3 Reasons to Stay in Bed and 3 Reasons to Breathe and Get Up Anyway. (In that Order)

In my web reading lately, I've been noticing how fond I am of reading lists: 5 Things Not to Say to Divorced Moms, The Ten Things You Won't Hear at Commencement, Ten Things to Cook in a Muffin Tin. I love these lists, they are so fun to read. I love finally getting to the Number One Thing not to say to a divorced mother, that I won't hear at graduation or I could cook in a muffin tin, and feel such a sense of satisfaction. In fact, I love it so much that I decided I'm going to do the same, as I do so enjoy a good list, especially now, in my most busy time of year. So. Here you go: 3 things that bug me about being a Mom and 3 things that keep me trying to be a bit better at it each day:

3. Things Only Stay Clean As Long As I Never Sit Down. Ever. Not Even to Pee.

First, I realize that my children have Youthful Tendency Disorder in ways that are noisy, loud and sticky, and have mostly made peace with it. We have messes. We clean up messes. Even when eating lettuce, we make crumbs. In light of this, we have designated eating areas so we don't attract rodents. Mostly, it works out. I remember reveling in my mess making ability as a child, and want my children to experience that same joy. If they want to make their tree house in the sappiest tree in the yard, I'll be there with the peanut butter. It they want to play in the sandbox naked, well then, I'll be there to hose them down. If the littlest wants to see if her belly button can "chew" a blueberry, I'll be there to give her a bath. After all, this is what I signed up for. It is my part of the Mama/child contract: they explore, I provide healthy snacks and a hose. Most days, we do quite well.

Really, it's the bath that gives me trouble. Sometimes, when I'm at the end of my sap un-sticking, sand-washing, blueberry belly button day, I'm ready for a bath myself. I'm tired. I walk in and I find what's pictured above. The water is cold, sandy and sappy and the bathroom smells faintly of peanut butter. Do I clean it? Do I cry? Do I take a shower upstairs and hope My Love finds this mess and takes responsibility for it as it was created by the children that we together have made? Do I go sit on the hammock with a glass of wine? (PS, I don't have a hammock and there has been no wine in the house for over a month--this is just me in my Hollywood Movie Version of my Life Moment.) The thing I know about being a parent but still don't like is that I can't have it all. I can't have a sappy, sandy, blueberry day where the kids go to bed tired, satisfied, curiosity quelled,  and still have a clean bathroom. Sadly, I still want both. I haven't made peace with this contradiction of parenting and I am just here, in the messy bathroom in my damp robe. And I'm a bit mad about it. This is one thing I had hoped I would have figured out by now, almost a decade into being a parent. It turns out, I have not.

2. Seriously, how much plastic does one American kid actually need to own?
I don't like all the plastic that has come into my life since having kids.Specifically, I don't like the little plastic toys that come at every event or meal aimed at children.  I don't like that they're cheap. I don't like that they were made a continent and an ocean away and then shipped here. Can you imagine all the energy it took to make it, box it, put it on a truck, put it in a boat, take it off the boat, put it in a truck, take it to a distribution center, put it in another truck and get it to a store so that I could tell my child "No. You can't have that"?  And still, with all of my vigilance, they somehow find their way into my house. I don't like that they clutter my house until I step on them. I don't like that after I step on them and surreptitiously throw them away, they go in the landfill. I don't like that an archeologist 200 years from now is going to piece together my life by the abundance of plastic lizards and wind-up hopping bumble bees that they found in the excavation site that was the land fill.

I feel that there must be a better way for my kids' need for fun to be met and for the planet not to choke itself off with little breakable wind up toys or plastic lizards. Since becoming a parent, I find myself daily trying to stave off the deluge of plastic matter that is trying to sneak its way into my home and frankly, I think it needs to stop. I promise that the next gift  or party favor I give your child will be a book. Or a leaf. Or a dandelion. Or a piece of origami. I promise that it won't be made in a sweatshop a continent and an ocean away. Will you promise me the same?  Please?

1. The boys' part of the toy store has the Circuit Set. The girl's side, the dolls. 

I know. Your feminist buzzer is going off. Some of you enjoy when your feminist buzzer goes off. Others of you are not so comfortable with it. All I'm going to say is this:  Let's mix it up a little. I want my Boy to be able to cook and change a diaper and I want my Girls to understand how a circuit works or how to make a potato alarm clock. Must it all be so specific?  I realize I can certainly purchase my daughters a circuit set  and my son a doll (and I have done both), but I am still troubled that all of the science toys are coded for boys and all of the cooking and care-taking toys are for girls. Some of the kindest, tenderest people I know are people who know how a circuit works and how to cook a chicken. I want more of those people in the world so that they can figure out what on earth we're going to do with all the broken wind-up toys and plastic lizards that we've brought over from China only to throw in the trash.

And now, lest you think that all I can do is complain, here are my three most favorite things about being a Mama:

3. I've learned to do an awful lot. 

Pizza Crusts

I can make homemade pizza crusts in bulk so my family will not starve should I be late. I can knit.  I'm keeping worms alive so they can eat the lettuce we don't remember to eat. I'm keeping the lawn alive while not using herbicides that my grandchildren will one day have to drink. I grew my garden from wee little seeds. When the children were smaller, I could have one in the sling and do just about anything else. Once, I climbed a tree with one in the sling, and one in the belly, to rescue the One in the Tree.
True, there are many moments when I think I'm not doing it well enough, but looking back, I've learned an awful lot from this whole mothering gig. Like, for instance, not to let your three year old climb a tree while your 18 month old is napping in your lap and you are pregnant with the third. Also, how to make pasta and tandem nurse. But really, the big lesson I'm just now learning is this: If I want to have more patience, I need to sit down more. Truly, the more I sit, rest and breathe, the nicer I am. Seriously.  Go me. 

2. Family Dinners

The Littlest, telling a story.

Need I say more?  They are lovely. Even with the spills and the "I'm not even trying that once" and the...OK, they are sometimes lovely. And those are the ones I'm choosing to remember. When I'm old, I hope I remember the carpet picnic where we watched Hello Dolly while the spring sun set making the living room golden while the birds chirped outside. I hope I remember the dinners where they told us about their lives and their thoughts and I caught a glimpse of the prism of complexity that is them, and I really saw for a moment how the world was from their particular point of view.


1. Watching these beautiful people become curious, and learn.

This is my absolute favorite thing. It is the thing that stops me and makes me try to be better at my part of this Mama/child relationship. Like a small bit of thread, each child in his or her own way finds something that interests them, stops them, makes them want to understand, and they follow it. For me, this is as magical as watching the myriad butterflies that have come to Nebraska these last weeks, except it happens daily. And for this, I am deeply grateful.
I am so grateful, in fact, that I'm more willing to clean out the slimy bathtub before I wearily climb in. However, I'll continue to keep my promise about the plastic presents...and should I ever own a toy store one day, you'll be astonished at my organizational strategy.

Safe travels, gentle people. May we find at least as much to be grateful for as we do to grumble about. And may we find little bits of magic even if it is sometimes a bit slimy.


Index - chronicle, record, catalogue

requiescence - ebb and flow

Some days, I think I can - or should - be supermom.  Up at the crack of dawn, a flurry of laundry-washing, house-cleaning, dog-walking, kid-dressing, family-feeding, course-prepping, work-going, Halloween-costume-sewing, playdate-organizing, Daisy-leading, school-volunteering, paper-grading insanity.  If I can manage more than an amazing 4 days in a row of supermomdom, I typically fall hard into overslept, crabby, rushed, snappish, disorganized, lazy, laundry-ignoring, mess-of-a-mom for a day or two.  The anti-supermom.  It's like I'm my own nemesis.  By the by, did you know that there are 2,030,000 image results on google for "supermom"?  Did you know that "Supermom" is also a Nintendo DS game?

I'm pretty sure that part of the problem is my (almost) subconscious working mom's guilt (which is perpetually fostered and fluffed by women's magazines and websites).  I overhear other moms talking about the 10 daycamps and 4 extracurriculars they're lining up for June.  I read Family Fun in the bathroom like it's a dirty magazine, and walk out feeling inadequate yet determined to be more ... more.  Like because my daughters have less of my time than if I didn't have a career, I should Make Every Moment Count -- by DOING THINGS.  So I make grandiose plans and obligate myself into big, busy weekends that serve best to land me at Sunday night feeling headspun and winded, wondering where the relaxation went.

When I was a camp counselor the summer I turned 19, my cabin had a tradition called "low point high point".  We passed around a flashlight in our pajamas, and everyone said the best and worst parts of their day.  It was a way of reflecting on our activities and feelings, and a non-threatening way to air out some otherwise festering disappointments or resentments.  A few years ago, I started to do that with my daughters at bedtime.  They love sharing their peaks and valleys, and surprisingly love even more to hear about my own.

Most surprising, though, is what we all end up saying.  Yesterday my high point was watching 5 kids from the neighborhood in my backyard looking at bugs, dirt and leaves, while snacking from our salad garden (who wouldn't love hearing 3 4yr olds & 2 7yr olds saying, "would you like some more spinach?").  After a 7hr crazy Daisy excursion today, C's high point was cuddling and watching E.T. this evening with her sister and daddy ... "WITH POPCORN IN BED!"  My mad push of time commitment, planning, organizing, coaxing, braiding, managing ... was appreciated and fun, but didn't match up to unexpected popcorn and 80's family movies.  It's good, sometimes, to have this reminder that the ebb and flow of my supermomdom vibe isn't actually the driving force behind the low points and high points of my daughters' days.  So maybe I can start working on convincing that guilty subconscious that I can linger a bit on the ebb and that lazy at-home weekends aren't blank spots in my children's life experiences.  Someday I may even approach requiescence,  or at least a bit more balanced sense of life.  Or maybe just die trying.

requiescence - retiring into silence or naturalness and ease; ebb

extemporaneous - use your words

For all parents there are times when our children reduce us to the worst versions of ourselves. It seems my worst self resembles Biff from Back to the Future. My only defense for calling my son a “butthead” is that it stopped me from saying something worse.

When I pondered this month’s theme, parenting highs and lows, every example that came to mind involved my use of words. I guess that’s appropriate for a lexophile—though you’d think with words as my stock in trade, I might have chosen a better retort than “butthead” to my son’s combative behavior.

The thing is, words spoken—as opposed to words written—can’t be edited. I want my children to grasp this, to consider their words before loosing their tongues. My son’s propensity for arguing is the very behavior that inspired my Biff impression. In essence, I used immature language to censure his immature use of language. Thankfully, the verbal communication menu includes an apology section, from which my kids and I select frequently.

Despite my juvenile example, both of my kids have recently caught me off guard with their conscientious use of words. In particular, they have somehow learned to ask for what they need with neither a sense of entitlement nor shame. Jack demonstrated this in the same way he does most things: visibly and memorably. In a one-on-one talk about a recurring playground conflict, Jack told me he needed help identifying appropriate ways to handle his frustration. Because his principal is a former school counselor, I suggested we meet with him to inquire about resources. I should know by now what happens when you give Jack a seed. (There’s a fairy tale about it, for goodness’ sake.) Nevertheless, I was surprised when the current school counselor called to tell me Jack had walked into the principal’s office at the start of recess and said, “Mr. C___, I need to talk to someone about my anger issues.” Thanks to his straightforward request, the counselor began offering a weekly anger management workshop, which Jack proudly attends.

I almost overlooked, or even rebuked Signe’s recent expression of her needs. We’ve been working with her to respond agreeably when it’s time to clean her room, instead of going into hysterics like a female witness on Perry Mason. Not long ago, Signe simply said “okay” when I announced clean-up time. I agree in theory that we should catch our kids “doing good,” but I failed to offer positive reinforcement and was annoyed when Signe said, “Mommy, what do you say?” “What do you mean, Signe?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew the answer. “What do you say to me for not whining?”

Pause with me here. You may be thinking, as I did, that asking for thanks was audacious. A child should be expected to take responsibility for her possessions—which her parents have provided—and to reply respectfully to a parent’s request. You may believe I should have told her as much, and I almost did. Gladly, in the split second before I launched into an oration, I remembered something about my daughter: She’s very much like me in her need for verbal feedback. Now I’ve read Nurture Shock and I know that praising a child can backfire, but there’s a difference between false praise and genuine appreciation, between a fragile ego and a sense of confidence in one’s growth. Signe had just made a conscious decision that required some effort. She had behaved agreeably where she’d previously melted down, and she needed me to acknowledge as much. The fact that I did so is, for me, both a high point and an occasion of grace.

extemporaneous - spoken or performed without advance preparation