Most of the women I know don't like to be photographed. I'm guessing it's because when those photos are downloaded from the camera they don't look quite like the professionally photographed, airbrushed images seen in magazines. I know that's generally why I don't like to have my picture taken. Besides the fact that I am truly not a photogenic person, I am very self-conscious in front of the camera, and overall insecure about my body and how I look. For a long time, I have shied away from the camera, and as I get older, I am starting to regret it.

A couple of weeks ago a friend posted on Facebook that since having her two kids, she has never really felt the same, and that she feels " gross, frumpy and just yuck." She said she hasn't felt pretty or attractive in years. This initial status post began a conversation about photographic worthiness and how in general, it seems as if a lot of women (and probably men too) feel like they shouldn't bother being in photos if they aren't attractive enough. It made me sad to think that this friend, and so many other women I know, including myself, miss a lot of opportunities to record wonderful times simply because they don't like how they look, and therefore don't want it etched in stone, so to speak.

I have never really enjoyed being photographed because of my insecurities, but since having Oliver, I have tried to allow myself to be photographed more, so that he will have pictures to look at one day, and know what his childhood was like, and what his mom was like. It's not always easy. I'm heavier than I have ever been which makes me that much less confident, and I just feel awkward and unattractive. In response to my friend's post, this is what I said:

"You do look amazing, so no worries there. But even if you didn't, you'd still be worth photographing with your boys!! After all, I doubt you'd ever look at an unattractive woman and say, 'What was she thinking being in that picture with her kids?'. Just some perspective!"

And it's some perspective I really need too, and one I have continued to mull over. I tend to be very forgiving towards other people, but remain harshly critical of myself, and physical appearance is no exception. How other people look has never been of much importance to me. I pride myself on being an extremely accepting, non-judgemental person and I have a hard time living in a society that often bases worthiness on outer appearance. This isn't to say that I don't enjoy the frivolity of fashion and having or seeing nice things, it just means that I don't place a lot of importance on them in terms of another person's worth. The next step, it would seem, is to treat myself as I do everybody else, and feel some sense of self worth without placing importance on my own physical appearance.

For me, one way to work on this is to allow myself to be photographed, especially with my son. He turned two a little over a week ago, and while I do have a bunch of photos of us together, I wish I had so many more. Maybe these pictures will act as a reminder to all of us to get in front of the camera. We're worth it!

Retreat Farm Visit

Yesterday when I woke up, I decided it would be a great day to take a trip to Brattleboro, VT to visit Retreat Farm, an old farm that now has a great petting "zoo" for kids and adults alike. We hadn't been before but had heard such great reviews from friends that I've been wanting to go all summer.

The car ride wasn't too long, but Oliver disagreed and was slightly disgruntled, though he rallied when we reached our destination. Not sure what to expect, we put him right into the stroller and made our way to the barn. We soon discovered that Oliver prefers his farm animals to be in books, or in the form of plastic figures in his play barn at home. It was difficult to tell exactly how he felt about the animals. At times he seemed apprehensive or maybe scared. At other times he clearly wasn't afraid, he just didn't care about them. I find Oliver's behavior around animals to be kind of strange. We have a dog and 5 cats, yet he almost never even notices that they are there. Occasionally, when he is aware of them, he seems either fascinated or annoyed by them. He really likes to feed animals, and thinks it's funny to do so, but that seems to be about it. At the farm yesterday, he only touched the animals when I did hand-over-hand to help him pet them. He most enjoyed feeling the thick hairs of a pony's mane and feeding the giant ox.

In addition to the animals, Retreat Farm also has a great play area for kids wth ride-on tractor toys, a play farm stand with wooden play foods, many farm animal puzzles, blocks and other pretend toys, piles of clean hay and bedding with child-size rakes and shovels for them to play with, and an old silo with a big pile of dried corn kernals for kids to play in. Oliver liked the corn, but was more interested in going in and out of the silo than actually playing in the corn.

Oliver checked out the play area in about 30 seconds flat. He was sort of intrigued by the tools for a moment and he sat very briefly on one of the ride-on tractors, but that was it.

The play area was located along a fenced area of blacktop, so really, it didn't stand a chance of holding Oliver's attention. There is nothing this boy loves more than running free on pavement, waving his arms about. Sometimes he holds his arms a bit in front of him, thumbs to fingers as if he's holding something, and he moves his arms up and down as he runs. I've come to wonder if he could be pretending to steer something, though I have no idea how he would have any concept of that. Watching Oliver run on pavement is actually one of my favorite things to see him do. There aren't many areas where it is safe for him to do it, and we tend to discourage it since he can't differentiate between what is and is not safe, but when he is able, it's as if his spirit is soaring. I think he could just go and go and go for miles running like that, and he'd love every second of it.






Since we weren't able to occupy a whole lot of time with the animals or play spaces we decided we would try taking a walk on the hiking trail that starts at the farm. Surely Oliver would enjoy this since he could have some freedom to walk and run as he pleased. Wrong. First we couldn't find the start of the trail and Oliver grew more and more impatient as we walked back and forth looking for it. When we finally found it, and set him down so he could go on his own, he sat down screaming, refusing to get up. He grabbed at his shoes, so I went to investigate and saw that his feet were being pinched a little by his new shoes so I changed to his preferred sandals and thought, "Okay, here we go. He'll be ready now." And for a split second he was. He got up excitedly and took off for the start of the trail. But suddenly, as if he had just run into a brick wall, he stopped, sat down in the dirt and started screaming again. I could find nothing else wrong wth his shoes, or any other article of clothing. We picked him up and walked a bit further, hoping to entice him into the fun of the walk. I spotted some Jewel Weed and was able to get some good laughs by having him touch the very full pods so they'd "Pop!" in his face. We set him down for one more attempt at a walk, but he clung on like a monkey and screamed some more. We called it quits and headed for the car. We had packed a lunch, which we ate at a picnic table with only minor struggling to keep Oliver at the table. We loaded back into the car, me sitting in the back with Oliver to try to keep him happy, and hopefully get him napping. He drank his cup of milk and I rested my head on the arm of his car seat. He had two of his blankets bundled in his lap and while initially excited by my head on his seat, he quickly settled in and began pulling and stroking strands of my hair. He did this until we both drifted off to sleep.

Our friends were right about Retreat Farm. It is a wonderful place. A wonderful place for Oliver? Not so much right now, but overall we did enjoy our visist, and are glad we went. My favorite part of the visit was going into the "chick room" where you are able to pick up and hold baby chicks.

I could have sat on the bench in that room all day just watching and snuggling the chicks. At first I picked one up, kissed it's beak and then Ken pointed to a sign. "No kissing the chicks." Oops. Oliver preferred to just sit on the bench, watching the chicks from afar, though he did at one point venture over to a nesting box to peek in.

Almost all of the baby chicks in the room were yellow, but standing out from all the rest was one lone black chick. We had tried to show Oliver chick after chick but he did not want to see them, and pushed our hands away. When I brought him this one little black chick, his reaction was completely different. He looked right at him, smiled, and reached out to gently pet his head. I like to think that Oliver realized this chick was different from all the others. It's as if he was saying, "Hey chickie, you and me are kindred spirits. We're different from the rest of our friends. Different, but still the same."

Mayhem Returns

So, I've been on a bit of a hiatus from the blog. I've taken off the end of July, all of August, and the first days of September. This means that I've taken off more time from the blog than I've been blogging in the first place. It's not that I haven't written anything...I have. Some of it will eventually be posted when complete, but others will be deleted because the writing isn't real.

There are a couple reasons why I haven't been posting anything, and I've only recently realized the bigger reasons. The not-so-big reasons are the more obvious ones of being busy, overwhelmed by life's tasks, and so on.

So, what are the bigger reasons? First of all, things have been going generally well for a while now, at least where Oliver is concerned. I tend to be somewhat of a negative person and while I have written about some positive emotions and experiences thus far, I've largely written about the difficulty of my current life and the struggles I face. It's much easier for me to write about the hardship. That's what I know and what I am comfortable with. I'm not good at being happy, or allowing myself to revel in the good times. I want very much to be happy, have fun, and find joy in life but something often holds me back. When I am in a good place of happiness and peace, something keeps me from wanting to share it with others. It's almost as if I have this reputation of being unhappy to uphold, and something terrible would happen if I were not miserable. In the past I've always used the brief and neutral responses of "ok" or "fine" when greeted with the common, "How are you guys doing?" Lately I find myself responding differently. It's the tone that's different more than the words. The words say we're "good," but the tone says, "actually, we're GREAT!" I'm kind of liking this. And what can I say? It feels good to feel good.


The other reason I haven't been posting has to do with truth. I started this blog as a place to record my experiences living the life I've been given and in my very first post, I said that I intended to paint a very honest picture of this life. There are some things I haven't been ready to share with the world, and by not sharing them, I felt like I wasn't being honest. I realize that I could have written about any number of other things and just entertained readers with cute photos, but in doing so, I would have been faking it. It would just have been filler material until I could write what was really on my mind and in my heart. I've come to a point where I am ready to share the parts of my life I couldn't before. Or at least some of them.

One thing you may not know about me is that I am a terrible procrastinator. And with that being said, I'll finish these thoughts tomorrow.