From my original online journal - March 2, 2000
Growing Deeper
It’s funny that even as we continually witness our children getting bigger, we seldom realize that we are getting bigger along with them. I once heard someone say that women move forward by going deeper. That seems to me the way it is. As we grow up with our children, we do so by going deeper.
-Peggy O’Mara
Editor, Mothering Magazine
A Quiet Place – Issue #94, May/June 1999
I can’t tell you where I’ve been. No excuses… mind is full and seems to be running over with thoughts, projects, ideas… but I remain floating in a sea of motherhood and self-absorption. Fixing meals, cleaning house, reading books, making to-do lists…
Baby number three is on the way! We are beyond thrilled. The timing has all worked out just as we would have planned it with no stress on our part. I feel like I kind of turned myself off even before I was sure a baby was pending. It’s so early, but I feel my nesting instincts coming around. I want to stay home rather than go out anywhere. I’m thinking of things around the house I’d like to complete before the baby is born… remodel the kitchen, finish the last bit of tile grout from the last remodeling project, finish stenciling the bedroom wall with flowers I had almost forgotten I was planning…
And then spring is here. Garden catalogs are filling the mailbox and I finally sat myself down to start planning this morning. Pulled out the peat pots for starting tomatoes and maybe a few peppers. Last year I started a LOT earlier. This year I’ve been trying to hold off. Made the gardening season seems a little too long. I lost energy before it was all over.
But I’m starting to get excited about the garden again. I’m going to focus on tomatoes and sweet corn this year. Maybe a few beans. I loved eating the beans last year. It was just so much work to pick and shell them. Made me watch more television than I am accustomed to. But there is nothing like fresh black-eyed peas from the garden… especially when you start eating them when they are young and green… yum!
Oh, and onions! The onions were soooo yummy last year. I grew giant onions. Still have a handful hanging in the basement. And lots chopped up in the freezer. I am definitely planting more onions this year.
But about the baby. Evie Jo keeps claiming it’s going to be a boy. Of course, we have actually no idea. But a boy would be nice… as would a girl. I guess I’m pretty easy to please. I’m still trying to get past the fact that there’s going to be another one… feeling all sentimental and weepy about my two growing babies that are babies no more.
I let Evie Jo tell Grandpa. Or, at least, I was going to. But she got over there and got to talking and apparently forgot what her mission was. Pretty soon, Maddie, who was sitting on my lap, says, “Bae-beeee. Bae-beeee!!”
So I said, “Are you trying to remind Evie Jo of what she is supposed to tell Grandpa?”
And Maddie just repeats, “Bae-beee…”
Of course, that perks up Grandpa’s ears and he starts saying, “What? Huh?”
That’s when Evie Jo finally said, “I’m going to have a baby brother.”
Grandpa laughed. He’s always tickled about babies. I think he and Evie Jo would both be satisfied if they just stayed babies forever. But they don’t… They start walking and talking and doing all sorts of wondrous things. I find myself continually in awe over them. Where did they come from? Where are they going? How could something so miraculous have started right here in my belly?
Do kids ever stop amazing their parents?
It’s so rainy and miserable out today. I guess we need the rain. The soil could use a good drenching before we start planting in the garden. They say it might turn to snow tonight. Snow is not unusual this time of year. Some of our worst snowstorms have been in March. It just really feels like spring is here. Little green grass blades are peaking through the yellow. Trees are thinking about buds. I don’t want a March blizzard this year. I suppose I can handle an inch or two of snow, but I’d really rather see the sun come out.
I suppose it would be a good day to bake something. Maybe the girls and I should go make some “putsy” rolls (that’s Evie Jo’s word for cinnamon rolls – a word we’ve all adopted).
Note from the present: I love the images/memories this entry captures. I don't garden anymore and I thought I was happy with that fact of life, but this kind of gives me a little yearning to try it again. I also know the answer to that question: No, parents never stop being amazed by their kids... at least, not in the first ten years or so.
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