dinner: it takes a family

Does one person take responsibility for getting dinner on the table in your house?  I love to cook, so that's how it used to be around here.  That changed when I started tutoring in the afternoons/evenings almost a decade ago.  I never sat down to map out a new plan, but one evolved.

Monday is my busiest day: I grocery shop and write/edit in the morning, tutor at my house from 12pm to 5pm, then leave for the evening at 5:30, dropping Olivia at her three hour swim practice on my way to a writer's meeting that usually ends around 9:15.

Here is how this past Monday night's dinner found its way to our table:

On Sunday night, I marinated a flank steak and stuck in the fridge for overnight.  When I finished tutoring at 5pm the next day, I chopped up some bok choy and garlic and left them in a bowl next to the stove.  Then, just before leaving with Olivia at 5:30, I put millet on the stove to cook and left Gareth to watch over it.  Gareth did his homework on the bar in our kitchen so he could keep an eye on the pot.  When the Millet finished cooking, he took it off the heat and carried on with his homework. 

Steve arrived home thirty minutes later, grilled the marinated flank steak, put it in the fridge, then left with Gareth to coach Gareth's soccer practice.  When we all arrived home at 9:30pm (egad!), Olivia set the table, Gareth poured drinks, Steve cut the meat, I sauteed the bok choy and garlic, someone served the millet and voila!– dinner was served.

Craziness!

If you're thinking we're insane to dine so late, you're right, but we do it on some nights because it's the only time we can eat together.  And if my Monday night sounds like a logistical nightmare, I should tell you I didn't plan it.

It just happened.

I do try to plan simpler dinners on crazier nights, but as to how it gets prepared? I wing it.  It's just a matter of doling out responsibilities according to skills and availability.  And all kids have skills.  They can wash, peel and chop vegetables, cook rice or pasta, stir soups, baste meats, start the grill, and wash dishes. 

You'd be surprised, even the littlest fingers can peel garlic, which happens to be the most annoying job in the kitchen!  Olivia has peeled piles of it for me over the years, usually while sitting in front of her latest show.  I send her off with a whole head and she comes back with this beautiful pile of shiny cloves.  Just don't ask me where all those papery skins end up. 

Through this process of sharing responsibility, we discovered that dinner is not one job, but many.  And the cook?  Not one person, but one family.

Tag-teaming dinner has more than practical benefits.  Cooking teaches kids that we all need to take responsibility for the food we eat (mom is not the de facto cook in the house unless she chooses to be).  It also teaches hands-on that high quality healthy food doesn't come out of a plastic bag or a box--it comes from raw materials.  And of course, cooking teaches cooking!  If our kids go out into the world knowing how to cook, they'll be more likely to eat healthy meals made from whole foods when they are adults. 

That all sounds great, but I don't want to mislead you into thinking I have miracle children.  While Steve and I almost always tag-team dinner, the kids don't help every night, and I'm sure you can imagine the freak-out that occurs on the nights when I do ask.  The outrage, the indignity, the affront! 

Still, of all the chores we might coerce our kids into doing, this one offers the best kid-friendly payoff.  They don't care about the urine on the base of the toilet seat or the dust on the television.  But they do care about food.  You want cookies? Melt some butter.  You want homemade ranch dressing?  Get out the mayo and go cut some chives. 

Of course, like anything, cooking has a learning curve.  Years ago I left Gareth to cook a chicken while I went to tutor.  I'd cleaned and prepped it, so "all he had to do" was put the bird in the oven at 5pm then set a timer to baste it every 20 minutes.  He didn't have to worry about when it would be done because his dad would be home in time to take it out of the oven. 

Simple, right? 

When Steve arrived home at 6pm and checked on the bird, he discovered an ice-cold chicken shivering in an ice-cold oven, it's little wings tucked in tight against the frigid air.  Gareth had dutifully basted a raw chicken every twenty minutes for an hour without ever turning on the heat!  When I asked him if he noticed the chicken hadn't cooked he said, "I thought it just took a long time." 

I suppose the moral of that story is it doesn't have to be perfect (although I prefer dinner not be raw).  If you're having trouble finding time to get dinner on the table, it's okay to consider the crew of worker bees that is your family.  I know the kids are busy too, so if they have a freak-out, just remind them they don't have to make the whole meal (the point is that nobody does).  But if they want a decent homemade dinner in these hectic times, it takes a family.

don't legislate! tolerate!

Remember that bumper sticker conservatives loved after 9/11 that said “Freedom isn’t Free!?” When it came to justifying the cost of war, Republicans were all about freedom and the high price we should be willing to pay, both in dollars and in lives, to preserve it. 

I never put much credence in that argument, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the party willing to pay so dearly for freedom currently has its righteous nose pressed against my liberties at every turn.  The examples keep rolling in, fast and furious:

-Rick Santorum doesn’t think I should be allowed to use birth control

-The Republican Legislators in my state of VA don’t think I can manage my personhood and pregnancy at the same time

-Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson doesn’t think I should be allowed to vote

-Wisconsin’s Governor Walker doesn’t think hard working public servants should be allowed to bargain together for fair wages

-The north Carolina legislature doesn’t think scientists should be allowed to practice their professions and publish inconvenient data on climate change

-Lawmakers in Arizona don’t think students should read books by or about Mexicans or Native Americans. 

-Lawmakers in Florida don’t think all registered voters should vote

-Conservatives across the country don’t think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry —with some, such as those most recently in North Carolina, using their state constitutions to deny rather than confer rights to citizens 

-Michigan lawmakers join a long list of state legislators who don’t think women should have autonomy over their own bodies, pregnant or not   

-And just for some comic relief, squirmy Michigan legislators would prefer if we didn’t say the word “vagina” in their presence 

 I guess vagina is the new Voldemort – that which shall not be named. 

 Are those men in kindergarten? 

How ironic Republicans fault Democrats for running a Nanny state. As self-appointed babysitters, they’ve cornered the market on regulating personal conduct, fussing like old ninnies over our every move.

Here’s the problem: I’m all grown up, and in the process, I grew a moral conscience of my own.  With it, I can make all these decisions for myself. 

I bet you can too.

The issue here is not whether a person particularly likes Native American Literature, agrees with the threat of rising sea level, supports gay marriage or a woman’s right to choose; the question is about who gets to decide an individual’s actions as they pertain to these issues. Legislative babysitters? Or individual citizens?

We need to do a better job of separating what might be a rule in one person’s family from what should be a law in everyone’s nation.  With this clear separation, you can more easily see that one person’s right to read a book, or enter into a same sex marriage, or terminate a pregnancy, does not mean everyone else has to do it too.  My right to exercise a freedom does not infringe on your right to abstain from it, disapprove of it, or even condemn it.   

In other words, you don’t have to do it, but you do have to tolerate it. 

And that’s the true price of freedom: tolerance. 

I read a Republican slogan today that said, “Annoy a Democrat, love your country!”  Republicans are great at waving the flag and professing their love for America, but they’re not so great at loving Americans.  No.  Not so great at all. I don’t think it’s enough to love your country if you can’t tolerate the people in it.

All of this legislative babysitting is an attempt to make us all the same.  They want us to restrict immigration so we’ll all look and talk the same; censor books and science so we’ll all think the same; purge voter rolls so we’ll all vote the same; restrict marriage so our families will all be shaped the same; restrict reproductive rights so that all women will choose the same. 

That's a lot of time wasted protecting conservatives' fear of difference! 

But conservatives are right about one thing:  freedom isn’t free. They’re just wrong about the price.  Instead of paying in dollars, or in soldiers’ precious lives, we need to pay by electing officials who trust and respect Americans enough to let us choose, let us vote, let us read, let us debate, let us marry, let us control our own destinies. 

We need to pay in tolerance.   

My message for conservatives:  Don’t legislate! Tolerate! 

in search of personhood: my new job as a vaginal probe technician

I’m getting into the vaginal probe business, yes I am.  Some of you non-Virginians may not know that the VA House of Delegates passed several disturbing bills last week. 

If made into law, one would require a doctor to administer a medically unnecessary vaginal sonogram on women seeking an abortion. 

The other, the Personhood Bill, would recognize every embryo as a person from the moment of conception. This “person” would have the rights of a citizen of these United States, even though said "person" would reside inside of a woman, wholly dependent upon her body for life. 

I’m telling you, I’m going to make a killing.  I guess the Republican legislators are job creators after all.   

How will I make my money? As a vaginal probe technician.  I thought of this while tossing and turning last night, worrying about this bill and worrying about my current employment status.  I had so many RIDICULOUS questions going through my head.  Then it hit me, if I performed transvaginal sonograms, I could get rich off the personhood bill!

Just ask yourself: 

? – If an embryo is a person, will pregnant women have to pay twice for services that are charged “per person” like entrance fees, bus tickets and cab fare?  How will we determine who carries an embryo and who doesn’t?  (We don’t want women sneaking "persons" into, say, the movies for free!).  That’s where I’ll come in.  Just order popcorn for two and a vaginal probe—with butter on both—and voila! we can determine the cost of admission right there at the concession stand.  Perhaps we can enact an “embryo rate” to help ease the burden?

 ? – Can an embryo own property? Accumulate debt?  Can we open a credit card or a checking account in the name of our embryo? Sounds like we’ll need a probe at the bank. No problem; I’m on it!

? - Who owns the shared body? The embryo or the mother?  Could we sue an embryo for possession of our body?  Or perhaps sue our embryo for damages incurred to the body during pregnancy such as varicose veins, stretch marks, hermorrhoids, diabetes and death?  OK, I admit we'll need a lawyer for this one.  But I'm sure he or she will ask for the big probe at some point.  I'll be there, ready to serve!

? – Should we name our embryos upon conception? Will we need a conception certificate? How will we determine the date of conception? Should we keep conjugal logs and public records of menstruation?  Perhaps retain the services of a traveling vaginal probe technician to drop in regularly for a heartbeat check?  I'm your "man!"

? - Will our embryos get social security cards at conception and death certificates in the event of miscarriage?  Will we have to add 9 months to our age? Who will do all this data collection (probing) and data entry?  Wow – the personhood bill is an even bigger job creator than I thought!

? – Will we need embryo passports?  What will we use for passport photos? Transvaginal sonogram images, of course  Will we be able to get those at CVS like we do our other passport photos? I’ve got it covered.  

? – Should we submit sonogram pictures with our tax returns for child credits and exemption calculations?  Everyone will require a probe—I’ll make millions!

? - What about sex with pregnant women? Wouldn’t it be wrong to engage in intercourse if you’re unsure of whether such a young “person” is in the bed with you? A quick probe before conjugal relations will put your mind at ease!

? - Need an embryo’s consent for an amniocentesis? Not a problem, just fire up the probe and ask for an embryonic thumbs up.

? – Worried that a woman of childbearing age might try to sneak an embryo-of-suspicion onto an airplane?  No big deal.  We can just ask girls and women aged 13-55 to put their underwear in the bin with their shoes so that a quick probe can help to allay these concerns without holding up security.  

Of course I'm being absurd, but this kind of absurd legislation begs for an absurd response.  I can't help myself!  Yet, the Personhood Bill has a good chance of becoming a Virginia law.  If so, my 11 year old daughter will enter her reproductive years during a time when a pregnant woman must share her body with another citizen of the United States.  

I talked to Olivia about these things.  She thought the sonogram bill sounded “mean.”  She thought the personhood bill sounded “stupid.”  I thought she sounded pretty smart.

So we took our smallhouse lives to the bigpicture in Richmond this past Monday and stood in silent protest outside the state capitol.  Here we are looking like the crazy radical feminists that we are. 

Can you see the glint of maniacal red in our eyes?

Organizers counted 1,100 people standing in protest with us.  I wonder, however, how many we would have numbered had we counted each and every "person." 

Why didn't we think to bring the probe? 

"femily values:" a diatribe

I heard Rick Santorum on the radio this a.m., spouting off about “family values.” 

I gotta tell you, I am so sick of the insinuation that liberals don’t care about family.    

This isn’t a dispute between those with family values and those without.  This is a dispute about how we define a family: as a unit that subjugates women, or as one that supports women.  It matters because the family is the building block of our society: the rights of women in the nation follow after the rights of women in the family. 

If the patriarchal model espoused by social conservatives represents “family values,” then I want to advocate for “femily values.”

They look like this:

1 -  A femily gives a woman autonomy over her body, trusting her moral and intellectual acuity enough to let her choose if she’ll get pregnant, when she’ll get pregnant and whether to stay pregnant.  This way, women play a major role in shaping the femily.

2 – Femily values dictate affordable healthcare for everybody so that we can take care of ourselves, our aging parents, and our children (the members of the femily).  The U.S. infant mortality rate currently ranks among the worst of all industrialized countries.  Surely, if we come together as a femily, we can do better than that!

3 – A society rooted in femily values supports universal childcare so that mothers of young children can make choices about education, career and marriage. 

4 - Femily values discourage abortion by supporting single mothers.  Instead of trapping young single pregnant women in rushed marriages that diminish opportunities for work and education, support for universal childcare and affordable healthcare makes the single-mother femily a reasonable choice for young pregnant women. 

5 –Hetero-, homo- and trans- partners comprise a femily—all with equal legal status and the right to marry, bear children and adopt.  Femilies provide a much needed safety net to individuals in a society, so the more femilies the better!

6 – A femily supports mothers who work in and out of the home.

7 – Femilies support public education, aiming to build a stronger economy and a better democracy by adequately educating all children.

8 – Femilies reject patriarchs, but value men for their indispensable roles as partners, fathers, brothers, sons and lovers. 

These are my femily values.  They scare conservatives because “conservative,” by definition, is the fear of change.  These values change the patriarchal family, a dated model of social organization that really only serves heterosexual men.  Through support for reproductive rights, childcare, healthcare, sexual diversity, and education, “femily values” serve everybody. 

in which i pretend not to complain about our xmas trip to florida

I said I would buck up.  Now I can say that I tried--am still trying.  But perhaps I was just a fish out of water?

It pretty much went down like this:

We listened to The Hobbit in the car as we drove.  Nothing makes the time pass like a good book!

Good thing since 14 hours of driving left us still to contend with the scores of cars that swarmed the four Disney exits on I-4 like so many shiny roaches on a dirty kitchen floor.

We avoided the “tournament recommended” hotel with its $35 breakfast and stayed in a house with friends.  Money saved, privacy, our own pool.  It doesn’t get better than that!

Good thing, since the road to our neighborhood looked like a Las Vegas strip with spinning and flashing neon signs that, instead of “Flamingo” and “Riviera,” read “Gift Shop” and “Barbeque Buffet.”   

We took the whole family to SeaWorld for a fun-filled evening of aquatic entertainment.  Featured events included the Manta rollercoaster, the dolphin show, and the shark aquarium.  Gareth and Olivia had a blast!

Good thing since it required a multitude of sharks and dolphins to swim dumbly in the maddening circles of captivity for our amusement.

Olivia got picked out of 30 people to reenact a wand pairing at Olivander’s in Harry Potter’s Wizarding World.  The wand selects the wizard and when one selected Olivia, it made her trip!

Good thing since the wand that selected her cost $30 and I’d already paid $85 for her ticket into the park. 

We arrived at Universal Studios early on the busiest day of the year and lined up for Olivander's before the wait topped 90 minutes.

Good thing since the park reached capacity later that day, creating 2-3 hour lines and the uncomfortable feeling that we belonged to a frenzied mob.

Gareth’s team did well in the tournament.  I watched as he scored the tying goal in a game against an arguably superior team.  As a defender he doesn’t score often, so it was a bonus that I was actually there to bear witness.

Good thing since, well, you know how I feel about soccer tournaments.  A little familial glory can go a long way for an ornery mom like me.

On our last night, we gathered with friends for dinner, grilling Portobello mushrooms, eating out-of-season salad and drinking more than our share of wine.

Good thing since I ate only French fries for dinner the night before (SeaWorld special), a pop tart for breakfast that morning (rushing to beat the crowds at Universal), and butter beer and onion rings for lunch later that day (a la Universal Studios).  A discerning vegetarian has no business foraging in Orlando, FL. Nosiree.

Happily, we spent a lot of time with my brother and his kids, ending the week with the cousins playing together for a rejuvinating afternoon on the beach: the sand between our toes, the breeze in our hair, the bright cool sunshine overhead.   

Good thing. 

the cult of santa

Years ago, when Olivia discovered the truth, or rather, the falsehood about Santa, she burst into some high-powered tears.  After collecting herself, she turned to me with reproachful eyes and accused, “You lied to me!!”  The indignation was palpable.  Years before, Gareth had reacted similarly, imploring, “Why did you lie to me!?” in a great mournful sob.

My sad response:  "I don't know.  What was I thinking?"  

The worst is: I didn't even want to.  I grew up with Santa, so when the time came to introduce my oldest to the big fat man and the chimney, my discomfort surprised even me.  Besides the obvious anti-materialist rant, I had no well-formulated philosophical objections to offer anyone.  I just didn’t like how it felt to tell such an expansive lie—like stepping barefoot into something unknown and slippery. 

My kids tend to be worriers with imaginations as big and fat as the jolly old elf himself.  Their nervous and hyper-curious responses to the news that strange and fantastic beings (tooth fairy and Easter bunny included) would be slinking around our house in the still of the night didn’t encourage me in the storytelling.   

So why did I do it? 

The pressure.  Think The Year Without a Santa Clause, The Santa Clause, Polar Express, and a slew of other Christmas shows in which the general population’s failure to believe in Santa serves as the primary plot-driving conflict.  The oddly confused moral of these stories:  you must believe in something that isn’t true or else be counted as one of the filthy low-down Christmas-wreckers among us.

What if I refused to comply?  Would my kids tell their friends, cracking the damn of Santa lore that shields other children from the waters of truth?  What if reality seeped through that crack, eventually spilling onto my kids’ preschool playgrounds and drenching all those beautiful bright-eyed-Santa-believers with the terrible realization that reindeer don’t fly? 

Did I want to be the Santa-killing mom at playgroup? 

I didn’t dare.  I once lost a babysitting job because my little charge claimed that I told her Santa wasn’t real.  I didn’t do it; I swear.  The mother didn’t give me a chance to defend myself.  She just banned me from the house, as if an alleged Santa whistle-blower were akin to an alleged sex-offender. 

I’ve been living with the stain of that accusation ever since.  True or not, something like that can really come back to haunt a person, right?  I could hear the whispers, as I imagined my kids chiseling at the Santa damn with the tiny pick-axes of their truthful words.  The mothers would say: “Well, y’know, she told that little girl when she was just a babysitter years ago.  A bad seed from the beginning!  We should have known.” 

So I caved.  I lied to my kids to save myself.

Our decade of falsehoods ended several years ago, and I’m only left to wonder, what would we have done without Santa?  What would Christmas have looked like? 

I think we would have treated it as we do now.   We pretend Santa is real for the simple honest fun of it.  We hang stockings; we find mysterious gifts under the tree, and the kids even put cookies out on the fireplace.  If this last one surprises you, just know that it wasn’t until they realized the true recipient of the plate (me), that they fully grasped the importance of this particular ritual. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been as magical if they’d always known the truth, but it would have saved my kids from their Santa hangovers—the big letdown that follows the great high.  It took several years for them to recover, to stop lamenting, “it just doesn’t feel like Christmas” — a rare confession that means: “I can’t believe Santa isn’t real.”

Thankfully, we have arrived.   Since the full exposure of my lies, the fabric of our trusting family circle has been restored, my kids are out of Santa rehab, and I’m as free from the cult of Santa as I can ever hope to be. 

philosophy of a smaller christmas

Let’s face it, from an environmental perspective, the month of December is something akin to a natural disaster:  lights, wrapping paper, cards, envelopes, junk mail/catalogues, plastic crap (gifts), plastic crap (packaging), plastic crap (decorations i.e. those horrible blow up yard things), and of course, time/fuel spent producing, selling, shipping and shopping for all that plastic crap.  Christmas has cornered the market on waste.

Bah humbug.

Yes, but what are we bah humbugging?

I think the answer is me.

Hmmm.... 

The creation of so much trash just seems counter to the spirit of the holiday to me. A celebration of hope for the future should not discard concerns about landfills and climate change, right? From Christmas to Hanukkah to the Solstice and Kwanza, there are lots of reasons to celebrate this time of year.  Couldn’t that just mean we splurge by breaking open an extra squash?! (OK, a little extreme I know, maybe a bottle of wine to go with it wouldn't be out of order).  

I dutifully read my Laura Ingalls as a child.  Apparently, it only took a stick of peppermint and a homemade doll to make the holiday bright.  What’s wrong with us?    

I think too much stuff at Christmas is like too much water in your chicken broth (I just made 30 cups of that stuff yesterday, so I assure you, it's a perfectly reasonable analogy).  The more water you add, the more broth you make, the less flavor you get.  See?

So here’s my “holiday wish list” (not the kind I usually make):

●Everyone gets one gift—or maybe one stocking.

●Wrap our gifts in recycled paper or reusable packaging.  Maybe the kids could decorate their own fabric Christmas bag then reuse it every year? (yikes…that sounds like a craft– I’d have to put my sister on that one).

●Trash those trashy Christmas lights—they burn electricity, they're made of plastic, and they break every year.  Instead, decorate the house with garlands and ribbons, then light luminaries on Christmas eve and on the solstice. Steve and I have 1 big holiday fight every year, and we can always trace its insidious roots back to the lights. This year, he hung all the tree lights then discovered he’d hung them upside down (with the plug at the top).  The kids and I fled the scene, so I don't know exactly what happened next.  If a man throws a Christmas tree out the livingroom window and nobody's there to hear it crash, did it happen? 

●Listen to holiday music in moderation to avoid side-effects of overexposure that might include: chest pain; confusion; hallucinations; panic attacks, aggressiveness, irritability, hostility, inability to sit still; persistent or severe ringing in the ears; vomiting, diarrhea, or headache; suicidal thoughts or attempts; worsening of depression, and excessive sweating.  I've had some of these.  Have you?

●Only send cards to people I didn't see over the past year. Write personal notes to these people.

● Decorate the house with natural stuff like evergreens (tree, wreath), pinecones, strung cranberries or popcorn, candles (instead of lights) and a variety of crafts/artwork (saved school projects, items purchased from craftspeople, projects developed and executed by crafty sister). 

●Bake with the kids instead of shopping for the kids.

●Use the extra time and money to adopt a needy family, providing them with much the same: 1 gift a piece, a few homemade decorations, and food for a holiday meal. 

Surely these elements of a smaller Christmas would lead inevitably to a bigger  Christmas. 

Wouldn't it be great!?

the butt of the question: airsoft or errsoft?

Gareth, wants an Airsoft gun.  Ugh.

I “raised” him without toy guns or play that modeled violence. 

Hah. 

My dreamy new-mother fantasy lasted until preschool—a whimsical magical place that taught my innocent first born about numbers, colors, seasons and…perilous space-aged, laser-fied, contests to the death. 

Once those maniacal miniature ninja assassins enlightened my little angel about shooting (funny how it’s always other people’s kids who model negative behavior, never your own), Gareth commandeered everything in the house (the legos, the tinker toys, the link’n logs, the playdough, even the pretend ketchup and mustard) for battle. 

But this "natural" fascination with firearms didn't suggest to me that I should entertain it.  I mean, some kids "naturally" play with their own poop, but that doesn't mean we should let them! Kids have lots of urges that we teach them to control, don't they?  Most kids behave really selfishly until we teach them to share.  Others want nothing but sugary foods, but we teach them to eat fruits and vegetables. 

Why not discourage their interests in guns and violence?

I believe that the household models a miniature nation.  We make things in the home the way we want them in the world.  Likewise, through their play, kids practice the grown-up behavior they observe and may eventually adopt. 

I'm not suggesting that toy gun-wielding children grow up to be mass murderers, but I do think that kind of play normalizes a mindset that accepts “battle” as a legitimate way of solving problems i.e. the military and war. 

So my little mini-nation had been invaded by a ninja assassin.  What to do?  We justified that Gareth’s games were creative, didn’t involve screens, and often occurred in the glorious outside. 

To register our disapproval, we refused to buy toy guns.  I also refused to participate in what Gareth called “fighting games.”  So if he wanted me to play with him, he had to find a different activity.

Gareth squished the playdough pistols back into their containers years ago. 

But now, at 14, he wants a toy gun that actually shoots things. 

Really? 

I suppose there are worse things: drugs and sex come immediately to mind.  But really?     

And he knows me well.  He lobbied for the gun by claiming it will get him off the couch, away from the video games, and outside. 

Um…mowing the lawn would do that too.  Does he realize that?

Still:  smart angle. 

Smart kid.

Smart alec.

Yet I’m swayed.  Crumbling.  Pathetic.  In fact, I’ve already given in. 

My logic: he already plays Airsoft when we go away with friends to their farm. They lay out battle fields, teams and strategies then hunt one another for hours.

I persuade myself it’s a glorified game of tag that is creative, imaginative, outside. 

Haven’t I said that before?

Maybe it’s ok.

BUT, maybe it’s not.  Doesn’t it mimic war? 

I know it does.  BUT we’ve modeled nonviolence for so many years, “using our words,” taking spiders outside like good little pacifists.  Could Airsoft undo all that?

Probably not.  BUT, I don’t want him to own a gun – toy or not. 

BUT he has grown.  He needs to start making his own decisions.  As much as we show him guidance, we should also show him trust and confidence. 

BUT …everything has a “but” in this post—right down to the guns themselves!

BUT, letting him own the gun breaks a longtime rule, insinuating my approval.    

BUT, he’s going to buy it with his own hard-earned money.

BUT, he will keep it under our roof, play with it in our yard.

BUT, he’ll play anyway with borrowed guns.

BUT, I don’t want him to own a gun – toy or not. 

OK – I’ve definitely said that before. 

And so it goes.

big picture

When we tried to move to a bigger house a few years ago, I discovered I couldn’t disentangle myself from this little house.  Like a plant in a small pot, our roots had grown through the bottom, binding us in a tangle I was loathe to rip up. 

So, we renovated.

A little. 

We added almost 200 square feet to the living room, added insulation, replaced our drafty windows and rearranged a few walls to make better use of space.   

Still, it’s true that sometimes we have to wait to use the bathroom.  And if anything untoward happens in there, you can bet that the rest of the fam will find out about it.  No matter where we’re going, we have to step over the dog, and my friends who used to bring their teeny children to dinner, now bring their teen children.  These monsters actually expect to sit on furniture, and in a sprawling and selfish sort of way that seriously challenges our seating capacity. 

With no storage space on the ground level (no garage, no basement, little closets), there’s only one place to put our extra stuff:  out the door and up the ladder to the attic over the carport.  Need a low-usage item like a sleeping bag, an extra lunch box or the fondue pot? Out the door and up the ladder.

BUT, I love that we can find each other without raising our voices. When we lose our cell phones, we can hear the ring from any room.  If I stand in the middle of my kitchen, I can touch my sink, stove, refrigerator, and trash can without taking a step (and at the same time if I had four arms).  From this lucky spot, I can cook dinner without chasing myself silly around an obtrusive kitchen island. 

I hadn’t realized how the house had shaped us, like a meatball, or a cup of brown sugar, packed tight. 

Steve and I sleep in a double bed because anything bigger would turn bedroom to padded playpen.  I know what you’re thinking, but what to do in said playpen after a real knock-down-drag-out? Even after the worst of arguments, it takes a lot of work to stay in one corner of a small bed all night, untouching and untouchable for a ridiculous marital standoff.  Eventually, a toe or a knee goes astray, burrowing into enemy territory without intent. It’s not long before everything else follows.  Then you wake to find yourself thoroughly snuggled and probably drooling on the shoulder of last night’s mortal enemy.  The only way out of that is a quick apology and a new day—or sex.  Neither makes for a bad end to a fight.

Until 3 years ago, the kids shared a room just 5 steps from our main living area.  During those sweet innocent years, they fell asleep to the rustle of each others bed clothes, and to the comforting sounds of their parent’s voices outside the door.  If they feared that an ugly green witch had a leg up on their window sill, we could practically douse her from the couch.  We cook, eat, do homework, watch TV, practice musical instruments, and egad, play soccer, in a large central living area that includes kitchen/dining/living room.  The noise, the clutter, the frenzy is enough to drive a mother mad.  The only thing that could be worse: the quiet of children sequestered in a basement, or an upstairs bedroom. 

The kids do have a small TV room in which to retreat or entertain friends. I don’t spy, but if I need to, I can hear every word they utter in there.  Mostly, however, I don’t listen—I think the house taught us this—to give each other privacy.  Otherwise, we’d never have it.  Don’t listen to other people’s conversations – even when you can hear them; don’t stand outside the bathroom door snickering (we haven’t mastered this one yet—apparently there’s a learning curve); don’t walk into rooms without knocking (none of our bedroom doors lock – is this a characteristic of a small house, or just a broken down one?).  

The house has also taught us about simplicity and moderation: about need.  We quickly learned if there’s no room for it, don’t buy it! Kitchen-Aid? No way.  George Foreman Grill? Uh-uh. Electric can opener? Good-God!  And the bonus: all of these space-eating appliances also eat electricity.  Surely we can open our own cans without plugging in? 

I’ve heard women complain that they need a cleaning person to help them keep up with their big houses. I know they truly feel overwhelmed, because I feel overwhelmed too.   But with less surface area to scrub, I don’t need a cleaning person any more than I need a fat-handled toilet brush.  I also find myself asking: Why do we need a foosball table when we can play soccer in the yard? Why do I need a different glass for every type of cocktail? Who needs last year’s magazines? that sweater I haven’t worn in three years?  That old laptop with the blatzo hard drive…? 

I like battling clutter, buying less, conserving energy, reducing expenses, staying close, and staying close, and … staying close.

Even though we didn't plan this, I'm glad we landed here, and sprouted, and grew.  I confess that there are big things that we need, but they're the kinds of things that come in small houses.

small house

“You have a small house.”

This five years ago from my daughter’s new playmate.  He stood, wedged in the corner of our kitchen and proclaimed his truth with authority. He wasn’t the first candid kindergartener to offer his opinion about our supposed shortage of square footage.  In those heady days of the booming real estate market, oversized houses had popped up like dandelions in my neighborhood. I felt like Gulliver in Brobdingnag.  

In the bigness of Brobdingnag, the ordinary appears small, and my 1940s rambler had suddenly taken on the characteristics of someone else’s walk-in closet.  Each of my two bathrooms, I was sure, could slip right down the drain of my new neighbor’s double Jacuzzi.  And my own closets?—about the size of a modern day medicine cabinet.

Bigness is contagious.  Stores now bulge with bloated household items designed to fill cavernous homes.  Couches and window treatments have swelled up like soaking raisins; wall hangings and coffee tables come bulkier than an athlete on steroids.  I saw a flower pot the size of a bathtub at our local nursery the other day.  Big stuff equals big price tag.  They wanted over $100 for that hunk of clay!  I went for the mini-replica at a whopping $10.  

Most of this big stuff won’t fit in my house.  Literally.  Even the small things have gotten big.  Have you bought a new garlic press lately? Measuring cups? A cheese grater? All of these tools have sprouted bulbous rubber handles that gobble up precious storage space.

I suppose it would be sad to find a skinny little melon-baller lying all alone in the corner of an oversized drawer, like a forgotten toothpick.  But should we pump up the melon baller? Or downsize the drawer?   

When we moved in 16 years ago, we found our 1,650 sq. ft. abode perfectly adequate, and I recognize that by some standards, it's not that small at all.   According to an unevaluated internet source, the average American house currently measures at around 2,800 square feet.  That makes us under average: not little, not teeny, just small.  But everything is relative, and since apparently, we live in Brobdingnag, where the idea of 6,000 square feet doesn’t turn a head, the house can feel teeny. 

A few years ago, I began to think bigger—not 6,000 square feet bigger, just something that could accommodate a modest melon baller.  Steve and I made the big decision to move.  We even picked out a house—a fairly ordinary 4 bedroom colonial with a sort-of-finished basement.  I liked it.  Steve loved it.  But when we tentatively agreed to buy it, I went home and, shockingly, cried for two days.  This had been my idea.  I had said I was frustrated with our lack of storage, tired of squeezing dinner guests into a sardine can for their meal, annoyed at moving the laundry basket so I could open the refrigerator door. 

So why the blubbering? 

I think I sensed something rotten in the state of Brobdingnag.  The market had a teetering quality to it.  Plus, how would we pay a bigger mortgage? How would we afford to heat and air condition so many rooms? And look at all those light bulbs! Did we want to burn that much energy?  How did this house address my concerns about climate change? How would I ride my bike for groceries on that windy road?

I also worried that the new house would stretch our little family too thin; I would become a desperately overreaching Gumby trying to keep a hand on each of three floors.  Would our connections grow thin and tenuous? It would be hard enough to talk to my kids as they approached middle and high school, how would I do it through imposing floors and ceilings?   

We didn’t set out to live in a small house; 16 years ago, we simply bought what we could afford, and we reveled in its unapartmentlikeness.  I expected we would someday “upgrade.”  I didn’t expect that the house would shape us, teach us, hold us.  I didn’t expect that we would stay.