2) Enjoy what is beautiful in life. Go look at the river, the trees, the cacti, the people in the city, the gorgeous works we have taken the time to create from paint, clay, music and movement.
3) Get outside; we went snowshoeing last weekend for an hour or so. It was a sunny winter day, not too cold, and it was fantastic to be out of doors. It was a free event; look for them, locals, at the Wapsi and Nahant Marsh, or any naturalist center in your vicinity.
4) Do what makes you come alive, feel happy, enthusiastic.
I just found a note from 2005. I had four small children, the youngest was a baby, the oldest 8. It was a list of my accomplishments for the day, insanity:
-pumped milk for another baby
-led a parenting class at church (most likely after getting 5 children church-ready and there on time)
-baked 5 loaves of bread
-baked a chocolate cake
-dishes
-nursed baby, changed baby (15 times)
-carried baby when not being fed or changed
-had a play date at my house
-hoed the garden and planted: carrots, sugar snap peas, spinach and radishes
-washed the cloth diapers
-cooked dinner while bathing 3 kids and nursing
-read Chapter 5 of "The Magician's Nephew" aloud
-put kids to bed, nursed baby
Why?
Mostly, I was doing all of the things I wanted to do. I wanted a big family and I want to be here with them. It must have been a day when my husband was working out of town. Besides, this was pretty much a typical day for me.
Last
night I watched a news report on communities that are teaching children
about bio-dynamic agriculture and exploring nature in a place where
time has slowed back down to natural rhythms. It sounds very much like a
real Waldorf school. It also sounds heavenly. I would very much like
this for my family.
The
two teens say there's no turning back. They are used to their world and
comfortable in it. I am glad they find happiness in their day-to-day lives, but I also say this way leads to madness, along with
grumpiness, feeling unfulfilled as a human being and overweight to
boot. To each his own...but I am probably right.
But I try to remember to compromise, after all, did it make me happy to see my favorite apron out in the yard on a snow woman? No, but it did please me to see the kids outside making snow people. Even the ones I cannot publish on a family blog because of the visual effects one can add with spray paint these days, rendering perfectly inoffensive snow people a perfect menace to the neighborhood.
One last snowman; the littlest one, made by my littlest child, all alone in the dark, (and happy as a clam, a clam who is not in the dark in the snow):
Oh, I loved your post! And how true! One thing I think steals the most life, is ironically the one you shared your thoughts on. Funny isn't it? I have lately made conscious efforts to reduce my screen time and do more reading, baking etc. Your littlest snowman is perfect. Just like its creator!
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