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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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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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New Places, New Faces, New Records for Lack of Sleep

Published
by
Melissa
on October 23, 2009
in change, discomfort verus pain, motion, sleep, structure, traveling with toddler and vacation
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Nursing my daughter in the back seat of the Honda as we left town for the weekend — me kneeling over her with a hand braced against the window as if to wave (or perhaps hold out a big STOP!) at passersby — probably should have been a good clue that I would be facing some unique challenges on our travels.

You’d think I would have chosen this moment to consider the other adjustments my children would demand of me while we visited my sister-in-law’s house in West Virginia.  You’d think I would have pondered how a seven-month-old might respond to a new setting, new faces, and the absence of the hound dogs with whom she is so fascinated.  (No worries on the last front, as Pete and George made their houndness roundly accessible to her.)

I am sorry to report, however, that the only thought running through my mind as I leaned over Lily’s car seat while we idled at a traffic light was how glad I was that no one was waiting at the bus shelter at which my position required me to stare as if looking forward to a chat with whoever was sitting there ogling me.

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High Winds with a Likelihood of Anxiety

Published
by
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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Turn, Turn, Turn … or Not: What I Learned at Six Months

Published
by
Melissa
on October 2, 2009
in Mama instinct, bed time, breathing, change, communicating, compassion, daycare, expectations, feeding my child, forgiveness, illness, intentions versus goals, letting instead of making, sleep, structure, yoga class and you can't control everything
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3 Comments

“Yep,” Mike confirmed the other day.  “Lily’s acting like a normal baby.”

He said this after our first sunny fall day in the park.  After Lily and I arrived with her pouting in her stroller because I decided that much as she was demanding it I was simply not up to the task of walking to the park with her in the Ergo.  After yet another night of our power struggle over when she got to wake me up to nurse (as opposed to just waking me up) and how many times.  And after I summarily dumped her in Mike’s arms and walked away to chat with some other adults.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with acting like a normal baby when you are, pretty much, a normal baby.  You get to fuss.  You get to yell at your mother for not holding you enough, not nursing you enough, having the audacity to put you down on the floor so she can, say, put on her sweater for a walk to the park.  And you definitely get to refuse to sleep through the night and not care that the books say by six and a half months you probably should be doing so.

I know there is nothing wrong with all of this.  I know — I think I know, I tell myself I know — that just because Lily can be a little grumpy with me now and then it does not mean that she will come to hate me in thirteen or so years.  She will hate me then regardless of what I do right now.

What I’m having some trouble wrapping my mind around, however, is the notion that there is nothing wrong with me responding to her grumpiness with less than perfect equanimity and nurturing sweetness.  There is nothing wrong with telling a baby at one o’clock in the morning that you want to sleep and she should stop crying at you.  Especially if you are offering a tone of voice and a back rub that are a great deal more gentle than the words you are saying because you know she can’t understand them anyhow.

In short, I spent the past several days beating myself up because Lily’s crankiness made me cranky as well.

Continue reading ‘Turn, Turn, Turn … or Not: What I Learned at Six Months’

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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Sometimes You’ve Just Gotta Cry (Especially at Four O’Clock in the Morning)

Published
by
Melissa
on September 3, 2009
in Mommy time, change, forgiveness, gratitude, letting go, potty training, sleep, structure and the bigger picture
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There are times — many, many times in the life of a mother of two children under three — when you know that whatever it is that is making you cry is a normal part of parenthood.  The incident that has driven you to tears of despair is, you could easily tell yourself, a positive sign that your child is developing properly.  No other parent has ever cried in similar circumstances, you may even lie to yourself, so buck up.

But you will cry anyhow, and you will feel good and sorry for yourself as you do it.

By all rights, my latest bout of tears should not have been induced by the simple fact of Lily awakening twice in one night.  Because who would cry over something most other mothers of infants I know take as a fact of life?  And what sort of ingrate would not be able to take a few days out of the five-and-a-half months of her daughter’s life when she loses a little more than a little sleep?

By all rights, in other words, I should instead have been crying when I was sitting on the dirty floor of a Target bathroom at eight o’clock last night, my baby strapped to me in the Ergo, the toilet paper dispenser empty, and my son’s brand-new Big Boy underpants, shall we say, soiled.

But I didn’t cry then.  In that moment, I could find quite a lot of humor in just watching myself.  It’s in the middle of the night that my outlook on life is more than a little bit less inclined toward laughter.

Continue reading ‘Sometimes You’ve Just Gotta Cry (Especially at Four O’Clock in the Morning)’

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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0 Comments

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!”

Continue reading ‘Everything Grows Faster in the Summer’

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