If wisdom’s ways you wisely seek,

Five things observe with care,

To whom you speak,

Of whom you speak,

And how, and when, and where

Your loving mother

C L Ingalls

(from Little Town On The Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

I received a comment a week or so ago asking why I love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books so much? I assume this question is mostly in response to the volume of quotes I have used from the Little House series in the last year. Typically, on this blog, you will see groups of quotes from whatever I’m reading at the time. So, in re-reading the series last year, I found many notable quotes and used them during that time. But the question is still an interesting one. Why do any of us love the books we end up loving? I thought about it for a while and I have some answers for this particular series.

First, I love them because my Mumsie gave me the boxed set for my eighth birthday. That was my favorite-ever birthday party: my mom and aunts set up little stations all through our house for my friends and me. We had a make-up station, hair station, and dress up station. She had my great-grandmothers beautiful old dresses (from the days when ladies had many occasions to dress to the nines) shortened for us to play in. We had the dresses, the gloves, the hair-spray smell, the ridiculousness of make-up on eight-year-old faces. Then we had petite fores and punch and other fancy things on my mother’s good china. There was a lace table-cloth on the table. I remember I had asked for a basketball for that birthday because my PE Teacher scolded that I needed lots of practice at home (I couldn’t dare tell her that in our two-sister home there were no basketballs to practice with and DON’T get me started on the PE methods in public education). I did get a basketball–just what I asked for and didn’t want. But I also got the boxed set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I didn’t ask for them. I didn’t even know they existed. I had never heard of the television show based on them, we had not yet read one of them in school, but Mumsie told me she loved them when she was growing up. “Growing up.” That’s how she said it. Not, “I loved them when I was a little girl,” but “I loved them when I was growing up.” It made me feel like she thought I was growing up.

I read them straight through. In class later that year we read The Long Winter and I felt great that I had my own copy at home, so much better than the textbook version. By The Shores of Silver Lake was the first book that ever made me cry, when Laura became Mary’s eyes in a world that had gone dark, when she learned to sacrifice her own selfish desires to work toward sending Mary to college. For years after that, if I needed a good cry and couldn’t get the tears to come, I would pull Silver Lake down from the shelf and read a few chapters about Mary’s blindness. Silly, I know, but true. So I love the books for the memories first. Like my grandmother, I loved them when I was growing up.

And, I love them as a grown-up for a new set of reasons. I love them because they offer a gentle wisdom and a simple lifestyle in a crazy, commercial, speedy world. They take me back to the basics. They chastise me for always taking the easy way or the convenient way. They remind me to live well within my means, to not chase after everything my friends and neighbors have but to live with contentment. The Ingalls and Wilder families show beautiful examples of courage under pressure, grace in the face of tragedy, acceptance of hardships, determination, pluck, relationships, and humor. Sometimes I can hardly believe what they went through. I love the history of this country told through the eyes of a girl growing up in it. I love the romance between Charles and Caroline Ingalls and the romance between Laura and Almonzo Wilder.

In re-reading the series as an adult, I have been challenged to do things for myself that I might not have a few years ago. I am sewing my baby girl’s bedding and some other things for her nursery. I am venturing in to the world of cloth diapers (something I seriously thought was insane a couple of years ago when I had my son). I am making my own household products if I can’t find them at the rock bottom price I want to pay: laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, etc. I make gifts for people I love instead of shopping around to buy them something. I feel like I’m living more abundantly and counting my blessings more readily. When something is hard for me, I think how easy my modern life is compared to the pioneer life and I am grateful.

I’m grateful that I don’t have to depend on the weather for the very food to feed my family. I’m grateful to be having babies in the twenty-first century when my 8lb 4oz breech baby could be delivered by c-section safely, when I can get a glimpse of my daughter in an ultrasound video to know she’s growing well. I’m grateful for electricity and technology, for community and all the books I want.

I love the Little House books because they remind me of growing up, because they challenge me as a grown-up to live more simply, to do without what I don’t need and to appreciate the luxuries of living when i do, and because they’re just flat good books that have stood the test of time.

THINKING you can just ain’t enough!

(from The Little Blue Engine by Shel Silverstein)

Today is my second day of potty training my son using a three-day method. Today has been okay. Yesterday was dreadful. Yesterday we went through ten pair of toddler underwear before the day was done. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more tired than I did at the end of the day yesterday. Not even when he was a newborn.

So far the method seems to be going by the book (or rather, by the e-book  3DayPottyTraining.com) but I have a few minor complaints about the book. Number 1: The book says that though you will undeniably feel frustration, you are never to show this frustration, keeping at all times a positive attitude toward the process. Well, pregnancy hormones made this a nearly impossible charge. I found myself fighting back tears MANY times yesterday, from frustration, from fatigue, from my house smelling like urine… But I think it was worth it. He seems to be catching on here in day two, so maybe one day of hell is worth not giving up a year (or more!) to the roller coaster of potty training. Of course, this positive spin is completely dependent on the method working in the end, but my hopes are high.

Number 2: The book says don’t take your eyes off the child at all. All day long. Even if you have to go to the bathroom yourself. Well sure, I don’t want to miss the chance to catch him mid-accident and teach him to run to the bathroom, but the baby girl in my womb is kicking at my bladder constantly and my son gets so tired of trailing me to the bathroom every time I need to go. He’s very happy to play on his own and usually does so for lengthy bits of time. He was pretty tired of me being in his business all day long yesterday, and forcing him to be in mine. Also, he usually entertains himself while I take my daily shower. To make sure we weren’t separated for the length of a shower yesterday, I got up at 6:30am to take one and prepare myself for the day. 6:30 AM!!! My son usually gets up around 7:15, I give him a cup of yogurt and a granola bar or toaster waffle for breakfast and go back to bed until about 8:30. Like I said, he entertains himself. 6:30 is a dark and ungodly hour and it came back to bite me in the mid afternoon when I could barely hold my eyes open. It’s hard to keep your eyes focused on a toddler peeing time-bomb when your eyes want so badly to just close. Today I skipped the morning shower and just waited until a time when I was pretty sure he wouldn’t need to use the potty, planted him on a stool at the bathroom sink with some splash toys, and took a shower in the afternoon while he played. Much better.

I read a quote on Pinterest the other day that said, “The length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you are.” When I called my husband yesterday before lunch and said, “This is terrible! It’s not working at all and I’m going crazy!” his response was, “Well, it’s only been four hours.” The length of four hours depends on if you are the one potty training a nearly three-year-old boy or not. I reminded him of this. He became much more sympathetic and showed up a little while later with a mocha frappaccino from Starbucks. God bless the man.

Last night, once the laundry was in the dryer (we had to have all those underwear ready for another day) and my baby was asleep (without a diaper), I  collapsed into a heap of utter exhaustion and prayed for the grace, patience, resolve, and strength for another day. I couldn’t honestly imagine doing it all again. But as I lay there, I thought of how lucky I am just to have him. I thought of all the things we go through as mamas: pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, diapers, sleep training, potty training, nightmare soothing, cleaning up messes.  It’s hard work, but some people would give anything they have to get to do these things. I know women who struggle with infertility, with miscarriage after miscarriage, with losing their children too soon.

It’s hard work. If today hadn’t been much better than yesterday (so far), I probably wouldn’t be writing this (because I couldn’t take my eyes off of him yesterday. Today he is actually napping!). Again, it’s hard work. It wasn’t enough just to decide to do it and pluck up my resolve, to say, “I think I can.” I needed more than that. I needed prayer. I needed that extra caffeine from Starbucks. I needed to be allowed to cry at some point. But at the end of a truly bad day as a mom, I’m still so grateful just to be one. I’m so glad I get to be his mama.

We gathered together.

We started cooking.

We called the relatives.

We called our friends.

(from Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles)

I just got word that Liam has passed away. I hope you will keep his family, especially his mommy and daddy, in your thoughts and prayers as they start the process of adjusting. It is grief beyond imagination and I do not feel equipped to offer any trite words of comfort or pretend wisdom. It’s just hard and there are no words appropriate, so I’m just praying.

My spring semester starts next week. Yikes.

“He can’t now,” Laura answered, a little saucily. “And he seems to like you.” (from Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

This one made me smile. I’m glad my husband still seems to like me despite my greatly increased waistline. The bigger challenge for me is to still like myself (I mean, my physical self). It’s hard at times to accept a body that changes, even harder at a time when the public ideal is either skeletal thinness or body builder type muscle. It leaves the rest of us working incredibly hard to maintain something that at least looks okay when fully clothed.

I remember going to a museum a few years ago and seeing plaster castes of Renaissance era Greek statues–beautiful nudes of full-figured women lounging or standing. I couldn’t see any of their ribs, nor did a single one have defined abdominal muscles, but they were beautiful. At the time they were sculpted, they were the ideal of womanly beauty. In fact, many of them were the artists’ depictions of goddesses. It occurred to me then that the modern ideal of womanly beauty would look almost grotesque on a sculpture of that style. But that doesn’t keep me from yearning for a thinner, leaner figure.

I struggle to see the beauty in what my body has become–a heck of a lot closer to a Greek statue woman than a modern swimsuit model. I read a question the other day that made me laugh and sigh: If you could go back to your childhood or teenage years what is one thing you would do? My answer: I would wear shorts every warm day and appreciate my darling, thin, gorgeous legs. But I actually can’t go back to the summers when I had darling legs and wasted them, so what do I do with where I am now?

I take an honest look and force myself to be appreciative. My body has been good to me. It has done some incredible work. It grew up. It carried a baby (quite a good-sized one) and endured surgery to give him a safe entrance into the world. It provided his nourishment for the better part of his first two years. Now it is carrying another baby. It will endure another surgery in a few months. It is nurturing and growing an entire human who is growing at a remarkable rate. Once again it will produce milk to sustain the life of my child. My body is tired, but it keeps on giving to the baby. It is preparing for the next phase even as it does the good work of the phase we are in. It has a scar. It has more padding than it used to. But it’s a good body. It’s the body of a woman, not the body of a child. I’m actually pretty proud of it…even if I can’t wear shorts with much confidence anymore.

(Seriously, if you are sixteen years old, WEAR SHORTS every day that is warm enough!!!)