though one could argue that this whole blog is simply one continuous excavation of my own personal motherhood mess, i am feeling the need to contribute a scene from my own life to the reality project. but first, i want to send out a big thank you to those who have shared images with me in the name of truth-telling. keep ’em coming!

today’s still life was mindlessly constructed for purely practical reasons. last wednesday, instead of packing a bag to send with the bird to my mother’s house, i stuck the day’s necessities in her large clear salad bowl — an item i had borrowed and needed to return.

did i mention that last wednesday was day two of the bird’s potty training regimen? i filled the bowl with the kid’s “chew toy,” a handful of big-boy-pants, and a quarter of a homemade chocolate cake (to make me seem less mean for putting my mom through potty training hell). i was on my way to the car with this collection when it occurred to me how funny it was!

possible titles:

• foreshadowing (the bird pooped in his pants at my mom’s)
• silly salad (my mom’s grandmother name is silly sally)
• life is just a bowl of big-boy-pants

my friend maryann has expanded the scope of the reality project on her blog, the blue room. check out her version of truth-telling, complete with this hilarious last line:

and anyone commenting that they have it all together, or recoiling in self-righteous horror, will be pelted by the alphabet magnets on my fridge that go with a leapfrog game that disappeared five years ago.

about 3.4 times per day, i take in the cluttered chaos of our home and say to myself, “man, this place is a shit hole!” the national average for mothers is actually quite a bit higher (ten times per day). sometimes it pays to have a high tolerance for filth.

but no matter how often i am affected by domestic dissaray (actual DSMIV term?), it always comes with a sense of personal failure. rarely do i remember that this place is a fraternity house and that the odds are stacked against me. seldom does it occur to me that finding time to scrape the kids’ sticker art from the kitchen floor would mean neglecting some other responsibility or necessity, such as showing up at work or sleeping.

this is why i think my generation can greatly add to the flow of women’s progress simply by telling the truth. even the tidiest among us have at least one little corner where stuff from every category of life  is thrown together like new yorkers on the subway. life is moving along too quickly to stop and sort everything out. but if we pause long enough to voice our realities, the sense of personal failure might give way to the obvious collective notion that no single person can effectively accomplish the zillion tasks that are set before modern mothers.

today’s contribution to the reality project comes from elise, who gazes upon this scene daily from her perch at the computer.

there are boxes to break down for recycling, an old microwave to dispose of, grocery bags to return to the car, and a rogue cat carrier standing on end next to it all. there are “storage” areas just like this in nurturing homes all across the country, each of them taunting us with ridiculous standards and tiresome to-dos.

i am finding that nothing combats a sense of personal failure like a sense of humor. to all the folks who are willing to unveil their messes as part of the reality project, thank you. at the very least, these scenes make us laugh (there’s no cat in the carrier, right?). at the most, they just might help us learn to stop making society’s failures our own.

sharon sent me this piece, which i am titling:

• breakfast of champions,
• who has time to clear the dishes?, or
• the goofball pulls an all-nighter.

now let’s take a little trip to the master bathroom, home to this scene i’m going to call:

• walgreens stock truck crashes into east memphis home,
• step one – chug wine. step two – remove panties. step three – apply hair removal system, or
• east(ern medicine) meets west(ern medicine).

for those of you who are playing along at home, the two most recent submissions to the reality project  have involved stray skivvies. what can i say? it’s modern motherhood. not everything has its place.

perhaps the funniest thing about this recent submission to the reality project  is that it came with no accompanying explanation:

 i will now offer you the only plausible rationalization for natalie’s edgy little menagerie :

an oafish teenager, trapped in a middle-aged man’s body, was robbing a florida grocery store in search of the perfect tv dinner. witnesses say he was wearing a tan shirt bearing the image of a muskrat and holding a brown plaid umbrella, while peering at the contents of the store freezer through a paper towel roll scope. the suspect proceeded to a nearby beach-side condo to charge his phone, drink a beer, change into a green shirt, deodorize, and microwave his lunch. when the unsuspecting renters returned to the condo to reapply sunscreen and suction out their 8-month-old’s nostrils, they came face-to-face with the bandit. they put a pot of water on to boil and were discussing the best way to season thief stew when the suspect fled the scene.

typical case of arrested development.

the reality project  is off to a seamless start with pictures from carolyn. in addition to her responsibilities as a preschool teacher and a mom of two boys, carolyn makes and sells fabulous colorful aprons at the memphis farmers market, among other places. all this is to explain the scene you are about to behold:

carolyn writes, “this is the norm on any given day, and yes, we do eat dinner at that table every evening. all the crap gets moved around or just pushed to the end.”

the fun continues with this shot of the end table next to carolyn’s regular spot on the couch:

let’s play a game! can you spot the following?

• school stuff
• sewing stuff
• jewelry she’s taken off after a long day
• big cup of hot tea for the morning
• the “color swatch” that’s been on the wall for ages (color chosen and paint purchased ages ago, but it’s still not on the walls.)

carolyn, you win the prize for the most colorful take on chaos! and p.s. i will be contacting you about making me an apron!

lately i have been thinking about women’s progress and the gifts each generation of women has shared to improve life for the next. what do i have to offer? in a recent post i wrote for the fabulous liberated life blog, i admitted that

“the contents of my work and family life are tightly crammed into a metaphorical (and very disorganized) closet. the pacifiers and burp cloths live next to my dusty grad school diploma and laptop, which are obscuring a bunch of unread papers about the upcoming “level II beach party” that my son brought home in his school bag. i live in fear that someone will open the door of this closet and instigate an avalanche of all things dear to me.”

there are so many opportunities available to modern women. but what will i contribute to the next generation when taking advantage of these opportunities tends to yield a disorganized mishmash of overwhelming stuff?

and then it hit me (an idea… not the avalanche). perhaps my generation is charged with the important and unglamorous work of telling the truth. we can help define the problem. progress is impossible without an honest look at the current state of things. the plethora of mom blogs and parental facebook confessions speaks to the notion that our generation simply wants the freedom to come clean about the complexities of modern motherhood.

“the truth hurts,” according to an old saying. but sometimes, the truth is hilarious! some friends of mine have recently posted pictures on facebook of their own disorganized mishmashes of overwhelming stuff. these scenes represent the new normal of modern motherhood where everything does not have its place.

many thanks to lane and stiles for contributing the above pictures to what i am titling “the reality project.” let’s say there is a half-eaten sucker stuck to your uncashed paycheck or a jock strap in your fruit bowl. let’s say you’ve been walking by these scenes in your home for three days without even noticing. snap a photo and send it to me! the truth is funny. we might as well laugh. and who knows… we could be doing the next generation a favor.

spirea

two weeks ago, back when the world was new, the act of fetching the bird from school came with the added boost of accolades from his teachers about his “near perfect behavior.” in fact, i owe the bird a lot of credit for my easy transition into campus ministry in january. he surprised me with his instant comfort with school rituals, peers, and even group nap time.

that was before he grabbed a handful of the face of another child who was “using his outside voice inside.” there were no accolades that day, of course. just instructions to cut the bird’s fingernails and to insist upon good behavior at home.

red yucca

we’ve de-clawed our child, who now spends 87.5 percent of his life in time out for clocking his brother on the head with various objects. with every school pick-up, i hope for a report of improved behavior. but the bird is consistent in his resolve to fully embrace the “terrible twos.” it seems that in parenting, there are no immediate results.

purple heart

there are no immediate results in campus ministry either, as it turns out. i am wrapping up my first semester at the university of memphis, and my offerings of engaging programs and free food are not exactly wooing the masses. i was reporting this phenomenon to a member of my campus ministry board last week, and he encouraged me to think of my work as the act of planting seeds.

i burst into immediate laughter as i recalled what a friend had said to me just the day before. she was surveying my front yard, a space that was completely under construction two years ago due to a drainage issue. i, a novice gardener, researched what plants would be happiest in our wet soil and in full sun. i made dozens of trips to nurseries and googled the names of the foliage on the shelves. and then, much to the entertainment of friends, family, and neighbors, i made what several of them described as the beginning gardener’s classic mistake. i planted one of everything. (i really planted about three of everything but this fact didn’t seem to matter.)

yellow helenium daisies

as my friend was surveying my yard, which is now full of all sorts of interesting leaves and textures and colors, she said, “your yard looks great! it’s almost as if you knew what you were doing!”

i guess the same goes for all types of seed planting – parenting, campus ministry, et cetera. there are no immediate results. in the present, we just have to persist with near-knowledge and experimental expertise. then, if the sun shines just right, something beautiful will emerge.

when andy and i were pining away for children (in between jumbo margaritas at el porton or after the seventh consecutive episode of 24), we looked forward to things like playing outside with them, showing them our favorite mountains, and generally introducing them to all that is enjoyable and beautiful. even then, i knew that disciplining children would be my weakness. i looked upon the prospect of setting rules and enforcing time-outs as a dreadful necessity. and now that i am four years into parenthood, i would like to congratulate my twenty-something self for her accurate foresight. setting rules and enforcing time-outs is, in fact, a dreadful necessity.

the child experts say that children thrive under the presence of two equally present conditions: high nurture and high structure. the former is something that comes easily to me, and especially to andy. we try to mirror and help the kids name their feelings. we plan ahead for shared experiences that are enjoyable and beautiful. but when it comes to the latter, there is much less planning ahead. though the kids rely on a pretty steady routine and schedule, the discipline piece is often spur of the moment (and ineffective). in the grand game of parenting, i make up the rules as i go and announce them to the younger players, who return my half-hearted efforts with half-hearted compliance.

enter the wii.

after the second week of house arrest due to sub-arctic temperatures, andy and the kids braved the icy roads and returned home with a wii. it was fun for a while. there were family bowling tournaments and ridiculous collective attempts at nailing m.c. hammer’s dance moves. and then, without warning, the monkey stumbled into a deep, black, techy hole, and nobody has heard from his former self since. as recently as last week, he could be heard uttering heartbreaking phrases such as,

 “i don’t want to play outside in the warm sunshine. i want to play wii.” 

the wiihas brought the need for discipline and limit-setting in our home to a level that is far beyond the reaches of spur-of-moment-rule-making. so in a reluctant act of planning and plotting, andy and i discussed and created this chart to regulate wii time and create incentives for the monkey to act like a civilized human being.

though this is not the hand-held chart that the tech-crazed monkey requested, (he wanted one “like a smart phone”), it is actually becoming the key to pleasant life around here. the monkey earns stickers for being sweet and cooperative, and each sticker translates into ten minutes of wii time. he can earn up to an hour per day, and a strategically-placed timer above the wii lets him know when his time is up. i am utterly shocked that the monkey loves this new system. he loves rules. he loves structure. he now gets himself dressed, takes bottles to the recycling bin, makes his own breakfast, and quits playing the wii when asked, all for precious stickers and minutes spent clutching the white plastic control.

it turns out that my twenty-something self was only half right.  setting rules and enforcing time-outs is, in fact, a dreadful necessity. but the absence of structure and discipline is fifty times more dreadful. rules simply make life easier. and we can’t have all that is enjoyable and beautiful without them.

until six weeks ago, the monkey was a strict observer of naptime. to say that he was an “observer” of nap time is to say that he spent two hours per day holed up in his room. sometimes he slept, but most of the time he invented games for himself to play within his four walls.

for example, it was not uncommon for me to open his door after naptime to find a “puzzle piece room,” a carefully created state of affairs wherein the entire floor was covered in adjacent blankets, er, i mean “puzzle pieces.” other days were “sorting days,” and the monkey would spend the two hours organizing and cataloging his stuffed animals, game pieces, markers, and books. still other afternoons were spent “reading.” once, i walked in on this scene:

but times are different now. i gave in to the monkey’s complaints that he was bored in his room, and now, while his brother sleeps, he does things that require much less imagination (many of which involve the television and/or the wii). perhaps this is because i have not made the shift away from cooking dinner, folding laundry, and catching up on work between the hours of two o’clock and four o’clock. or perhaps it is because the monkey and i are both drawn to what is easier. for him, making a puzzle piece room takes more effort than wii bowling. and for me, extracting him from the tv takes more effort than cooking dinner in peace.

the problem with this scenario is that i don’t want to deprive the monkey of the gift of boredom. catherine newman, author of an essay entitled bored again, which appeared in the fall 2010 issue of brainchild magazine, defines boredom as “that agitated space between relaxation and action: dialed down, it can become a pleasant kind of inertia or a meditative stillness, where it feels good to sit quietly with your own thoughts; cranked up a notch, it can produce creative release.” newman goes on to write,

“i’m not trying to sound like one of those crafty-mama blogs that makes you want to kill yourself, the kind you bookmark one day because you think that putting out a wooden bowl of felt gnomes sounds like a good idea… and yet. you do have to learn boredom, learn to live with it, to manage it with the power of your own mind, without recourse to video games or bungee jumping or sniffing glue or starting a nuclear war or date raping your roommate’s girlfriend. the most dangerous people we know are the least able to sit still, to be inside an absence of motion.”

i definitely don’t want the monkey to become “a dangerous person,” but that’s not my main attraction to boredom. i simply think that boredom facilitates creativity and imagination, and these things are what ultimately make life beautiful.

our family spends significant periods of time away from our memphis routines and addictions to technology. our family camp weekends and julys in the north carolina mountains are hopefully deterrents from future glue-sniffing tendencies. but building boredom into our daily memphis routine, one that must also include my own significant accomplishments on the home and work fronts, is becoming increasingly difficult.

is there any way to give the monkey the gift of boredom (and creativity and imagination and beauty) without forcing him to play with a wooden bowl of felt gnomes?

our little bird is a picasso.

he will stack and climb bar stools and yoga blocks, tricycles and throw pillows to get his hands on a forbidden stash of markers. this child has an endless supply of paper AND a giant cardboard rocket ship opon which to illustrate his brilliance.

but alas… he prefers the walls.

there was a time when i would frantically scrub down the bird’s “canvases” with all manor of products guaranteed to erase even the most stubborn toddler doodles. but i got tired of my surroundings looking smudgy, like the back of that “soul-glow”-covered sofa in the movie coming to america:

so i no longer make any effort to eliminate the bird’s masterpieces. i even took a cue from my friend autumn, and i put a frame around this particularly nice mixed-media piece that the bird did with his cousins on thanksgiving:

pen, ink, marker, boogers, and eye pencil on flat latex

the bird knows that drawing on the walls comes with consequences. it is now common for him to fetch cleaning supplies himself or to retreat to his room for self-imposed time-outs. but to him, these are but small prices to pay for the thrill of making his very own mark on the world.

crayon on glass

to the bird, everything is an art supply. toothpaste is a turquoise sky. chocolate is a muddy swamp. and strawberries… well, who knows what they’re supposed to be.

strawberries on latex flat

i am seriously contemplating drawing on the walls myself. after all, we will already have to have the entire house re-painted in a few years (and possibly sanded first). why not follow the lead of virginia wolf and her friends, whose entire home in england is full of unconventionally placed art:

if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.