Today was hot. By 2pm, I felt drugged and in dire need of a nap, but instead was driving home from one of my last days of class in Waldorf Teacher Training. After 3 years, I finally have my Saturdays back to myself. Don't ask me when I am going to get a teaching job. I am not sure what the plan is yet and I still have some requirements to fulfill. This past year I have felt stretched way too thin. Each week I dread going to school, only to find myself there and excited about the following weeks class. I need a break though. I am relieved.
When I got home, Jasper was napping. Nick and I told each other about our days and when Jasper woke up he wanted to do the dishes. So we all spent some time in the kitchen. I had started some dough for spelt buttermilk biscuits and so I took that out and finished them up. By the time I was rolling and cutting the dough, Jasper joined me to help. I've been on a buttermilk kick since I made Irish soda bread a couple of weeks ago. Well, I mean, I didn't want to waste the buttermilk so I made these biscuits and some buttermilk pancakes with blueberries and banana.
While the biscuits were baking we all went into the back yard. Jasper got to play with the hose. Nick began arranging the stone path from the gate to the pebbled area off the back of the house. And I began to shape the side yard garden along the fence.
Last Fall, we had a tree taken down - very sad, an Elm tree that died from Dutch Elm's Disease. All the branches got chipped and Nick laid them in all the garden beds in the yard. He was a little over-zealous about it and this Spring some of the chips were so deep that our plantings weren't coming up at the same rate as our neighbors. Plus the border didn't follow the plantings as I had laid them out, which became apparent as they did push through. So we gently pushed aside the chippings to expose the plants and today I used a shovel to remove the excess. I removed nearly 3 wheelbarrows full! It felt good to work hard and see my plan manifest. I shaped out a beautiful curve along the length of the fence exactly as I had envisioned in it my mind's eye. Then, borrowing from a friend's technique, I laid sticks collected from our brush pile along the edge of the curve where the chips met the yard. I piled them in varying lengths and thicknesses giving the appearance of something loosely woven.
At the same time, Nick laid out the stone path, continuing the walkway from the front yard through the gate into the backyard alongside the same fence I was working along, bending in a curve around the tree and continuing in an L to meet the pebbles. Last summer Nick dug a French drain and laid pebbles over it and a large area of our yard where flooding had been a problem. The pebbled area extends off the back of the house and will eventually be partially covered by a low level deck. Where the deck extends out into the yard, it will step off onto the exposed area of pebbles which is where the stone path ends.
When we both had finished our yard work, we looked at the lines we created in the space of the yard and saw that it was good. It's finally coming together.
Nick's enthusiasm ultimately leads him to over plan and seek my decisions or opinions on what to do with other aspects of home development that I am not ready to grapple with. And this time was no exception. Let us finish this part before we move on, I say. I finally found a stream of space and mind to work in some capacity in the yard towards improvement. Something I haven't been able to grasp in any capacity these last 2 years. And while I appreciate Nick's boundless energy, I ultimately feel bombarded by him and overwhelmed to the point that I shut down. I push him away so I can regain my balance. My energy has been plugged into Motherhood and all that encompasses, not home improvement. At least not in the big way that Nick has been accomplishing. And he's been disappointed in me for that. We used to do all that kind of stuff together. I did like it. But that part of me has been incapacitated. It's not a lacking, though. It's just different right now. He needs to appreciate that. I need to appreciate that.
But, things are shifting again, as Jasper approaches his 3rd year, his sense of self is becoming more separate from me and I am feeling the slow return of my sense of self as a result. Night weaning was the beginning of that. And that naturally unfolded to allow me to have my first night away without Jasper. It was momentous in a stand back and look at it all kind of way. It was also timely, as my first overnight was also a gift to my sister, as much as it was to myself. I was able to go to the city for her birthday and stay with her, reconnecting in a way we hadn't been able to in awhile. And I surprised myself by dominating the adult conversation with an emotional outpouring, unhindered by the distraction of Motherhood and giddy with the stream of following one line of thought after the next. I was a little embarrassed that I had exposed myself so vulnerably. Yet, I feel more connected with and love for my sister than I have in a long time. I think, I hope she feels similarly.
As if this isn't already a lot, I have been training at Swoon, to be a part of their waitstaff. Last night, after learning their system for running food, I was offered a position, in the following way. The owner asked me what the rest of my weekend looked like and I said I could come on Sunday. He said, "Great! You can work the lunch shift. We'll give you a number and a few tables and get you on the schedule." I love their food, I love their ambiance and I have been wanting to get a night job waiting tables since I was working at Le Gamin. But, the timing wasn't right then. All this manifested because of gentle and persistent attention to the subtleties of rhythm and following my instincts. And, I should make good money there.
Meanwhile, Jasper seems to sleep more readily and easily when Nick puts him down. He's got Daddy Magic. Now Nick is reveling in the delicious feeling of Jasper's little body weighed down on his while he drifts off to sleep after waking up at 2am. Being the comforter and soother. Feeling a shift in Jasper's demeanor with him as a result of their night relationship. This is the same man who couldn't sleep with Jasper on his stomach for fear of dropping him off the side of the bed or rolling on him. The same man who woke up nearly nightly with the real believe that Jasper was under the bed, or stuck between the bed and the wall behind his head, or that he had had him in his arms and had thrown him across the room. Each time he woke up like this he would frantically search for him on the floor in the dark or wherever he believed Jasper to be. All the while, Jasper was tucked safely in my armpit, his body curled towards my body and mine towards his. Nick can't believe he is the same Dad. Now he seems to embrace the night wakings and his role on night duty with immense patience and interest. And Jasper sleeps better with him than with me.
In sum, it took Jasper nearly an hour and a half to settle into sleep tonight. In the end, I had to lay near him in his bed for him to finally drift off. If he'd had it his way, he would have fallen asleep on me. His last request was, "Hug me." He's like a little rubber band - stretching out away from me as he asserts his independence and individuality, and snapping back for reassurance. Some nights are smoother than others and he drifts off on his own easily and quickly. Tonight, was not that kind of night. Oh, how I love that little boy.
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