I could hear Justin outside talking to someone as he worked on chipping away at the huge bark pile he had had dumped weeks ago.
I had been begging him to get spread out where it belonged.
I asked him who it was he had been talking to when he walked back by, pushing the wheelbarrow.
“The neighbor has her pigs out here,” he said with a laugh.
Her pigs?
We never knew she even had pigs at all;
Only the dogs, and the cats, and the chickens that sometimes break through the fence that we have to retrieve,
and the goats that scream like they’re about to die; A sound I sometimes stand outside and make videos of with my phone.
I slipped on my shoes, wanting to see, and a long time later, we still stood talking to her as the sun got lower in the sky and the mosquitos swarmed, petting the pigs, exchanging our stories.
She mentioned those screaming goats were needing a new home soon because her chickens had ruined all her green grass for them, and the cost of hay is so high right now,
but – what do you know – WE have a field positively overgrown with it because it has been baby steer fertilized.
She followed us to our field to look at our yard, and as we made a plan to borrow the goats to eat down our grass, and provide them with a green grass supply,
we were trailed like a motley parade by a pig named June with a torn ear, and a chocolate lab puppy, who was mysteriously holding a plastic buck knife.
The young neighbors from up the road came walking down the hill with their new bright blue-eyed baby, then, and we stood there talking as a group for a long time.
The wife had considered having me watch her baby when she returned to work originally,
but then she had gotten a taste of motherhood, and had decided to stay home and just love on him for a little while.
With tears in our eyes Justin and I talked to them about how they would never regret making the choice to sacrifice a little bit of money to be there watching as the babies grow.
I told her the story of how I was set to go back to work after having Chloe, and how the night before I just stood beside her crib and cried, stroking the sheets, trying to fight the part of me that didn’t want to go.
Just this week we had bought Chloe her first car, and that day had felt so bittersweet from the swirls of emotions that happen when you mix together sadness and pride.
Sadness for myself as I come to terms with her quest for freedom and what that means for me, now feeling left behind.
Pride in the fact that I know I can trust her. She is solid.
She didn’t need that car to go anywhere in life.
“…and before you know it you’ll be moving a bark pile for a new car that YOU just bought because he has learned how to drive.”
Justin’s voice broke my train of thought as I stared, lost in my memories, up the road.
He was motioning to the baby, who, since the moment they had walked up,
had been locked on me, with his gaze unbroken.
I felt like he was reading my thoughts with his tiny furrowed brow.
His fist wrapped around my pointer finger, and I felt joined by him there.
His gaze into my eyes had spotted something beyond.
I felt like we were talking to our own selves 16 years ago, with Chloe still in a front pack, Justin commenting on how hot her sleeping body was making him, but how he still didn’t want it to stop;
Just a blink back in time, really.
We were *just* standing there,
Then, suddenly, we were not.
They asked us questions about early parenting, and as a pig wandered by, we found ourselves – once also new, and wide-eyed –
sharing years worth of wisdom there in the road.
I came back in after about half an hour, bit by mosquitos, but smiling from the beautiful sense I was feeling of “Enough.”
This is the exact kind of life I hoped one day to be living –
Neighbors who know your name, and call it out with a question they have for you, watching a young daughter kicking her soccer ball up the road, a new baby smiling and memorizing my face, pigs grunting their hellos, a puppy in my yard with a wagging tail and a mysterious murder weapon…
It has not been at all perfect or glamorous,
There have been the highest highs and lowest lows,
and maybe our story, and our wisdom shared is not story-worthy to some;
But, to me, the up and the down of it, the sadness mixed in with the pride,
the pigs and the dogs and the grass that’s grown thick,
the telling our story to unbroken eyes,
THIS is exactly what I always wanted.
The small things I love that maybe no one else would even pay attention to or notice –
To me,
that is what makes up a home and a life.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
