Bamboo Shoots the Breeze

I'm averaging just a post a week now, with kids taking over daily life, and photoblogging pulling me in another direction. But the written word keeps calling as well.

Having children is overwhelming, for so many reasons. They become our world, and ours theirs, and, rather than re-creating another episode of Toddlers Say the Darndest Things, I'll simply get to my point: Children enrich our lives in a way not possible by any other means.

I think, these days, Stay-at-Home-Moms feel pressure to return to work outside of the home, even if we don't have a job to return to. Many Moms I know work part-time but remain the primary care-givers and attendees of playgroup, shuttling everyone around and registering for music and sports programs. Oh yeah! And working. We really try to do it all, and if we don't do it all, we feel pressure to do it all.

At playgroup yesterday, the hosting Mom was explaining what all the treats were she'd laid out.. then she got a call about the deposition she had to do in the morning. Another Mom I know was in Mexico City last week for a conference.

I suppose I've made a certain kind of peace with my status. I suppose. But not enough to keep me from writing about it.

Back to the overall point. I've been making a point to point out things to my 2.5 year old. How big the yellow school bus is up close. How the sky is cloudless now and there's no snow or rain, and little green shoots are popping up. Garbage trucks (okay. He points those out.) I've noticed the careful way he listens to me, looking off toward the horizon, and I can actually see the thoughts tumbling around in his head starting to form structured patterns, ideas, and conclusions. And it's amazing.

A few minutes ago, I was reading him passages from two grown-up books he snagged off our bookshelf: one on Marcus Aurelius of Roman rule, and a book about the inspiration and act of writing (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.) He, being a toddler, got bored after a page or two, and said he had an email from Papa (Grandpa.) Absentmindedly putting the books away, I said,
"You know, email wasn't even around when Mommy was a kid."
He looked up at me, understanding completely, and said, "And when I was a baby it wasn't around. A long, long time ago."

When Mommy was a kid was a very long time ago, and when he was a baby was a very long time ago. By the transitive property of equality...

There are those that would still argue with me that this is just a fun twist on an otherwise really boring lifestyle. And that may be true. But just now, when I went in to remind him one more time what we do at naptime, he asked me if I knew what Pandas eat.

"Do you know what they eat?" I asked, knowing the answer.
He beamed at me. "Bamboo!"

Right again.