omg imagine being born and you are on a spaceship and everyone aboard is sooo so mad at you just because you burst out of some guy's chest to be born. like um sorry i've not been alive before i didn't even know that's not allowed please be nice to me um the spaceship floor is cold is no one going to knit me some little booties i am calling child protective services

Picking pumpkins on Spaceship Earth.

I haven’t drawn my OC’s (Chris the botanist and Marceline the robot) in so long!

remember when toni morrison wrote the most tender and hopeful meditation on parenting and motherhood

bell hooks, All About Love

“What would happen if we stopped acting as if the primordial form of work is laboring at a production line, or wheat field, or iron foundry, or even in an office cubicle, and instead started from a mother, a teacher, or a caregiver? We might be forced to conclude that the real business of human life is not contributing toward something called “the economy” (a concept that didn’t even exist three hundred years ago), but the fact that we are all, and have always been, projects of mutual creation. Labor, similarly, should be renegotiated. Submitting oneself to labor discipline—supervision, control, even the self-control of the ambitious self-employed—does not make one a better person. In most really important ways, it probably makes one worse. To undergo it is a misfortune that at best is sometimes necessary. Yet it’s only when we reject the idea that such labor is virtuous in itself that we can start to ask what is virtuous about labor. To which the answer is obvious. Labor is virtuous if it helps others. A renegotiated definition of productivity should make it easier to reimagine the very nature of what work is, since, among other things, it will mean that technological development will be redirected less toward creating ever more consumer products and ever more disciplined labor, and more toward eliminating those forms of labor entirely.”

— David Graeber, A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse

Walt Disney’s Epcot Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow, 1982

🎶“I’m going back someday, come what may to blue bayou...” 🎶

Chris and Marceline picking pumpkins. I draw these guys with pumpkins, like every year.

Hey everyone! As part of a personal project I’m trying to brainstorm factors that would make communities/locations more resistant to climate change and the damage that it can cause to people’s lives. If anyone has any thoughts I’d love to hear them!

Encounter in the Greenhouse

top five tips/things you've learned being a mom??? also how's your kiddo?

Gosh, that’s a big ask. But I like to think about it!

Managing my emotions. This kid picks up on everything, every microexpression, all the body language, the tense sighs, and he reacts. Sometimes he asks me for something while I’m trying to do a thing that requires focus, and if he can see that I don’t have an immediate, easy smile, he apologizes, and that breaks my heart. So it’s up to me to manage my frustrations or sadness or anger, or at least to explain myself to him. And I’m really hyperemotional, so it’s not easy, but it’s been helpful for me, too!

Making and keeping appointments. I’m one of those people who used to be terrified of making phone calls, and I used to have trouble remembering my appointments, but when you have a kid it’s your responsibility to make sure they stay healthy, immunized, get regular dentist check-ups, enroll in school, get to school on time, etc. In David’s case, he also had some speech therapy and we’ve signed him up for different sports classes he was interested in. He’ll be going to kindergarten in the summer, and there’s a lot to keep track of. It takes some getting used to, but staying organized is key!

Being unselfish with my time. One of the reasons I waited so long to have a kid is that I was (and still kind of am) a pretty introverted person who likes my space and my time alone. And it’s important to have that, it’s necessary and healthy to give myself time when I can, but David just wants to be with me. He’ll ask, specifically, “Hey Mom, do you want to be with me?” He just wants to cuddle up, to be next to me and his dad. It’s massively important to put my phone down and just focus on him, talk to him, ask him questions, play his games, hold and cuddle him. Just let him know that he is the most important person in the world to me.

Giving clear expectations & reasons. David has never been a tantrum-thrower, and I don’t know if that’s just luck or how we raised him, but I think a lot of it is that we always let him know what to expect. We tell him where we’re going, what we’re doing, when we’ll be back home. If we ask him to do or not do something, we always say *why*, and it’s usually because we want him to be safe. Because of this, he makes his own reasonable decisions. If he wants a snack but I say no to junk food, he asks for something he knows is healthy. I swore I’d never say “Because I said so”, and I know it’s only been five years, but so far it’s worked out.

Apologizing. My family has always been pretty good about apologizing, but I think too many parents feel like they can’t apologize to their kids because it seems “weak” or something. But apologizing is one of the best things you can do. It tells David that Mommy and Daddy are sometimes wrong; that even when you’re not wrong, it’s good to apologize if you hurt someone’s feelings; that he can ask for an apology when he feels hurt or disrespected; that his feelings and boundaries matter, and so do others’.

And how’s David? He’s pretty much the best kid in the entire history of kids, so. Pretty DOGGONE GOOD!

Chris Santana, savior of plants 🌱

A couple of pumpkins 🎃

“All of Kara’s love... I think it overflowed when she created you.”

My lovely characters from a story I’m always in a state of re-doing.

Sometimes when Antonia sees Marceline (the robot), she’s reminds her a little bit too much of her creator.

Working in the greenhouse 🌱

Chris and the Aloe