"Blessings and strength!" says the woman in the grocery store. She grabs my arm as I pass. "I have four of my own! And a boy! Blessings and strength for you!"
The girls had already nearly upset the empty shopping cart when they both tried to climb on the back at the same time. "Whoops!" I sort of shout. "That's why we don’t ride like that! Now, who needs to go pee-pee?"
I'm loud in public. I narrate the shopping list, ask the girls questions, rally with "okay, here we go!" The chatter is my own cheering section, a foghorn warning of our approach and a veiled call for help, if you have the desire and fearlessness to answer. Today this woman's blessing was exactly what I needed.
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Mother as Constant Gardener
The September garden is beautiful.
The autumn clematis overflows the fence in nearly embarrassing abundance, bursting with hordes of delicate white flowers. One clematis explosion pulls down the flimsy wood lattice that strained all summer to support it. I jack the lattice back up against the garage wall, attach it with a rope to a hook under the roofline. The resulting off-kilter mound of plant and wire and thick rope has a butt-ugly shape but the flowers don’t care, jumping onto the rope, continuing to grow wild and fast tendrils, like slow-motion squirrels exploring, swirling toward the roof.
The sedum is a beautiful old-fashioned shade of soft pink; the Bluebeard caryopteris is a riot of bees. We are in recovery from the crispiness and fatigue of August. Freshness and energy fill the air, like spring, but wiser.
That October day four years ago when we first saw our house, when I walked up the stone path curving through the side yard’s woodland garden, I was sold. Something peaceful and expansive in the established beds of green and blossom made me dismiss as minor quirks the house’s cracked foundation, the bowing basement wall, the tilt of the upstairs floors.
“We inherited this garden,” is my reply to compliments about the Eden in our backyard. Someone unseen planned and installed and tended beds on all four sides of the house. Someone planted the roses, the lilac and dogwood and dreamed of seeing them in maturity someday. But that someone moved away and we are left with the blossoms.
I have the same feeling of windfall when I look at my girls. I have to say, “I can’t see it” when people claim to see a resemblance between them and me. Where did these two beauties come from? How did we get so lucky to have them come into our lives? How can we live our lives so to deserve them?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Clowns
SundayNothing like a little classic clowning to cure what ails ya. You know, the good old bits – like the straight guy who knocks his head every time he tries to open a door. Or the delicious chestnut of the clown carrying a plank on his shoulder through a crowd, pivoting to predictable results. Or the joy of jugglers tossing stuffed animals.
Nothing like the sound of your daughters’ tumbling and uncontrolled laughter as they watch, riveted.
I couldn’t stop giggling myself, at the clown dogs in little cardboard cars, and the roller skating ballet.
Randy caught my eye and we looked at each other for a long moment, each of us holding one of our girls. This was our making up. The fight was over.
Today’s Go Dog Go production was a full-blown spectacle, under a yellow and purple-striped big top tent with ten dog-clowns and a live band and elaborate costumes, plenty of clever stage business and crazy props.
The climax, where Pink Dog in her frilly and teetering hat approaches her formerly negative friend, almost teared me up. After rejection upon rejection, she still carries the hope that he will, he will, like her hat. And he does! Hooray, and confetti!
Inspired by Pink Dog’s persistent faith, I am subjecting you to the ridiculous conversation that birthed today’s stupid fight:
Him: Do you have the tickets?
(What he meant: I am gently inquiring. Honey, did you buy tickets?)
(What I heard: Beep-beep. Must be in control. Are the tickets physically in your possession?)
Me: No, they’re at the box office.
(What I meant: I bought the tickets on-line and they are being held for us at will-call. Boo-ya! Aren’t I the capably prepared momma?)
(What he heard: La, la, la. I didn’t buy the tickets. We'll just buy them at the box office. Why are you even worrying about the possibility of us driving all the way downtown to a sold-out show? Why are you worrying about our children wailing “I want to see the doggies!!”? How silly of you.)
On the way to the circus tent:
Him: Is there a plan B for the tickets?
(What he meant: Since you didn’t buy the tickets ahead of time, what will we do if the show is sold out?)
(What I heard: I don’t really think you are capable of handling an on-line transaction.)
After hearing this final spice dumped in the stew of miscommunication, I simmered for a while, then blew up.
Since I’m embarrassed by my tantrum, I’ll fashion it in evasive Nixonese:
Words were yelled. A wood chip was kicked, sullenly. Someone actually said, “Stop sh**ting all over my beautiful life!” (Okay, that was me. Yeah, it was all me. Wearing a pout as wide as Emmett Kelly’s greasepainted mouth.)
Thank God we were both able to laugh over this later. Thank God my husband puts up with my drama. Thank God he’s the kind of guy who can appreciate the absurdity of the situation.
But what about the little witnesses? What do you do once you climb down from your own pile of hurt and start to see your children again? And you must get off that mountain. Because you have never lost the understanding of what it means when a child sees her parents fighting. The sight of us, the sound of our voices, has a power to work on her life that is more geological than emotional. Her life’s foundation threatens to shift and shake with earthquake force. You have always understood how your fighting can hurt them. How do you come back?
You take a deep breath through your nose. You exhale through your mouth, trying to relax the tight band across your shoulders. You rally. You make a plan. You list. You feel hope as you list.
1. Hug them, hold them close, sit one on your lap and smell her humid hair, her soft curl of an ear, whisper “seepa, seepa, seepa” and “I love you.” Apologize. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
2. Make up with Dad, quick. Apologize, whatever it takes, then kiss and hug him in front of them. Say, “look, Mommy and Daddy are hugging!” Invite the children over. Yell “group hug!”
3. Go to the zoo together, the street fair, the park. Watch the children make their play in the sunshine, eat some ice cream, take pictures. Stand next to your husband, your wife, and give each other a quick one armed hug as you watch the kids play because you both remember that here before you is the entire reason you must, it is imperative, make each other as happy as humanly possible.
4. Hope. Try another hat. Keep trying and keep hoping.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Drama Mama Confessions
To the patrons of Blind Faith Café last Wednesday night: Thank you for mobilizing when our little train wreck walked in the door, wailing for food. Thank you, nice stranger lady, who helped Mia to get some self-serve water while I was holding Nora and waiting in line. Thank you, kind woman who wasn’t a musician, for offering your pretty purple pen and some lined musical notation paper while we waited for our rice and broccoli. Thank you, beautiful grandmother who didn’t look like you had four grandkids, for the conversation and crayons when our toast didn’t come. It took a village that night.
I apologize if we disturbed the peace of your dinner. I appreciate your stepping up. I hope you felt good about helping some people who needed it.
Randy and those of you who were not there may have little sympathy. “That was your first mistake,” he says when I describe driving to the restaurant after the park and a visit to Ehran’s house at 6:15 because I was too hungry to drive home. “And then you got an energy bar out of your backpack?” he asks, knowing the answer.
Carol Coven Grannick in this month’s Chicago Parent describes optimism as recognizing life’s slings and arrows as 1) temporary, 2) not universal and 3) external. In other words, "This will pass, it’s only about this one thing and it has nothing to with me."
Even as I was eating my soul on the drive toward the food, even as the girls screamed and tried to slap each other from their carseats, I knew this was temporary. I knew this would pass as soon as we got our blood sugar up. And the other part of me looked up from its unholy meal, chin dripping with soul blood, and said, “You also know that you have had this feeling before. Why don’t you prevent it from happening?”
Our new mantra, (thanks to Matt Baron and his blog Role Model Reality) is “I am in control of my emotions.” Boy do we need this. Matt writes:
“Bridgett and I agree that it’s important to validate others, including our children, when they experience a wide range of emotions. But we vehemently oppose any suggestion, or outright assertion, that we are at the mercy of our “moods.” To us, it would be irresponsible to give our children the idea that they are in control of neither how they respond to the world around them, nor of the emotions welling up within them.”
Matt was responding to the implied message he finds in some children’s books : “Hey kids, it’s okay for you to blame your behavior on your “mood,” because, well, your mood at any given moment can simply take over your life and who knows where that can lead, right?”
This sounds chillingly familiar. When I recite the new slogan to Mia, “You are in control of your feelings,” she wails, “NOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Where did she learn drama? Hmm. . . . I wonder. How can I correct what I am guilty of? I really wonder.
Mother’s Day was wonderful. Randy kept the girls quiet and busy so I slept all the way til eight, then woke to my sweet family carrying a tray with a nice full-strength cappie and fruit and homemade cards. We had a contented while chaotic brunch in a crowded bistro and selected a fastigiated beech for the back yard. I had time to write and a piece (okay, pieces) of chocolate cake. A great day.
But the day before, I was a shameful mess. Waves of fury, a busy signal when I tried to call Aunt Ruth, a deadly shriek that made the girls cry, arguing with Randy, falling to the ground in frustration, a helpless shuffle of a walk by myself up the block with nowhere to go, an abandoned plan to visit my mother’s grave, crying under the covers. Exhaustion and guilt.
Without displacing any of my responsibility, I think, “This is a stug.” In the language of grief literature, a “STUG,” or “subsequent, temporary upsurge of grief,” is an upwelling of overwhelming feelings of loss, spurred by a significant life event, like a wedding, or in this case, an emotionally laden holiday. Hope Edelman, in her book Motherless Mothers, describes these intense and painful periods as capable of ushering in “a new realization of what was lost, lifting the mourner to a level of awareness she wasn’t able to reach before.” Thank you, Hope. I hope so.
On my desktop is a sticky note: “Whenever possible, follow your child’s need. Whenever necessary, take charge. Always be bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind.”
The wiser me is a little ways away. I can see her up the street, on her way. But right now, I’m still reeling at the memory of my two year old patting my arm, kissing my lips and saying, “Oh Mommy, don’t cry.” And the memory of my four year old’s silence.
I apologize if we disturbed the peace of your dinner. I appreciate your stepping up. I hope you felt good about helping some people who needed it.
Randy and those of you who were not there may have little sympathy. “That was your first mistake,” he says when I describe driving to the restaurant after the park and a visit to Ehran’s house at 6:15 because I was too hungry to drive home. “And then you got an energy bar out of your backpack?” he asks, knowing the answer.
Carol Coven Grannick in this month’s Chicago Parent describes optimism as recognizing life’s slings and arrows as 1) temporary, 2) not universal and 3) external. In other words, "This will pass, it’s only about this one thing and it has nothing to with me."
Even as I was eating my soul on the drive toward the food, even as the girls screamed and tried to slap each other from their carseats, I knew this was temporary. I knew this would pass as soon as we got our blood sugar up. And the other part of me looked up from its unholy meal, chin dripping with soul blood, and said, “You also know that you have had this feeling before. Why don’t you prevent it from happening?”
Our new mantra, (thanks to Matt Baron and his blog Role Model Reality) is “I am in control of my emotions.” Boy do we need this. Matt writes:
“Bridgett and I agree that it’s important to validate others, including our children, when they experience a wide range of emotions. But we vehemently oppose any suggestion, or outright assertion, that we are at the mercy of our “moods.” To us, it would be irresponsible to give our children the idea that they are in control of neither how they respond to the world around them, nor of the emotions welling up within them.”
Matt was responding to the implied message he finds in some children’s books : “Hey kids, it’s okay for you to blame your behavior on your “mood,” because, well, your mood at any given moment can simply take over your life and who knows where that can lead, right?”
This sounds chillingly familiar. When I recite the new slogan to Mia, “You are in control of your feelings,” she wails, “NOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Where did she learn drama? Hmm. . . . I wonder. How can I correct what I am guilty of? I really wonder.
Mother’s Day was wonderful. Randy kept the girls quiet and busy so I slept all the way til eight, then woke to my sweet family carrying a tray with a nice full-strength cappie and fruit and homemade cards. We had a contented while chaotic brunch in a crowded bistro and selected a fastigiated beech for the back yard. I had time to write and a piece (okay, pieces) of chocolate cake. A great day.
But the day before, I was a shameful mess. Waves of fury, a busy signal when I tried to call Aunt Ruth, a deadly shriek that made the girls cry, arguing with Randy, falling to the ground in frustration, a helpless shuffle of a walk by myself up the block with nowhere to go, an abandoned plan to visit my mother’s grave, crying under the covers. Exhaustion and guilt.
Without displacing any of my responsibility, I think, “This is a stug.” In the language of grief literature, a “STUG,” or “subsequent, temporary upsurge of grief,” is an upwelling of overwhelming feelings of loss, spurred by a significant life event, like a wedding, or in this case, an emotionally laden holiday. Hope Edelman, in her book Motherless Mothers, describes these intense and painful periods as capable of ushering in “a new realization of what was lost, lifting the mourner to a level of awareness she wasn’t able to reach before.” Thank you, Hope. I hope so.
On my desktop is a sticky note: “Whenever possible, follow your child’s need. Whenever necessary, take charge. Always be bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind.”
The wiser me is a little ways away. I can see her up the street, on her way. But right now, I’m still reeling at the memory of my two year old patting my arm, kissing my lips and saying, “Oh Mommy, don’t cry.” And the memory of my four year old’s silence.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Dentist on Tuesday
How did this happen? Mia's dentist said “three cavities” today and I’m reeling.
I say nothing, not wanting to alarm Mia, but memories flood into my head: memories of pinches and the industrial looking metal syringe that stays and stays in your mouth while you squirm like a hooked worm and the smell of the drill and the gagging from the water.
I take off my glasses, I look out the window. We are high above the rail tracks. I can see three church spires in the distance and a vaguely castle-like yellow brick building. “Do you have any questions or concerns?” Dr. Dentist asks.
Mia cried and thrashed this morning while getting dressed. “I don’t want to go to the dentist!” I told her I would be with her the whole time. I told her she would get to choose a little toy for being brave. “I’m not brave!” she wailed. But she relented, let me carry her the last block to his building. She pressed the elevator button and happily hopped into the waiting room, drawn in by the fish tank and the bright colors and toys. She lay patiently in the chair, opened her mouth on cue, even wore the heavy lead X-ray apron without complaint. So my heart is already open, moved and grateful when I get the one-two punch of the X-ray results.
Dr. Dentist says something about nitrous oxide. He doesn’t really recommend it but ... I can barely understand what he’s saying, guilt and worry and fear of her fear are so jumbled together in my head and my gut.
Fear of her fear. I’m more afraid of her fear than of her physical pain. Both the girls fall and cry nearly every day. They have rough and tumble bruises on their shins, scratched knees, random owies that we decorate gaily with fancy Band-Aids. I love the hollow sound of Band-Aid boxes bouncing into our shopping cart when I toss them in by the handful. Nora’s noggin is the unfortunate height to be a ripe target for doorknobs, table corners, protruding countertops. A backrub in Mommy’s lap, a bag of ice wrapped in a dishtowel, a piece of candy, a rush of sympathetic murmurs, all do wonders to spook the pain away. But fear? That leaves a deeper wound, not so easily hushed away.
I say nothing, not wanting to alarm Mia, but memories flood into my head: memories of pinches and the industrial looking metal syringe that stays and stays in your mouth while you squirm like a hooked worm and the smell of the drill and the gagging from the water.
I take off my glasses, I look out the window. We are high above the rail tracks. I can see three church spires in the distance and a vaguely castle-like yellow brick building. “Do you have any questions or concerns?” Dr. Dentist asks.
Mia cried and thrashed this morning while getting dressed. “I don’t want to go to the dentist!” I told her I would be with her the whole time. I told her she would get to choose a little toy for being brave. “I’m not brave!” she wailed. But she relented, let me carry her the last block to his building. She pressed the elevator button and happily hopped into the waiting room, drawn in by the fish tank and the bright colors and toys. She lay patiently in the chair, opened her mouth on cue, even wore the heavy lead X-ray apron without complaint. So my heart is already open, moved and grateful when I get the one-two punch of the X-ray results.
Dr. Dentist says something about nitrous oxide. He doesn’t really recommend it but ... I can barely understand what he’s saying, guilt and worry and fear of her fear are so jumbled together in my head and my gut.
Fear of her fear. I’m more afraid of her fear than of her physical pain. Both the girls fall and cry nearly every day. They have rough and tumble bruises on their shins, scratched knees, random owies that we decorate gaily with fancy Band-Aids. I love the hollow sound of Band-Aid boxes bouncing into our shopping cart when I toss them in by the handful. Nora’s noggin is the unfortunate height to be a ripe target for doorknobs, table corners, protruding countertops. A backrub in Mommy’s lap, a bag of ice wrapped in a dishtowel, a piece of candy, a rush of sympathetic murmurs, all do wonders to spook the pain away. But fear? That leaves a deeper wound, not so easily hushed away.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Before You Know It, Before Your Eyes, Change
Monday
Somewhere, at some imprecise unnoted time in the recent past, Nora took up the challenge to live the life of a two year old. She throws herself to the floor, screams “No No No NO NO NO,” cries, wails, lunges for her sister with her teeth bared and ready to bite. I look around in confusion, as if I’ve misplaced something that was just in my hand. “Didn’t I just lay it down here on the table? When did this happen?” I wonder. Remember when I would call her my easy baby?
When it’s a bad day, I worry “how did this happen? How did we get to this place?” When the girls run away from me as I’m trying to dress them. And I feel sick when I follow and they pick up the pace. With Nora, I can still turn this into a game, squeak playfully “I’m going to get you!” and admire her chubby hustling thighs. With Mia, whose face is frightened, I’m disturbed. Wait, four-year-olds dress themselves, don’t they? “What have we done!?” I call to the heavens. That’s on a bad drama-prone day.
While watching a cartoon:
Mia: What does big-hearted mean?
Me: You think about other people’s feelings.
Mia: I think about my feelings.
On a bad day, after a comment like that, I ignore the jewel of her heartfelt honesty and whisper to myself, “She’s spoiled.” On a good day, like today, we have hours in the sunshine at the park with the rounded hills and a pond and Nora's insistence of finding a dog in the clouds that makes us laugh and the color in their cheeks from running. Today spring is softness and ease and promise. I’m delighted there are only a few flowers out – austere witch hazel is the most enthusiastic bloom today, its muted chartreuse puffballs as showy as a Mormon pompom team. The pleasures are small and fleeting today – the sun itself and the blurred edges of the clouds and the smell of the air and the way my trowel can dig down deep into the earth without resistance. And the way Mia and I sit down in the shade of some pine trees and build a lean-to out of sticks and cones. On a good day I know there is time for her empathy to grow. She has no frame of reference to know what want is yet. And right now this is as it should be.
Somewhere, at some imprecise unnoted time in the recent past, Nora took up the challenge to live the life of a two year old. She throws herself to the floor, screams “No No No NO NO NO,” cries, wails, lunges for her sister with her teeth bared and ready to bite. I look around in confusion, as if I’ve misplaced something that was just in my hand. “Didn’t I just lay it down here on the table? When did this happen?” I wonder. Remember when I would call her my easy baby?
When it’s a bad day, I worry “how did this happen? How did we get to this place?” When the girls run away from me as I’m trying to dress them. And I feel sick when I follow and they pick up the pace. With Nora, I can still turn this into a game, squeak playfully “I’m going to get you!” and admire her chubby hustling thighs. With Mia, whose face is frightened, I’m disturbed. Wait, four-year-olds dress themselves, don’t they? “What have we done!?” I call to the heavens. That’s on a bad drama-prone day.
While watching a cartoon:
Mia: What does big-hearted mean?
Me: You think about other people’s feelings.
Mia: I think about my feelings.
On a bad day, after a comment like that, I ignore the jewel of her heartfelt honesty and whisper to myself, “She’s spoiled.” On a good day, like today, we have hours in the sunshine at the park with the rounded hills and a pond and Nora's insistence of finding a dog in the clouds that makes us laugh and the color in their cheeks from running. Today spring is softness and ease and promise. I’m delighted there are only a few flowers out – austere witch hazel is the most enthusiastic bloom today, its muted chartreuse puffballs as showy as a Mormon pompom team. The pleasures are small and fleeting today – the sun itself and the blurred edges of the clouds and the smell of the air and the way my trowel can dig down deep into the earth without resistance. And the way Mia and I sit down in the shade of some pine trees and build a lean-to out of sticks and cones. On a good day I know there is time for her empathy to grow. She has no frame of reference to know what want is yet. And right now this is as it should be.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Hardest Word Isn't The Last Word
“Making excuses to justify your behavior is not an apology,” says the Tribune KIDNEWS headline. I want to add an exclamation point. Not an Apology!
In a nutshell, here’s what the article says, taking ideas from somebody named Bill Bernard and his book Life’s Not Fair: To correct your mistake, you must accept blame. “I didn’t mean it,” is only a way of deflecting blame away from yourself. The words “I’m sorry,” aren’t a magic spell that automatically takes all the hurt away. The apology is just the beginning. You need to fix the problem. Take responsibility for what you did.
In our house, with two little ones still learning about feelings other than their own, “sorry” can turn into a battle cry, “SORRY SORRY SORRY!” chanted furiously at the hurt party until she gets so mad she hits you in the head with a Polly Pocket.
The rational tone of my own excuses gives me the creeps. “Mia, I’m so sorry I lost my temper. Mommy’s in a really bad mood today because (Daddy’s golfing) I don’t feel good and there’s spaghetti everywhere on the floor and I’m having a hard time cleaning it up (while you girls run through it and smush the cold sticky white worms into the rug), okay?” She listens and nods and I feel worse because explanations tell the child that there is a formula whose correct result is anger, as if her suffering the blows of my voice was mandated by logic.
Take responsibility for what you did.
My infinitely gentle and wise Aunt Susan teaches preschool in rural Colorado. She told me about a boy in her class who called a little girl classmate “ugly.”
“Jason, you are in very big trouble,” said Aunt Susan. “You have got a lot of work to do.”
“Sorry.”
“That is so not going to cut it.”
“I’m sorry for calling you ugly, Lena.”
“You haven’t even started, Jason.”
“Lena, I’m really sorry I called you ugly. You aren’t ugly. You are really pretty.”
“You’re just getting started.”
In a nutshell, here’s what the article says, taking ideas from somebody named Bill Bernard and his book Life’s Not Fair: To correct your mistake, you must accept blame. “I didn’t mean it,” is only a way of deflecting blame away from yourself. The words “I’m sorry,” aren’t a magic spell that automatically takes all the hurt away. The apology is just the beginning. You need to fix the problem. Take responsibility for what you did.
In our house, with two little ones still learning about feelings other than their own, “sorry” can turn into a battle cry, “SORRY SORRY SORRY!” chanted furiously at the hurt party until she gets so mad she hits you in the head with a Polly Pocket.
The rational tone of my own excuses gives me the creeps. “Mia, I’m so sorry I lost my temper. Mommy’s in a really bad mood today because (Daddy’s golfing) I don’t feel good and there’s spaghetti everywhere on the floor and I’m having a hard time cleaning it up (while you girls run through it and smush the cold sticky white worms into the rug), okay?” She listens and nods and I feel worse because explanations tell the child that there is a formula whose correct result is anger, as if her suffering the blows of my voice was mandated by logic.
Take responsibility for what you did.
My infinitely gentle and wise Aunt Susan teaches preschool in rural Colorado. She told me about a boy in her class who called a little girl classmate “ugly.”
“Jason, you are in very big trouble,” said Aunt Susan. “You have got a lot of work to do.”
“Sorry.”
“That is so not going to cut it.”
“I’m sorry for calling you ugly, Lena.”
“You haven’t even started, Jason.”
“Lena, I’m really sorry I called you ugly. You aren’t ugly. You are really pretty.”
“You’re just getting started.”
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Mysteries
Eleanor has a shiner and Mia shat her pants on purpose. How the black eye happened was a mystery for a day or so until Randy explained a door incident. The bruise looks just like dark eyeshadow, expertly applied, blended out from the crease. The first days it was smoky Devil Wears Prada black, now it’s fading to a Jessica Lange in Tootsie brown. We may get a little Christina Aguilera green in there. Painting so close to her precious blue, the door that applied this shadow used the most delicate brush with disaster. I look at it and feel a shiver of possibility, a wash of gratitude.
Mia’s poop needs no description. She was standing at the kitchen island, performing a puppet show for us using chopsticks topped with plastic animals, when she paused in her narration.
“Mommy, do you smell poo?”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking it’s one of our frequent family farts.
“I pooped my pants,” she says nonchalantly.
I check her pants and to my horror, yes, she has. She is four and half years old. This is disturbing. She laughs as I clean her, then cries and screams and flops on the ground as I try to dress her. The reassuring competent mom in my head says, “this is testing boundaries, seeing my reaction.” The I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing prone-to-flirting-with-hopeless-thoughts mom says “she is reverting to an infant. Because of the emotion in this house.”
The next time she uses the bathroom, I give a big cheer.
Mia’s poop needs no description. She was standing at the kitchen island, performing a puppet show for us using chopsticks topped with plastic animals, when she paused in her narration.
“Mommy, do you smell poo?”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking it’s one of our frequent family farts.
“I pooped my pants,” she says nonchalantly.
I check her pants and to my horror, yes, she has. She is four and half years old. This is disturbing. She laughs as I clean her, then cries and screams and flops on the ground as I try to dress her. The reassuring competent mom in my head says, “this is testing boundaries, seeing my reaction.” The I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing prone-to-flirting-with-hopeless-thoughts mom says “she is reverting to an infant. Because of the emotion in this house.”
The next time she uses the bathroom, I give a big cheer.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Academy Award Nominations Part 1
Jennifer Hudson sings “YOU’RE GONNA LOVE (deep breath) MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!” and it sounds like our family theme song.
The girls love an audience. Nora takes my hand, draws me to sit down in the front of the couch. "Seeet down, Mama!" She disappears behind the couch, then holds up a toy car, peeks over, looking at Randy and me. This is as far as she goes, as much as she knows how to make a puppet show.
I fill in the blank, narrate, “Once upon a time there was a car. And he met another car.” A purple one appears on top of the couch, next to the first. “So they had a race. On your mark, get set, go!” The two cars travel along the back of the furniture. One falls off the couch into a plant. “Then the other car helped pull him out!” I suggest. We are delighted when her little cars act out the story. Imaginative play is new to her and both thrilling and deeply satisfying to us to watch.
When one of the girls is especially needy, and I need to lighten us both up, I sing: “Attention and praise, attention and praise, we will give you attention and praise!” I sing this song with utterly sincere affection, just as I did years ago to our chocolate lab. It works pretty well when Mia is sitting on my foot, her arms and legs wrapped tight as a cast around my leg as I try to walk. “Mommy! I want to BE with you!” she wails, as if it’s visiting day at the military boarding school for toddlers.
How is their need for love any different than mine? Than anyone’s? Is it just more bald-faced? What are blogs but a plea for strokes? We all experience neediness or emotional vulnerability. What is so scary about it? Why do we recoil at a stranger’s desperation?
Hip Mama and Alternadad to the contrary, parenthood is the antithesis of cool. What is cool, after all, but irony turned into lifestyle? And if modern irony is all about detached observing of the messiness of emotions, then parenthood requires us to do nothing but the opposite: attach, attach, attach, physically, emotionally, permanently.
The girls love an audience. Nora takes my hand, draws me to sit down in the front of the couch. "Seeet down, Mama!" She disappears behind the couch, then holds up a toy car, peeks over, looking at Randy and me. This is as far as she goes, as much as she knows how to make a puppet show.
I fill in the blank, narrate, “Once upon a time there was a car. And he met another car.” A purple one appears on top of the couch, next to the first. “So they had a race. On your mark, get set, go!” The two cars travel along the back of the furniture. One falls off the couch into a plant. “Then the other car helped pull him out!” I suggest. We are delighted when her little cars act out the story. Imaginative play is new to her and both thrilling and deeply satisfying to us to watch.
When one of the girls is especially needy, and I need to lighten us both up, I sing: “Attention and praise, attention and praise, we will give you attention and praise!” I sing this song with utterly sincere affection, just as I did years ago to our chocolate lab. It works pretty well when Mia is sitting on my foot, her arms and legs wrapped tight as a cast around my leg as I try to walk. “Mommy! I want to BE with you!” she wails, as if it’s visiting day at the military boarding school for toddlers.
How is their need for love any different than mine? Than anyone’s? Is it just more bald-faced? What are blogs but a plea for strokes? We all experience neediness or emotional vulnerability. What is so scary about it? Why do we recoil at a stranger’s desperation?
Hip Mama and Alternadad to the contrary, parenthood is the antithesis of cool. What is cool, after all, but irony turned into lifestyle? And if modern irony is all about detached observing of the messiness of emotions, then parenthood requires us to do nothing but the opposite: attach, attach, attach, physically, emotionally, permanently.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Words Can Help
Mommy is better. No more screaming. Somewhere between the Mommy Mantra book (that reminds me just getting by is incredible) and a therapy appointment, somehow between the lengthening days and upcoming plans for a birthday dinner out, I’ve gotten bigger. I feel bigger when I am with the girls, more capable of calm and foresight. The grown-up.
My mantras this week: Balance, patience, creativity and compassion.
Balance the big bad moments with lots of enthusiastic love and big family fun. Hold the faith that they will remember the good ninety-five percent.
Patience is needed for not just the interminable games (Four rounds of “Candyland?” Piece of cake) but the long afternoons and the long months where I fear some window of opportunity is being overlooked as it slowly closes. This is guilt from looking at the Montessori catalog of child-sized mops and brooms, buckets and baskets. From remembering the quiet and busy Chiaravalle Montessori classroom.
When I was teaching high school kids it was a comfort on a bad day to think, “at least we read a few pages together.” We were making slow progress, even if I had to skip Act Four of Romeo and Juliet (Yes! I’ll admit it! Go read it yourself - Not a lot happens!) It’s more difficult to see progress with the girls who are both leaping ahead (Look at the pencil lines on the inside of the closet door that mark their heights! Nora said “costume” yesterday!) and yet thrive on mind-numbing repetition – the same simple books, the same simple games, the same circle of pre-school, library, Starbucks, home. The coming home rituals (take off your boots, put away your coat, wash your hands) are what they expect and need, even as they protest. I know this, but oh how I’d love to talk to someone about re-reading Katherine Graham’s Personal History, about Schubert Lieder.
Creativity give me hope. When both the girls are flopping down on the lobby floor after a noon production of “Cinderella,” both crying and both wanting to be carried, I try, “I can’t do this, you’re going to have to help me.” No go. That means nothing to them. I sit down with them, hold up a cracker and say, “this is a magic cracker. It will give you the energy you need to walk to the car.” And somehow it worked.
My mantras this week: Balance, patience, creativity and compassion.
Balance the big bad moments with lots of enthusiastic love and big family fun. Hold the faith that they will remember the good ninety-five percent.
Patience is needed for not just the interminable games (Four rounds of “Candyland?” Piece of cake) but the long afternoons and the long months where I fear some window of opportunity is being overlooked as it slowly closes. This is guilt from looking at the Montessori catalog of child-sized mops and brooms, buckets and baskets. From remembering the quiet and busy Chiaravalle Montessori classroom.
When I was teaching high school kids it was a comfort on a bad day to think, “at least we read a few pages together.” We were making slow progress, even if I had to skip Act Four of Romeo and Juliet (Yes! I’ll admit it! Go read it yourself - Not a lot happens!) It’s more difficult to see progress with the girls who are both leaping ahead (Look at the pencil lines on the inside of the closet door that mark their heights! Nora said “costume” yesterday!) and yet thrive on mind-numbing repetition – the same simple books, the same simple games, the same circle of pre-school, library, Starbucks, home. The coming home rituals (take off your boots, put away your coat, wash your hands) are what they expect and need, even as they protest. I know this, but oh how I’d love to talk to someone about re-reading Katherine Graham’s Personal History, about Schubert Lieder.
Creativity give me hope. When both the girls are flopping down on the lobby floor after a noon production of “Cinderella,” both crying and both wanting to be carried, I try, “I can’t do this, you’re going to have to help me.” No go. That means nothing to them. I sit down with them, hold up a cracker and say, “this is a magic cracker. It will give you the energy you need to walk to the car.” And somehow it worked.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Sold Out
Day off school for Dr. King. The second snow of the year. A child’s size snow, tall as the matted grass blades that are still persistently green.
We are going to a magic show at the Winnetka Community House. I’m having a fairly healthy morning; I get an uninterrupted shower and there are a few moments of quiet while Mia giggles at the rabbits Max and Ruby on TV and Eleanor putters around the playroom. Mia tolerates me putting on her snowpants. They turn her into a chubby bunny, but she immediately wants them off. I’m not in a fighting mood, okay. Eleanor resists putting on her boots, cries, “Cars movie! Cars movie!”
“Not until tonight, Nora.” The magic show starts in ten minutes. All is going well until they are waiting at the door and I’m about to grab my backpack and it’s not sitting at the backdoor as usual. I hurry around the house looking for it, feeling the tightness rising up my chest into my neck and to blow it off, I yell “F***! WHERE IS THE G**D*** BACKPACK?” I don’t want Eleanor to take her shoes off again. It must be in the car.
We go outside. I’m pretty calm, letting Mia make footprints in the snow while I convince Nora to climb in the carseat herself. I leave the garage to fetch Mia and see she’s hiding, announce to the empty backyard, “Where is Mia? I see some footprints! I think I will follow them to see if I can find her!” I chase her down, both of us laughing a little, she makes me laugh again when she discovers how to use the handle on the bicycle pump.
The backpack is in the car. The magic show is sold out. I don’t even mention it to the girls. There are couches and benches to climb on and slide off, pesky boots to remove. I get my best thought of the day, remembering the community house has an open gym some mornings. It starts in forty minutes says the desk guy. We find a vending machine, Mia gets to put in the money and press the buttons, then put in more money and press it again when the damn bag of Sweet and Salty hangs suspended at a breathtaking angle behind the glass. It is that kind of day.
I’m rolling with it, we’re all content to sit and eat our snack -- 300 calories?!! Saturated fat!?! What the hell? It’s raisins and peanuts, what do they do, have to spill fat all over it to keep it from rotting in the vending machine?
We can hear the crowd of children on the other side of the wall chanting along with the amplified magician voice. Then there’s the sound of a high pitched buzzing music. Mia looks at me with a smile of recognition and says, “Kazoo.” When the hidden audience bursts into wild laughter, Mia laughs too at the sound and I think my heart will break for my amazing and sweet and easy daughter.
A group of men, some stooped, one with a mask on the top of the head, wander in slowly. Their faces are blank but they return our smiles. A young African American woman, must be their group leader, rushes in from behind them, heads to the door of the auditorium, is greeted with the usher’s “The show is sold out.” Oh cold. If I were her, I would burst into tears. The men wait patiently while she makes a phone call, asks the usher if there’s another show, gets nothing. She herds her charges back out the door. “We’re in the same boat,” I offer for consolation. She replies, “I hope the bus is still there!” My girls suddenly seem the lightest of burdens.
In Bethany Casarjian and Diane Dillon’s book, Mommy Mantras: Affirmations and Insights to Keep You From Losing Your Mind, the authors suggest meditating on the phrase, “I am not this feeling” when you are at your worst. To separate yourself from your emotion instead of imagining it determines you.
To kill time, we make up a story about a turtle named Mack who outgrows his shell and picks a new rainbow shell at the Turtle Shell store. It’s 11:00 and the gym is still dark. A dad points out the sign: “Open Gym, Monday 11:30.” Oh.
“Girls, let's go have lunch first!”
“I’m not hungry!”
We go outside and play some more in the snow, making footprints and tiny foot high snowman out of three piled snowballs. We play with the water fountain. We eat more peanuts and raisins. The gym doors open early, thank god. The girls are ecstatic, stripping off coats, shoes, socks, throwing themselves into the bouncy machine, sliding around the floor on low-wheeled carts, kicking the rubber balls with aim that makes me proud.
Somewhere in the fun and the noise, my blood sugar level descends to intercept Mia’s rising frenzy and we enter a crisis. Twice, I haul myself into the trembling bouncer to console her. Twice she runs away from me. I wonder if I am chasing her, insisting we leave for my own benefit or for hers. Is chasing her worth it? How bad could it be if we stayed as she tearfully insists? I take Eleanor out of the gym, sit behind the glass and watch Mia play as I wrestle to put on the baby’s socks, shoes, snowsuit of apparent thorns. Mia is chasing a girl around the bouncer, sitting in the doorway to keep other kids from coming in. I have to go get her. I pull her out, gather the backpack, the discarded sweater, my shoes. I’m considering calling Randy, calling 911, starting to scream. I do none of these. I carry Mia out, protesting. She’s four, I’m thinking. She’s too old for this. I pull her shirt down over the angular bruise on her back that I imagine the adults in the gym seeing and wondering. She lies on the floor crying loudly, I go back to grab Eleanor. While I force Mia into her shoes, Eleanor wets the entire front of her sweater in the drinking fountain.
No one offers to help. Well, the man at the counter told me twice there were tables for eating lunch upstairs. He had a soft voice and as we left, Mia struggling under one of my arms, he waves a merry goodbye. I can only look at him and shake my head. Sir, that is so not what I need right now.
She goes limp, refuses to walk, insists on being carried, then screams in my ear when I pick her up. I cover her mouth, snap, “don’t scream!” Outside, in a more normal tone, she says she wants to walk in the snow. I know that this is dangerous, she could easily take off in the opposite direction. I let her walk a little, chase her down, hold her wrist tightly as we walk the blocks to the car. “Ow! You’re hurting me!”
Then, “I’m hungry.” Yes, dear, you are. We stop at a junky little diner, full of kids and moms, all the empty tables full of dirty dishes. The girls watch a train circle the room near the ceiling, I sit dull, without ideas. We eat. “You were hungry, weren’t you?” I ask her. “Mm-hm,” she nods.
We are going to a magic show at the Winnetka Community House. I’m having a fairly healthy morning; I get an uninterrupted shower and there are a few moments of quiet while Mia giggles at the rabbits Max and Ruby on TV and Eleanor putters around the playroom. Mia tolerates me putting on her snowpants. They turn her into a chubby bunny, but she immediately wants them off. I’m not in a fighting mood, okay. Eleanor resists putting on her boots, cries, “Cars movie! Cars movie!”
“Not until tonight, Nora.” The magic show starts in ten minutes. All is going well until they are waiting at the door and I’m about to grab my backpack and it’s not sitting at the backdoor as usual. I hurry around the house looking for it, feeling the tightness rising up my chest into my neck and to blow it off, I yell “F***! WHERE IS THE G**D*** BACKPACK?” I don’t want Eleanor to take her shoes off again. It must be in the car.
We go outside. I’m pretty calm, letting Mia make footprints in the snow while I convince Nora to climb in the carseat herself. I leave the garage to fetch Mia and see she’s hiding, announce to the empty backyard, “Where is Mia? I see some footprints! I think I will follow them to see if I can find her!” I chase her down, both of us laughing a little, she makes me laugh again when she discovers how to use the handle on the bicycle pump.
The backpack is in the car. The magic show is sold out. I don’t even mention it to the girls. There are couches and benches to climb on and slide off, pesky boots to remove. I get my best thought of the day, remembering the community house has an open gym some mornings. It starts in forty minutes says the desk guy. We find a vending machine, Mia gets to put in the money and press the buttons, then put in more money and press it again when the damn bag of Sweet and Salty hangs suspended at a breathtaking angle behind the glass. It is that kind of day.
I’m rolling with it, we’re all content to sit and eat our snack -- 300 calories?!! Saturated fat!?! What the hell? It’s raisins and peanuts, what do they do, have to spill fat all over it to keep it from rotting in the vending machine?
We can hear the crowd of children on the other side of the wall chanting along with the amplified magician voice. Then there’s the sound of a high pitched buzzing music. Mia looks at me with a smile of recognition and says, “Kazoo.” When the hidden audience bursts into wild laughter, Mia laughs too at the sound and I think my heart will break for my amazing and sweet and easy daughter.
A group of men, some stooped, one with a mask on the top of the head, wander in slowly. Their faces are blank but they return our smiles. A young African American woman, must be their group leader, rushes in from behind them, heads to the door of the auditorium, is greeted with the usher’s “The show is sold out.” Oh cold. If I were her, I would burst into tears. The men wait patiently while she makes a phone call, asks the usher if there’s another show, gets nothing. She herds her charges back out the door. “We’re in the same boat,” I offer for consolation. She replies, “I hope the bus is still there!” My girls suddenly seem the lightest of burdens.
In Bethany Casarjian and Diane Dillon’s book, Mommy Mantras: Affirmations and Insights to Keep You From Losing Your Mind, the authors suggest meditating on the phrase, “I am not this feeling” when you are at your worst. To separate yourself from your emotion instead of imagining it determines you.
To kill time, we make up a story about a turtle named Mack who outgrows his shell and picks a new rainbow shell at the Turtle Shell store. It’s 11:00 and the gym is still dark. A dad points out the sign: “Open Gym, Monday 11:30.” Oh.
“Girls, let's go have lunch first!”
“I’m not hungry!”
We go outside and play some more in the snow, making footprints and tiny foot high snowman out of three piled snowballs. We play with the water fountain. We eat more peanuts and raisins. The gym doors open early, thank god. The girls are ecstatic, stripping off coats, shoes, socks, throwing themselves into the bouncy machine, sliding around the floor on low-wheeled carts, kicking the rubber balls with aim that makes me proud.
Somewhere in the fun and the noise, my blood sugar level descends to intercept Mia’s rising frenzy and we enter a crisis. Twice, I haul myself into the trembling bouncer to console her. Twice she runs away from me. I wonder if I am chasing her, insisting we leave for my own benefit or for hers. Is chasing her worth it? How bad could it be if we stayed as she tearfully insists? I take Eleanor out of the gym, sit behind the glass and watch Mia play as I wrestle to put on the baby’s socks, shoes, snowsuit of apparent thorns. Mia is chasing a girl around the bouncer, sitting in the doorway to keep other kids from coming in. I have to go get her. I pull her out, gather the backpack, the discarded sweater, my shoes. I’m considering calling Randy, calling 911, starting to scream. I do none of these. I carry Mia out, protesting. She’s four, I’m thinking. She’s too old for this. I pull her shirt down over the angular bruise on her back that I imagine the adults in the gym seeing and wondering. She lies on the floor crying loudly, I go back to grab Eleanor. While I force Mia into her shoes, Eleanor wets the entire front of her sweater in the drinking fountain.
No one offers to help. Well, the man at the counter told me twice there were tables for eating lunch upstairs. He had a soft voice and as we left, Mia struggling under one of my arms, he waves a merry goodbye. I can only look at him and shake my head. Sir, that is so not what I need right now.
She goes limp, refuses to walk, insists on being carried, then screams in my ear when I pick her up. I cover her mouth, snap, “don’t scream!” Outside, in a more normal tone, she says she wants to walk in the snow. I know that this is dangerous, she could easily take off in the opposite direction. I let her walk a little, chase her down, hold her wrist tightly as we walk the blocks to the car. “Ow! You’re hurting me!”
Then, “I’m hungry.” Yes, dear, you are. We stop at a junky little diner, full of kids and moms, all the empty tables full of dirty dishes. The girls watch a train circle the room near the ceiling, I sit dull, without ideas. We eat. “You were hungry, weren’t you?” I ask her. “Mm-hm,” she nods.
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