a view of home making

I like reading other blogs, books and magazine articles about the lovely nature of homeschooling or unschooling. I love re-affirming the ideas and views I hold dear and see on a daily basis. BUT. What I'd like is to see more blogs talking about the hard things they find in their days with children. Obviously no one wants to read a boring whine all of the time. We can all whine. And doing so goes against why people blog - and that usually is to find the little nuggets of positive in their day, to blog is to look out for those, expand upon them and find inspiration, feel grateful. But finding the gold in reality can often be to sift though piles (mountains) of clay and silt and muck (guilt despair, boredom, annoyance...). Unless you are a happy breezy all time living-in-the-moment type, gushing always about the wonders of life. In which case you may stop reading at any time. Try as I might (which may be the problem) I am not quite one of those people. I think a positive spin might be possible to sift into even whining if I try hard : a buoying up of spirits after the shaking off and ridding oneself of the daily debris attached of life with children?



I am certainly going to try and find the spin and in doing so may find solutions and ideas with which to tackle the messier and fraught bits of daily life. I wouldn't want anyone to think we all live in a paradise of streams and trees and smiles and ice creams and sweetness in a veritable wonderland of self sufficient hobbitdom.



Cos it would be a giant lie (photographically perpetuated). I find the loveliness and leave out the mess. Who wouldn't? In retrospect I like looking at a rose tinted view of my life. Reading my blog is, well, very pretty. I sometimes wonder who that family are though. It's disturbing at times, yes, it is us, but a nicer more wholesome us. The sort of us I'd really quite like to be. Problem is if I did that, or was that version of me only, I'd have to at least slice half of our days away. And that's just it. This shows half of us. Which blogs tend to do. We all like them to, if we're honest.



I'm going to try including some of the fraught bits. The other world of our lives that doesn't exist to most people reading this.



Lately I am very often at a loss when finding things we can ALL do. Or rather all three children harmoniously. To put it mildly would be saying the boys find their sister's advances and disruptions of their games irritating. I have a very consuming and not very successful time distracting her. It is very weary work. She's just that much younger than they are and she can't quite join in. So she'll happily wreck everything to divert their attention back to herself. Screams and shouts and often pokes and pushes are happening daily. Getting out of the house helps, but we like being here so it's not always a useful idea. I could scream some days. Joining in with their screams. Helpful, no? At least my frustration must match theirs sometimes.



I have to go for very very brisk walks to restore my sense of self (sans children, of course, I didn't need to say that, those with them will surely know that no briskness *ever* happens on walks with children). I'd happily slot The Beauty into her buggy and leave the boys at home for 15 minutes of weed riddled road pounding but a 7 and 9 year old alone in the wilderness is a tiny bit too neglectful and so don't. Which means my walks are evening, literally as soon as my dh walks in the door, I hear the crunch of tires on gravel and have my shoes on in a heartbeat.



But why am I concentrating on myself? My needs here rather than theirs? Well. It goes like this. This last decade of being with children has made me realise that no matter what wonderful activities or distractions or visits or play times or toys or arrangements of toys or special books quite hit the spot. What matters most is that I can meet their needs. Emotional ones (physical, social ones are a breeze). Which I can't. I can't when I am not filled up feeling grateful and happy and alive. So finding things that make me feel recharged or calm and centred helps me give give give that little bit more. The new toy from Myriad does none of that. I have to make corners of beauty in my home. I like to have a clean kitchen. Having a soft place to sit, a lovely view, the sound of something uplifting or soul filling to be enveloped in.



I finally see what home making is about. It's about filling full the needs of the home maker so that she feels full enough to GIVE. It's so important. And I don't just mean a trip to Ikea or the antique market is in order, I mean tiny things, like sprinkling lavender on a clean bathroom floor. Having a clean crisp pillowcase ready to lie your weary head against when it's time to go to bed early (again) and breastfeed half the night (again), having a nice stack of books nearby, tea you love - handy. I payed lip service before, blah blah blah to nurturing myself so that I could nurture others blah blah, yes I certainly do take time for myself! I am so enlightened! but never really did it. Or felt that all that nurtured. I relied (unhappily) on the idea that some one else could/should make me feel nourished. It was me all along. I could do it. It has meant telling my dh that he ought to remind my children to say thank you for the meals I make them, it means taking a Yoga class every week and actually doing it, telling The Beauty in advance and making the time without me more of time she can do something nice with her dad. And once I am out of the door and in the car I zone out, tune out of their needs. What can I do for them when I am not actually there? Is it helpful to wonder, to pine to hope they are ok? Not really. I put the whole time into relaxing, into looking at the view, hearing the birds, exhaling and inhaling and feeling my body as wholly mine, I don't really think of them at all. Of the whole yoga outing time, I think the ten minute drive each end of it is the bit I like best; the quiet of just me in the car with the windows down fully, the wind whooshing over my bare arms, the scent of honey suckle in the lanes. The early evening sun that highlights everything in a whole otherworldly way. I get to be quiet. It's rare. I am a person who needs quiet. I never realised until I never had any. Like most mothers. I don't want to resent my children. I committed (and constantly reassess) to us being at home together rather than school. There are not many places I can admit tiredness or boredom because I choose this life and can unchoose, so where's the problem? The gray area is where I live. And it's fraught.

But in ways I didn't know or could conceive: it makes me a stronger human, more varied and whole, more understanding of human failings, more supportive of achievement and the multitude of pathways to happiness. Bring on the fraught half days of mess. Without the winter in the cliched seasons of life there'd be no light and without them both there'd be no wonder. No sense of being filled up, spilling over and grateful. In knowing this, finally I am striding along a pathway that is mine. There are many rocks and shallows and ditches, it's a greatly obscured path. But it's mine so I'll share it.