Parenting and Pencils

I have always said that parenting five children is typically ends up along the lines of survival of the fittest. I have grown very good at being flexible and letting things go and knowing which things I should prioritize. But today, I faced the homeschool mom's worst fear: I was stabbed by a pencil. And suddenly, I realized that my parenting philosophies have shifted in the last few months.

Twinkles is pretty sure there's enough counter space
for her AND the cookie dough.

Let me back track to honesty. It wasn't the worst version of the homeschool mom's worst fear. I didn't get stabbed in the hand while giving an over achieving homeschool child a high five. But I did get a nice slice across my left shoulder thanks to an unnamed child who decided to stop drawing and give cuddles. There will be worse things. Like Latin noun declensions. And the constant waking terror of wondering if my children are being properly socialized.

But continuing on: changing parenting philosophies (which don't actually have anything to do with being punctured by a pencil). Although, it may be more parenting survival techniques than parenting philosophies... The Little Man made a comment just the other day about how organized and scheduled I was getting. I rolled my eyes at him, but then I realized...it was kind of true. Which caused me to immediately panic. Who am I?!? What is happening to me?!?! All those existential questions. Have I turned into a Pinterest mom with my adorable Pinterest chore chart and my adorable Pinterest lesson plans and my adorable Pinterest home? (No, on all fronts...)

Blanket Fort Round One

Still, I came to the realization that things can be more organized and scheduled now because...drumroll, please...I no longer have a baby. And I'm also...drumroll, part deux...not pregnant. If you can believe it, this is the longest I've gone without being pregnant for my entire marriage. And the amazing thing about not having a baby (and not working to produce yet another baby), is that you're no longer exhausted and overwhelmed all the time. And you're also not rearranging your schedule every three weeks when baby's nap/nurse schedule shifts.

Right before Twinkles lost her mind because I wouldn't
let her light the oven for her pretend cake baking game.

So yes, I have a bullet journal that I actually use. And I wash sheets on a schedule. And every Monday night all the water bottles get a good scrub. My children take showers and do chores every day (though getting their fingernails trimmed is another story). I put in my groceries on the same day every week and pick them up the next day. And it's like my inner J is finally getting a chance to thrive after letting my P run the show for all these years (that sounds gross--don't read into it too much).

Blanket Fort Round Two.
None of us realized just how much space we actually
had until it was taken up by blanket forts.

The funny thing I'm noticing, though, is that having things better organized frees me up to let the kids turn the entire living room into a blanket fort, and not freak out when Littles decides to put marshmallows in the chocolate chip cookies (even though the results were somewhat more exciting than he anticipated), and accept that my daughters are going to trade clothes with each other while simultaneously throwing a dance party and trashing the RV, and not worry so much when I'm washing dishes and there's a nerf gun battle going on over my sink, and wake up early so that I can write something just for myself, and so much more.

Dance party wearing each other's dresses.

It's also given me space to laugh more because I've already survived ten and a half years of unscheduled insanity so not much really fazes me any more.

Nothing fazes Blythe anymore either.
Not even Yucky Baby.
There is only terrified endurance.

It's nice being in a new season. But I recognize too, that it's just that. A season. And some moms might really rock the season of new mom with an exploding house full of children. But I'm not going to lie: I think I'm liking this version that comes with a little bit more of a routine. Even if it comes with the occasional pencil stabbing.

Shared Bounty

I thought I'd come back and give you guys proof of our gardening labor this year. Some aspects of our garden turned out heartier than others. For example, our lavender plant is going stronger than any of us ever expected. Especially Littles, who was convinced that I'd already killed it before we even transplanted it over to the raised beds. Pessimist.

Lavender in a glass in the background.

I did kill the zucchini and squash (root rot, although they produced a lot of blooms and a couple small vegetables that disintegrated on the vine before they finally died for good) and the bell pepper plants (our trip in May did them in). But the tomato plants are hanging in there--and even produced one beautiful tomato. Maybe we'll get more, but I'm grateful for the one we did get. And I ate the whole thing myself because the kids are philistines, and my neighbor was too sick for tomatoes the day it reached perfect ripeness.

Proof of life.
Before I ate that sucker.

Our jalapeño plant has been absolutely prolific--producing way more jalapeños than I could ever eat and of varying levels of spice, so you never quite know how exciting your meal is about to get until you bite into it. The strawberry plants gave us more than a few tiny and brightly sweet strawberries, though only ever one or two at a time, and are still alive and will hopefully make more adorable strawberries for us before we move next summer if I can manage to keep them alive through the winter. This is a big if.

Those jalapeños like to get artsy on me.

I suppose it's been mostly a mixed bag of results, but the fact that my kids can now say they've harvested jalapeños and a tomato (singular), lavender and strawberries, is kind of huge to me. And while we lived in a trailer park, no less. Also, they've seen that sometimes we give things our best shot but that still doesn't always guarantee the results we want. Still, we keep trying and tweaking and teaching ourselves new things. And that's not necessarily a bad lesson to learn.

It's not always the most well-weeded garden, and some days the plants look better than other days (my mint and basil seem to wax and wane with the moon), but I'm glad that we pushed ourselves to take a risk and try something new. Even if the fruit of our labor has been primarily jalapeños, we've also harvested some curiosity, a little bit of hard work, a smidge of beauty, and the belief that dirt under your fingernails is not something to shy away from.

So many jalapeños,
so little time.

We've also seen that everything looks better in certain lights, and sunrise is a forgiving time. But only for plants because they don't need coffee.

The mint plant only agrees to be photographed at sunrise.

But our biggest discovery is that gardens, like most things, are more fun when they can be shared. Twinkle enjoyed taking solitary strawberries to our neighbor and small bouquets of lavender next door. There are daily deposits of jalapeños across the field to the neighbor who went in with us on garden stuff. And maybe one day we'll get more than one tomato so that we can share those too. In the meantime, we know now that sharing a garden, and the work that comes with it, and the beauty and bounty that came from it (even if it was mostly jalapeños) has just been good.

Lavender makes everyone happy.
Except for the strawberries that wish it would
get out of their space.