Simply: I love the water, and I’m good in it. I can tread water for minutes; swim a mile at a reasonable pace; do the butterfly; snap a flip turn; float forever.

But teach my kid to swim: this, somehow I cannot do.

And it makes me crazy.

He’s 5 and 38 pounds of lean muscle and nothing else. He sinks like a brick, and shivers in seconds. His lips turn purple, and oh, he is the most determined little person on the face of the earth.

Determined to do things his own way, that is.

It started last summer, actually. And for weeks I faught him.

“Just lie back. Put your head on my shoulder. Float.”

“You’re superman! YAY!”

“Kick, kick, kick,”

“Blow bubbles! Like this: BPTBPTBPT!”

“FINE THEN. You don’t want my help? Then I’ll just let go and let you figure it out.”

Yep.

Not so pretty.

This year: I went the route of private lessons, with moderate success. He put his head under water for her, and he wouldn’t for me. He kicked when told to kick, some of the time. He floated with assistance. He kind of listened, and he kind of did his own darn thing, and a few hundred bucks later the kid still can’t swim and summer is slipping by.

So I slapped a life vest on him and gave up. And since then things have moved along much more smoothly.

As in: today when we went swimming in our neighbor’s pond I was kicking around in the shallow part with my 18 month old (who is 100% water baby, by the way, and totally loves to float and already assumes perfect swimming posture) my 5 year old decided he was going to do something other than flail about and squeal.

And so he swam across the entire pond and back. Actual semi coordinated movement. Wet faced. HAPPY FACED. In his life vest.

Success?

Sort of. Mostly I think this is a little snapshot of how things will always be between us. A choreography of control and forgiveness and grace and humor. And maybe when it comes down to it him learning to swim is really about me learning to cultivate more forgiveness, grace, and humor in situations that I cannot control.

I’d love to hear your learning to swim stories. Please share.

What? What do you mean they’ve been tossed to the wayside?

Oh yes indeed. I don’t quite know what I was thinking except for this: I was fresh off the routine of HAVING A ROUTINE. I was used to things being buttoned up and orderly; used to having some semblance of time to call mine and I was pretty sure summer would be a disaster of whining and interruptions unless I put things into tidy boxes and orderly…but somewhere along the way I loosened up a wee bit and just let things be.

And it’s been such a glorious summer, at least in our neck of the woods where the grass is now higher than a five year old, and the cicadas have begun to sing. It’s been a summer full of playing in the mud, riding bikes, and staying up late, swimming, and eating way too much ice cream.  We didn’t do summer camp, and there have been plenty of days where schedules collided and whining reached it’s maximum before 10AM, but for the most part, we’ve totally rocked this summer.

.

I’m hoping to share a few of the summertime adventures projects we’ve enjoyed—and a few things we learned along the way. Some upcoming posts:

Almost swimming, but not quite—and a few things I’ve learned about my really stubborn, skin-and-bones firstborn in the water.

Picnic successes and failures—what made some glorious, and others straight out of, well…, no place nice that’s for sure.

Pocket knives, “don’t poke your eye out”, and other little boy projects—including a step-by-step guide for making a simple bow and arrow.

10 ways to get messy with little ones–and enjoy it.

Lessons learned from taking an impromptu trip to Canada with little ones--the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And now that I’ve surfaced from all the crazy summer adventures we’ve been having, it’s far more likely I’ll be showing up here regularly. Promise.

Using Joel’s design as inspiration I sent my husband and Bean out to the garage one morning (while Sprout napped and I snatched an hour or two of writing time) to make a pole using one of the many sticks he has managed to collect.

Side note: have you noticed this about boys? How they seem to have a perpetual thing for sticks. How it’s almost innate, the desire to pick up sticks and wield them about as swords or javelins or flags or walking sticks? Also rocks. My boys, both of them, have this inherent love of gathering rocks, throwing rocks in water, collecting them, kicking them, stowing them in pockets (alas, so many end up in my washer.)

Anyway, they returned having made a very acceptable fishing pole using an old spool, some S hooks, and some garden twine, and Bean was over the moon. Next up: making some fish.

Being not even 1/8th as crafty or clever as Joel, who seems to effortlessly sew anything in a matter of moments, we attempted one fabric fish, that Bean helped to sew, and then used a Sharpie to decorate it. Perhaps extra credit should be given for the super-awesome attire of my littlest? Hearts and stripes? The best, right? Also tie-dye:

After one fish, both of us realized that neither of us had enough patience to pursue further sewn fish, so we opted for cardboard fishies that we decorated using cut up scraps from old magazines (to make brightly colored scales) and then used safety pins as the “hooks” to attach to the magnet on the of the fishing pole string (resourcefully re-purposed from one of his broken trains.)

Sprout was so in love with the idea that I made him a miniature pole too, with a larger (non-choking hazard) sized magnet on the end, and the two spent the morning fishing off the living room couch.

1. Every day needs to have a set activity that we do some variation of each week.

I’ve settled on some basic activities that I’ll be sharing more about here throughout the summer. They basically cover all the bases from art to pre-literacy and number activities, crafts, and gross motor skill play. I really like (at least in theory) the idea of returning to an activity and building on it from week to week, and I know from experience that little ones like routine far more than adults think they do.

My goal for these activities is to structure a guided activity time that then leads into independent play (so that I can also focus on independent tasks!) My 5 year old is really into figuring out how things work; designing things; treasure hunts; and taking things apart—so there will be a fair amount of these elements in every project. My 16 month old is all about doing everything his brother does, which creates particular challenges around modifying activities, and making sure both boys have their “own” stuff…and can extend it organically into the ways that they play when Mommy is not involved.

2. Each day also needs some predictable chores/tasks that occupy my 5 year old in a meaningful way.

This is so simple really: we’re all a part of our household, and we all pitch in. Bean, my 5 year old, is definitely happiest when he is being helpful and productive and is just part of the daily ebb and flow of tasks around the house–and we involve him in nearly everything we do: from folding laundry (he does the napkins and dishtowels) to making dinner (he’s a pro veggie chopper).

For the summer he’s acquired two specific jobs however, that are his to do each day in the morning: unloading the dishwasher & putting away the dishes, and letting our chickens out and feeding them. The dishes take him a good twenty minutes to do (he needs to bring over one of the kitchen counter stools so that he can reach the cabinets) and though there was some initial grumbling, with each consecutive day the grumbling has become less and today I caught him singing a little song as he happily stacked plates and bowls.

The best part: an empty dishwasher to be reloaded after breakfast!

3. I need to be really intentional about the focus of my time–trying to do too many things at once only results in a frustrated mama and frustrated kids.

This is a challenge for me because I work (mostly) from home and am inclined to try to cross something off my project list whenever I can. With meaningful activities and projects and a basic rhythm for the day, I am able to be fairly productive: I get writing done, and painting (some days) and my husband and I juggle hours to give each other uninterrupted work times. But then I often push it—trying, for example, to finish a project up when lunch needs to get made, or when one or the other boy clearly needs some attention…and oh, disaster.

This is when the whining kicks in and the fits get thrown. Am definitely working on this. Big time.

4. A daily rhythm around snack and mealtimes really helps all of us.

This is my Achilles heel. I am miserable at remembering to eat, let alone planning snacks etc, for my kids. I get involved in a project and flat out forget to look at the clock. (It happened today and turned a perfectly fun project into a rather miserable one because everyone got grouchy.)
I’d love to hear: what are some of your summertime routines? What has worked? What hasn’t?

We made popsicles (in paper cups without sticks—need to pick some of those up!) from leftover smoothie. The mess was fantastic.

We took a trip the local community garden to buy compost for our garden. Dirt + loaders and backhoes = happiness for small boys.

We made these graham crackers from scratch and enjoyed them with peanut butter very much.

But mostly, this week it was about deciding on some chores that Bean could help with every day to occupy his little energetic body in a meaningful way in the morning before heading over to his grandparents house for a few hours while I work (emptying the dishwasher and feeding the chickens.)It was about letting both boys be “bored” and make discoveries as a result (my husband’s skateboard from 1989 were a pretty cool discovery for Bean this week.) And it was about navigating the new terrain of sibling rivalry that seems to be emerging more and more as Sprout has begun to foist himself joyfully, playfully, and very enthusiastically into the very center of our family life (they’re 4 years apart. Any thoughts, tips, suggestions on this?)

And it was about discovering where my limits are, and about trying to define new boundaries between work time and mama time for me. I perpetually struggle with this, not just in the summer. I’m experimenting with ways to balance my very full work schedule. Because I work from home and most of my work is highly creative with long-term deadlines (this is the biggest project I’m working on right now) I struggle with breaking bigger projects into smaller chunks that fit around the available hours that I have so that when my kids are here, underfoot and eager, I’m not always trying to multitask in a way that makes them feel like they’re getting no attention.
My biggest breakthrough this week was: most of my kid’s negative behavior was the result of me pushing things a little too far—letting a good thing go a little too long so that I could finish something—until what was a fun time in the sandbox became sand in the eyes; or what was a rather reined-in chasing game in the living room became an full-out destruction of the place.

I’m curious about how you navigate this balance. What kinds of activities do you do with your kids every day—and what do you accomplish just for yourself/your work?

Hi! I’m thrilled to be joining Today’s Mama Boston. I live close enough to Boston to make it legit, but really, I live at the end of a long dirt road in Vermont with my husband T. and our two little guys, Bean and Sprout.*

(* their blogosphere monikers.)

Bean is five, rides his dirt bike like a hellion, picks me flowers, and is currently enthralled with pirates.

Sprout is one, tall for his age, and an utter rascal. With his big brother to follow around, he gets into mischief everywhere he goes, and gives me darling drooly kisses.

Together they are trouble; and also two of the very best things that have ever happened in my life.

I am writer and mixed media artist with a day job. I have developed a rather serious recent crush on graphic design; I make my own bread from scratch; I keep a notebook; and I’m in the midst of making an illustrated collection of essays and prose called  A Field Guide To Now.

I’m hoping to share bits of my life here, and some ideas for living creatively with small children.

Life with little ones can have an astounding impact on creativity. It can be the best thing, and also the worst. It can shrink or expand your horizons, and regularly does both like a fun house mirror.

Life with small children is a perpetual sticky-fingered, dirty-floored endeavor, and I’m in the thick of it, curious and astounded every single day.

Many days this endeavor doesn’t feel particularly balanced: there is never enough time and always too much laundry, but I am committed to noticing the small, exquisite moments and to sharing them here with you. Hopefully you’ll join in and share your own creative living adventures.

The way I see it, we’re all looking for road maps. We all want to know how each other are navigating this crazy adventure of being parents and also ourselves. It’s uncharted territory. As mothers who are also other things (writers, scientists, analysts, accountants, teachers, researchers, artists, doctors, yogis, actors, journalists, inventors, rock stars, superheroes,) we don’t have hundreds of years of successful, creative women to look to (the way men comparably do.)

There were women, certainly, who broke all kinds of boundaries and astounded the world with their vision and talent, but not many of them, and often the catch was this: they didn’t have kids. Arguably, their successes were possible because they could live outside the parameters of what was expected of women who were also mothers. Now though, the terms have changed. Possibility is ours.

I want these years to be ones I look back on with satisfaction and joy: at what I achieved in my own creative life, and at the creativity I shared with my family. And I’m looking forward to recording some of those moments here.  I’m also curious: what does living creatively as a mother look like to you?

Sample local categories include:

• Arts
• Deals and Steals
• Education
• Entertainment
• Family Activities/Places to Go
• Food/Dining
• Green Living
• Health and Fitness
• Parenting
• Politics
• Recreation
• Style

Have a topic you’d love to blog about? Tell us about it and we’ll consider adding it to the list. For more details or to submit an online application CLICK HERE.