Testing

This is just a test. I'm setting this blog up in hopes that I will record some of the daily chaos of our family life, some of the laughs and the tears that are a part of my parenting experience. As my (quite original) blog title indicates, I will focus on mothering. This is both necessary, as mothering is the thing I do most, and fun, because mothering provides me with my best material.

I mother my two boys, Luke, age 4, and Henry, age 17 months. They are both--what shall we say?--a handful, headstrong, active, willful, or my favorite, spirited. Luke thinks he is Spiderman at least half the time and at school pretends the little ironing board is a cannon, the chunks of pretty driftwood, guns. Did I mention that he attends a Waldorf school? Henry is obsessed with shoes and is beginning to assert his will (usually regarding said shoes) by throwing lusty tantrums. They are both much more fun outside, which is why we spend a great deal of time at the park.

Speaking of testing, I guess I could mention testing of another kind, since I seem to have mastered the basics of composing text, inserting pictures and such. Testing of the kid kind. The four-year-old kid kind. When I was lamenting all of the fantasy gun play to a friend of mine while we were (where else?) at the park she told me that she thought a lot of it was just testing, since the kids know we don't really approve. (We can't. We live in an ultra-crunchy university neighborhood. Luke attends a Waldorf school. I cringe every time I hear "gunpowder" or "enemy" or "conquer." But more on that subject in another post.) Luke was playing while we talked, but he must have heard, or his timing is just naturally dramatic, because not moments later he said, "We are shooting animals." Normally this is where I would insert, "Because you are hungry, and you thank the animals for giving life so you can eat, right?" We are from Alaska, after all, where many people, Luke's dad and grandfather included, hunt so they can stock the freezer with meat. But I didn't say it this time, and after a dramatic pause, Luke said, "Killing them for no reason!"

Testing, testing. This is a test.