upping each other with “I love you more thans” and I walk away from your room with spaghetti strands of love following in my wake from your bed?

Remember how you told me your heart is so full of Jesus that you store your extra love in your jewelry box for safe-keeping?

Remember how you save goldfish crackers and swedish fish and jellybeans for later “so we can play pretend with them and do their voices?”

Remember how we played coffee shop, you as yourself, and me as an angel dressed up in wings of shoelaces, enjoying water, dried apricots and chocolate covered cherries together?

Remember the way you run downstairs in the morning and shout “Mama!” when you find me, breaking open my morning like it’s the first morning ever?

Remember.

I command both of you: Remember. Press these people you are today deep into the grooves on your fingers, because someday, when you’re the beautiful, amazing, mountain-conquering women you’ll become tomorrow, I want to be able to pick up your hand, press a fingerprint to glass and study it to revisit these beautiful, amazing mountain-conquering girls that you are today. Remember, I beg you, in a way deeper than this snippet of a blog post, that I love the you of today–the hummus slathering, booger-eating, love-bursting yous. I love you in a way that, if I didn’t love the promised you of tomorrow even more, I’d keep you captive in today forever, my two Rip Van Winkles of wonder.

I’m grateful to Five Minute Fridays for making me pause to remember these moments! Join the community of writers who take five minutes each Friday morning to share one another’s prompt-inspired writing.

Comments (3)

I’m The Yellow Table’s Guest

By Beth · Comments (2) · March 21st, 2013

Anna Watson Carl makes me want to down Blood Orange Cilantro Mocktails. And throw a Gnocchi Face-Off for NYC powerhouse foodies. And flit off to a Valapariso, Peru vacation. She’s that cool. She’s also the warmest, most genuinely selfless, wisest, funnest (yeah–that’s a thing), loveliest person I’ve had the pleasure of calling a dear friend. Since I fell in love with Anna back in college (who wouldn’t love someone totally killing it in a thrift store tee, chunky glasses, tousled hair, and toting a violin case to practice with a band?), I’ve adored every minute I’ve spent with her. She’s that inspiring. She shares her food, love, and life inspiration with all who pull up a chair to her iconic yellow table in her amazing New York City apartment, and, lucky us, she invites us all to her table at her blog, The Yellow Table.

Can you tell I’m a bit excited about this? I’m guest posting today at Anna’s cyber home, The Yellow Table.

I’m thrilled and a little nervous to be sharing Six Tips for Healthy Toddler Tummies.

In my post, I confess to feeding my baby kale.

And only buying cereal once a year.

And letting my child play with open flame on the stove.

But you know what else? Little Friend and Little One love lacto-fermented pickles. And they both eat kale. So something’s working for us, right?

Plus, I include my go-to recipe that kids love and parents adore (because it has beans, greens, tomatoes, and chicken stock—shhhhh-don’t tell the kids).

Here are my Six Tips for Healthy Toddler Eating Habits, compliments of the fabulous Anna Watson Carl!

Comments (2)

A teaspoon of Rest

By Beth · Comments (5) · March 15th, 2013

I inadvertently guffaw at the word “Rest” as we come out of a week’s siege of stomach flu that has left a baby wide awake in dark hours and diapers of diseased-slug diarrhea piling up next to the changing table. ”Rest” has been measured in teaspoons of sleep sipped between larger cups of coffee and spaghetti plates of frayed nerves and double servings of life that pushes forward with an impatience unable to wait in line after “Rest.”

I’m grateful that “Rest”, to be effective, can be a pause and doesn’t have to be a constant. I’m grateful that “Rest” can come in as the clean-up crew and deal with the piles of vomited sheets and unopened mail and unchecked to-do items.

Even if I can’t see it now, these exhausting days of children hanging off of my knees and words and love will ease into days of rest when I can imagine reading a book again. When I can imagine going to bed without the fear of waking up to gagging sounds on the monitor. When I can reflect on these days that slip by quicker than that round of diarrhea and think, “Those, those were great days.”

Rest does that for us. It realigns our minds, hearts, and hands so that we can think more clearly, love more strongly, and serve more willingly. The Rest may only come in snatches when I lay my hand on a slippery, chubby baby belly and my head on the edge of the diaper changing table and breathe deep the Spirit of grace to make it through the next minute. But Rest is so powerful that even taken in small doses, it packs a mighty punch.

These five minutes of writing have been my rest for today, and I’m grateful, as I am weekly, for Lisa Jo Baker’s inspiring prompt from Five Minute Fridays.

Comments (5)

Molding and holding the imperfect life

By Beth · Comments (2) · March 12th, 2013

I love Facebook. It allows me to delude myself with 15 seconds of fame. I can pull up that busy blue page, type “[This] happened today!”, and for two-ish hours, I’m news on my friends’ feeds, earning me some thumbs-ups and quippy comments. For a few hours, I shamelessly sunbathe in the rays of online popularity. Then my news is replaced by a picture of a cat standing on a dog. And that gets 3K more likes than my “[This] happened today!” Reality check, compliments of our pals at Facebook.

Facebook tricks me, you see. Tricks me into thinking that the popularity of a status update is more important than the status of life happening around me. I’m wedged between the rock of “immediate gratification” and the hard place of “what’s going to count tomorrow.” So much of life is the immediate demand: the trivial Facebook status, the errands that have to be looped around and through and back again, the emails that need an answer today or else, the dinner that must be served on-time, hot, and pleasing to the palate of every family member hurried to the table. We want it all to be pretty: zen errands, witty email responses, and delicious dinners. Oh, and we expect to meet all of that immediate demand and still invest in the moments that matter tomorrow.

Sometimes my life squeaks just close enough to that perfect balance that I can craft a decent Facebook update about it. Most days though, no matter how I spin the status, my days turn out looking like this:

It’s a rabbit, couldn’t you tell? It’s smiling at you. (Couldn’t you tell?)

Little Friend made this rabbit figure for me the other day as I finished my day’s work tasks on my computer. We sat at opposite ends of the dining room table, each of us immersed in our immediate demands of emails (me) and molding clay (her). She bantered away while she worked, and I attempted to answer with some “okays” and “sures”. I may or may not have unwittingly agreed to let her have a mid-afternoon dessert. But hey, my emails were wittily composed.

I eased my way around the rock of immediate gratification by finishing my pressing correspondence, and looked up from my computer to see Little Friend, suspicious chocolate crumbs around her mouth, hugging a blob. It could have been a pair of melted sunglasses. Or a troll. She announced it’s a rabbit. Probably wouldn’t have guessed rabbit, but if you squint a bit… She was smiling and chattering and so precociously precious that my heart wedged in a crack next to the hard place of “What’s going to count tomorrow?”

Emails? Daughter? Emails? Daughter? Rabbit?

We all have some image of how life is supposed to look. It’s amazingly easy to buy the lie that we can write witty emails AND be fully present in a daughter’s budding craftiness. Life, we believe, should look something like a spring spread for Martha Stewart Living. Fresh and hopeful and perfectly composed in every which way.

But sometimes life looks more like this.

Yup. My life looks like a rabbit-troll. But gosh darn it, it’s MY much-loved rabbit-troll. A rabbit-troll that has been sculpted and molded from the materials we have at hand. A rabbit-troll doing its very best to sit up straight like a perfect rabbit. A rabbit-troll that bravely smiles at today. A rabbit-troll with a face only a mother (or a Creator) could love.

My life needs to be molded the best I can, and then it needs to be loved for what it is. My life will have knobbly bits and pieces of Facebook status updates, rushed errands, laundry cycles, burned dinners, to-do lists, and email replies. My life will flash a toothy grin. My life will be an imperfect version of some perfect balance. My life will continue to be lived somewhere between a rock and a hard place, because I need the “What’s important tomorrow” to make something out of the “Immediate gratification” today.

If I had to distill all that to a Facebook status, it’d probably be: “Rabbit-Troll taught me a lesson today. Molding and holding the imperfect life you’ve got is the most perfect life to live.”

Deep, right? Give it 15 seconds. That darn cat standing on a dog will still win.

Comments (2)

Words to the wise

By Beth · Comments (1) · March 4th, 2013

image via More Than Sayings

I think about this quotation after having spent the morning picking up all of the contents of my make up bag, which, having been discovered, rummaged through, and played with by Little One and the cat, were scattered from the hall mirror to the fireplace. When one’s children create the work, what does one choose then?!

Comments (1)

Thank you, ordinary

By Beth · Comments (5) · March 1st, 2013

This is the face of someone seeing Disney on Ice from a front-row seat. All those Snow Whites, Tinkerbells, Peter Pans, Wendy, Alices, and Mickeys whirling, twirling, and dancing in death-defying leaps around the ice. It’s enough to blow a four-year-old introvert’s mind back into a safe dark cave from whence it will peek from time to time with a flash of a smile or dart of the eyes to see if the spectacle is still underway.

The extraordinary event of a first Disney on Ice will be a cherished memory for Little Friend and for her mama who was most entranced watching Little Friend’s face through the proceedings.

It was a fabulous evening of clapping, sighing, screaming, and smiling. I saw Little Friend glitter with real-life fairy dust. After the Disney extravaganza, I slipped her back into ordinary life, tucking her into her Tangled sheets, brushing her teeth with her Cinderella toothbrush, promising to pretend Wendy and Peter in the morning.

The day after Disney on Ice was ordinary. In between diaper changes and putting away laundry and shoving bathroom products back into drawers, we had visits from Simba and Alice and Aladdin and Snow White and Wendy, all of whom put on ice skates with a “click-click” and maneuvered loops around the bedroom carpets.

Between me and the Disney on Ice program that cost half a kidney (we’re suckers, us parents at Disney on Ice, dragging our daughters dressed as Princesses past the stalls of Disney paraphernalia), I’m sure we’ll remember that spectacular, out-of-the-ordinary evening.

But the ordinary days made up of ordinary moments are so deliciously comfortable, if we stop to take note. At the time, those laundry piles and cluttered bathrooms seem like an annoying interlude between acts of greatness. Yet the interlude is essential to build excitement for the coming act. Let’s not rush through the ordinary interludes. Let’s take note and appreciate for what it is: I’ve got front row seats to Simba on Ice and to Little Friend/Baby Simba whirling around the nursery ice rink. I’m ever so grateful for the ordinary making the extraordinary possible.

Disney-Not-On-Ice is worth cherishing too.

I’m joining in with Lisa Jo Baker on Five Minute Friday. Today’s prompt is “Ordinary.”

Comments (5)

Beloved

By Beth · Comments (4) · February 15th, 2013

The way she pads down the steps after quiet time, one halting footstep at a time, hand slithering down the banister, she is beloved.

The way she tells me this story, “Isn’t this silly, Mom? I went to the bathroom and I told myself ‘don’t shut the door’ but you know what? I shut the door anyway!”, she is beloved.

The way her hair flops over her eye, and with two years of practice, she flips her head and brushes with her hand to clear her vision, she is beloved.

The way she returns downstairs, clutching a pink and purple unicorn with obscenely large eyes, to wonder with hands raised and shoulders shrugged almost cartoonishly, “Wait, how am I going to do the rest of my quiet time if my door is closed?”, she is beloved.

The way her eyes twinkle, she is beloved.

The little ways that are the She of today and only today, she is beloved.

And I think to myself what a tiny grain of sand it takes to be loved. Our tiniest of gestures, flicks of hair, twinkle of eyes, these things are worthy of loving. We don’t love them enough. We don’t stop enough to love them in another. But in the small, quiet moments when we do stop…do notice…how great, then, is the tide of love that swamps all else? It’s life’s greatest present that comes in the tiniest package: to love and be loved.

This five minute portrait of my afternoon is brought to you compliments of Lisa Jo Baker’s weekly Five Minute Friday writing prompt.