This is something that a girl I knew at college wrote. I thought it made good reading. I also thought that this picture I took today was appropriate with the theme.
Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 9:16pm
Lately, maybe because of the Christmas-toy-overload, I have been growing more and more concerned with the plastic-ky world that is beginning to surround my children...and therefore myself. Please don't misunderstand me. Plastic is good and necessary for certain things. When raising children especially, certain plastic is necessary. But I have been on a concerted effort to see what plastic items I can replace with a well-made, long-life product. It has been quite challenging so far! I am not on an environmental kick. My philosophy on this started to take root when I was old enough to understand the textures of my childhood and how they play a role in my life today. Unfortunately, I was totally unprepared for the primary-color, shiny-plastic underworld that quickly sucks in the mother of small children.Plato said, "The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things." The beautiful. The simple. The well-made. My memory of my childhood is filled with texture. My father, God bless him, raised six children on thirteen thousand dollars a year. I did not know I was poor. I knew we couldn't afford things, but I did not realize the extent of it. The inability to buy things "off the shelf" forced my mother to be creative. To look for multiple uses for an item. A discarded tire and scratchy piece of rope became a tire swing. We would dump out the water onto the dirt patch underneath the tire swing. The mud would splash against my legs and barefeet as I swang. That old rope dug into my skin as I gripped tightly. Texture.Our pans were thrifted items and they lasted forever. They were cast iron and weighed a ton. When they got used to the necessary point, my mother would rub oil in them and put them in the oven to cure. Texture. Sheets were...gasp...also thrifted. My mother would find sheets, usually very old and very well made, that were discarded because they didn't have the most recent print on them. They were never in a package so she would go by the feel of them. They always felt so comforting and snuggly. Texture.One year my parents stayed up half the night on Christmas Eve cutting and sanding handmade blocks for my brother and me. They were natural, knotty and solid wood. They were large, sturdy and easy to build with. Texture. My toybox was an older steamer trunk. It was covered with all sorts of brass buckles and notches. My mother lined it in burlap and screwed dowel rods inside to hold up the lid so it wouldn't suddenly shut and pinch our fingers. I loved that big toy box. I would crawl inside and be covered in toys. We would also stand behind it and use it as a puppet theater. The textures of playtime with that old trunk are burned into my memory. I could go on and on with memories of the textures of my life. Now, as a mom, I strive to seek out texture for my children's lives. I want to set up my home so it is warm and liveable. I have a special love for old things because of fond memories that were born from living among them. In my home, no place is too special to sit, there are no scratchy or polyfilled duvets. I allow my one year old to eat from pottery style plates and use real utensils. Texture.Thanks to a good idea from a book I'm reading, I decided to start drawing and painting journals with my daughter (my four month old is a bit young yet). The author suggests to purchase some "good" materials for your child to work with. Acrylic paints. Charcoal pencils. A book of canvas-style paper. Even old burlap or a bag of good thick paper scraps can be used for painting and drawing. The bottom line is to look at an item and think of an alternative use before pitching it. Things can often be given a second life on a child's craft table. It is very difficult for a child to feel creative when the tools he or she is using are frustrating to work with. I personally can't do anything with a dulled, waxy crayon! I am new at this and have some undoing to do. Right now I am staring at a collection of toys that since Christmas already need new batteries or are missing all of the pieces that made it fun for ten minutes. I certainly hope this doesn't sound pretentious or unappreciative of all of the goodness bestowed upon my children. I am simply challenged this New Year to seek ways to create a haven for imagination, experience, and wonder that will follow them throughout their lives. I personally feel that "toy overload" inhibits those creative expressions and the appreciation for the simple. The everyday. The truly beautiful.
By: ABK
My grandma, my husband's grandmother and grandfather, my husband and our two oldest kids
