A short post for a change--I just wanted an excuse to share some photos, basically. Cassidy has been pretty interested in pregnancy and birth ever since we participated in a Blessingway for a pregnant friend of ours a few weeks ago. If you're not familiar with that ceremony, it's a celebration for a woman about to give birth, a chance to revel in community support and her own strength, as opposed to the standard baby shower, which as I understand it celebrates a woman's ability to accumulate a lot of crap from Babies R Us. The first time I attended a Blessingway, I thought, I hope Cass gets to have one of these some day, and I hope that she and I will have the kind of relationship that she'll want me to be there with her if she does.
At the Blessingway, we all tossed a ball of red yarn back and forth across the circle until we were all woven together in a giant web, and then we snipped off the yarn to make bracelets for ourselves, bracelets we wore until we heard our friend had had her baby, a tradition Cassidy found fascinating and one that kept our friend very much in our minds and hearts.
The day Cass found out our friend's baby had been born, she put a balloon under her dress and enacted her own "baby's" birth again and again. Again, I found myself thinking about my daughter as a potential future mother. And what I thought was, please let me be the kind of mother she would want to have with her when she gives birth. But if she doesn't want me there for her own good reasons, let me understand and give her room to have the birth she wants to have.
As for Bridger, well, he is just all about taking photos of Legos scenes lately, as I've alluded to. We've been having really fun conversations about the emotional impact of close-ups, when long shots are most effective, and so on. He's always been very observant and visually oriented, noticing details and patterns in picture books and movies that sail right past me; for instance, after we watched Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus," he picked out that the tattered bit of star from a circus tent that Chaplin is holding at the very end of the film, after the circus has picked up and left him behind, is the same star that was featured earlier in the movie when he first met the girl he loved and lost. I was flabbergasted that he'd picked up on that and remembered it.
It is fascinating to me to see the ways Bridger's visual and storytelling orientation are expressing themselves right now, and to watch his joy and concentration as he sets up his intricate, endlessly unspooling stories all over the house.
1 comment:
Oh, you just might have a filmmaker in the house! Bridger seems to have many of the interests that my 17-year-old had at his age. As soon as my son was old enough to use the family video camera and figure out iMovie on our Mac, he was up and running, and he hasn't stopped. He's always been a very visual learner like Bridger, and he's leaning toward cinematography and editing.
The neat thing about filmmaking is that it's something that kids can very happily teach themselves. It really lends itself to homeschooling, I think, as it gives kids a way to express their ideas in an alternative format.
I love that Bridger is taking photos of his Lego scenes. That brings back so many memories for me.
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