Needing to have less

(this photo is of a coat rack our friends painted and carved for Lacy as a gift.  When we lived in the 80 year old house we couldn't hang it on the plaster walls.  This is one huge benefit to a new house I guess.  You can nail something up every 6-8 inches.)

Lately, I have found myself needing to have less.  Not that I feel like I need less or that I have gotten rid of a lot of things but that I have this need to simplify.  I have this desire to have less.  To have peace.  Which is funny in a way because I am in the process of getting ready to make all of our lives more complicated with the birth of a third child.  But, I notice when we clean a room, that I feel better.  I think relationally my life has more peace now than it has had in a few years.  Maybe it is from this emotional peace that I am starting to want to have peace in all areas of my life.  This is, I think, the blessing of my thirties that I am able to stop living in a chaotic way.  For the last 3 years we were in California we were always two weeks away from being relocated with Ryan's company.  I think this frantic unknown started to take hold in so many ways.

The other place I see this simplicity calling to me is in my desire to have rhythms.  I have been reading a book called Beyond The Rainbow Bridge that is essentially a how to on Waldorf for the first 7 years of your child's life in your home.  Although I do not subscribe to Waldorf in a lot of ways I am seeing the need of my children, especially Lacy to have more rhythm and and be able to tune in to the high energy times by recharging with low energy times.  The breathe in and breathe out of Waldorf education.  In the past I have known parents who are very strict with schedules.  I notice with these kids that they get very upset when their routine is modified slightly.  I think as a young parent I avoided routines and schedules for this reason.  I only saw the extreme.  Also, when I was having Lacy and Oliver the big thing to do in our church was Babywise, which has been shown to be so bad for kids.  So I wanted to not have any schedule or routine.  I wanted my kids to feel free.  But, as we clean out and prepare for another baby I see that our "freedom" has become restricted by what we own and by not following the kids natural emotional and physical rhythms and cues.  I think part of this realization took root when Lacy turned four and it became apparent that she had to have a nap, every day.  She hadn't napped since she was 2 and 3/4.  Something about turning four though changed that.  She is once again outgrowing naps but I see how for her these are a much larger scale of the breathing in and breathing out times utilized in Waldorf day schools. 

As for me, I need some rhythm.  What I really need are some anchors that I can depend on each day.  Ways to keep up and feel centered.  I need to have and find a rhythm to housekeeping and eating in order to be able tune into the patterns my kids and I have so that I will notice more quickly when my kids need more or less sleep.  This is instead of the scratching my head and wondering why my child has become a little troublemaker and worrying that they are doomed to a life of juvenile court and lonliness, before realizing, Oh yeah, they need 3 more hours of sleep per day now.  It reminds me of when they were babies and we would have few nights where they had trouble sleeping and were nursing all night and I would think this baby is never going to let me sleep again.  And then bleary eyed a few days later I would look down and see the runny nose and the beginning of a cold, or the tooth that starts coming through.  I think the chaos and the stuff makes it hard sometimes for me to tune into these things and I end up feeling like I am one step behind. 

The other thing that I really like in this book is that she talks about focusing on the task you are doing.  If you are washing the dishes she says you should pay attention to that and not be frantically rushing through and preoccupied with what you are going to do next.  Let me tell you right now being SO pregnant this is SO hard for me.  I am perpetually thinking of the next thing I have to do before we leave for CA to have the baby.  I am thinking of the next thing I need to get done before I have a newborn again.  I am pretty preoccupied all the time.  So, this calls to me.  As a way to start.  To be present and engaged in the task I am doing.  That is what is going on here. 

I am going to be very sporadic on the blog.  I have gotten very uncomfortable and have a lot of nesting I need to do before we fly the nest.  We leave in 2 weeks.  I am trying to learn self hypnosis for the birth  and as a way to not worry if we will be in the right place with Ryan there for the birth.  I think this pregnancy has been the hardest one because of all the legal issues with midwives here in Ohio and the result being that I have to do my own prenatal care and am lacking the emotional support that is so important in pregnancy.  It has been a really rough road and I am just now realizing the impact on me as a mother.  Having midwifery skills does not make me able to give to myself as care provider.  It means I can take all the necessary measurements and vitals but not that I can just be the mom worrying and emotional.  I think that I will feel a really big relief when the baby is in our arms and I am able to just be a mother.  It will be great to get to be taken care of as we wait for the baby in Ca and have someone else do my blood pressure, listen and palpate the baby and monitor all the diet and other things.  My other reason for absence is that I need to start journaling.  Everything is great here I just am in that really introspective huge pregnant big as a house phase.  :)

Comments

[TulipGirl]

While I don't subscribe to the Waldorf philosophy, I have found it very encouraging and inspiring in the areas of rhythm and routine in our home. Natural rhythm and routine (think of the seasons, the tides) is nothing like the artificial schedules that some promote.

If you haven't read it, you'd probably find Karen Andreola's "Charlotte Mason Companion" book encouraging for incorporating rhythm and nature and nurture into our children's lives.

[Veronica]

Good luck, good luck ... with the final weeks (days?), the travel, the birth ... we'll be thinking of you!

And no pressure to post again -- until you're ready.

Take care!