Archive for the 'ayurveda' Category

Imagine How Pushy I’ll Be By the Time Jake’s in College

Published
by
Melissa
on January 20, 2010
in awareness, ayurveda, balance, breathing, change, chattering mind, expectations, letting instead of making, school, the bigger picture, toddler tantrums, trust, yoga class and you can't control everything
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4 Comments

I thought I had it under control.

A couple of years ago I had that breakdown over Jake’s fifteen-month evaluation at preschool — the kind where they determine whether said fifteen-month-old can say anything more than “Mama” and “Dada” and pick up a Cheerio with his fingers.  And that breakdown, I felt, brought me to a place where I could let go of needing to make sure everyone in the world knows that my child is a genius.  Let it go, I told myself, and everyone will figure out he’s in line to win a Nobel Prize one day without you pointing it out to them.

Since then, I’ve become firmly convinced that I’m not one of those mothers who pushes.  He’s in preschool, for goodness sakes, where mostly what he’s learning is that it’s not okay to hit your friend in the head with a bucket (especially when you are on the receiving end) and that “poopyhead” is a potty word that will make your friends crack up and will make adults frown and tell you not to say it before they crack up too.

Plus, I tell anyone who will listen that Jake won’t be starting kindergarten until he’s nearly six because I’d rather he be older than the other kids than younger.  Subtext:  Even if he is a genius, I recognize it will not hurt him to spend that extra year in preschool.  Or a good Montessori school where he’ll probably learn so much he’ll end up skipping first grade anyhow.

And so it was that I was truly pleasantly surprised when the head of Jake’s school told me that he would be moving up to the next class.

Until this weekend, when I found out he’s not moving up quite as quickly as he was supposed to.  And, behold, the pushy mom popped out of my relaxed mom facade like the creature in Alien who, it turns out, was only biding her time, incubating until she could erupt with maximum, frightening force.

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“Mommy, Go Work.”

Published
by
Melissa
on January 2, 2009
in awareness, ayurveda, breathing, change, letting go, school, sense of self, surrender, too much to do, vacation, yoga class and you can't control everything
.
0 Comments

“Mommy, go work.”

Jake said these words gently, with a firm hand on my knee as if to steady me for the blow of his very first (but, oh, I know, definitely not his last) leave-me-alone-already.

We were in his new classroom, on his first day at the “big kids” preschool across the street from his former pre-preschool.  I had been in the room with him for something over an hour, slowly but surely coaxing him away from my lap, suggesting he interact with the other kids, gently edging my way toward the door.  Proving, in other words, what a great mom I am to anyone who might be watching.  Which was, approximately, no one.

Except Jake.  Who, after a while, felt he had to coax me out of his hair with a gentle “Mommy, go work,” that assured me he was, indeed, okay without me.

I was thrilled.

I mean this in a pure, completely thrilled, not the least bit traumatized by my son’s step toward adulthood way.  After all, I had been far more nervous about his transition to the new school than he was.  He had already visited several times and knew there was a gym with basketball hoops, which is about all he really needs in life.  I, on the other hand, had been struggling with a random comment from a parent I recently met whose son had been through the same class; the teacher, he told me, “is tough.”

Tough on the kids or tough the parents? I wondered nervously.

I had no worries about Jake.  He doesn’t bite or push and apparently follows his teachers’ directions consistently even if he sometimes has something better to do than following his parents’.  In other words, he had nothing to fear from a take-no-nonsense teacher.

No, I was worried about me.  In particular, I spent most of the long drive home from our holidays in St. Louis imagining scenarios in which his new teacher would chew me out for unconscious infractions of the many, many rules a North Carolina preschool apparently must follow to receive state accreditation.  Was I, in fact, worthy of sending my child to preschool?

My hour with Jake in his new class assured me that I was.  His teacher, in fact, was quite kind, and not nearly as tough as some of the ones who had trained me at the pre-preschool.  And so, finally, I found myself able to return my attention to Jake’s well being.  And felt nothing but pleasure when he told me his being was more than just well, thanks very much, and he preferred I leave him to do what two-year-olds do in school.

I should have known it was too easy to last.

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Monday Mornings, Sleeping Late, and the Clash of the “Should Do’s”

Published
by
Melissa
on July 14, 2008
in Mommy time, ayurveda, being in the moment, chattering mind, expectations, illness, letting go, partners, sleep, stillness, structure, the bigger picture, too much to do and work
.
2 Comments

Jake slept in this Monday morning. I did too, for a while. Until Mike told me it was eight o’clock and suddenly my eyes were wide open like a Bush voter who finds out for the first time that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. One minute I was dozing blissfully, the next I was jolted awake with the unpleasant aftertaste of guilt in my mouth.

I probably could have used the extra sleep just as much as Jake. More, in fact, since he spent the night awakening only when his coughing really hurt his throat whereas I was in some state of mental alertness for every single cough and snort of his stuffed up little nose.

But I, naturally, could not sleep past eight o’clock, even if I have spent many an early morning praying that Jake would go back to sleep until, oh 8:30 or 9:00. Because it’s Monday morning. And, let’s face it, even if Jake had ever answered one of those morning prayers, there’s no way I could have indulged in the luxury of sleeping in with him. There is, after all, always something you could be doing while the baby’s asleep.

Even on a morning like this one when, to be honest, there wasn’t much I had to be doing. I could, I assured myself, find something, just as soon as I dragged my lazy bones out of bed.

Continue reading ‘Monday Mornings, Sleeping Late, and the Clash of the “Should Do’s”’

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