kids Archives - Kathryn Rankin Covington

“The Wives of Sunset” Chapter 2: Urban Chickens

A rooster crow blared through the sound of early morning traffic. Marissa smiled and stretched underneath her organic cotton duvet. Beside her, Dane’s muscular, tattooed arm draped over their son. Oliver had crawled into their bed last night with his peach blankie and stuffed sloth, a victim of another nightmare. Dane was so good with him. And he was a model father. As a session musician, he was able to stay home most days with Oliver, writing his own music in his basement studio. It made her proud.

The rooster crowed again, insisting that Marissa put her feet to the floor. She loved this house. They bought ten years ago for an amazing deal. The sellers, poor folks, had gotten in way over their heads financially and sunk further when the Recession hit. They were saved from bankruptcy when Marissa and Dane bought the house. Over the years, Marissa had finished it Earth-conscious materials. Sustainable wood flooring, solar panels on the roof. Even the paint was non-toxic. Last summer, they had gotten the chickens. Dane had built the hen house himself.

You can’t control women.

Read On

Summertime

It’s almost upon us.

In Michigan, the trees have burst into full bloom and color has saturated the landscape. That nearly-forgotten brush of heat strokes our bare shoulders when we step into the sunlight.

Our kids are holding impromptu baseball games in backyards, racing through the twilight on bikes, begging to delay bedtime just ten minutes more.

Students are torrents of emotion, finishing those last lessons and holding tight to the community they’ve built with their teachers over the last nine months, even as their words say they can’t WAIT for school to be over.

As parents, we look forward to time with our babies, big and small. Our stress begins to melt as we look at calendars that aren’t packed with events from dawn til dusk. Some of us look forward to a bit of travel, some of us prepare that pool bag, and some of us look longingly at weeks of camp ahead. Regardless of our family plans, we are all about to transition. It’s summer: we’re supposed to feel excitement and relief! And yet, trepidation hides in the shadows.

Summertime can be driven by the things that make you happy.

Read On

Minimalist Kids

4:42 p.m

We pile into the house and my voice echoes in the living room. A daily admonishment to put the shoes away, hang the coats. I pull the half-bent folders out of the backpacks, wiping the strawberry smear off of the shiny cover of one of them. There are papers to sign, flyers asking for donations of money and time, more decisions to make and events to squish into a packed calendar. Notes from friends flutter to the floor. My son’s folder is crammed with “seat work,” adorable bears and narwhals counted and sorted and colored with crayons.

In exactly forty-eight minutes, my daughter is due on a soccer field across town. She is to be fed, clothed in layers of sports frocks, hair pulled up (that’ll be a battle…), and carrying her bag, ball, and bottle of water. Do her earrings need to be out for practice or just games? I can’t remember.

I’ve been exhausted since I was thirty. Everyone’s exhausted.”

Read On

Unburied

I gazed at the mountain of plastic bags and felt anger flow through my veins. We’d spent months donating and selling our stuff. An actual truck had come to haul half a house of furniture away. How was there this much left for the landfill? All of the plastic plush precious things I thought were so important were now shoved in black bags, off to pollute the Earth. I shook my head.

What had we been doing?

When the good husband and I got married, we combined our lives into one unified household, stuffing the past in the basement. As our lives expanded, the boxes of stuff accumulated and got put away in bigger and bigger basements. Eight years later, we made the big decision to move home to Michigan. We also made the choice to value location over square footage. This meant a big downsize.

It was time to face the Stuff.

“It doesn’t matter what objects leave our lives; the experiences are still there.”

Read On

Main Menu