Being a Brat

Have you ever had an experience that was like having a flashlight shone into a forgotten corner of your life? It's not like looking into a closet or a room that's been closed off. Instead, this area of your life is just a small, unexplored and under-utilized space that has accumulated dust, clutter and easy-to-ignore debris.

My sister and her family are currently living in Geilenkirchen, Germany which just happens to be about 5 minutes away from the place where my family lived for 4 years when I was an adolescent. Last week, she visited the school that I attended (actually we both went to school there) from 8th grade through the end of my junior year of high school. She was hoping that there might be a chance that her daughter could go there as well.

S's visit to our old school has inspired a great deal of nostalgia, for both of us. Today she referred me to the website for a documentary on the lives of military brats. What's funny is that I don't really think much about being a military brat. When I came back to the US for my senior year of high school, I quickly learned that no one wanted to know about the things that I had seen and experienced prior to my arrival in the Ohio suburbs. Talk of life or travels in Europe was more likely to alienate than intrigue. I also found myself completely lacking in understanding of many pop-culture references that my peers took for granted.

Reading the comments on the documentary's website, was a little like having a light suddenly flipped on in a shadowed corner of my life. All of a sudden, the dust and cobwebs are in stark contrast. And I'm finding that the shadows are concealing an alcove that I didn't know or had forgotten was there. This isn't the first time that I've explored the lasting consequences of my upbringing in the pages of my blog, it just seems like interesting timing to have it resurface. I've decided to actually seek professional treatment for depression. Perhaps I should make notes on all this stuff to take with me when I meet my new therapist.

Nipple Gymnastics

The following is my second writing sample written for the application for the Club Mom blogging gig. Again, I am sharing these here on my blog because I enjoyed writing them and was pleased with the results. I just wanted to post them rather than round-file them.

Nipple Gymnastics: Adventures In Breastfeeding

Like most expectant mothers today, I began learning about the importance of breastfeeding very early in my pregnancy. I was not the first of my friends to go through pregnancy or breastfeeding. Having watched the nursing in progress, my appreciation for the beauty and wonder of the experience was mingled with a measure of fear. Some of the things that I had seen babies do to nipples during their feedings made my own nipples want to run for cover somewhere in the neighborhood of my spine.

Your lactation consultant may, or may not, tell you how difficult some women find breastfeeding. It is a serious commitment of time and energy. For at least the first few months, there is little else you can do while your baby nurses. A sling can help, especially if you have a support team to get everything set up and in the right place. Eventually you get used to doing with two hands what you'd really like to have at least 5 to manage. You may even be able to manage to multi-task. Checking email or talking on the phone while nursing can actually be very manageable.

The standard nursing positions may seem awkward at first. That is nothing compared to some of the non-standard positions that your baby will discover as she develops a bit more control of her body. We used to call the sidelying position the cuddle or snuggle position because there was nothing like curling up with a sleepy baby, the closeness, and the euphoric sense that everything was right in the world. We now realize that the sidelying position is really an arena for the aspiring nipple gymnast.

The first maneuver in nipple gymnastics is the belly roll. With just a little practice, your nursling will be able to roll from her side to her belly without breaking her latch. The stretching of your nipple that accompanies this feat won't seem as uncomfortable as it might have, since by this time your infant's increasing awareness of the outside world often results in sudden head turning while nursing. Most of your nursling's future gymnastic feats will build upon the simple belly roll. Before you know it, your baby will be competing for the gold.

In the coming weeks or months, I would like to share with you some highlights of the under-publicized sport of nipple gymnastics. If your own nursling has a particularly ambitious or daring gymnastic maneuver, please drop me a line and we can compare notes.

Image note: "Mickaninies Kow-Kow" Inuit Eskimo woman breast-feeding two babies. (c)1904 Copyrighted by Frank H. Nowell.
Source: US Library of Congress Online Print Catalogue

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Interruptions Big and Small

The post below is one of the writing samples that I submitted as part of my job application for the blogging gig with Club Mom. I've been somewhat uncertain what I should do with these samples. I'm actually very pleased with the way that these samples came out and I hate the idea of no one reading them. I thought that I'd just go ahead and post them here now that the status of the application has been finalized.

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Interruptions Big and Small

Sprout is recovering from a sinus infection this week*. As a consequence of a stuffed nose and an icky disposition she's very clingy and doesn't want anything to do with food or drink other than breast milk. As she sits on my lap nursing, I'm aware of the smell of berry-flavored antibiotics and yet another wet diaper blending in a not entirely unpleasant way. My mind is wandering and making lists of the things that I'm supposed to be getting done.

I knew when we decided to have a child that, during the day at least, everything else in my life would come second to taking care of Sprout's needs. On days like today, that means that writing a blog entry can take 4 or 5 hours or that any hope that I might have had of catching up with business correspondence or shipping is doomed. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't counting the minutes until Sprout's dad walks through the door and I can go into the bathroom by myself or, even better, go out to the studio for a couple of hours and try to get some work done for the craft fair which I have coming up in less than 2 weeks.

My goals now are so much different from my goals before Sprout entered our life. I used to dream of writing the definitive book on ceramic beadmaking and traveling around the U.S. and the world teaching workshops. Now, I dream pensively of typing a complete sentence with both hands.

It is hard sometimes not to think about these changes as a narrowing of my horizons or a loss of momentum. I've heard other women artists speculate that the reason that there are so few important female artists is that women throughout history have allowed their careers to be hijacked by childrearing and then caring for aging parents. Whatever progress has been made in the last 30 years, women are still the lower wage earners, and if one income must be sacrificed, it comes down to us to fall upon our swords. That's what the "mommy wars" are all about, isn't it?

I have to admit though, as I listen to my little Sprout laughing as she watches Noggin, it's really hard to think of her as an interruption. Instead, most times I find myself closing the cover of my laptop and inviting her into my lap so that I can laugh with her.

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* This entry was actually written in mid-march, soon after our return from vacation in North Carolina. Our Sprout brought the sinus infection home with her as a special momento. She was so sick on the trip home and it actually really scared me a lot that she was feverish and miserable... Her daddy and I took her to Urgent Care almost as soon as my parents dropped the kiddlet and I off at the house. (Daddy didn't get to join us for the whole vacation.)

28 June 2006 -- Edited at the request of Sprout's father.

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Living With Disappointment

"We regret to inform you that after careful consideration we will not be offering you employment with our company."* And thus a door closes on my aspirations of moving my life/career in that direction.

As I've previously indicated, I applied for a blogging job with the newly launched ClubMom topical blogs. Although I was not selected for their initial round, their response was encouraging and even suggestive of a very promising outcome. They said that my application materials stood out and thought that they could find an audience for my unique voice amongst their members. Their message was encouraging and I was really looking forward to working with them.

As it turns out, the blog roll-out on ClubMom was a larger enterprise than expected and as a consequence, they've found that they don't really have a place for me amongst their ranks. I'm attempting to be philosophical about this. They've got some great writers working for them and I'm sure that they'll be very successful. I'm still trying to work out what this means for me.

In the interest of making the best of the whole thing, I would like to share the sample blog entries that I wrote as part of the application process. I'll be posting them as separate entries. I also have notes for additional entries which I started keeping in a file so that I would have "blog fodder" for slow days or in anticipation of vacations, etc.

This has been a learning experience for me. I have repeatedly read that for an artist to make a living in the US, s/he must write and/or teach to supplement the income from making art. I liked the idea of having a steady writing gig, and with it a monthly income (no matter how small) that I could count on. I haven't decided yet whether I want to try and find a similar opportunity elsewhere. On the other hand, I expect that the direction of this blog will be forever altered by my experiences over the last couple of months.

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*This is not a direct quote... it is, instead, a summary of the communication received earlier today.

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Busy with Etsy

I've been busy this week with Etsy stuff. First there was the coproduction contest entry. The "winners" of the contest will be announced on June 1st but I feel (and I know it sounds a bit twee) that I've won simply by participating and getting the project listed.

I got five of my Raku pins posted in my Etsy shop this evening. I absolutely love each of the five for different reasons.

I picked up the yarn for the Ruana on Friday. Arlene, who dyed the wool roving that I used for the needlefelted embellishment spun the rest of the dyed roving from that batch into the most gorgeous yarn. It is so gorgeous that I hate to cut it up to make fringe. But I'm going to try to get over that because it really will be the perfect finishing touch for the wrap.

Assorted felting thoughts and projects

Here's a picture of Sprout modeling the Ruana. She absolutely loves it. She keeps running her hands over the material, especially the needlefelting and saying "Pitty, pitty." She likes to pull it over her head to play hide and seek. She walks in circles with her arms held out and up so that the fabric trails like wings.

I keep talking about needle felting so I thought that I'd post some links for people who might be interested in trying it out for themselves. I subscribe to the Fieltromania blog via bloglines and found the link to Marika van Esveld's website with a PDF tutorial for a small 3 dimensional needlefelted dog. In Marika's blog, there is also a tutorial for needlefelted Easter eggs that lend themselves to some beautiful embellishment.

On Monday, while we were in the waiting room at the doctor's office with Sprout, I was flipping through a copy of Family Fun magazine and saw a craft project in polymer clay for kids that I thought would translate well to needlefelting.

[Please note that there is quite a bit more needle felting information available in other entries of this blog.]

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Missed Anniversaries

Somehow, I won't speculate about how, I managed to completely overlook the 1 year anniversary of the beginning of this blog. When I started the blog, I hoped that I'd be able to motivate myself to post at least once a week. Looking at the archive, there have been times when I've done much better than that and others when I've gone as much as a month without posting. I've learned a lot about my work habits from keeping the blog.

I've also kept a document of Sprout's growth for the past year. As she develops further in her personhood, it is beginning to feel a bit like an invasion of her privacy to keep posting pictures in a public arena. I wouldn't want my blog to be an embarassment to her. And as tempting as it may be, later in her willful years, to have a document to hold over her head, I'm trying to find a balance point where I can celebrate her role in every facet of my life without exposing her to unwanted attention. I expect that this will be coming up again and again over the next few months.

Right now, things are kinda calm. I'm trying to climb out of a depressive pit that I tumbled into several weeks/months ago. The dark mood, self-abusive thought patterns, insatiable appetite for sleep, and studious avoidance of the studio have peaked and I'm experiencing a dawning enthusiasm for new projects.

One of those new projects is the Wardrobe Refashion '06. I've taken a 6-Month pledge to "abstain from the purchase of 'new' manufactured items of clothing." (See my pledge button over to the right...) This should be an interesting experiment since I don't sew. What I'll be doing, instead of making my own clothes, is scouring thrift shops and trying to find ways of altering clothes that I already have to give them new life.

I've taken the first step in that direction by altering a Ruana that has been floating around my closets for at least a few years. I'm not sure which thrift shop I picked it up at, or what I paid for it at the time. I also have no idea what the fiber content of the garment is. That didn't stop me from adding needle-felted embelishment using a beautiful handpainted marino roving from Fiberworks. With the Marino embellishment, it's probably best to dryclean anyway, so I'm sure that the garment will be fine when I'm done with it. I have another mystery fiber solid color Ruana in the closet waiting for embellishment when I figure out how I want to decorate it.

I'm searching high and low for wool blazers in a size 28 or 30/32 (I have the shoulders of a line backer and it's probably best not to discuss my breasts...) so that I can embellish them as well. I'm really excited about the possibilities that a wool blazer can represent.

I have a couple of pairs of denim capri pants that I inherited from my mother that I want to remake into skirts. I have a pair of worsted wool suit pants that I picked up at a thrift shop that I want to cut and use for the panels in the jeans skirts. I've already washed them to felt/full them as much as possible. I want to needle-felt the wool panels as well.

Well, speaking of my mom, she should be here any minute to pick up her granddaughter and I. Sprout is recovering from a short-lived but distressing illness and we want to spend some quality time with her. I should get ready to go.

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Walking blues rhythm

I've been measuring my life in steps for the last week. 3700 per day, on average, usually close on the heels of a toddler who is moving at a dead run. When she's not running, she's seemed glued to me, and when she is neither running nor glued to my side, I can hear the word "Mama" ringing in her clear voice. I got a pedometer in an effort to increase my awareness of my activity level. (Or should I say, lack of activity level?) I'm hoping to work on improving my general health while the weather is so nice.

We took Sprout to Indiana on Sunday for pictures. She is growing into such a little lady. It's hard to believe that I've been keeping this blog for almost a year and that so much of her growth and emergence into personhood has unfolded as I've written about my daily life and the struggle to find a way to balance my creative life and the demands (and significant joys) of motherhood.

Sprout amazes me. She builds and stacks with blocks. Her vocabulary increases every day. She's an amazing mimic. And, she is so beautiful that she takes my breath away. I live in mortal terror that someone will come to me and tell me that she's not really mine and that I'll have to give her back. It doesn't matter how much of her father and my family I can see in her, I just can't quite shake this fear that she's too good to be true.

The word images at the beginning of the post came from this really cool site. If you like them, you might also like this site which does something very similar with letters found in nature or in butterfly wings.
Photo of Sprout taken by Sandy Nabb at Nabb Photography of New Salsbury, Indiana.

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Things you always wanted to know about MysticSpiral Studio

I just wanted to post a quick note before heading out to the studio to make some beads. I'm getting ready to try a couple of beadmaking experiments involving laminating several beads for raku firing with PMC3 accents. The thing that I wanted to post about, however was this interview up at Crafty Synergy. I really enjoyed answering the questions for the interview. It encouraged me to think about my business in a way that I don't usually take the time to do...

I'd also like to mention that I posted images of the first of my 3 page spreads from the Fantastic Emblage altered book project to the project blog. I'll be posting more images as time permits.

This and That

The weather has been (mostly) glorious for the last week. Perfect for spending time outdoors with an active toddler. We spotted the root formation at left in a local park where we'd taken Sprout to play on the playground equipment while we visited with a friend. Our Sprout **LOVES** playgrounds. She's completely fearless. She scrabbles up the ladders to the slides and just can't seem to swing high or fast enough.

Warm weather also has me thinking about summer eating. Right now, I'm researching cold soups that I can mix up and keep in the fridge, ready to eat. An awful lot of these recipes call for heavy cream. I'm wondering what would happen if I subbed fat-free sour cream, low-fat plain yogurt, or fat-free evaporated milk instead.

I'm still hoping for a job similar to the one that I posted about earlier. I've looked at a couple of companies that hire bloggers and honestly think that I have a decent chance of getting hired for something in the near future. The extra money would make a pretty big difference around here and would mean that we could probably get a second (more reliable) vehicle.

That would mean some pretty significant changes for me/us. I could join the local "Y" and maybe start back to Weight Watchers and belly dancing. I'd be able to take Sprout for play dates and interact with other moms. A lot of this would end up being blog fodder for my new blog. But I haven't figured out, yet, what kind of changes this will represent for this blog. It probably means that I'll focus more on the studio work and business aspects of my life rather than on the balancing act of my life as a whole. I'm hoping that I'll achieve the same balance by writing in multiple places that I'm currently attempting here.

In the interim, I need to update the blog for the altered book project with pictures of my pages and of the book stand for the finished book. I have packages to get in the mail for a very patient Etsy buyer and my surprisingly patient niece. Once I finally feel caught up on all this other stuff, I'll be able to focus on writing and new Etsy listings.

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