Archive for the 'being in the moment' Category

At What Point Are There So Many Boundaries That I Can’t Find My Way to My Child’s Heart?

Published
by
Melissa
on January 27, 2010
in Mama instinct, aging, awareness, being in the moment, change, communicating, practice, structure and toddler tantrums
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2 Comments

I had a heady moment of deja vu this morning.

There I was, crouched over my son in his car seat, using my knee to push his arching body back into place as I struggled to buckle him in and heard a gutteral voice that sounded suspiciously like my own hissing, “You sit down NOW!  Do you want me to take away The Backyardigans tonight??!!” just loudly enough to be heard over his wails.

The only difference between this episode and the spate we suffered about a year ago was the specter of his little sister staring at us from her seat.

That and, as I got behind the wheel of the car and slowly cooled myself down, the realization that all this ruckus could have been avoided if only I’d granted Jake his not as unreasonable as it sounds request to start the car.

Continue reading ‘At What Point Are There So Many Boundaries That I Can’t Find My Way to My Child’s Heart?’

Lily Goes Full-Time

Published
by
Melissa
on January 4, 2010
in Mommy time, being connected to everything, being in the moment, breathing, centering, change, daycare, following your heart, sense of self, structure, the bigger picture, too much to do, trust, vacation, work and yoga class
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4 Comments

Today is Lily’s first day of full-time daycare.

Just writing it is making me cry again.  (As is wandering past my bedroom and the empty bed on which she is not napping and knowing that I will not have that unspeakably joyful moment of my day when she first wakes up from her nap and grins at me and I lie next to her pulling her still-sleepy body against me and kiss every part of it I can find.)

It is, I know, time.

I have been spending months injecting little veins of longing to return to the things I have put on hold in my life into the warmth of our mornings together, like the marbles of fat that add richness to those pieces of red meat I have eschewed for the majority of my life.  Maybe that’s why it’s not taking — because I don’t eat red meat the bits of fat that are my longing just aren’t sticking in my gullet.  Instead, they hover out there as a concept that I don’t feel right now.  Time for my own life?  Pshaw.  Who needs it?

And yet I soldier on in a direction I know in my core is right even if my surface emotions — the ones that made me start wailing when I put away a carton of formula this morning in a house empty of her — can’t bring themselves to agree.

I dress her before breakfast.  I pack up lunches for both her and Jake.  I unload on Jake’s teacher in a babble of still-postpartum hormones how I am freaking out about her starting full time.  (”You have to do it,” she says kindly.)  Even when Jake begins to scream and grab onto my leg, even as I walk stoically down the hall away from him abandoning my older child as I prepare to abandon my younger one, I stay on plan.

I drop Lily off with a smile spread across her pudgy cheeks.  When it is time for me to leave, she looks at me for a moment as if she is going to cry, then turns around and gives a shriek of pleasure to the line of doll people her teacher has set up for her and never looks back.  I have to turn off the radio on the drive home because my mind is feeling cluttered and unhinged.  “Just make it home,” I tell myself.  “Write about this.  Start that legal project you’ve been putting off.  Go to a yoga class.”

Now I’m home and I’m writing.  And — I can see the humor in this, like a mediocre romantic comedy — I am still running from my desk to grab a box of tissues, the muscles in my jaw pulling the corners of my mouth into a clown frown as I cry in a hyena-like warble and whine to no one in particular, “I miss my baby!”

Continue reading ‘Lily Goes Full-Time’

Jake and I Go to the Dentist (and Have Fun)

Published
by
Melissa
on November 18, 2009
in Mommy time, being in the moment, chattering mind, friendship, letting go, practice, school, social life, stuck at home with a child, too much to do and work
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0 Comments

On Sunday I climbed the curved ladder to the top of the play structure for the very first time.

Jake beat me to this milestone by several months and four decades.  But that didn’t cheapen the fun of climbing, rung by rung, up and then, a little at a time, over until I crouched horizontally over the ground gazing at the mulch beneath me in giddy, defying gravity (sorry, stuck in my head from last week’s episode of Glee) motion.

It was yet another 75-degree November Sunday, surely the last of the year, and I had cheerily left Lily at home napping with Dad while Jake and I headed to the park for what I felt certain would be another morning of Mommy socializing.

Surprisingly, it seemed that all of our friends had something better to do with this glorious day than hang out with us for some impromptu playground partying.

For a while, I followed Jake around, dutifully pushing him in the swing as I scanned the faces of the other adults in attendance for some spark of familiarity.  We headed for the play structure, and I settled myself on a nearby bench while Jake headed down the slide by himself.

This was, I thought smugly, far preferable to the days when I was obligated to accompany Jake on the play structure, him being too young to, oh, slide by himself without possibly flipping over the side or failing to stop at the bottom, instead landing in a heap of mulch and tears and possibly a few stitches.  How lucky I was, I thought, that my child was old enough to entertain himself.  I performed a few quick mental calculations to determine whether Lily would magically be old enough come spring for me to escape the awkward Mommy-on-the-play-structure phase entirely.

Except that my continued hopeful gaze at the faces of strangers — like a puppy at the pound hoping some nice person would take me home and love me — reminded me that I was, frankly, bored.  I mean, it was nice and warm and sunny and all.  But I was mostly checking my cell phone every few minutes to see if it was late enough to call friends on the west coast to distract me from what I was treating as a chore.

A chore.  Hanging out with my beautiful son on a beautiful sunny day.  This was, I began to fathom, not desirable behavior.

That’s when I headed for the curved ladder, casting aside habitual vestiges of self-consciousness, fear of falling, and adult-acquired reservation.

It was time to play with my not-quite-three-year-old.

Continue reading ‘Jake and I Go to the Dentist (and Have Fun)’

A Truly Scary Halloween, or How I Crossed Over

Published
by
Melissa
on November 10, 2009
in aging, being in the moment, change, letting go, motion, opening your heart, practice, social life and trust
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3 Comments

On Friday, Lily will be the same age Jake was when we moved to Asheville two years ago.

Just typing those words is sending me into a shower of I-don’t-know-whether-to-explode-with-joy-or-cry-uncontrollably emotions.  For months after Lily’s birth I had to consult Jake’s old baby pictures to remember  what he was like at her age.  Now, however, I have stumbled into a landscape littered with mile markers that make Lily’s every new trick — waving good-bye, handing me toys, figuring out how to remove the Robeez boots I dug out of the bottom of a pile of Jake’s old clothes — into a reminder of just how little Jake once was and how soon I will lose both of my children to time.

This makes me more than a little sad at how quickly indeed the time has passed.  And then even sadder because missing baby Jake makes me feel as if I am wishing away the remarkable boy Jake is right now.  Not to mention the potty-trained one.  Why on earth would I ever go back?

Mostly, though, putting eight-month-old Jake next to eight-month-old Lily collapses two points of my life, like a Wrinkle in Time tesseract.  And while it makes me a little bit seasick to contemplate how unstable I was in the first round of motherhood and how not exactly solid I am now, it also allows me to see how comfortable I am with the whole “I’m a mother” concept.

Which, honestly, is a good thing.

Until I take a step back and wonder how the single yoga gal going out drinking with her friends turned into the mom who thinks Sunday morning on the playground is a big, hot social hour.

Continue reading ‘A Truly Scary Halloween, or How I Crossed Over’

H1N1 Pays a Visit

Published
by
Melissa
on November 3, 2009
in Mommy time, being in the moment, change, compassion, expectations, forgiveness, grace, illness, letting go, practice, school, structure and stuck at home with a child
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1 Comment

Actually, I don’t really know that it’s H1N1 with whom we’ve tangoed over the past week.  But I’ve been told that right now anything that looks like flu must be of the swine variety.

Like most of the H1N1 lore I’ve been hearing, there’s no telling how accurate this information I’m spreading around is.  But no one is going to confuse this site with the CDC’s and, besides, H1N1 makes for a timely and eye-catching title.

So, full disclosure:  No bodily fluids, no soaring temperatures, no stories about persevering despite record-breaking dehydration here.  Just trying times and trying to be mindful.  And yoga.

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Not Everything Is Easier the Second Time Around

Published
by
Melissa
on September 15, 2009
in Mama instinct, bed time, being in the moment, change, chattering mind, compassion, inner peace, letting instead of making, sleep, structure, the bigger picture, trust and you can't control everything
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0 Comments

It is more than likely that I will spend pretty much the rest of my life debating whether Lily is such a patient, generous soul because I was in yoga practicing vasisthasana right up to the day before she was born or because, as the second child, she is doomed to my “been there, done that” approach to parenthood.

This is not, all joking aside, to say that I in any way fail to appreciate what a special human being she is.  Or that I love her any less than I love Jake.  Or, for that matter, that, when I’m being honest with myself, I give her any less attention than I gave Jake during his infancy.

It’s just that, now that I’m doing it for the second time, I’m a whole lot smarter about choosing what kind of attention I give her.

I mean, really, could six-month-old Jake truly not stand to be left alone to entertain himself for just a few minutes?  Probably, but I would have pulled my hair out before continuing to wash it had he screamed the way Lily has on occasion when I have taken a shower that did not fall during her nap time.  To my credit, I carefully open the shower door every few minutes to show her we are in the same room.  Though I’m pretty sure the message is lost the second I close the door again.

So, too, Mike asked me the other day how we knew Jake needed his bottles warmed.  Did I ever offer him the room temp bottle I so handily pull out of the diaper bag for Lily now that she is far too interested in new surroundings to nurse anywhere other than in a hermetically sealed room?  I am embarrassed for myself, but I have a strong suspicion that all those times we plopped a cold bottle in a cup of hot coffee at rest stops and counted ourselves clever for this less than adequate bottle warming solution may not have been strictly necessary.

The other night, however, I gained some much needed reassurance that I am not squelching the needs of my second born simply because I’m too lazy to expend all the needless energy I wasted on my first.

On this night, I found myself queasily reduced to a little sleep training.  And, I discovered, I was far more sympathetic to Lily’s cries than I ever was to Jake’s.

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Labor Day Indeed

Published
by
Melissa
on September 9, 2009
in bed time, being in the moment, expectations, grace, letting go, potty training, social life, stuck at home with a child, too much to do, trust, vacation and you can't control everything
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1 Comment

As you may or may not know, Labor Day is a celebration of workers — a “yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country,” according to the Department of Labor.

What I want to know is who figured giving people a day off from work was a break from their labor.  More particularly, I would like to invite anyone who thinks Labor Day is a nifty holiday to spend it with me.  Especially Mike’s bosses, who deemed that he had to actually go to work on Labor Day, thereby increasing my parental labor exponentially.

Yes, yes, yes, I know that my children’s caregivers deserve a day off from their work.  I’d deserve a day off too, if I actually had the kind of work where I had to wait for a day off to not work.

Nor do I mean to undermine the ideological underpinnings of the holiday, even though a good 80% of the country — including some recent Presidents — would if they knew it was created by the nineteenth century labor movement, which owed more than a little bit to socialism.

All I’m saying is that sometimes, when you have young children, a day off from work ends up being far more work than a day on.  Toss in an Apple Festival and the last day the JCC pool is open for the summer, and you have just the right elements to reduce a mother to a puddle of tears.

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Everything Grows Faster in the Summer

Published
by
Melissa
on September 1, 2009
in being in the moment, change, chattering mind, daycare, expectations, friendship, motion, school, social life, structure, stuck at home with a child, vacation and you can't control everything
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I have acquired yet another in the growing number of items on my list of Things I Know Better Than to Do But Do Anyhow.

I have just finished sorting through Jake and Lily’s outgrown clothes, putting them away in anticipation of the spring kids’ rummage sale at the Jewish Community Center to which I will donate them.  This newfound desire to pass my kids’ old clothes on to the JCC as a way of indirectly giving yet more money to my children’s preschool is born, no doubt, of my questionable decision to become a PTO rep for Jake’s new class.

One might logically assume my decision to become a PTO rep for Jake’s new class is what belongs on my list of Things I Know Better Than to Do But Do Anyhow.  But it’s not.  Or maybe it will be.  Whatever pangs of PTO regret and stupidity may ring through my brain shortly, they will have to wait in line.

Because not only did I sort through my kids’ old clothes, I sorted through my kids’ old clothes as soon as I arrived home after dropping Jake off for his first day in his new class, his screams of “I want my Mommy!” still reverberating in my head as they reverberated down the hall when I left him.  As I held each precious item up, trying to imagine its owner fitting into it, then remembering just what it was like when he did, I felt the distinct oof of my breath leaving me with the realization that — sniff — my children are growing up.

And not so suddenly, I found myself moistly whimpering, “I want my boy who wore these tiny tees!”

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Are We There Yet? (Part Two: Preschool Version)

Published
by
Melissa
on August 18, 2009
in Mommy time, awareness, being in the moment, change, daycare, following your heart, grace, gratitude, letting go, partners, practice, sense of self, social life, stuck at home with a child, surrender and vacation
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0 Comments

Today was the end-of-the-school year potluck in Jake’s preschool class.  Same summer-ish excitement that I recall from the end of my somewhat-older-than-two-and-a-half-years-old school years.  Same excuse to eat ice cream instead of lunch.  Same sense of happy displacement at having parents on the playground in the middle of the day.

Plus, as a mother, a little something more:  Brwaaaah!  My baby’s growing up! sadness.

I am not, I’m proud to say, overwhelmed by the sadness.  In fact, it’s sitting comfortably beside a more solid sense of excitement.  Jake’s moving into a new classroom!  Jake’s nearly potty trained!  Jake pontificated this morning on the progress of the garbage trucks as we stood on the front porch with Lily watching them make their way down the block!

“I think it’s across the street,” he said thoughtfully as we watched one turn around.  “I see two lights,” he added, as if by way of explanation.

“Those red tail lights?” I asked, actually interested.

“Yes, the red tail lights,” he confirmed as if teaching me an important lesson about garbage trucks.

It thrills me, then, to watch my boy grow up, even though it makes me sad to know that these hefty thoughts of his will cease to be so all-consuming cute when they come out of an older mouth.

At the same time, it makes me sad to see the graduation bags in one of the preschool classrooms and to realize how quickly the time will arrive when Jake is the recipient of one, although I’m feeling pretty happy about his progression to an older class.

And then I have my comforting moments when I know that he can be growing up without being quite so grown up.

Like at the potluck today when he took Wendell’s ice cream.

Continue reading ‘Are We There Yet? (Part Two: Preschool Version)’

Poop, Pee, and a Port-a-Potty: A Parent’s Life

Published
by
Melissa
on July 23, 2009
in Mama instinct, Mommy time, awareness, being in the moment, discomfort verus pain, expectations, grace, letting go, potty training, practice, social life, toddler tantrums and too much to do
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3 Comments

Frequently, in child rearing, just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

Take the day my son pooped on my foot.

We’ve been doing a gentle form of potty training in our house, the kind that does not require us to abandon the four-month-old for an entire weekend spent running around after our naked son with his potty in our hands.  Instead, we cajole him into hanging around the house naked for an hour or two at times when we can be bothered to ask, “Do you need to sit on the potty?” at five-minute intervals.

This was one of those mornings when he was happily naked.  Happily, that is, until he noticed the package of pull-ups I rather unwisely bought a couple of months ago.  I thought they were a plausible step toward potty training until Mike pointed out in rather strident terms that they do not work so conveniently when there is poop involved.

Based on this information, I tried to dissuade Jake from his fixation on the pull-ups by promising him he could wear one once he had pooped on the potty.

“I want a pull-up!”  Jake responded.

“When you poop on the potty,” I repeated patiently.

“I DO WANT A PULL-UP!” Jake insisted in that way of his that reflects his conviction that if you say “no” you must not understand what it is he is saying.

“When you poop on the potty,” I said in a firm, motherly tone designed to mask a fury of impatience with a two-year-old’s reasoning skills.  And I walked out of the bathroom.

The tantrum that followed bordered on the epic.

After a few minutes that felt like years of abandoning my poor, beknighted, sobbing child, I sat on the floor next to him and asked him if he wanted a hug.  Drawing ragged breaths around the thumb in his mouth, my beautiful, pants-less boy snuggled close in my lap.

Unbeknownst to me, this was the moment he pooped on my foot.

Continue reading ‘Poop, Pee, and a Port-a-Potty: A Parent’s Life’

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