A Change Is As Good As A Holiday

On Thursday afternoon, our usual 10 minute walk home from school took us two hours. But there were no tantrums. There was no dragging of feet.  We arrived home excercised, relaxed and happy. Let me share a little secret with you. A routine is good, but a spontaneous breaking of your routine every now and again lifts you out of the daily grind and turns your thoughts to other things. It gives you a break.It is like finding time you thought you didn't have.

Our normal routine on a Thursday would be to collect Number One from school and then take Number Two to athlethics but leave 15 minutes early because Number One is bored and Number Three needs to be fed.  This routine is usually heaps of fun for Number Two. Since he is the middle child and demands far less attention than his brothers, I like to stick with athlethics class for him even though the other two aren't too pleased about it. 

Thursday was such a lovely sunny day that I couldn't bear the thought of spending it in the school PE hall. So, on the walk to school I suggested we go for ice-cream after the school pick-up. To be honest, that was the end of my plan. School, ice-cream parlour, home. 

As luck would have it, Number One had had a particularly good day at school behaviour-wise and had no homework left to do. So we strolled over to the ice-cream parlour, ordered, ate and chatted happily. Number One checked the menu and counted out the money for the waitress from my purse (they are learning about money at school at the moment). He even asked for the bill and paid all by himself.

As we got up to leave, Number Two wanted to show me something in the street behind the ice-cream parlour. We never have a reason to go round there, but he was there with a friend's family recently and wanted to show me the fountain he saw. So we went. We were about 150m from the ice-cream parlour but in the opposite direction to home. And here it suddenly struck me - we could turn around and walk home. We'd be there in less than ten minutes. The boys would play their usual games of Lego or Playmobil and I would mind the baby, make dinner, tidy up or put on a wash. Or we could keep walking in the wrong direction and take a different way home. 

So we did. 

It was wonderful. We walked through parts of the village that the boys had never seen and that I had rarely been in. We looked around us and chatted about the houses we passed. We talked about how old there were and what they were built with. We watched the sunlight flicker through the leaves on a big copper beech. We don't do things like that on the school route. It has become so routine and we are always in a hurry to get to school, to get to sport, to get home, to be somewhere else but not in the moment.

Two beautiful houses fallen to ruin.

Once we got home, I sent the boys to change for bed. I got Number Three changed for bed too and set the table for dinner. We ate boiled eggs and sandwiches for tea instead of having a cooked meal. Afterwards the boys went to bed without any trouble, happy and sleepy.  

A pretty pink villa. It reminds me of  a dolls' house.

At home that evening a line from one of my favourite poems popped into my mind

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost

I've loved this poem since I first came across it over twenty years ago. It is such a simple poem, so matter of fact, but it perfectly describes my relaxed and spontaneous afternoon with my boys. 

Sunlight filtering through a big copper beech tree.

A canopy of blossoms along a walkway.

Ireland's Best-Loved Poem & A Lesson in Creating Closeness

Today I read in the Irish Times that Seamus Heaney's poem When All The Others Were Away At Mass was crowned favourite Irish poem in the last 100 years. I was never a big fan of Seamus Heaney but I was a little disappointed in myself that I couldn't even recite a single line of the poem. Luckily the paper had printed it at the end of the article.

The poem describes beautifully the time the poet spent with his mother in peeling potatoes while the rest of the family was out at mass. The language is simple, the imagery vivid: "When all the others were away at Mass/ I was all hers as we peeled potatoes". The poem then changes scene to the mother's deathbed years later with the poet remembering his mother in those moments alone together one day. The final line had me, a mother to three boys, suddenly in tears "Never closer the whole rest of our lives."

One of the big challenges of parenthood is spending time with each of your children individually. For me, these lines from When All The Others Were Away At Mass highlight the importance of one-on-one time with your children. Children don't need a lot to be happy, but what they do need and thrive upon are attention and recognition. You can hear the pride and delight of the child in the line: "I was all hers". 

Creating this feeling can be as simple as letting your eldest child stay up half an hour later than than younger siblings now and again or sitting down to draw or play for ten minutes with one of your children. Involve them in banal tasks you are doing anyway or observe your child and be led by their suggestions for activities. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to contrive memorable situations (birthday parties, holidays, days out and presents). Try to make the time you have each day count. They can't read our minds and know instinctively that we love them above all else. But knowing that they are worth spending time alone with speaks volumes to them.

Look your children in the eye when they speak to you or you to them. Really listen to what they say and lay off hurrying them so much. Allow them to share your time and feel valued by you. 

Laundry Haunts Me

Laundry haunts me, 

Taunts me. Gaunt me.

Colours, darks and delicates,

Whites, tights, even hand-knits

All call out for some attention.

The kids do too, I need not mention.

Frazzled, hassled, sleep deprived,

For empty wash baskets I have strived.

But boys like muck and grass-stained knees

And what food leaves no stain 'cept cheese?

Toddlers tend to spill their juice

And their bowels tend to be loose.

So I've resolved to forgo ironing

But stick to washing and to drying

(That which is most urgently required.

A mummy can't simply be fired).

And I will keep the time I've gained

To keep my children entertained.

Clodhopping

The mind is a fantastic thing. It stores up information, day by day, and then seems to throw random chunks to the forefront every so often, leaving you wondering what just happened, why you suddenly remember an event or develop a longing for a person, place or food. Often it is a smell or a sound that triggers the mind.
Yesterday, on the walk home from music lessons with the boys, we walked as usual on the path through the green. A digger or tractor must have been working there the previous day because part of the green was churned up and tracks were visible. Immediately the boys ran to it, muck being a boy magnet. The severe frost the night before last meant that the muck had frozen. The tracks had more or less ploughed up the damp ground, so when it froze it resembled potato drills. 
The sight of my two sons stumbling on the hard ground and trying to balance on the drills instantly brought snipets of poetry and prose to mind that I assumed I had long forgotten, namely Patrick Kavanagh's 'Stony Grey Soil' and Brian Friel's short story 'The Potato Gatherers'.

Kavanagh's opening stanza suddenly popped into my head, a good twenty years after having learned it by heart in school:
'O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved;
You took the gay child of my passionAnd gave me your clod-conceived.'
It continues 'You clogged the feet of my boyhood...' When I came to this line, the meaning of the poem came rushing back to me; how little joy Kavanagh's childhood in Monaghan allowed him. 
Friel's short story tells the tale of two young brothers who skip school one day in November to pick potatoes, back-breaking work in the bitter cold for money that woould be handed straight over to their mother.
When I finished school, I never imagined that I would be glad for having learned these pieces. But they opened my eyes to how good my children have it. To them, a field of rutted, frozen muck is a souce of excitement. Wrapped up in fleeces, anoraks, gloves and warm winter boots, clodhopping along the hard ground, they marvel at the little frozen puddles and compete against each other to see who can balance the longest on the drills. 
I told them about the poem that I had remembered and sais we'd look it up when got home. To my surprise, they seemed genuinely interested in hearing it. "Is there a video of that poem on the compuer, Mammy?" Number 2 wanted to know. We are definitely a long way from Kavanagh and Friel's depictions of childhood. 

Babies Grow Up....Too True

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

But babies grow up, we've learnt to our sorrow.

So settle down cobwebs and dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

The Playroom...I take the poem above seriously

The above poem hung in my mother's kitchen for over thirty years and was read and admired often by visitors. The framed poem was actually a card that my aunt sent from Texas to my mother on the birth of my sister. It has recently moved to my sister's home since she too is now a mother.

I always liked the poem but never fully realised the truth of it till recently. There is a four year gap between my second and third sons. With the older boys at school and kindergarten, I have time in the mornings to play with my youngest. Of course I had time with my first child too, but I appreciate it so much more now, having twice witnessed how quickly time passes and how precious those first 12 months are.

When I had my first child, I was amazed at the cards I got from friends of my parents, parents of my friends and even an e-mail from a colleague of my father. At the time I simply thought it was nice of them. Only later, when my own son was over a year old and I heard of others having their first child (sisters of friends, friends of sisters), I noticed myself reaching for the New Baby cards and penning a few lines of sincere congratulations. You see, I now knew what a wonderful adventure was about to begin for them. Only then did it click with me why so many aquaintances with children had sent me cards. There are some things only fellow parents can truly share with you.

Out of curiosity I googled "cleaning and scrubbing" today and found that the rhyme I know is the mis-quoted final verse of 'Song for a Fifth Child' by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton. Ruth wrote the poem based on her experience with her youngest child who, like mine, was serveral years younger than its siblings and for whom Ruth had more time.

I recommend that you read the full poem (published here with permission of the author). While the final verse is the highlight, the previous two verses are moving in their combination of sincerity and light-heartedness. This should be compulsory reading for expectant mothers. Pass it on!