what to grow

"How are things?"

"Good! We're good, tired but good."

"And how's Mazzy doing with a new baby in the house?"

"Oh, fine. She's taken to Jeff now and she's very good with the baby. Very gentle."

"But how are you holding up?"

"Oh, good. Tired, but good."

These are the questions I get from nearly everyone these days. And those are my standard responses.

Why does everyone ask almost the same questions? Because everyone with any kind of child care experience at all knows that caring for such a young toddler and a newborn together is hard. Really hard. And those with just a little more experience can intuit a lot. They know that Mazzy doesn't understand why a new baby suddenly has to come first every time. They know that poor Sydney is usually getting her needs met last. They know that I feel guilt when I have to choose one's needs over the other, and they know that there are many moments when all of them have needs, demands, desires and they're all breaking down at the same time, and the cacophony of children's cries and whines makes me want to lock myself in the bathroom. They know that sometimes I do.

Why do I give the same standard responses? Because I'm far from the first mom to have closely spaced children, and because there are ups and downs to every day, and because we muddle through, one day at a time, just like everyone else, and because it's all temporary. Quite temporary.

Its temporary nature is in fact what's weighing most on me lately.

This time, I was lucky to have an easy birth that allowed me to bounce back quickly. As is my nature, I could hardly wait to do all the things I couldn't do when pregnant. I had significant back pain in my third trimester this pregnancy, impairing my physical capabilities since around March of this year. So much of the garden work I'd been planning to do had to be crossed off my list. When Livvy was born easily and my recovery happened quickly, I jumped headlong into the garden work.

I got quite a bit accomplished. Here's a picture of the back garden (my pet project). Take a good look because it's not going to look any better than this from here on out this season.

I miss my Mazzy. I remember missing Sydney like this when Mazzy was born. Now that Livvy is here, I miss Mazzy. I think it must be my natural reaction to losing the next "baby" up. But sadly, I actually miss Livvy this time too. She's here all the time, as are Mazzy & Sydney, but I find myself trying to put her down or hand her off or push her to be okay by herself more than I ever did the other two.

And when I do get her off me long enough to accomplish something, what am I doing? Reading to Sydney? Playing with Mazzy? Crafting with Sydney or dancing with Mazzy? Taking videos of the fun things the kids are doing that they won't be doing next week and will thus be lost from our memories? Nope, nope, nope & nope. I'm tending the garden. Weeding, mulching, row covers, mixing up an organic fertilizer.

When I'm nursing this lovely, cuddly little newborn, am I soaking it in, knowing we would like this to be our last baby? Nope again. I'm at the keyboard one-handed, Googling potash and grasshoppers and black plastic.

I'm tired of being frustrated and torn. I feel like I've been frustrated and torn all Spring and Summer this year, and I want to scream at myself: "Enough!"

There's really nothing to be frustrated and torn about. The lay of the land is pretty darn clear here if you take the bird's eye look for a minute.

The garden will come back next year. The garden and I will start anew and its only recollection of this year will be that the soil improvements we did have made it stronger, healthier, & more productive.

The children will grow a full year between now and then, and we'll never get that time back. Sydney is forming memories that will last a lifetime now. Mazzy and Livvy are having their personalities formed and their security in this world shaped at an unbelievable rate. We won't start anew next year. We'll start smack dab in the middle of our developing relationships.

I want that to be a good place. I want those memories. I want pictures and videos and crafts and bonding and lots of nursing, rocking, soothing baby love. Like I said, we'd really like Livvy to be our last baby. I want to bask in her newborn days.

Our friends at WindDance are easily carrying the CSA, just as we intended for this year. Our animals are largely self sufficient right now. And our local farmer's market has lots of wonderful vendors who sell any kind of veggies we might be looking for and whose families I'd be proud to support.

So enjoy the garden pictures here before the weeds and insects take hold, because I'm unashamedly pushing the garden work to the back burner for the rest of the summer to enjoy my three little girls.

Unidentified Random Squash

The Buckwheat Field (this winter's chicken & guinea feed)

The Sunflower Row

Front Garden Tomatoes

my quick apologies to those of my readers who get my blog notifications through RSS feed or email. i hated to flood your readers with four testing posts. if there's a way to test your blog live without triggering your notifications, i'd love to hear it!

and one more makes...

Two dogs, five chickens, one goat, one fish, one part-time cat, two parents, two children, and one newborn.

She's here! She's here, she's gorgeous, she's just like the other two (wear me nurse me sleep by me and we're all good), nothing like the other two (our combined genes can look like this too?!), and exactly like herself. Leggy like a little frog, dark blue eyes that capture you and don't let go, a furrowed brow, grasping fists that cling to your shirt already, long lean arms that make a wide circle when she startles.

Little Livvy's here and she's beautiful and she's so little. And so is Mazzy. And so is Sydney, although it's easy to forget it. Three little ones with three sets of needs now, often competing to be heard first, loudest. There's Jeff and myself in the middle, and there's lots of exhausting days full of hairy moments that we tag team all the way up until bedtime when we're too tired to even vegetate in front of a tv show.

That's okay. We've been down this road twice before. The road might be a little more rough, but it's familiar. We know how to navigate it, and we know the crazy intensity of newborn days lasts a short time in the grand scheme of things. And besides, we know that babies don't always come easily, on your timetable. Riding under all the stress and noise and exhaustion is an overwhelming knowledge that we are blessed to have these three children. These exact, unique three children.

As usual, I'm having a hard time slowing down to enjoy the exact, unique gifts Life has given me. On our current horizon, we have:

The New House
They are starting our basement Monday. Yes, this Monday! We've been waiting for this for so long, it's hard to believe the time is finally here. I'm so looking forward to experiencing the homebuilding from start to finish, and knowing our future home inside and out.

The Gardens
Man, am I ever kicking myself for not doing more on these before the baby came. Jeff has been great in reminding me that I had awful back pain for nearly the whole third trimester, so I shouldn't feel too guilty for not having more forethought. He has also been great at helping with the more undesirable and monotonous tasks (read: weeding and mulching).

I finally gave in to black plastic mulch for week control. Although I'm not a fan of plastic at all, anywhere, let alone around our food, after much deliberation I decided it would be better to have vegetables than to let them die from weeds gone wild. Realistically, I have a newborn and a toddler in the house and realistically, neither my husband nor my seven year old wakes up on any given day thinking, "I can't wait to get out to the garden and fight some more weeds!" (Strangely, I do often think those exact thoughts these days, but I digress.) So, realistically, it would be me fighting those weeds, all by myself. And it would be me fighting the plague of grasshoppers colonizing themselves in those weeds. And it would be me doing all of this with a baby slung on the front, while I try to cover her tender newborn skin from the glaring, unrelenting sun.

Yeah. So I chose to bend my own rules so I could do one weeding and mulching job, albeit a much bigger one, and then forget it the rest of the summer and enjoy the limited time I had out there.

The Current House
The kids and I recently had the chance to get away for a couple days to my dear friend Kate's house. It was the perfect opportunity to assess some of the issues in my current house (and household). We spent late night hours talking about how to solve some organization dilemmas, how to motivate Sydney to do some regular chores within her ability level, and some nitty-gritty details on how to keep the house in guest-clean condition at all times. These things are not my forte - I needed a friend to help me brainstorm.

When we got home, I had renewed energy to put into getting our current house into better shape and a plan for keeping it that way.

Community
Now that my energy level is back, so is my desire to build a community around us for both myself and the children. I've been trying to attend more playgroups in the attachment parenting group I started here, and I'm also looking forward to being able to join in the special events at our church/homeschool co-op again soon.

As the queen of ridiculous to-do lists and wildly unrealistic expectations of what I can accomplish in a day, it's been hard to decide just what should come first each day. Some tasks have an obvious time frame, others a tight deadline, and others seem never-ending. If you asked me, I'd always say the children are my priority. But my actions often betray my words on this, and I usually go to bed feeling guilty for not spending more focused time with them instead of these other things. I fear that my words say, "I love you and value you," but my daily actions say, "Everything else is more important to me than you are."

My usual routine is to spend the first 20 minutes of my day nursing the baby as I plan what I want to accomplish that day. This bears repeating. I spend 20 minutes planning what I want to accomplish that day. But last night, as I was guiltily recounting the times I pushed the kids off to do something else, the times I greeted them with irritation instead of a smile, and the times I said, "Not now" (because I'm doing something more important right now), I thought about that morning routine.

What if, instead of spending those first 20 minutes asking myself, "What do I want to accomplish today?" I spent those first 20 minutes prayerfully asking, "What am I meant for today?"

This morning I did just that. And funny enough, as usual, I didn't exactly get the answer I wanted. This morning, there was no garden on the list, no computer work, no home organization overhaul. There was:

• prepare and feed the children nutritious foods to help their immune system (Mazzy has been sick)
• do laundry
• do dishes/clean kitchen
• do something special for or with Sydney
• nurse Mazzy as much as possible

In my head, I kept saying, "But the garden, the garden! I've worked so hard & my work will be wasted if I don't eradicate these grasshoppers and their weedy habitat!"

To which the following was added to my list:

• ask yourself what you can do for Jeff today
• ask Jeff to take care of a couple things in the garden you can't get to in time

I always am surprised and amazed at how a true and open heart in prayer can reveal things I'd never have come to on my own. I nixed the garden from my own to-do list today, even though I didn't want to, and guess what? Jeff offered to help finish some of my garden work before he left for his job today, I stuck to my smaller, less exotic list today, and I had quite a bit of patience and joy despite a cranky sick toddler and a naturally needy newborn.

I wonder, what am I meant for tomorrow? And the day after that, and after that? How might my life change if I asked that question each day with a true and open heart?

So many thoughts like this - thoughts that have the potential to bring about real change - have been stewing lately. I got the chance to grab this one and record it. Usually the days are too fast for blogging right now. And that's okay. There are those times in life where the ride is too wild to do much besides hang on for dear life and try like mad to enjoy yourself. Writing might have to take the back seat for a bit, because this is definitely one of those times.