why ‘tiny grass?’

We’ve been parents for almost 4 years, or maybe longer since we started thinking and making decisions based on what’s best for our children after getting pregnant. It’s been a hectic, joyous, frazzled, rewarding ride so far. Our outlook on almost everything has changed – parenting can do that. It’s like jumping into ice-cold water. You can try to prepare yourself by sticking a toe in (changing a diaper), splashing ice water on your face (babysitting a hyper kid solo for a few hours) or perhaps immersing a whole arm (babysitting overnight). Absolutely nothing can prepare you for actual, 24-7 parenting. It’s a shock to the system.

Of course, it’s not a bad thing but a major change. We researched and learned and do our utmost to make decisions that are in the best interest of our children. We weren’t intending on being natural birthing homeschooling cosleeping attachment parents, but that’s what happened after we started researcing & reading & learning.

Which finally brings me to Tiny Grass. We’d wanted to blog for awhile, especially since the internet has been so helpful in helping us find information and meet up with other like-minded parents. While we were mulling the idea over I started reading poems, looking for inspiration to come up with a domain name that really captured what we wanted the site to be about. I went through some of the greats – Frost, Whitman, Tennyson, Shelley, as well as quite a few masters of haiku until giving Tagore a shot.

I’d forgotten about good ol’ Rabrindranath (which was not the name of the Indian kid in ‘Head of the Class’ ;-)). I’m Indian – he’s Indian. He’s even from the same part of India as (most of) my family, West Bengal. And he’s a fine, fine writer. I thought it was kinda neat that he’d won a Nobel Prize for literature about 100 years ago. And I found quite a few wonderful poems, but nothing really hit me until I found ‘Tiny Grass.’

Hmmm – ‘Your steps are small but you possess the earth under your tread.‘ Like nature, like children. Like the natural world that modern life tries to destroy and ignore in its quest for ‘progress.’ Or like children, who are the future and who we must try to guide and teach as well a possible. Yes – ‘Tiny Grass’ was definitely it.