We Carry Them

We are both wearing babies, me and this girl, barely eight.
I am folding laundry and she is walking for water, or for food,
or away from bullets, from fire, from rape. We are both barefoot,
but I am standing on carpet and she is crossing sand,
wading through deserts. We have both made our carrying cloths
but mine is soft and clean while hers is a tired shawl, barely a rag.

I want to take her into my house and hold the baby so she can rest.
I want to feed her macaroni and cheese, to give her my shoes and
my good jacket. I want to knit her a hat and make the baby a blanket.
I want to tell her that wherever she is going, she will find shelter
and that the baby will live.

It's easy to have these good intentions towards a photograph.
Nothing is required but sympathy, that delicate ache that rises and falls
like an ocean swell....and that can be just as fleeting. It would be
easy to turn away from the picture and forget both of them by the time
I finish putting away towels. Chalk it up to a moment of rich American guilt
and move on. After all, the things I want to do are silly and impossible.
She's half a world away, buried under war and hunger and plague like
a survivor of earthquake under a collapsed house. It seems foolish-- even arrogant-- to think that I can do one thing to help her or the thousands upon thousands like her. It's like trying to stop the tsunami of human pain with
a bucket.

But I know Someone who can help her, who knows her name and the name of
the baby on her back, Someone who fathers the fatherless. When I pray for her,
He listens. And I have to believe that my kindness matters, even if she can't receive it herself. All of the tiny threads of love-- carrying my child, cooking for my daughter, teaching little ones about God, giving what I have so that others may go serve-- form a web that can blanket the world. I cannot love her but I can love those within my reach, and they may love those in their reach, and link by link the chain stretches even to Africa. Blessed are the feet that may take her the gospel, blessed are the hands that may give her a cup of cold water cold water in His name. May my feet and hands be blessings to those in front of me.

Ether

You pull me out of the ether
down from the nebulous dark

When my heart drifts,
a black balloon under blacker clouds,
you tether me to earth
with your cry, your hunger,
your relentless need.

I never knew that
helplessness could be so powerful
that you are caring for me
by your inability
to care for yourself.
Your fear makes me
brave
Your weakness gives me
strength

You pull me down out of the ether
out of the nebulous dark
You shepherd me through storms
until we rest by still waters,
until we sleep on solid ground.

A Laundry Prayer

Lord,

Thank you for this pile of laundry.

Thank you
that my house is filled with people whom I love
who have health and vigor enough to get dirty,
who live and laugh well in their clothes,
which you have provided.

Thank you
for machines to help me wash and dry,
for the little hands that help me fold,
for the closets and drawers to hold what is clean.

Thank you
for baby drool on my t-shirts
and chocolate milk spots on my daughter's playdress,
for the endless parade of dirty work socks in my husband's boots.
These things are the footprints of blessing
and if those footprints are at times muddy,
it is a grace that we may tidy up in their path.

Skinny Saturdays: What Goes Up

Today was my first week back on the Weight Watcher wagon and I went up-- seven ounces. Not the most spectacular start, but in some ways it's more motivating than a loss. I remember now how hard it is to lose weight and how much focus, drive, and genuine lifestyle change is required. I have to ask myself why I'm back on the program-- to convince myself I'm making an effort so I can feel better or to truly change my relationship with food so I can live better.

I'd like to say I know for sure which one it is. I'm not thrilled at the thought of giving up the drive-thru hamburgers and french fries, the chocolate and the cookies; I'm not ecstatic at resuming my clumsy and awkward attempts at an exercise regime. Eating wrong is effortless. This time around, I'm more aware of what is required for long-term weight loss. Life overhaul anyone?

Small starts. This week is the launch of my incredible ingeniously inspired Pounds of Yarn project. Fast food is keeping me fat. The illusion of convenience, the easy gratification....it's looking for love in all the wrong places. I needed to find something I loved more than Wendy's. Hello yarn.

For some reason, I have lately been struck by the inexplicable desire to Knit Something Big. Something exquisite, something indulgent, something voluptuous. Then, as if the stars themselves were aligned for me, I discovered Cherry Tree Hill's design contest, a challenge featuring their beautiful new line of semi-solid hand-dyed yarn. The rules called for substantial garments of at least six skeins, which fit my Big Knitting dream perfectly.

So over the next few weeks, the twenty bucks a week I've been blowing on artery-killing hamburgers will be going for yarn. I'm designing a full skirt that will satisfy my knitting muse and keep me out of the drive-through. My goal is to be at least five pounds smaller by the contest deadline, which is Dec. 31st. What will triumph....fiber or french fries?

Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the next Skinny Saturday update.

my biggest fiber obsession, sponsors a design contest every year, and this year's challenge features a beautiful new line of hand-dyed semi-solid yarns that just beg to be knit into something glorious. The contest requires at least six skeins of yarn, which is no small investment.

Little Pretty Things

I love etsy.com! It's become quite an addiction-- who can resist beautiful handmade pretties, especially when you have two little girls? My latest find was these two headbands from bohosoulchild, a spunky little accessories boutique. I couldn't resist posting a picture or two of my ladies modeling their fashionable new look.





Aren't they cute?

Blogging Baby: My Sling Makes Me Brave

When my daughter River was about three weeks, her older sister Ember and I were in serious need of a change in routine. A walk to the playground was not going to cut it this time-- we needed to emerge from the New Baby Cave and do something radical. I took her to the beach. By myself.

How does a mother survive a trip to the ocean with a three year old and a three week old? I had a plan of action, plenty of snacks, extra pairs of underwear for everyone.... and I had my wrap sling. We came, we swam, we conquered. No one drowned or disappeared or lost a sandal. Cue the superhero music.

Now I am not one of those mothers who are blessed with organizational skills that make five star generals turn green with envy. I am...scattered...more often than I would like to admit and still learning how to properly keep my home, my kids, and my husband (who needs more care and feeding than he'd like to admit). I don't have a daily planner or a dry erase board with a week's worth of projects assigned to their neat, orderly boxes.

I do have a sling.

You see, wearing my baby makes me brave. With River tucked up on my chest, a modern day papoose, I feel that I can go anywhere or do anything. I can clean house! With a newborn! I can go to the beach in the middle of tourist season! I can go grocery shopping or clothes shopping without fear! I can even go to my local writer's group without worrying whether or not my baby will meltdown in the middle of the group reading. I have my baby sing and I have my breasts and that's all I need for a happy, secure little girl.

People tell me that River seems like such a "good" baby-- a term I have never liked because what mother wants to be told her baby is "bad"-- because she is so contented. She is pretty easy going but I don't think its just her disposition that makes people marvel at how peaceful she is. For most of her day, from the time we roll out of bed until the time we tuck in for the night, she is worn. We do everything together and the benefits are already obvious. She is bright and curious about her world. The prolonged periods of fussing I expected with an infant have never happened. Nursing usually solves her moments of unhappiness and when that doesn't work, a ride in the sling is like magic.

Sometimes I wonder how much "progress" helps us as mothers. At one time, everyone wore their children. Then we became more civilized-- supposedly-- and caring for young children became more and more like a battle...parents vs. the relentless demand for attention that comes with a newborn. Popular theories advise parents to "show their kids who's boss" and "let them cry it out" and are based in the assumption that a newborn is a manipulative little tyrant. Hold your baby and you'll ruin her for sure! This same logic encourages women to force their babies onto a nursing schedule and wean early because it is more convenient than prolonged breastfeeding.

These theorists forget that maybe babies just want to be held, that maybe the Creator designed them that way. My daughter Ember was worn much of the time and breastfed until she was two and a half, and she is nothing like the spoiled, clingy baby the "experts" said I would create by these practices. I look at River and see a beautiful peace that comes when she is in the sling and I know that this is how we were designed. It just fits. Instead of controlling my life, my babywearing allows me to include River in our daily routines, meeting her needs for comfort and security while still getting my work done. It makes me believe in myself as a mother-- that yes, I can love and nurture two children and still get the dishes done most of the time.

Babywearing makes me brave.

Blogging Baby: Mothering Deconstructed

Tonight, I'm ripping apart a half-finished nightgown I was knitting for River. I started it a month or so before her birth, visions of a cherubic infant clad in an organic cotton sleeper dancing in my head. A serious pattern misstep led me to set the project aside and I've just now picked it up again. My first intention was to finish the project...until I held it up and realized it was long enough to cover two of River. The real baby-- the one in my arms-- looked quite different than the dream baby I saw while I was knitting.

Mothering is like that too these days.
I prayed for River for almost a year, carried her for nine months, and birthed her; I carry her next to my chest, over my heart, and give her milk that my own body has made-- even if it's three in the morning. But will I be a nominee for the Bad Mama awards if I admit that there are times-- daily-- when I miss life before this much-loved little tornado came into ours lives? While I couldn't imagine not having River, I find myself missing the days when life was routine and predictable. Everything fit into a pattern, like my knitting project. Now all of a sudden there's a newborn around and nothing is business as usual. Bedtimes, naptimes, housecleaning, cooking, bath times, play time....all have an added dimension of challenge. I find myself looking at this stage of mothering like I looked at my baby nightgown-- quite different from the mothering to which I had grown accustomed with Ember.

So I find myself ripping out those ideas too. I'm not the mother I was before River came. Instead of a mother of one, I am a mother of two. When I started to unravel the flawed nightgown, I was surprised at how much relief I felt. I was surrendering my idea of how things were supposed to be and accepting how they were so I could make something better. The same goes for mothering my two little ones. What worked before may not work now but that's where God's grace comes in. He sustains me, daily, while I put together a new pattern, one that fits the joys and challenges of our growing family. I don't know what the finished project will look like but I can rejoice in the process because it's not my work alone but His work in me that will bring us to what He meant for my home to be.