gratitude garland

Oh yes, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the season, the food, the absence of gifts and their attendant pressures. I love to be together with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I spend the holiday talking and eating too much with people who don't hold it against me and drinking red wine out of my mother's tall crystal goblets. My cheeks burn deeper and deeper shades of red as the sky darkens. It is blissful.

Anticipating this glorious event, I want my children to feel the joy along with me - to really get to know this holiday of cornucopias, raked leaves, and counted blessings. Since we are small in number this year, I don't want them to confuse this with just any old meal at Gramma's house. I want them to give thanks.

To inspire a grateful mood, I could think of nothing better than some Thanksgiving-themed crafting. I had dreams of creating something beautiful in both form and sentiment. This lovely project (discovered via The Crafty Crow) fit the bill. The original used pressed autumn leaves, hot glued onto a satin ribbon. That seemed a bit challenging for us, so after school yesterday I cut out leaf shapes and spread them around the table. I explained that we were going to write and draw things we were grateful for on our leaves. As you can see, we did indeed arrive at a gratitude garland. Oh, but the road there was rocky!

 

Frances wrote copious descriptions of things she is grateful for. (The orange leaf above reads: I am tankful for my tree book because it helps me no the trees and flowers.) As she is wont to do, she became attached to her work and refused to display it on the garland. These are mine, she explained. I am going to make them into a book. For me. 

Sigh. Gabriel was interested in drawing diggers and dump trucks on his leaves, but then he wanted me to cut them out so he could carry them around. Which is what he is wont to do - beg me to cut out pictures I draw of various construction site vehicles so they can become (by way of Gabriel magic) real. 

When I refused, Gabriel scissored into one of my carefully cut-out maple leaves himself. That's when I hit my limit. I heard myself sounding utterly ridiculous. I think I stamped my feet.

No, no, no!! You guys, we are making beautiful leaves! We are feeling GRATEFUL! We are displaying our leaves so we can see them and remember how GRATEFUL we feel. We are not cutting up or hoarding our leaves. WE ARE SHARING THEM.

It's silly, I know. But at the time I was so discouraged! I wanted to create a monument to Thanksgiving, and they were not cooperating at all.

Then Frances took me by surprise. She told me not to be so sad about it. She said that if I promised she could have the leaves that she made back after Thanksgiving to make her book, we could hang them on the window. 

Really?

She meant it. My frustration melted away. We made leaves last night, and she made some more this morning before school. Even Gabriel came around in the morning, when I suggested we might make a "sports" leaf together. It depicts the two of us playing our new favorite game, soccer hockey, with kid-sized garden rakes and a soccer ball. He was proud to hang it up.

Then before Gabriel's nap, we spontaneously collected leaves in the backyard. All the trees had released their golden and glowing red treasures in a wind storm yesterday, so it was hard not to notice all the colors underfoot as we played. I asked Gabriel if he wanted to press them with me. He did.

In the end we did press autumn leaves, just not for the purposes of our garland. Who knows what we will do with them. I probably shouldn't set my mind on anything, because that's where my problems begin.

Yet I know my vision matters too. Indicating a direction sets something in motion, even though I can never predict what exactly it will be. Creativity likes some limits. The trick for me is to not get attached to particular results. This is hard, even though I recognize the most delightful moments in our creative endeavors are the surprises. 

With my kids - as in all of life - I have discovered that it is important to have convictions, and equally important to hold those convictions lightly. If my convictions could be as feathers, resting with a gentle weightless tickle in my open hands, I might get into less trouble. Laugh a little more, certainly. The line we walk is about caring deeply without becoming rigid; bending so as not to break. 

In the end I got my garland. The kids did cooperate, in their own way and in their own time. Looking at it now does remind me to be grateful, especially for unexpected moments of quiet growth and love - and the wherewithal to take a deep breath and welcome them when they come. 

the play dough

Okay friends, here is the recipe we used to make Madeleine's gift over the weekend. Many thanks to Milena, who first introduced us to this pliable, satisfying dough. You can find this recipe and many more process-oriented crafting ideas in First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos. I highly recommend it.

Combine
5 cups water
2.5 cups salt
3 tbsp cream of tartar
in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. As the mixture heats, stir in
10 tbsp vegetable oil
then
5 cups flour, slowly.

Keep stirring until the mixture starts to look dry and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Remove from heat. If it isn't sticky, it's done. (If it is, keep cooking and stirring a bit longer).

Place dough on the counter and knead until smooth. This is a fantastic job for children; just make sure it is cool enough.

To make Madeleine's rainbow-colored balls, I added SO MUCH food coloring. Tons. And I made half the recipe; I find that yeilds more than enough for two or even three children to share happily.

We have an uncolored batch in use that I made many months ago. A favorite quiet activity for both children involves a big hunk of dough and the contents of our nature basket (which is filled with things we have found like pine cones and rocks and shells). They tell stories and illustrate them by manipulating items from the basket - sticking shells up on their ends to make buildings, embedding acorns to serve as people. Very sweet and simple entertainment!

on walking the walk (and trying not to bump into other people)

You know how I romanticize all things homemade? How I delight in the baking of bread and hot glue gunning of Halloween costumes? How I dream of a nature-loving, consumption-rejecting, pure and sweet as maple syrup, hand knit, saving the Bay sort of childhood for my kids?

Part of that homemade agenda is encouraging my children to make their own cards and notes, to color the wrapping paper for gifts, to be a partner in whatever sort of giving we are engaged in.

But in my quest to infuse generosity into my kids' developing characters, I realize I have made the act of giving All About Us. I give people things the kids can help make or decorate or wrap. I use their drawings on thank you notes. Good gracious, what about the recipient? I tell my kids we are thinking of the other person, but truth be told I am thinking more about us. Oh, it's your birthday? What a fine opportunity to teach my delightful and precocious children the importance of being thoughtful! ...and oh yeah, happy birthday!

Now at first, making play dough for a friend's casual fourth birthday party seemed totally appropriate. Who doesn't like play dough? But on Friday, as I colored our little balls and covered them awkwardly in plastic wrap, I began to have second thoughts. My doubts were growing when Mike came home from work and gave me a look that said: really??

He didn't say anything, not until he saw me nestling the balls into an old plastic salad box fished from the recycling bin.

"You're going to give her the play dough in that?"

I took one look at it and decided it was indeed way too hard core, even for me. I knew I couldn't present this, even if Frances covered up the "Wild Organics Baby Spinach" label with one of her own devising (a task she was admittedly uninterested in). So I herded my fussy children into the car to go to the craft store first thing Saturday morning, where we found a more attractive and durable metal box in which to house our gift.

In the end it was fine. Madeleine does not distinguish between homemade and store bought. She liked the colors. I was more concerned about the judgments of the other adults present, but that was misplaced anxiety on my part.

What this whole episode made me consider was what it means to give a gift. It just so happens that my homemade fantasies are in keeping generally with Madeleine's family's values, and that Madeleine was not disappointed in the slightest that the play dough didn't come in yellow canisters with different-colored tops. But another kid would have been, and I hope I will buy the shiny plastic stuff when we are invited to that kid's birthday party.

Right? Isn't there something weirdly aggressive going on when we impose our values on others in the gifts we give? Like the copy of Anna Karenina I gave my mom many Christmases ago. Read this thousand-page five-pound book, you'll love it! No pressure!

What a fine and difficult line we walk. I don't want to throw out my values every time I encounter someone who lives differently just to avoid social discomfort. Nor do I want to impose my love of kale and fine children's literature on everyone I meet. Children's gifts bring out this tension for me. As parents, our private decisions seem to become public so readily, igniting all kinds of low level defensive feelings with people we barely know. I met a mom at the playground last week who schooled me on proper sleep habits and potty training within five minutes of making my acquaintance. Without flinching, I jumped right in with funny personal kid stories, subtly defending my diapered two and a half year old (and his parents). Ha ha, some kids just take long than others, ha ha!

If we get invited to her son's birthday party, we're bringing paper airplanes crafted from whatever outdated lime green school flyers the kids find in the recycled paper stack.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

to everything there is a season

On a day like today, when the autumn colors are vivid and the pace peaceful enough to allow for a sense of awe before them, I long to mark the moment with a gesture.

Living with my little ones has made me more sensitive to the fragile, startling beauty of the natural world. It has also helped me to recognize my own longing for rituals to connect and affirm our place in all this superfluous wonder. Sitting today on a neighbor's lawn, watching Gabriel and his friend Megan run down the sidewalk after an empty stroller in the sunshine, I felt like an honored guest. Not just of our gracious neighbors, but of the whole world. And what a lavish spread is set before us!

So what kind of hostess gift does one give the world? A poem, a song, a story. A ritual!

Children get this. They understand intuitively that in living life fully, formal gestures to mark the days and nights, the seasons, the love that binds us, and all those other most essential things just makes sense. But as adults, we can get squeamish, self-consicous. This is why monastic life has always fascinated me. I imagine a day organized by rituals enacted communally, balancing work, study, prayer, song, silence. Plentiful, diverse opportunities to formally express the gratitude that bubbles up in quiet moments.

But as I will not be joining cloistered life any time soon, I am very grateful to my children. They have given Mike and me the opportunity to collaboratively create many daily rituals, and the small gestures we exuberantly perform together have only whetted my appetite for more.

Routine is one thing. And believe me, I like routines. Sticking to them gives my kids a way to feel some competence and mastery in their world. There is a time for everything: naptime, bathtime, lunchtime. It's all very orderly and satisfying. Dinner's over? Why, it must be time for two stories snuggled on the couch together, selected from the library book basket! I feel certain that there's a lot less resistance in our small daily transitions because of the pleasure the children feel in correctly anticipating exactly what's going to happen next. 

But ritual is different. It's the same way every time, but it points to something greater than itself. Rituals make meaning and connections between us and all that extends beyond. A shuttle going back and forth, back and forth on a loom, slowly weaving a beautiful fabric as it endlessly repeats itself.

One of my favorite family rituals is A Gabriel Story in the Chair. After Gabriel says goodnight to Papa and Frances, I walk with him up to his bedroom. We turn on the light, prepare his little bed, and then I wait by the door until he has settled himself on one side of the big chair. When he is ready, he looks up at me very solemnly and says: Come. As I approach, he grins and tells me, See, I made some space for you! Always the same words and gestures, every night. It is the signal that our ritual has formally begun.

We snuggle side by side. I begin to tell a Gabriel Story. It changes every time, but it always begins Once upon a time, there was a little boy... Then it goes on to describe the little boy, including such details as: this little boy could jump very high, he loved his family and they loved him, he had big brown eyes, he liked to climb on the twisty ladder at the playground and he liked to read stories with his Mama. When the protagonist has been properly sketched, we come to the most exciting moment. Every night Gabriel squishes down into his side of the chair, clasping his hands together in happy anticipation, waiting with bated breath.

...and he had light up shoes, and he liked the library....and his name. was. GABRIEL!

We say his name in unison. When we say GABRIEL, he is downright joyful. He looks up at me triumphantly with an expression that says: this story really is about me, Mama!!! I'm the boy!!

Then I talk about how much the little boy named Gabriel loved diggers and excavators and rocketships. This also sends him. He squirms and smiles in such a way that suggests his little body simply can't contain the enormous happiness he's feeling inside.

Finally I do a quick recap of our day, sticking to the third person perspective. He corrects me when I get something wrong or forget an important detail. The story ends with the present moment, and not long after that, Gabriel is under the covers clutching whatever small vehicle is his Sleeping Toy for the evening, ready for sleep.

This thing we do together every night is beautiful. It marks the closing of another day, honoring each moment that mattered. It gives Gabriel to himself, connecting his day to the person he is becoming. It makes his life into a fantastic story that he is utterly thrilled to star in. His identity and sense of his own path stretching out before him are just beginning to take shape.

So yes, I think the Gabriel Story is a befitting hostess gift for us to humbly offer. So are Gabriel's irrespresible bouts of jumping, dancing, singing, and zooming rocketship stickers all over the house. There are spontaneous acts of joy and gratitude, yes! But daily rituals provide a foundation.

When Gabriel is engaged body, heart, and mind during the Story, I imagine him as a little seedling, sending his roots down and his shoots up and out. And with every rollicking rendition of the Johnny Appleseed grace that we sing before dinner, all our roots entwine as they plunge down a tiny bit deeper. What a strange and sometimes bittersweet pleasure, to watch our seedlings grow from this tangled rootedness.