Staying Home

I was a housewife before I had my daughter. Our life is not the sort that allows both my husband and I to be absent all day. Especially in the winter. With a stove to tend, a garden to fill, and a road to build, I was never bored. I am still a housewife, and I am still busy, but with my little tick riding along during daytime chores. Today, the pigs escaped, and I rushed around the yard, a miserable Yarrow clinging to my arm and an overwhelmed Luba barking like mad in the house. We corralled them, luring them back with food and collapsed, sweaty, tired, and triumphant on the grass - laughing together with shared glory. These are the moments that thrill me. My little girl is learning life at my side, laughing with me, crying with me, and growing each and everyday in confidence and security. Except, of course when she’s frightened by the stress of pigs running wild and her mother yelling for Luba to shut up! But even those moments, are at least shared moments. I too am frightened by the thought of losing the pigs we’ve been feeding for two and a half months to the woods, or losing the tomatoes and eggplants to the destructive force of Bonnie and Clyde - we’re frightened together, we overcome together, and afterward we can sit on the floor reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and the frightening time can fade into a happy memory of us doing what we need to do, together.

Not every woman can stay at home with her children. I realize this, and I’m grateful to my husband, because he works hard to make my life possible. He is up at dawn to make the long drive down to Portland each day so that I don’t have to lose these daily moments of loving, learning, and growing to someone else. Yarrow’s confidence in my presence - her surety that I will be there for her, is such a joy to me. I love cooking with her perched on the counter to help, watching her mimic me read, and sipping from her ‘espresso’ cup. More and more I am realizing the value of quantity time - what she sees, day after day, Yarrow is learning to do. She is learning to laugh at Luba, to dance to Florence + The Machine, to drink lattes from coffee-house ‘to-go’ cups, to recognize Jesus. Seeing Petka mimic makes me try to be a better person, because I am the one she spends her hours with, and I want those hours to be beautiful.