I should be literally dreaming, since I am sick (again) and sleep-deprived (as usual). Instead I am awake, perusing the Internet for good parenting blogs and cool birth stories. Sigh.
As I read the blogs of others who seem so comfortable in their roles as unschoolers, non-vaxers, home-birthers, free-thinkers, and more, it really makes me long for another world. I don't know why I feel so stuck--but that's really the only way I can put it. I want to parent in this certain way and I constantly feel as though I am failing. The transition from traditional to very non-traditional is complicated and definitely not easy. Especially when you have basically no one and nothing guiding you except that wrenching feeling in your gut that tells you this is the right way. (And how accountable is that feeling, anyhow? I think that is the same one that led me half-way through Seminary?...). But anyways.
I long for a place of peace and quiet (yes, me-- the same woman who longed for a busy mall and a Target with a starbucks less than two years ago. Yup, me!), where BB and I can sit and look at the sky or watch the birds and I can listen to that tiny little toddler voice proclaiming the beauty and wonder of it all. A place where I can feed my family food fresh from the ground... where I can shop without having a heart-attack or the extra burden of spending an additional 2.5 hours reading labels. A place where I can choose to not inject my child with poisonous toxins such as formaldehyde, aluminum, aborted fetal tissue and cloned/GMO-sheep/duck/calf whatever and not be condemned by society for it. I want to be around people whose first question when they hear me cough isn't- "are you going to take something for that?". I want to be able to walk next door and share tea with someone who gets me, in a place where our kids can play together without pressure or conformity or fear of playing in the neighborhood past dark. I want my house to be a place of discovery for BB- a place where he is free to grow and make decisions and just be. A house where he is an equal, a person, a partner in our family. Where the words "control" and "discipline" and "manipulation" don't exist and aren't heard, ever. Where the color of our sofa is far less important than the memory BB made using it as a fort, and where the crayon markings on the wall become a new masterpiece rather than a hidden mistake.
I want a playroom that's a playroom- not a BOYS playroom, or a GIRLS playroom, but a freakin' room filled with toys that excite and ignite a passion for play and learning. It will be blue and pink and every stinkin color in between...because...they're COLORS, for god's sake.
I want to truly let go (and see hubby let go) of all the traditional things we once thought were "important". I want to get out of this in-between place of uncertainty and just be comfortable with what I truly believe. I don't want to manipulatively give BB decisions so that everything works out the way I want it to- I want to give him real decisions and be comfortable with the outcome because I know that is what he chose, and somehow he is learning something from it. I don't want to get frustrated when things don't go my way, people don't act the way I expect them to, or when the house isn't as clean as I for some reason feel it NEEDS to be. I don't want to "unschool" with a desk and an outline and an asinine amount of expectations. It doesn't make sense! It is all stuck. None of it makes sense.
