The Baby Bed

I spent my first few months sleeping in a new cradle. My younger brother followed along sixteen months later and rested his little head in the same bed. The cradle moved from house to house as my nieces and nephews were born until twenty-four years later, I rocked my own little boy in that bed.

For four years, the cradle was stored in my walk-in closet. I brought it out one day, leaned my swollen belly over the sides, scrubbed down the mattress and dressed it for the baby that was soon to come.

Since then, it has been stored in the closet, forgotten until I need to dig through the pile of clothes and CDs that drifted into the bed due to lack of storage.

My oldest son recently accompanied me to a battered women's shelter to drop of donations we had collected around the house. He rubbed the toes of a baby who was staying there with his mother. She told my son that she and the baby were getting ready to move into their own apartment.

Later that night, I tucked my son into his top bunk, turned off the lights, and went to the kitchen to finish folding a load of laundry. As I was folding my three-year-old's sweatpants, I thought about that mother; independent for the first time in years, alone with a baby to care for, and wondered if she had ever rocked her baby in a cradle.

My husband was sleeping when I turned on the light to our room. I folded the clothes in the cradle, stacked the CDs on the floor next to the dresser, and smashed my finger when I pulled the cradle out of the closet.

I leaned my flat belly over the railing, scrubbed down the mattress, and loaded the cradle into the back of my truck.

We have things that we hang onto that others could use. Odds are, that cradle would sit in my closet, be moved from house to house as I grow old, and one day, be hauled away after I die.

We create attachments to things in our life for many reasons, but one of the most damaging, I believe, is holding onto things because we cannot tell others how they make us feel. Our own private thoughts when looking at a baby bed, or Grandpa's favorite chair, are very difficult to share. When we allow ourselves the opportunity to share those feelings, the tension, the pull we feel towards those items, is loosened.

I crawled into bed with my son the other day. Cuddled together with my nose in his hair and my arm draped over his waist, I told him about how I used to rock him as a baby and how happy I was to have him in my life. He reached his hand up and brushed my hair off my cheek. A wooden cradle can't give me what I get from being close and open with my children.

Is there something you hang onto that you are ready to give to someone who is in need?

The American Way

The dream I had as a young mother was to live in a two-story farm house. I wanted to sip coffee with my husband while standing at an empty kitchen sink. In my mind's eye, I watched deer nibble at the edge of the woods next to the fenced vegetable and herb garden. The dog didn't raise an eyebrow at the squirrels scampering up the maple trees, which never littered the yard with dry branches.

Well, that didn't happen.

I should be washing the dishes but I'm out of soap, again, because the cats knocked over the open bottle someone left on the window sill. The squirrel that took home in the elm tree right outside the living room window keeps throwing nuts at the dogs. The neighbor's kid fell through the black netting around the garden, squishing the green tomatoes that should have been picked at the end of last month. And I won't go into the story about finding the tree on the house after we came home from our anniversary dinner.

Life didn't turn out how I thought it would. After nine years of marriage, two sons, and a lot of time to think this month, I've realized that my life, my house, my marriage, and my relationship with my kids are cluttered.

Crawling under the four blankets on the bed last night (let's face it, if gas prices keep rising, I'll be knitting 'creative costumes' just to keep the kids warm), I decided that although I can't afford to heat that two-story house, nor did I really want to clean it, I could build a fulfilling, healthy home for my family.

Here begins our journey into the clutter-free, eco-friendly, frugal, self-sufficient life I never knew I wanted to lead.