Careful What You Wish For (2010 Version) — I Still Want to Hug Him

It occurred to me this morning, as I wandered the empty kitchen feeling just a little bit sick over leaving my son in his new classroom, that this surely must not be the first time I’ve thought to myself, “Careful what you wish for.”

Surprisingly, it turns out I last wrote those words nearly a year ago, when Lily was a mere two months old and I was still slogging my way out of the after-effects of postpartum anxiety focused wholly and terrifyingly on the time I couldn’t spend with Jake because I had been stupid enough to have a baby.

As I wrote then, though, the future is a whole lot less scary than you think it’s going to be.

Except, it turns out, when you don’t think it’s going to be scary at all.  When, in fact, you picture it tinged with kisses of sunshine and an idyllic lack of intruding thoughts.  Thoughts like, “Jake looks so shy and unsure of himself in his new class.”  Or, “I miss his old friends.”

Or, more to the point, “What on earth was I thinking and did I make a mistake pushing for him to move up???”

When You Push You Get Pulled

You may recall my fury at the fact that my son was not advanced at the beginning of the year.  You may or may not be aware of my righteous fight to have him placed with older kids, my certainty that he craved the attention of four-year-olds, my tears of self-conscious persecution every time I dropped him off in what I now see as his warm and loving classroom.

If you don’t, no worries.  You are probably a parent and familiar with the reddish fog that overtakes you — redrum, redrum, I hear myself muttering — when you think you and only you know what is right for your child.  And even if you aren’t a parent, surely there are plenty of times when you look back at your battle to get your way and you wonder what on earth you were thinking.

In other words, I have reached a Careful What You Wish For moment.

This is not to say that I don’t know that Jake will do great in his new class.  It’s just that I also now recognize he would have done just as well if I had left him where he was.  Only I wouldn’t be feeling a little melancholy and achy and, frankly, self-indulgently sorry for myself that my son is all grown up at three years old.

As Mike has pointed out on more than one occasion, if the head of Jake’s school hadn’t told us he was a candidate for advancement last December we probably never would have thought about it.  We certainly wouldn’t have pushed and complained and considered moving him to a Montessori school where the hours are worse and the vacations (the last two days of Passover closing at Jake’s current school notwithstanding) are longer and more frequent.

But the Universe has a way of throwing new ideas your way, unexpected happenings upon which your mind pounces like a cheetah who fortuitously happens upon a small and particularly tasty antelope.  Hence, given the opportunity, my mind decided that Jake was destined for advancement all along.  And that any obstacles to that happening and happening immediately were were proof that everyone is out to get me.

It is this realization, perhaps, that makes me feel the sickest at this moment.  Because if it weren’t all about me, I could just enjoy my children for what they are instead of pushing them to grow up.

Growth Happens

Okay, to be honest here, I really don’t see myself as a mother pushing her children to grow up.  I love them right now — exemplified best, perhaps, by the fact that I spent most of the last two days of Passover vacation with them without once feeling frightened by the prospect.  Compare that to the days school was closed a couple of years ago and I believe you will agree I’ve made admirable progress.

Still, I find it pleasantly confusing trying to figure out how to encourage my children to grow, how to challenge and stretch them, without asking too much of them.

Take, for example, the edict in Jake’s new class that the kids should work on putting on their shoes by themselves.

This seems a perfectly age-appropriate and useful goal for all concerned.  And having the carrot of it being a part of belonging in the new class has helped me sell Jake on it.

Except for those times when he’s not sold.

Three year olds, it turns out, can find it frustrating putting on their own shoes.  Knees get in the way, thumbs don’t quite grasp the concept of pulling the shoe around the foot, there is no logic to match the sole of the shoe to the bottom of the foot.  Who knew we had to learn all these things from scratch?

All of this is fine, a chance for me to patiently teach my child, even if, as a consequence, we arrive at school so late that all the other kids are done with morning snack and out on the playground.

But when Jake gives up, when he tells me he needs me to put his shoes on for him because he is not going to school on this particular day, when he starts crying because he’s frustrated, I say stupid things like, “You’re a big boy and you can put on your own shoes.”

Which is true and yet maybe not true.  I don’t know.  This is my point.

Take, as another example, how Lily is constantly pulling herself up to stand, usually grabbing onto parts of me.  The next step, so to speak, seems to be encouraging her to stand on her own.  Which I do.  And which she rejects.

So … encouraging my child to grow or merely tired of being viewed as a convenient stationary object?

Not Knowing, Grabbing, and Feeling Sad Sometimes

For the most part, I enjoy the not knowing that comes with parenthood, even when it occurs to me that I’m not honoring it.  There is something satisfying, in a spiritual growth sort of way that may not appeal to most people but is a big deal to me, about seeing myself slipping into inappropriate pushing and being able to recognize how caught up I am in false goals, extricating myself from it.  Recognizing that I am not as in control as I sometimes like to think.

So, too, I believe deeply in my Mommy instinct.  I feel that I do know what’s right for my child.  Because — even if I’m not so very sure and even if what I think I’m sure of is merely a product of someone at Jake’s school deciding before I did that it was time to advance him — I know it is very, very important to believe in myself.  Because, honestly, who knows my children better than I do?

So, okay, what Mommy says goes.

Which is to say that sometimes your mind grabs.  And to acknowledge that you can’t really help the mind grabbing.  And that, in fact, sometimes the mind grabbing leads you to the right place after all.

Melancholy aside, I know that Jake has ended up in the right place.  I can feel guilty for pushing to make it happen.  I can poke fun at myself for being led down this path by circumstances as much as any deep belief in my own child’s brilliance.  And I can find myself even more reluctant than my son to let go of the comfort of his old classroom.

But I also know that it doesn’t really matter what I do.  My children will grow up.  And, lucky me, they will do so beautifully.

Learning to Cope — Urdhva Danurasana (Upward Facing Bow)

I’ve noticed that in my year of post-pregnancy, I’m starting to find my back again.  The vertebrae are finding their way back into alignment, the psoas muscle deep in my pelvis is losing its sharp pains of being stretched in terribly wrong ways, and my hips are beginning to recover from having a nine-and-a-half-pound baby resting on top of them 24-7.

In other words, I’m ready to resume my full urdhva danurasana.

And yet I find myself in it wondering where the comfort has gone.  Used to be one of those advanced poses I just — got.  Now it’s one of those ones where I get that lovely challenge of staying when every part of me would really like to get out of it and collapse down to the mat to take a little nap.

The issue, I’ve realized, is that urdhva danurasana, like any backbend, compresses the lungs.  Which, as you may imagine, makes breathing more of a challenge.  This, in turn, can lead to feelings of panic.

Which is exactly why we practice backbends.  To cultivate the calm that comes with even, steady breaths.  Even when it seems there isn’t much room to breathe.  Or we’re upside down.  Or our son has moved up to a new classroom and we, with the innocent fear of his age, can see it through his three-year-old eyes.

Urdhva Danurasana Instructions

Or, if you are still working your way toward urdhva danurasana try one of the ustrasana (camel) variations.