Little House on the Prairie

Until today, the coldest day of autumn so far, I’d managed to tend to baby’s needs and those of the woodstove without undue stress. But as the sun began to set tonight, the stove chose to throw a minor hissy-fit just as baby was needing my attention. So, feeling no shortage of inner turmoil, I alternated between placing baby in her Graco swing while I stoked the suddenly nonexistent coals in the stove and holding baby in my arms while watching the woodstove flames quiet down to nothingness. Better planning on both ends would have made it all seem like something other than a bad time; if not better planning, then more practice.

What would I teach my girl with my stubborn frontier antics, when there’s a perfectly good gas furnace in the basement ready to blast forced air through the house at a moment’s notice? I suppose I would teach her that a home heated in silence is worth something, as the on-again, off-again roar of our conventional heater never felt like the best complement to the winter stillness outdoors. I would teach her that the genius of a modern woodstove is partly aesthetic, partly comfort, and partly the work ethic it reinforces. But, most important, I would teach her that her that it’s possible to do something as simple as running a stove while attending to one’s beloved baby in the way she deserves without looking stressed out. That’ll have to be tomorrow.