Holy crap. It’s not until I collected pictures from the last week to put into a post that I see just how much stuff I juggle and how many things I am all at once.
I’m realizing that I live in kind of like a swirl of me’s. Me, suburban mom, who does stuff like make play dough and bake bread and drive to homeschool school. Me, the brown half of my cafe con leche marriage. Me, the crafter, who makes just stupid cute stuff whenever given five minutes of silence. I’m going to unpack this real quick, because these things can’t be separated. I’m all of them.
Being Mexican American, being ethnic in a very white part of the country, I’m beginning to realize just how important it is to be a lot more outspoken about all of who I am. When I lived in California we took this stuff for granted, that there would be people of all ethnicities mingling together. Role models of many different cultures were all around. But in Oregon it’s different. Farming culture and Crunchy Millennial Hipsterism are the dominant cultures here. It’s easy to leave out the ethnic parts of myself because people around me might not get it. I can’t do that anymore. I really miss diversity. I can’t exactly see us moving back to San Fernando, so I just need to seek out culture where we are.
Anyway. Stuff I did this week. I laid out homemade play dough and led about 5 free form art projects, I knitted a french press cozy. I tricked my 5 year old into getting a haircut by setting up the Kitty Cat hair salon in the family room. We read books in Spanish. I try to do this every day. We read books about the Civil Rights movement (they’re never too young for this. Really.). I took the kids to homeschool school and made a couple of new friends. I made earrings, I made hair bows, I played with my hair (It never got as big as I wanted). I painted on freezer tape. I ate about two boxes of cookies with tea. I cut back all the blackberry canes in the backyard. I mapped out the front yard for future garden planning. I gave yogurt to the chickens, coaxed Sweet Pea down off the fence about 3 times, and collected 6 eggs- thank you, Honey. I got invited for lunch at my favorite crafty ladies’ house, I sorted through fabric that Jenn gave me, I made ridiculous stuff with it, and I took pictures of my kids doing cute stuff. I also kissed about 80 boo boos and swept the house 387 times. I snuggled up on my man like 4 times, which is impressive for life with two kids who monopolize daddy snuggles. I gave him lovey eyes at least three times and only yelled at him like a wild woman once, and he deserved that (it seriously is not that hard to put dirty dishes IN the sink). I kind of feel like I’m a badass mom after reading all that.
I wonder what I’ll do next week.