In a communications class I am currently taking we are focusing on what it means to exist in the ‘everyday’. One of the profound realizations we have come to in our discussions is that our everyday lives are ordinary, yet the mundaneness of the everyday is necessary and relevant for analyzing. This may seem like an odd statement, but when placed alongside the life of a mother I think it is even more illuminating.
Often as a parent I struggle to embrace the ordinary-ness of everyday life. Staying at home and doing ‘nothing’ with the kids seems like a waste of a day and detrimental to the always absorbing mind of these impressionable children. Yet I see that this everyday life we lead with our children is essential for them to learn how to recognize the extraordinary events of our lives as well as to live with an appreciation for the ordinary adventures of the day to day.
Our children grow up very quickly, there is little denying that. It is difficult, however, to see much changes from day to day, and without witnessing the changes we can be tempted into thinking that the individual days don’t matter. But I want to stress that everyday can an adventure, no matter how ordinary it is, because children learn and grow from every experience, not just the extraordinary ones.
I always struggle with creative crafts to do with the kids. If there is a creative bone in my body it is probably one of those tiny little inner ear bones, but even that is probably too big to hold all my creative genius. But there are so many days when I strive to do just one creative thing. Most days this urge is driven by the kids. We have managed to amass an enormous collection of craft materials that day after day sits in the cute plastic storage bin I purchased on one of my organizing kicks. But when I sit and look at the mix I am dumbfounded as to what type of crafty projects to do.
So I let my kid cut up paper. My son loves using his kid scissors, and even if he has a pattern to cut out the paper inevitably ends up as confetti all over the kitchen table, the family room floor and often into his sister’s mouth. So today I relented and just let him cut paper up into his classic tiny squares.
But even though today I was ok with letting my son create his own art, I still had the urge to create something myself. I have a project in the basement painting shapes on our walls with chalkboard paint. That project is only half done, but is usually too risky to attempt with the kids running amok. So today I did what any creatively starved person would do, I painted the moulding. I find I need something, anything that I can look at as a completed task; an accomplishment. Parenting is an incredibly rewarding experience, but the day to day accomplishments are hard to notice. So even though its just a little white paint on the walls of our basement, I at least have something quantifiable to show for today.
The motivation behind Mommy Learns is so that I have an outlet to decompress my daily adventures as a parent. I have come to understand that my mother was right when she said, “We learn something new everyday.” And it has surprised me to realize just how many of those daily lessons come from my children. I always thought I was supposed to be the teacher and pass on my vast stores of knowledge to them. As it turns out I learn so much about my children, myself and the larger world from watching these two small beings grow. As I’ve come to this realization that knowledge is flowing in both directions I have an urgency to save my experiences not only for my own reference but hopefully so others can eventually read them. I hope that maybe someday people will want to share their own lessons learned with me and this site can become a conversation between parents as we struggle through the difficult jobs we have all undertaken.
