mothers of invention: autumn
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
first name: Autumn
age: 34
current city: Memphis
living situation: My head is held in shame as I admit we moved to the burbs… but then I sit and watch the kiddos run around a big yard while enjoying the fire pit, and don’t feel such guilt. Our house is out in the county, my husband, Chris, works in West Memphis, AR, I work downtown, and the store we own and operate is in Germantown. Needless to say the house is not conveniently situated. Chris and I have two daughters, Petrea (4) and Soah (2.5).
occupation: I am a Solo Practice Attorney focusing on Juvenile/Child Welfare Issues and the Store Owner of Mango Street Baby.
Mango Street Baby, Germantown, TN
how do you structure your time and space? We do not have any family near so a “date” means having babysitter or a night when the kids go down early enough for a movie or an adult conversation. The girls are in daycare at the Foreign Language Immersion Center. They speak only Spanish there, and their classes are a mix of many cultures and “first” languages. I grew up in Central America and want my girls to learn and use Spanish and be in a diverse setting.
If there is a snow day, the girls often go to court with me. Other attorneys and the deputies are wonderful about helping during the moments when I have to stand in Court with my “helpers.” Both girls also go to the store. Petrea served as a live model, demonstrating the comfort of our display cribs and linens for the first year of her life. Man, she scared some folks when they realized she was a real baby! I think it added to her easy-going and social nature. When both girls were infants, they would also go with me to my law office. I have many memories of returning from Court to my law assistant, a great, young, recent college grad who was accomplishing nothing pertaining to the field of law. He would shush me, and there would sit Petrea, curled up asleep on his chest, while he reclined and tried to rock her in a stationary office chair.
A typical day in our house is as follows. My husband wakes up the four year old, and they make coffee. Then Chris starts getting himself ready for work while I dress Petrea in the clothes I picked out the night before. While she’s brushing her teeth, I wake up Soah. I get her dressed and brush her teeth and hair before we head downstairs to brush Petrea’s hair, et cetera. Both girls get shoes and socks and breakfast (usually bird bite oatmeal with a spiderman-pose-off to keep them moving). Then it is time to pick vitamins and shove them politely out the door with their Daddio, who takes them to school. (Insert meltdowns, gathering of multiple dollies and blankies, and bribes.) Then I scramble to get myself ready for Court. Depending on what our days hold, one of us picks them up from daycare. We all come home and play, eat dinner, play some more, and then start the bedtime drama. Chris puts one down and I coerce the other. Once they are down, we begin our office work and side jobs. Neither of us has an assistant right now, so night-time is when we put on the assistant hats and do the work we cannot otherwise accomplish during the day.
using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,
-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? I would say this is spring, characterized by lots of new growth and wait-and-see. The girls test me on everything to learn boundaries and question me on everything to soak in knowledge. It can be stressful and consuming but beautiful things often spring from the stress. To continue the analogy, I worry about my parenting as I do about my spring garden. Is my method of tending appropriate? Am I giving too much or too little? I worry about warping their little selves with the wrong care. The beauty is seeing the daily growth and the emergence of each personality.
-What season(s) preceded this one? A care-free summer! I only thought I knew what being busy meant or having obligations was about.
-What season(s) might your future hold? Autumn. It is becoming autumn more and more. Autumn reminds me of huddling in the bleachers together when it starts getting cool, but not so cold that you can’t go out. As the girls get older, I see more involvement as a family unit. Life is getting busier and more active. I see work slowing down and that family, huddling in the bleachers together, out and about and supporting each other.
favorite family activities: Rock N Romp; playing and grilling in the yard; cruising the lake at Gran & Pops; bumming on the beach at Gigi & Papi’s
favorite solo activities: dancing; sitting in a small setting watching live music; sitting in silence
sources of inspiration: The families I encounter on a daily basis in Court. From children with broken spirits to the brokennes caused by simple broken promises, each story touches me. Parents who try and give everything, but its not enough, make me push harder. Kids who just want to be loved, make someone proud, and know where they will sleep, remind me to hug my girls a little tighter and praise them more often. Those kids who have turned to a delinquent path remind me that my girls need discipline and my direction to help guide them down youth’s path. Many nights I lay in bed so “inspired” that I am too full to sleep. Those are the nights I don’t mind if one of my girls gets out of bed.
best MakeShift moment: My life is a series of MakeShift moments. One moment when I felt that I was a real mom and was going to accept things was when my child drew in red marker on the walls of her new, newly painted room. It is a pretty good rendition of a creepy princess outline. Instead of getting on to her or trying to clean it, I framed around it. There it sits just down and to the left of her light switch: a red-marker-fourteen-inch-tall-princess-drawing with an open modeling frame now showcasing it. On another occasion “someone” colored it in with blue toothpaste. I was upset that I might have to erase the drawing to clean the toothpaste. I realized then that I had become a different person — a proud Mama.
Find Autumn on the web:
- Law Office Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/chastainlaw
- Mango Street Facebook Page: http://alturl.com/n9nj
- Mango Street Baby website: http://www.mangostreetbaby.com/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/mangostreetbaby
- Blog: http://mangostreetbaby.wordpress.com
