Archive for the 'chattering mind' Category

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

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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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When a Fresh Perspective Requires a Fresh Perspective (Don’t Look at Your Butt Redux)

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Melissa
on January 14, 2010
in aging, change, chattering mind, compassion, expectations, grace, inner beauty, inner peace, respecting your body, the bigger picture, vacation and yoga class
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You’d think I’d have learned my lesson when I looked at my butt in a mirror at my sister-in-law’s house while four months pregnant.

You would, in fact, not be expecting too much to think after that shock I would be smart enough not to look at my butt in a changing room mirror at a Nordstrom in Charlotte when I am ten months postpartum.  When I am forty-three years old.  Or ever, for that matter.

Some explanation is required.

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Retreat of the December Mom

Published
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Melissa
on December 31, 2009
in balance, breathing, centering, chattering mind, expectations, grace, intentions versus goals, letting go, letting instead of making, motion, practice, stuck at home with a child, too much to do, vacation and you can't control everything
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I’m still ashamed, even though I now recognize it was a December Mom thing.

There’s simply no excuse for being — I can still recall the out-of-body experience of watching myself do this — the mom screaming across a crowded coffee shop at her child.  “Jake!  Jake!  JAKE!  DO YOU WANT A BAGEL?”  As if no one sits hunched over a laptop trying to experience a little peace and a nice cup of coffee between her and her child.

Yep, that was me.

On that early December Saturday afternoon, I became someone I never thought I’d be.  The mother all us peaceful coffee drinkers hate.  The woman oblivious to the fact that others do indeed occupy the somewhat inappropriate space to which she has spirited her children.

The one who is finally shamed by the sweet older man passing her as she gathers compostable forks and napkins and cups of water simply saying, “Quite a handful, isn’t it?”

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

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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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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.

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High Winds with a Likelihood of Anxiety

Published
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Melissa
on October 9, 2009
in awareness, bed time, centering, chattering mind, discomfort verus pain, forgiveness, letting go, practice, respecting your body, sleep, surrender and yoga class
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There are those (my husband) who will think me a little bit nutty for saying this, but windy days breed anxiety.

One might suggest that I am simply looking for something other than my mother to blame my anxiety on.  And that may be the case.  But I have it on good authority — my acupuncturist, no less — that I am on to something.  Windy days make us feel ungrounded, scattered, and, yes, for someone prone to anxiety like me, anxious.

If I require more proof — which I don’t — I need look no further than yesterday morning, when the wind rattled the maple trees in our front yard and rained bits of debris on the tin roof while I held my puzzled, hungry baby in my arms sobbing, “It’s not your fault!  It’s not your fault!”

Anxious.  Crazy.  Indeed

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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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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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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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Be Careful What You Wish For … and then Wish Away

Published
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Melissa
on May 19, 2009
in balance, being in the moment, breathing, change, chattering mind, expectations, toddler tantrums and you can't control everything
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I don’t suppose I blame the other parents for laughing at me, even though I resented it deeply at the time.

Shouldn’t the sight of a woman holding a screaming infant to her shoulder as a two-and-a-half-year-old clings to her leg crying, “Mommy!  MOOOOOOOMMMMMMYYYYY!” invoke sympathy — nay, even empathy, considering the limited reasons any adult would be hanging out at a playground — rather than snickers with a strong undercurrent of, “Better her than me”?  And when the beleaguered mother erupts, “I can’t carry you!!!  DO YOU HEAR THE BABY CRYING???” you’d think the other adults in the vicinity would have the manners to pretend there is something more interesting to look at in the other direction.

My sister-in-law Maureen valiantly tried to convince Jake that she was just as good at carrying him as his mother, despite having just suffered through a prolonged session of pushing him on a swing (she admitted to finding it as mentally stimulating as I do) while Lily and I rested comfortably on a nearby bench.  But her kindness and patience were paid back by Jake sobbing, “MOMMY!!!!” in her ear as he sadly reached for my unresponsive arms.

This display, I am rather amazed to say, has not been a staple of the past two months that Lily has been in our lives.  It is a recent phenomenon, triggered, I would guess, by the pre-playground morning, when Maureen navigated the stroller ramps of the Nature Center with Lily while I got to be the one carrying Jake, reminding him of just what it’s like to be Mommy’s little boy.

I mean “got to be” in the truest sense of the phrase.  I have been starving for the chance to hold that pale, warm body against mine, to need only turn my head to kiss that firm round cheek, to wrap my arms tight around his ribcage and love, love, love on him.  That his enthusiastic entry into the house at the end of the day generally sets Lily off into a frenzy of “Hold me! Save me!” neediness generally prevents the kind of contact with my son to which I had grown accustomed in our pre-Lily days.

So I complained relatively little about carrying him through the Nature Center (only on the uphills, really).  I coddled him as we picked up picnic provisions in Greenlife on our way to the Nature Center and even let Maureen wear Lily in the sling without breaking out in a single panic sweat.  Instead, I happily relished the sweetness of limping around toting thirty-five pounds of toddler perfectly capable of walking himself.

I should have known I’d pay for it.

But what mostly occurred to me as I tried to shake Jake off my leg in the playground and wished desperately that Lily would stop shrieking was that this scenario was exactly what I had expected with the new baby.  That I had been lucky to escape it thus far.

And, too, that — horrifying as those few minutes may have been — it all became worth it when I finally got Lily in her car seat and pulled Jake to me in a full-body, clinging-to-each-other, drenched-with-love hug.

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Is There Such a Thing as a Full Circle and What Does It Look Like?

Published
by
Melissa
on May 1, 2009
in aging, being in the moment, change, chattering mind, following your heart, friendship, gratitude, motion, opening your heart, practice, sense of self, structure, the bigger picture and work
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I hung up the phone yesterday thinking I had come full circle.

We hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty years, and I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve heard the laugh that brought me right back in a joyful slide to the summer I turned seventeen.  That laugh, I now remember, made me feel like I’d found a new and happy part of life.

I was at that awkward age where you want to be more grown up than you are, which maybe accounts for how I’ve more or less rejected the idea that there is anything serious about myself that I’d like to hold onto from those days.  My narrative of that summer has always been about a girl filled with more naivete than a Los Angeles teenager probably should be, a dreamer who hadn’t yet bumped up against the realities that ultimately flattened her dreams and propelled her to law school and decades of searching for the feeling of that laugh.

And now, in one of those rare instances where Facebook lives up to its potential, I had a fresh perspective on a set of memories I’ve pored over a million times.  Maybe, I considered from the vantage of this YogaMamaMe place I’ve made for myself, I wasn’t as naive as I’ve assumed.  Maybe the dreams weren’t born of youthful stupidity.  Maybe, just maybe, they simply became obscured by a life in which I stepped tenderly and then forcefully away from my heart.  And now that I am back where my heart wants me to be, I have, I concluded, come full circle.

It’s an appealing picture, one in which an old friend becomes a new friend and our friendship a bookend-ish symbol of the insignificance of the journey between the two points of his laughter.

The picture is also, of course, just plain wrong.  Because I haven’t really come full circle at all.

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Alice in Motherland, or Just How Hard It Is

Published
by
Melissa
on April 14, 2009
in awareness, balance, centering, change, chattering mind, discomfort verus pain, following your heart, letting instead of making, motion, practice, sense of self, sleep, trust and yoga class
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Yesterday afternoon, I was like the Cheshire Cat, grinning and purring contentedly about how smoothly the first four weeks of Lily’s life have slid by.

Yesterday evening, I was Alice herself, “shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep, and reaching half down the hall.”  Unlike Alice, who was understandably crying because she had suddenly grown to about nine feet high, I was less understandably sobbing about what a terrible mother I am and how bleak the prospect of my being any better at it over the next many months appears.

Primarily, I was crying because my girl wouldn’t stop crying.  And I wasn’t trying to stop her, which merely led to more heart-rending screams on her part (and maybe on mine — no one else was around to witness them, so I can’t be entirely sure).  Her screams led me to remember all the times I let Jake cry the same way when he was an infant.   Which made me cry more instead of reassuring me that good mothers sometimes can’t deal with their babies’ crying and those babies turn out just fine anyhow.

Worst of all, I was feeling — how could any mother feel, much less admit, this? — resentful that Lily wanted to use my breast as a pacifier.  (Perhaps, I discovered later, because the nail on my pinkie finger was just a sliver too long and likely slicing the top of the poor girl’s mouth when I offered her a finger pacifier as a substitute.  Which thought makes me want to cry a little bit now.)

All this crying in front of my impressionable young infant made me — what else? — cry some more.  Even though I knew, despite my state of utter unreasonableness, that she will not remember her mother crying hysterically in front of her.  Didn’t matter.  Surely I was damaging her delicate new psyche in permanent and insidious ways.

In short, in the space of a few hours, I went from thinking I had finally put all the pieces of my life into place to being quite certain I could not manage life or motherhood, especially the next two to four years of it.

And I realized that It Is Hard.  Even when you find a place where it doesn’t feel like it.

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