Those who own their own business know the biggest downside is the blurred line between work and home. For me, checking emails, ordering supplies, making to-do lists, contacting customers, (writing blogs), all happen at home.  Most times this means a two year old is pulling my hand in the opposite direction. But I do my best to multitask. We hit the playground between deliveries, cashing checks and picking up compost around town. Farm tasks are completed while jumping on hay bails, crawling through grow tunnels, drinking from the hose, and climbing swinging farm gates.

Inevitably things go wrong when trying to do a million things at once. Today I ran out of gas at the intersection of Main and 32^nd – unfortunately a very conspicuous place in a small town. Before I could even react, a crew was pushing my car off the road and a nice woman drove me to her house and gave me the gas from her garage so I could get to the nearest station. She refused money with the line “what goes around comes around” and gave Raina a stuffed animal from her car. I really hope to be in the situation where I can pay it forward sometime soon, but right now I feel like my life is a landslide and I’m struggling to move the rocks away before they bulldoze me under.

I don’t know what other people see when they look around the farm. It isn’t as productive as I know it can be and there are a million projects half finished. But that’s OK for now. I’m primarily a mom through the winter while Peter works and motherhood always comes first. When that little hand is pulling me away from work, I need to remember all that we’ve accomplished since this time last year. In the scheme of things, whatever seems so important at the moment, simply isn’t as important as wherever she’s taking me.

My favorite tension release with Raina is “bouncies” on the couch to music. I could tell Raina was a headbanger like her dad even in the womb; she always danced more when Metallica was playing into my belly over Bach. For the first year of her life we danced her to sleep to artists we could all agree upon: Angels and Airwaves, Arcade Fire, The Beetles, Blind Melon, Eddie Vedder, The Decemberists, U2… the louder the music and the faster the sway, the quicker she fell asleep. Now she’s too heavy to sway to sleep, but we still dance every day. When I was in grade school the best dancers always had their moves copied by others at school dances. I find myself copying Raina the entire time. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether she creates more stress than she relieves, but I’ve always been one to ride the extremes rather than coast down the middle.