Mothering - Ashleigh Baker

on nurturing

One would think, I told myself, choosing nurture as one’s word for the year would necessitate a kind of gentle life, a quiet realm, a soft and soothing environment in which to nurture whatever it is one wishes to nurture.

Last year my word was release.

It wasn’t a word I chose, but rather, a word which found me late in January, several weeks after I’d given up with possible words and had p’shawed the idea of choosing a “word of the year” as faddish and unnecessary.

But a friend, beloved, spoke release over me and, unbidden, it followed me all year, showing up in every major event of 2012. Release of ideals, of expectations, of old bitternesses, hangups and grudges. It called for the heartrending release of unhealthy relationships and even release in the form of long-suspected-but-finally-diagnosed-and-treated health issues.

Twenty-thirteen.

This year, I remained ambivalent to the idea of a word. If I was supposed to have a word for the year, it would happen. If not, I wouldn’t fret.

But a few days after Christmas, everything I’d felt swirling in my breast on the cusp of 2013 settled into one thought and, eyes flashing, I turned to John and exclaimed, “Nurture! My word!”

He nodded, yes, yes. That does seem to fit, doesn’t it?

Yesterday I made plans to spend the day in my favorite coffee shop, at my favorite laminate table in the far back corner, sipping my favorite extra large latte while turning phrases and weaving words on my little white laptop. Other than a few quick tidbits to do for work (did I tell you I started a new job last fall?) I anticipated seven whole glorious hours without any responsibilities.

As life goes, the “hour or so” of work turned into six hours of work-related busyness and the sun was down and the baristas were washing out the coffee pots for the night before I had typed one quality sentence.

So I wrote for the final quarter hour of coffee shop time. Then I drove across the highway to an open bookstore and pounded the keys for another sixty minutes. Then I rolled the twenty miles home, said some lofty words to my husband and brother about the process of combining art and work and play, and then went to sleep at midnight fantasizing about a pre-dawn wake up for quiet thought-gathering and a bit of stolen writing time. The baby woke an hour later for a three-hour party and I stayed in bed until seven o’clock, time to get the big boys ready for school, to plan supper, to prepare for today’s conference call.

sleepy boys, working mama

I joked to a friend a few days ago that I should change my word from nurture to survive, because 2013 is already shaping up to hold more than its fair share of crazy. How could I nurture anything – writing, my children, my marriage, relationships, my husband’s aspirations, my own dreams or our family goals – if I’m living on adrenaline and I crash by 10pm each night?

Isn’t that the point? she asked. Doesn’t nurture mean it’ll take some extra effort?

2013 is my year to cultivate those hidden plans and dreams, to grow the way I love my dear ones and cheer for them in their own pursuits, to work toward our big family goals.

Nurture doesn’t equate fulfillment; it speaks of plugging along, stealing moments here and there, viewing life through the lens of priorities and aspirations. It’s a yearning and focused passion through of the hum of full and hectic family life, in all of its imperfect, blissfully busy glory.

So here’s to cultivating and not simply surviving. Nurturing… even still.

January 23, 2013 12 Comments Filed Under: Create, Mothering, Story

dear merritt

I remember the day I discovered you were there, nestled under my heart. I’d been sick for two weeks and felt your existence already, but your older brother hadn’t yet reached his first birthday and denial is a powerful force.

That day I finally stopped at the drug store, went home and saw the two blue lines, walked downstairs and gave your daddy a half smile and he grinned.

“Well,” I shrugged. “I guess that’s that. What are we going to do?”

Your daddy laughed there, drying dishes in the kitchen of our desert house. “Well, we’re going to have a baby.”

Do you know you introduced me to hopeful resilience?

I remember the morning you began your entrance into the world and I told your daddy to stay home from work. We walked through a glitzy spiraling shopping mall, willing strength into each labor surge. My water broke in Gap Maternity and four hours later you emerged into the warm pool of an oversized bathtub, your shoulders so broad I had to stand quickly and work your body out of my own. I collapsed and held you to my chest while you blinked at the world, at me, at your daddy’s lovestruck eyes.

Do you know you taught me beautiful endurance?

When you were nine weeks old, your daddy traveled to a sandy spot across the globe and spent eight months there, so far from us. I was 21 and I was afraid and I was mama to two very tiny boys. The evenings were thick with silence and I was heavy with apprehension. On cue, you snuggled closer those nights, sleeping soundly, waking late, napping easily, taking in the world with your gentle old soul. I nursed you through the quiet moments and the loud days, and you soothed my heart with your smile. You assured me we’d make it with your cocoa hued eyes.

Do you know you gifted me with undeserved confidence?

You’re my strong boy, the fighter, the lover, the stubborn one, the loyal one. You’re alternately pensive and passionate, quiet thinker and wannabe stand up comedian. You’re a coffee drinker and a skinny jeans wearer and you know exactly what you like. You’re a Jesus lover without coercion. You don’t back down, you never give up, you go in when everyone else is retreating. You defend the ones you love and you defend your own honor and you give mercy easily when you deem it justified. I shake my head at you, my warrior boy, and I wonder at your passion. You’re mighty in spirit.

Did you know you’ve shown me strength?

Happy 5th Birthday to my Merritt Will. I can’t imagine who I’d be without you.

November 1, 2012 15 Comments Filed Under: Mothering

on lunches

In three weeks, my biggest boy will walk between two heavy glass doors, down two longs hallways and into the start of first grade.

You may remember my apprehension last summer. I hadn’t been inside a school since my own first grade year and I approached the sending of my boy to a classroom with more than a little fear and trembling. The schedule, the structure, the supplies – it was all foreign to homeschool-graduate me. I hadn’t yet learned how to navigate school halls, manage a PTO event, set out the correct shoes for P.E. day, deal with the mountains of paperwork.

How was I to know even lunches had a learning curve? We started the year with peanut butter and jelly, but Troy prefers turkey breast and cheese with a little mayo. Granola bars are too crumbly for snacks, and bananas will only survive the trip if they are still bright yellow. Fruit cups are too hard to open at the lunch table. But pudding? Always good. As are cheese cubes, cheese sticks, cheese slices, cheesecheesecheese. And apparently there is a lunch hierarchy. Boiled eggs? Cool lunch. Mac and cheese in a thermos? Awesome. Goldfish? Not so cool.

And then I discovered the bell bottom jeans of the kindergarten lunch world. GoGoSqueez. Those green pouches of applesauce had become the status symbol of lunches at Troy’s lunch table, which he made clear by dancing and grinning and pointing in the grocery aisle. And who was I to say no? Natural, good ingredients, easy peasy for tossing into school lunches. We settled in to a lunch routine: turkey sandwich, GoGoSqueez, grapes, cheese stick. Sometimes a pudding, a cookie, a boiled egg.

I figure, to each his own. In my crowd? It was cool to wear our hair in braids and make our own clothes. In Troy’s? It’s all about the applesauce packets and boiled eggs.

Here’s to first grade, little man, and to everything we’ll learn together.

***

Beginning in September, a few friends and I are planning to devote one day each week to writing about our parenting journey. I’m just warming up a bit, so for now, will you join me by telling me something you’ve learned thanks to a child?

***

Speaking of going back to school, you don’t want to miss the grandiose Big Bad Back To School Bash! Ten individual prizes, one great grand prize, over $1500 of gear and gifts. Pretty spectacular!

Disclosure: GoGoSqueez sponsored one of the prizes for the Back To School Bash. But we haven’t been compensated in any other way for the opinions of this household – my boys just really love applesauce packets with cool little twist-off caps.

August 15, 2012 9 Comments Filed Under: 300 words, Mothering

on the mess

Let the house be a mess. Let the house be a mess. Let the house be a freaking mess.

I don’t know where it was I picked up this idea that the measure of a woman is the state of her house.

But somewhere along the road I grabbed the handle of a heavy suitcase that had no wheels but did have the word “perfection” emblazoned on its side. I’ve lugged it behind me these eight years of homekeeping.

Perhaps the road was named “worth” and its cross street called “woman’s duties” but I traversed it willingly, happily in the beginning. I’m an all-or-nothing girl who takes any decent cause and cheers it until it’s become a weight around my neck.

So it is with this house of mine.

My chest gets tight when my eyes behold clutter and I can’t rest if there are breakfast bowls beside the sink and I can’t go to the park if I’ve left laundry folded on the couch, can I?

The converse, in true extremist fashion, is that when I have to do exactly that – leave the laundry or the million tiny bits of paper cut by safety scissors – I decide it’s not worth trying because it will never be just right and let’s all just raise our hands and give up already.

It’s just a house, isn’t it? But it’s three stories tall and each one the size of the little cottage we called home before this. And it’s bathrooms with toothpaste in the sink and so much light carpet for both the black dog and the vacuum to cover. It’s a sink full of dishes and guest room sheets to wash and a basement of scattered toys and couch pillows and did I mention all the vacuuming?

It’s ungrateful, I know, and absurd, I’m sure, to say that the house is just too big when so many wish for any house at all or for more space for little legs to jump and toddle, for voices to laugh and carry. And this house, a true gift in its rental price to fit our budget and its yard and the wooden playhouse. How spoiled can one family be?

But still I tense my shoulders and mutter under my breath. I run around the furniture, picking up toys and straightening the blankets tossed over the couch and picking little pieces of black dog hair from the carpet to keep from having to pull out the vacuum for once. I sigh over the bathrooms and the toys and that one office-slash-craft room we can never seem to get set up properly.

I counted one day how many times I take the stairs and lost count after fifteen. The baby startles in my arms at the speed with which we fly up and down these two flights.

This thing is good, you know? The life we live – the way my husband works hard and I work hard and my part of this partnership is to mother the tiny ones. This house – its tall windows and big white mantle. I’m feeling it right to call this place home and I’m learning to again treasure my privileged place in this family as dwelling keeper and maker of a lovely abode. I’ve left the road called “have to” and now walk along “get to.”

But still, I stand on the grass of this white giant of a place, smile a bit and shake my head at it.

I’m not going to live for the house. I’m going to live from the house.

In fact, I’m going to live from the house.

Oh, I’ll clean it. I’ll wipe my counters and scrub my toilets and I’ll vacuum all three levels.

But I’ll leave those stacks of books beside the couch and I’ll leave the house with dishes in the sink. I’ll let friends pop in when the basement is a wreck and I’ll nod politely to the blocks and action figures on my way up to bed and tell them

I have too much life to live.

”Funny, isn’t it,” I said to John the other night, “the way it feels a little more homey when it’s all slightly messy around here?”

“You mean,” he smirked slightly, “it feels like people actually live here?”

Let the house be a mess. Calm down and breathe and let the thing be a mess.

August 10, 2012 16 Comments Filed Under: Create, Mothering

tired art

Last week I may have stormed up to my room.

I may have closed my door harder than intended (or perhaps, yes, as intended) and then I may have curled my legs to my chest, leaning back against the door of my big, messy closet.

I may have banged the crown of my head against the hanging mirror before realizing it likely wasn’t a good idea if I hoped to keep the mirror.

I may have gritted my teeth and lamented bitterly to myself about the lack of time and the exhaustion and the need need need to create and to write words and to think about something other than laundry.

My baby is three months old and the fog of pregnancy clears slowly.

I’ve been scribbling notes here and there, on napkins and in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes.

What does it mean to combine art and motherhood?

I’m typing now with a boy kneeling beside me, yellow paper ears stapled together and tied precariously to his head with blue yarn. The baby is learning to roll from side to side and my middle boy is hungry again.

I’m writing now, listening to the big boys whoop their way from chair to bar stool to piano bench to floor. Shelton is asleep upstairs but I hear him stirring on the monitor. Who could sleep through all this hollering?

I’m tapping my keyboard now, sitting at a tiny corner table in a coffee shop. My guy came home from work and shooed me out the door because my piano student canceled and the baby decided he didn’t mind sipping his mama milk from a bottle if Daddy holds it.

I’m sitting in the quiet now, a grey Virginia summer morning. Yesterday John and I took a grocery list and a few dollars to Costco for a date night of cereal and chicken breasts, pineapple and celery. We talked of life and goals and dreams and us. Later, the big boys asked to sleep in the basement and watch a movie. We said yes, because it is summer after all, but we heard their feet tiptoeing upstairs before midnight and we laughed.

art + motherhood