A vain attempt to get a good picture of four of the five cousins. It was probably for the best that Alba was inside, sheltered from these shenanigans.
Category: Shep
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Real life Easter egg hunt
The thing about raising free-range chickens is that when they begin laying, they might not always choose the nesting box in the coop.
All our new chickens are old enough to be laying, but we haven’t seen an increase in egg production. This means the chickens have found other places to lay. This usually sorts itself out over the winter, as the snow forces the chickens to lay in the coop, and then it becomes habit. But until then? It’s a bit of a mystery.
Tom tipped us off that he kept seeing the easter egger, Jasmine, making a run for the pole barn in the morning, which is prime laying time. Neko led the charge, and off we went to hunt for eggs. I hadn’t even made it to the pole barn when they’d already found the stash.
We sent Ellery to retrieve the eggs, as she was little enough to wiggle her way in to the tight spot. We counted 15 gorgeous green eggs. Everyone was delighted and ran around, retelling the story and fighting over who got to carry the eggs back to the house. Not that we can eat them, as we have no idea how old they are, but, good golly, they look lovely on the counter.
Every now and then I bemoan how long it takes me to get to Target or that I don’t have every fantastic amenity at my fingertips. (Oh, to have good Thai food in our neck of the woods!) It is then I try to remember moments like these.
Mornings in muddy pajamas and boots, conquerers of a real life Easter egg hunt. Posing victoriously on the tractor, chicken in hand. Giggling at Mother Nature, and how she likes to keep us on our toes.
I realize they might end up city-dwellers one day, but I hope these little bits get woven into who they become. I hope that someday, while they wander amongst skyscrapers, every now and then they’ll chuckle about 15 green eggs, one rogue chicken, and a whole lot of laughter.
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Halloween and the last bits of fall
It’s been a busy October.
We got pumpkins, but had yet to carve them. Tom had to scoot out of town, so Nancy and Mary Beth came to join us for one of the last amazing fall evenings we’re going to have around these parts. One of those spontaneous evenings you never could have planned.
Neko and Mary Beth went to work on this amazing campfire scene, creating a fire pit out of kindling and spare gravel and a fire out of shavings from the pumpkin rind. We cozied up to the faux fire and got a start on pumpkin carving.
Silliness, good conversation, and magic light ensued.
Turns out chickens think faux pumpkin fire is delicious.
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Please remember
I often think about what advice I will pass on to my children. Of course, I have plenty to say, but I don’t want to be that overbearing mother, so I’m trying to whittle it down over the years to just a few choice nuggets.
Today I’m offering up one which applies if my children choose to go the road of parenthood. But it’s kind of a doozy, so you might want to get a strong cup of coffee or a glass of wine or something.
Ready?
So here it is: your child is not perfect.
Your child, more than likely, is not in the 99th percentile—of anything. Your chances of that are slim. Take a moment to do the math.
Some of us have children for whom this is obvious.
They look different. Or sound different. They don’t say or do the right things. They struggle when everyone else is effortlessly flying by. All their Stuff is painfully worn on the outside for all the world to see. And the world sees, yes, they do.
But most of us have the other kind of children.
They’re as cute as a button. They do well in class. They usually remember their homework, even though they have to be reminded some of the time. They say please and thank you. Sure, they make some mistakes, but doesn’t everyone? We smile and call these teachable moments.
If you are the parent for whom your child’s Stuff is on the outside, I wish I could hug you all the way from here. I wish I could tell you it’s all going to get better, but the truth is there’s a chance it will be like this forever. While that’s a hard pill to swallow, it’s not as bad as you might think. For you, many of the cards are on the table. You’ve already made peace with the fact that the child you hold in your arms is not the one you imagined back when you were simply anticipating their arrival. But I’m going to bet that you fiercely love the child you have. And odds are, they are wonderful in ways you never would have imagined. You just have to admire the view from a few steps to the left.
If you are one of the other parents—you have some hard work ahead of you.
Yes, you.
We all think our children are perfect. We know they are beautiful. We firmly believe they belong in the gifted program. We suspect they just might be the most talented player on the team.
But when the test scores come home, and they don’t meet our expectations, we wave our fists and complain about the schools. When the basketball team doesn’t do well enough, we grumble about the bad coaching and the disorganized program. When your child makes bad choices, or doesn’t get enough attention, or veers down a path of which we don’t approve, we blame those Other kids. You know, those ones with their Stuff on the outside.
But the thing so many parents don’t realize is that all kids have Stuff. And it will take you some time—decades maybe—but you will realize that the child you hold in your arms is not the one you imagined back when you were simply anticipating their arrival. They might be a mediocre student or a terrible basketball player. They might not agree with your ideologies. At some point, every child is going to lay their cards on the table, and I guarantee, some of them are going to be real zingers.
Even if it takes some time, I hope you will love the child you have. I hope you will allow them to be miserable at one thing but outstanding at another, even if it’s completely upside down and backwards from the way you had imagined. I hope you will hug them and hold them and tell them that, while you might not understand, you will always love them. I hope, before you blame someone else for your child’s missteps, that you consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, the crux of the problem is that your child is not perfect.
And you know what? That’s okay.
It’s really, truly okay.
I promise.
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Hobo city
While I was mowing the lawn, I noticed Tom and the kids working on something in the high tunnel (someday we really are going to grow things in that thing). They were stringing up tarps and tacking plastic sheeting around the soccer goal.
They invited me to come in to their tent (I barely fit), and I discovered that a plastic sheeting tent produces the most lovely light diffusion. Really—every photographer should have their very own plastic hobo tent.
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Portraits
It’s clearly been a while, and we’re way out practice. I won’t even tell you what happened behind the scenes to make these photos happen.
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Parenting at extremes
Remember the math genius from yesterday? Today that math genius threw a massive tantrum at the school pick-up line because I managed to forget his Nintendo DS, and he absolutely needed it to make it through Ellery’s gymnastics lesson, because, clearly, without it he would die.
(This is where I confess I kind of forgot we had gymnastics entirely, and had to call Tom to throw gymnastics clothes into Ellery’s bag before he brought her to school.)
Then Shep screamed, at the top of his lungs, “I hate you!” In front of the Head of School, where I now teach. In front of the parents of the preschoolers, whom I teach. It was mortifying.
Then at gymnastics, Neko and Shep ran around like wild monkeys for an entire hour, and even when I asked them to stop playing with that big rolling thing for the fifth time, I looked over, and Neko was steamrolling Shep with that same big rolling thing.
And after we returned home, and I was at the end of my rope, and sort of wishing someone had been just a little bit hurt with the big rolling thing, because at least then my point would have been proven, I rounded the corner and found myself face-to-face this Playmobil scene.
And then I had to love my kids again. Like bunches and bunches.
But they still exhaust me. And they better not touch that big rolling thing next week.
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Lego: scaled
Shep created these different scales of Lego bricks, along with the appropriately sized Lego person. That math brain of his at age six—I just don’t know where it came from. Certainly not from me.
The other day he wandered by and mumbled, “Half of a million is 500,000.” And then he moseyed his way on into the kitchen.
Thus is the power of recessive genes.
