August- 2000
It’s been an amazing year.  We’re canning apples now.  The peaches are done, the pears are almost ready, and we have an amazing number of sunflower seeds.  We’re going to can pumpkin in September and roast the seeds.  Those were so good last year.
Willow’s sixteenth birthday was wonderful.  We had a picnic. I gave her a new rod.  So original.  We discussed the New Deal and the War on Poverty.  She was terribly confused.  The idea of being taxed in order to give to those who have less was a foreign concept.  Of course, her next question was how much we gave to those who need financial help so that those people wouldn’t go to the government for it.  How does she think of these things?
Oh my.  Willow just plopped herself on my bed and announced that the American government is stupid.  She pointed out that the pilgrims tried a redistribution of wealth in their original colony and that even their zeal for the Lord and a charter founded on charitable principles didn’t produce utopia.
She’s now in her room composing a letter to the president.  She had to ask me who the current president is.  Have I made a horrible mistake?  Is it right that a sixteen-year-old girl should be so ignorant of the world around her?
We discussed marriage recently.  I tried so hard to hide my revulsion.  I tried.  I don’t think I succeeded.  She is convinced that we’ll live here as two old spinsters and she’ll adopt a child to help us in our old age.  I think she’s read Anne of Green Gables a little too often.  She assures me that you don’t have a friend pick up an orphan for you anymore.  Apparently, you now have to prove you will treat the child right and can afford to keep the child fed and clothed.  Who would have imagined!
She’s still pestering me for a greenhouse.  She’s convinced that there must be some way to build one.  Willow and building.  That is frightening at best.  If she still wants one in five or six years, maybe I’ll order one of those kits.
I’ve been thinking about her future.  I keep doing the fingerprints and I have her chronology, the story of her birth, everything she could need, it’s all in the barn behind one of the walls of the cabinet over the fridge.  I didn’t tell her about it.  I wanted it separate from the house in case of fire.  If anything happens to me, she’ll find it when she reads this.
I wonder what would happen to her if something happened to me.  She’d be able to survive.  She’s a self-sufficient young woman.  As long as she didn’t need to build anything, she’d be fine.  But I wonder about her spirit.  I thrive on the solitude.  I had no idea, before this happened, just how wonderful it is to ‘be still’ before the Lord.  Daily walks with nothing but my life, my daughter, and my Lord.  What more could I ask for?
But Willow isn’t me.  She’s her own person.  If I died, could she survive without human contact?  Would she starve emotionally?  Can a person get the affection that they need from a dog or, in her case, probably a sheep!
I remember when I started.  I thought I’d be so bored.  I thought we’d plant one day, fish one day, bake another day, and then can a day or two and voila.  What to do with all the “extra” time?  Extra time.  I want more time.  I have so much to live and learn before I die.  I am nearing the halfway mark of my life.  What do I have to show for it?
Well, I have Willow.  Though it’s a warped way of putting it, she is quite an accomplishment.  This house- I did manage to create a truly warm home. I love our home.  Of course, Willow did most of it.  She thinks I teach her everything but when it comes to the creative side of life, she’s the one with the artistic bent.  I just copy her.  She thinks she copies me.  Oh how strange we are.
I’m doing it again.  I’m feeling like I’m a failure at life because I don’t have a job, a career, I haven’t worked to increase wealth.  I produce nothing that benefits anyone else.  Why do the world’s values still have an impact on my self-perception?  I’m a success at everything the Lord wants me to succeed in.  That should be enough.
I wonder if an old Victrola would be a good gift for Christmas?

“Wow.  Mother doubted.  I never knew that.  She also knew I was good at designing.”
Willow passed the journal across the table open to the entry she referenced.  Chad read it and stopped at the reference to the journal in the barn.  “Did you know about the other journal?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you even curious about it?”
Willow paused.  “Well, I know what’s in it.  It has my fingerprints, how I was conceived- I know all that stuff so why worry about it.”
“I don’t know.  I thought it implied there was more to it than that.”
Chad passed his journal across the table.  “The raw emotion here.  I keep reading it and it kills me.”
Willow took the journal and frowned.  She wasn’t familiar with it.  Somehow, she’d missed this journal.  Chad waited for her to comment but Willow lost herself in the text, oblivious to the world around her.

April 8, 1989-

She is sleeping again.  I am exhausted.  This little girl of mine is impossible to control.  She’s so strong-willed.  I’ve tried everything I can think of but there is no rationalizing with her.  I can’t even give her what she wants without her demanding what she hates.  At this rate, she’ll be a criminal before she’s five.
Oh Lord, I can’t do this.  I’m a failure.  My child is so ugly- so hateful.  How anyone can call a child “innocent” is beyond me.  Either she’s possessed by demons or all children are the sinners that the Bible says they are.  I want to quit.
No.  I don’t.  I love this life.  It’s working.  It’s slow and hard and I’m not very good at it yet but I love it.  I just don’t love the parenting that caused it.  I hate this.  I don’t want to do it anymore.  I find myself fighting back tears, choking back screams of rage that I didn’t know I possessed, and forcing myself not to strike out at her.
I reread all of my child development books.  They all say this is normal.  I can’t believe it is true.  It can’t be true.  There is no way the human race would have continued to grow after the advent of birth control.  Abortion- I understand it now.  I hate it, it’s wrong, but I can see the temptation.  Do they do orphanages anymore where you drop off a child and leave it there for someone more qualified and more patient can rear it?  Could I do that?
I doubt it.  Even amid the rage that she ignites in my heart, I love this little girl.  I see glimpses of who she should be between the moments of selfish demanding.  She wants control.  She’s like a mini-Eve, waiting for the opportunity to improve her surroundings by she sheer force of her will and even if it isn’t any better- well, at least it’s her way!
I sound so bitter and hateful.  I despair of ever helping her conquer the anger and willfulness in her heart.  I don’t think I can do it.  The books tell me to affirm her wants and needs but all it seems to do is increase the terrible rages.
Lord help.  Please.  Help.

Willow glanced up.  “I had no idea-” Before she could continue, the next section caught her attention and she continued to read.
April 17, 1989-
She hurt herself today.  I refused to allow her to go to the pool by herself and she ran.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I chased.  As she looked back over her shoulder to see if I followed, she tripped on her shoelace and hit her head on a rock.
I wasn’t very sympathetic.  It was probably very wrong of me but I had to keep my wits about me so I just picked her up and carried her to the kitchen.  She was so subdued.  Quiet and compliant all afternoon.  I was tempted to test it to see if she was trying to lull me into a false sense of her willingness to obey but I decided it was unjust.
She just asked me if the cut on her head was God’s punishment for her disobedience.  She knows what she does is wrong.  If I had any doubt, this would have to erase it but I’ve never doubted her understanding of her sin.  Maybe that’s the real issue.  Perhaps I need to sincerely try to help her to a sincere faith in Jesus.  Maybe He can work in her heart where I cannot reach.

April 28, 1989-
My patience is at an all time low.  I have none.  I’ve cried out to the Lord but everything I find in His Word is so fully wrapped in symbolism that I don’t know what to do.  Solomon speaks of beating children.  I have no doubt that it would be wrong to beat her.  As tempting as it is, it’s not the answer.  Moses talks about stoning a rebellious son.  Not happening.
The strange thing is, I think that whatever I’m doing, I am exasperating her.  She seems quite frustrated and irritated with me most of the time.  She’ll be three soon.  Three.  She seems so much older.  She’s so strong both physically and mentally.  My Willow is a wonderful little girl but there must be a curl somewhere in her forehead because when she’s bad, she truly is horrid.
Is it a sin not to like your child?  I love her. I would die for her- forget that, I have lived for her.  But- I don’t like her.  She’s unbearable but I don’t know what to do to help her.

April 30,
I cried today.  Once Willow collapsed from exhaustion I escaped to the barn and cried.  I screamed and wailed and threw the biggest temper tantrum humanly possible.  I broke things.  In a stroke of genius, I pulled the galvanized metal watering thing I bought for the goat for the barn in winter from the wall and I broke mason jars in it.  Oh it was satisfying.  Of course, now I have a lot of glass I have to figure out what to do with but who cares.  It was so cathartic.
Now I know why God gave children to two parents.  Mothers need a break from their little darlings.  I never get a break.  I can never be off my game.  I must, every time, every situation, be alert.  No one is here to do it for me.  I am weary.  That’s a lie.  I’m exhausted.  I’m emotionally spent.  I cannot do this.  I cannot.

May 5, 1989-
We’ve had a breakthrough.  I may be able to control my Willow.  While things are by no means peaceful, I now know how to control her.  Last night, or the first night in months, I slept well.
It’s quite simple actually.  The books I have were wrong.  Either that, or Willow is just an exception to the rule.  Either way, I’m doing it “my way” now.  Wouldn’t Frank Sinatra and Grammy be glad?
I quit letting her win for the sake of peace.  I quit letting the work I needed to do be the bargaining chip.  Monday, I woke up, whipped from spending half the night forcing her back into her bed, and decided that enough was enough.  I’m the mom and she’s going to do as I say even if I have to use those evil words, “I’m the mom, that’s why.”
At breakfast, I gave her blueberry pancakes.  Her favorite.  (See, I tried not to exasperate her.)  She screamed for oatmeal.  I finished making the pancakes and sat them in the middle of the table.  I ate mine.  She demanded oatmeal.  I didn’t get up.  At first, I think she was confused.  Why isn’t mommy making oatmeal?  It would have been comical had I not been so tired and she not had such an ugly history.
When I’d finished my breakfast, I put the plate of blueberries on the stove, put away the syrup and the butter, washed my dish, and went to get the brush.  Immediately she protested.  “I don’t want you to brush my hair!”
I just sat on the couch, wrapped my legs and arms around her, and waited for her to finish.  It took twenty minutes, but she eventually said, “You can brush my hair now.”  Something in her voice- her tone- the way she held her body, something told me that I needed to not brush her hair right away.
So, I just told her I had to use the bathroom and do a few other things and I’d brush it when I got done.  The whole day went like that.  I didn’t get the garden weeded.  I was physically spent by noon but I kept it up.  If she didn’t do what I said to do, I didn’t let her do anything else but I didn’t let her decide when we’d obey me.  She had blueberry pancakes for dinner.  Cold.  She decided that maybe she wanted some of the chicken I made but I told her that until her pancake was gone, she couldn’t have anything else.  (I planned to make more when she was asleep so they wouldn’t hurt her.)
Anyway, it’s better.  She still kicks and screams and tries to control things but it’s better.  Sometimes I’m tempted to just spank her and see if it’d help but I think it’d just make her angrier and we’d have another battle to deal with.
My child development books told me that forcing my will on her was abusive and didn’t show respect for her as a person.  It said that my job is to keep her safe and teach her what is socially acceptable but that only bullies make others do what they want.  Well, I was doing that and all I was creating was the very creature they told me not to be.  Maybe I’m doing this all wrong but at least she’s more manageable.  In time, who knows, maybe she’ll be more pleasant.

Tears poured down Willow’s face.  “I was such a handful.  How-”
“You were a typical child with a mother who had no one to help her know what to do.”
“What would you have done with me?”  Willow’s curiosity was piqued.
“Well, I wouldn’t have let it get that bad to begin with.  Between Aunt Libby and Mom, I think someone would have told me what to do.  I guess that’s what Luke was doing with Cari.”
Willow’s expression was understandably confused.  Chad described the scene in Aggie’s kitchen and how Luke hadn’t allowed the child to answer back.  “He just sent her to the stair step until we were done talking.”
“For running in the house?”  It seemed a bit harsh to Willow.
“No.  For arguing when he said to stop.”
“Harsh.”
Chad eyed her curiously.  “I thought so too but because her mother was dead.  Once I thought about it, I realized that with any other child, I would have agreed.  I was just making excuses because of circumstances.”
They read for a while longer until Willow tossed the journal aside and snatched Chad’s as well.  “Bill offered to bring a movie to my house once.  He said something about a laptop TV.  Do you have one of those?  I can’t read any more of this.”
Grabbing his keys, Chad poured her a glass of water and shouted, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
***
Willow sat as curled on the couch as you can with a sore calf reading the journal again when Chad returned with a DVD player and movie.  “I thought you were done with those for the day?”
“I was but I saw something as I was putting the bookmark in and then I started reading, and then my leg got tired and…”
She passed the journal to him.  “I remember that.  I was barely three but I remember that.”

July 31, 1989
She lied to me today.  She’s lied before but this one was different.  This was a calculated lie.  She thought it, planned it, and executed it flawlessly.  Honestly, if I hadn’t seen her myself, I would have believed her.
I spanked her.  I know it’s the scourge of the earth and almost grounds for jail but honestly, I didn’t know what else to do.  I turned her over my knee, took the wooden spoon from the crock, paddled her a few times, and told her never to lie to me again.
She’s been happy as a clam all day.  We’ve played and laughed- She’s so delightful when she’s like this.  I don’t want to whale on her for every little thing but I think I’ve discovered something that my grandmother knew and didn’t share with me.  Sometimes you need to use the direct link from bottom to brain to get something through to a toddler.

“Oh that’s funny.”
She smiled to herself as she gently closed the book smoothing the cover as she did.  “I remember thinking that mother loved me and I wanted to make her proud of me and not frown anymore.”
***
The Princess Bride on a tiny DVD player was an entirely different experience than the cinema.  She brought a bed tray into the living room and set it between each of their knees on the couch and Chad pulled out microwave popcorn that was, of course, useless.  Willow offered to make homegrown popcorn but Chad envisioned woodstoves and wire mesh baskets in fireplaces.
“How about a peach?”
From the videogame start to the first “as you wish,” Willow was entranced.  She shrieked with laughter as Vizzini insisted it was “inconceivable” that anyone could be following them.  Chad lost feeling in his arm as she clutched it during the shrieking eel attack and laughed when Chad quoted with Peter Falk, “you seemed a little nervous.”
“Right.  The boy has it right.  I was just concerned is all.”
Her glee at the appearance of the man in black shriveled into concern as the rope fell.  “‘I do not think you know what that means!’”
“Don’t trust him Westley!”
“How do you know it’s Westley?” Chad counterd.
“I’m not an idiot,” she retorted indignant.  “Oh isn’t the sword fighting beautiful?  Their verbal sparring is on par- it’s brilliant!”
It took all of Chad’s self control not to dissolve into fits of laughter as Willow cheered for Westley and then collapsed into gales of hysterical laughter at Fezzik’s “my way isn’t very sportsmanlike.”  With each passing second, the tension mounted.  “He’ll never do it.  That man is too big!”
The prince’s arrival annoyed her.  “Go back to your castle you buffoon!  I don’t trust you.”
At the test of wits with Vizzini, Willow chewed her nails nervously.  She kept them short enough as it was with all the hard work they endured around the farm. “Oh just drink it already.  Westley lives so take death like a man!” she shouted at the screen on her knee.
Princess Buttercup’s indignation amused Willow.  While she protested her undying love for Westley, his impatience with her apparent faithlessness spurred further comments from Willow’s personal peanut gallery.  “You tell her Westley.  This is a fairy tale; she should have known in her heart that you were still alive.”
That was an argument Chad had never heard.  His sister had often declared that true love “knows” and even his father asserted that if she’d be truly in love she wouldn’t marry someone as revolting as the prince.  However, before he could comment, Buttercup pushed him down the hill and his cry of “as you wish” sent Willow into a fit of squeals and laughter as Buttercup tumbled after him.
“Jack and Jill!  “And Buttercup came tumbling after!”
As the grandson complained about the kiss, Chad watched Willow’s face.  She blushed at the kiss but something in her face intrigued him.  She was drawn into the romance of the story- living it, as it were, with Buttercup.
“Oh the Fire Swamp.  I don’t like this!  Now I know how Bill feels about outside!  He probably learned it from this movie.  I hope there are no more R.O.U.S- AAAK!”
At the sight of an enormous rat attacking, Willow’s knees flew into the air.  Chad dove for the DVD player and grasped it firmly in his hands.  “Why don’t we put down the tray and I’ll just hold it up close enough for us to see it.”
“Oh they have to get out of here.  My mind knows it but something overshadows it and makes me think everything is going wrong.”
Through the swamp, giving himself up for her to the Prince, and then the sight of the six-fingered man, the movie flew by in bursts of excitement, dread, and nervousness.  Instinctively Chad put an arm around her but moments later rearranged himself on the couch with both hands holding the player again.  “Don’t make that mistake.  She’s Bill’s territory Chad,” he warned himself silently.
“Oh a dungeon!” was followed quickly by, “Yeah! Boo!  Boo!” as Buttercup the queen entered the scene.  “The Queen of Putrescence!  How hysterical!”
As Inigo Montoya found the unconscious Westley brokenhearted, Willow teared.  When they met Mad Max, she sat up expectantly.  However, at the announcement that Westley was only “mostly dead,” she collapsed into helpless laughter.
“Humperdink, Humperdink, Humperdink!”
On tenterhooks, Willow waited for the ceremony to begin.  “No! Hurry Westley-” was cut off with the opening sounds of the priest announcing, “Mawwiage is what bwings us togeder today.”
Chad actually enjoyed watching her watch the movie as much as he enjoyed the movie.  He quoted with the priest, “Wuv, twue wuv…”
“Oh what a coward,” Willow said disgustedly as Count Rugen ran.  Seconds later, she screamed for Westley to hurry before she killed herself.  “Oh goodness girl, get a grip on yourself.  No one wants to be smothered like that!”
“He’s not complaining,” Chad muttered under his breath.
Willow started to reply but Fezzik appeared.  “Oh I think he’s so sweet!”
The credits rolled.  Willow sat in thoughtful silence.  Chad noticed and asked against his better judgment, “What’s wrong?”
“Five perfect kisses?  This is better?  What’s so big about a kiss anyway?  Two lips smashed against each other  Whoop dee do.”
“Well maybe you’ll think differently after you’ve been kissed.”
She gave him a look of absolute disgust.  “I’ve been kissed for heaven’s sake.  What kind of mother do you think I had?”
“It’s not the same Willow,” he said laughing as he removed the movie and replaced it in the box.  “It’s not the same.”
As she lay in bed thinking over the movie, reveling in the beautiful clothes, the chivalry, the treachery, and suspense, Chad’s words continued to echo in her mind.  “It’s not the same Willow…”
“Hogwash,” she muttered to herself.  “Smashed lips are just smashed lips.  He’s pulling my leg so I’ll make a fool of myself and kiss someone to prove me right.  I won’t give him the satisfaction of laughing at me.”