A pristine childhood

Forgive the blurry photo from summer 2008. Note the red barrel of monkeys just east of my first baby bump. Look at how ready we were to become parents, everything arranged just so.

Many of my readers* have asked : How did you come up with your blog name? "As fun as a barrel of mostly one-handed monkeys" is, of course, a turn on the phrase "as fun as a barrel of monkeys." We have one of these quintessential childhood toys roaming around our home somewhere. I received the toy as a gift from my mom while I was single and looking forward to a future with a family of my own someday. My pristine gift has undergone many changes in the ensuing years. The barrel's lid was smashed and discarded in an accidental parent-stepping, several monkeys each had a hand chewed off by loving children, and one or two were lost forever under a bolted-in book case at our last house. This broken family of red monkeys was joined by several green members last year in a thrift store find, and the blended family now faces all of the same challenges it faced before, though the forces threatening to scatter and chew them have now tripled.

It is not easy to play a game of monkeys-in-a-barrel when several have only one hand. It's like plucking the Old Maid from your opponent's hand to hook a monkey and see that he (or she) is of the one-handed variety. Game over. Or not, because there is actually a less conventional objective and that is to make several monkey chains instead of just one long one. The point is this: there is still fun to be had, and there are still joys to claim and accomplishments to savor even if the result we initially desired is impossible. When we work with what we're given, accepting that some things cannot change, we will recognize that our once pristine gift was not ruined by experience, but hastened in its development by the realities of its struggle.

Anyway, that is what I tell myself when the children get in the way of my good parenting,

Take our photo shoot a couple Sundays back. Patience is a virtue, but even the second attempt resulted in weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. The baby also cried a bit. But consider how patient Caitlin looks. I'm glad I caught that moment. And Claire might just be singing for all we know. It's just a matter of perspective.

My husband directed me to take a nap afterward, amidst my vehement objections that I didn't have time for a nap. It's amazing how a good nap transforms the ruffled, ragged edges of our caterpillar selves into the possibilities-wide-open butterfly version of ourselves. Perhaps that's why swaddling a baby to help them sleep makes us think of a little bug.

We are still waiting for this ragged caterpillar to undergo its transformation.

If you're on Goodreads with me, you may have noticed that I've been reading the same book since last summer: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We made it to lesson 8. And yet, here's Caitlin three weeks into kindergarten, sounding out her first book. 

I was determined to teach her to read before kindergarten, just as my dad had taught me and my sister. But the intrinsic motivators were not there for Caitlin as they had been for me, and I couldn't make my daughter interested long enough to change that. I accepted this difference in us, continued to work with her in a less formal approach, and now she's putting it all together in her own time. Just like the book said: Easy!

My dad's oldest sister recommended this blog to me, and the most recent post inspired me to say "yes" to my kids more often. Not to be a permissive parent, but to recognize that childhood is fleeting and the cost of messiness is much less than the cost of a stifled imagination. I had previously tried this approach at my mom's suggestion, but have since needed some reminders. 

I took this photo shortly before a fight erupted over my unwillingness to microwave the s'mores from their fake campfire because I didn't want to deal with sticky goo before school. So I still have a lot to learn in this second go-around with childhood. I just hope that my kids learn along the way how fun their barrel of monkeys is, even if it isn't the pristine gift I had intended to give them.

*OK, so it was my mom, but since I consider her my most avid reader, she counts as the majority out there in my vast audience...