Don't Fence Me In

Whenever I can, I try to give Ryan the run of the house. I’ll march around the basement with him for hours, I’ll let him explore the kitchen while I’m working in there, I’ll supervise him going up and down the stairs. But there are always limits: no playing with the cabinet doors, no going into the laundry room, no opening the drawers. Plus, I have to continually steer him out of harm’s way, whether that harm is in the form of the fireplace tools, some non-childproofed drawers, a delicate piece of furniture, or a wall. And when I need to do something unencumbered for a moment, Ryan goes in the playpen. He can be perfectly content sitting down playing with a toy, but if I put him in the playpen with exactly the same toy, no more contentment. He needs to be free!!

Last night, the family headed over to the family dance studio so Herb could set up a new sound system. While he was installing the system and teaching his sister and niece how it works, Ryan and I got to play in the studio. What heaven! What freedom! The studio is, of course, a big open room with mirrors along one wall. So not only could Ryan crawl or march without running into an obstacle, he could also watch himself do it. And it got even more fun when Aunt Holly magically produced a bracelet with 4 or 5 sleigh bells on it. He made the most of his time at the studio, happily crawling at top speed from one end of the room to the other, stopping only now and then to ring (and chew on) the bells. He grabbed my hands and marched all over, clearly reveling in the ability to build up some momentum without having to stop or turn aside. He chortled at himself in the mirror as he did all his tricks, obviously proud of his own accomplishments.

For a child who is often told “no” or steered away from something interesting (in his mind) or dangerous (in mine), it was a wonderful opportunity to stretch his legs and not have to be stopped. As an adult, I rarely think about the freedom of movement I have. I can get up and stretch my legs or get some fresh air almost any time I want, and no-one will tell me to stop or come back. I can almost always find somewhere where I can walk freely as long as my heart desires. I’m rarely fenced in. But a baby doesn’t get to taste that kind of freedom very often. So any time Ryan doesn’t have to be fenced in, I don’t wanna fence him in. March and be free, my little man!

New American Gothic

Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with Grant Wood's famous painting titled, "American Gothic".

What many of you probably don't know (and I certainly didn't), is how that painting came to be. The story goes that in 1930, Grant Wood saw a house in Iowa that was built in the "Carpenter Gothic" style and decided to paint a picture of "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house" with the house itself as a backdrop. The man was modeled after his dentist and the woman after his sister. Although the painting was not necessarily intended to depict a married couple (Wood's sister often told people it depicted a father and daughter, perhaps to avoid the unflattering intimation that she would have married a man twice her age), it has become an iconic image of the American pioneer family.

There are many other iconic images of the American family found in art. The work of Norman Rockwell is rife with familiar family images, such as his beautiful Thanksgiving-themed "Freedom From Want".

And any child who grew up reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series is familiar with Garth Williams' lovely depictions of frontier life.

If these charming images depict life from years ago, what images of American family life of today will become iconic in the coming years and decades? To me, what makes these images iconic is their timelessness: little girls will always play with dolls and climb on their daddies' backs, mothers will always snuggle babies while watching older children play, families will always gather together for the holidays, and people will always soldier on through whatever hardships come their way.

So what images of my own family will last for years in my mind? Perhaps these:

because families dressing alike will always be cute,

because multiple generations of family will always gather together for photos on the couch,

because tiny, sleeping babies will always be precious, and

because, like the original American Gothic, there's just something timeless and wonderful about the whole family gathering on the front porch for a family portrait.