Float

This afternoon I pulled a lounge chair onto our pool's baja shelf and sat with my feet in the water as Roo swam back and forth in front of me.  She was ecstatic to have me there, having just ditched the arm floaties for total swim independence.  And since she knew that my parental duties required that I stay present and alert as long as she was in the water, she decided to take full advantage of the situation by demanding "Mama, WATCH!' every time she swam to a new location.

You all know how that goes.  "Mama Watch" is the most boring game in the world, and it became exponentially more difficult to act impressed every time she wanted approval.  It crossed my mind to go mean girl on her and say something like "Oh good, honey.  Tell me, the next 50 times you swim to that rock are you going to expect me to cheer?  Because if you are, mommy is going to run inside and grab a red cup with something special inside to help with that, mmmkay?"

But I didn't.   It was partially my fault that she was so excited.  In the last three years, her dad and I have probably spent over $300 in swim lessons for her.   Girl KNOWS how to swim, trust me.   But Roo, being our most timid and least self-assured child, hadn't ever really gotten the confidence that she needed to believe that she could swim.  So that, combined with the fact that she's our third baby and we were just.... I don't know- tired, is how she ended up relying on her arm floats for three years.  It was just easier.

Matt decided last Monday that it was time to conquer the beast.  He's better than me with this stuff.  While I would have just thrown her in the water and said "Swim!", he talked to her gently and encouragingly.  Funny how that can be effective.  Fifteen minutes later she was floatie free, so it felt only fair that on this afternoon I pay the piper by listening to her joyful pride as she swam around without the assistance of inflatable devices.

Thankfully the water was relaxing.  As I watched her, I started thinking about how taking off the floaties has really been a metaphor for the mental push and pull that parenting has been lately.  I've felt like every week, sometimes every day, I've been having to ask myself "Are they ready for this yet, or do they need me a little longer?"  It's exhausting.  I've never felt like I have parenting under control, but you know.... when the kids were younger, the issues were more along the lines of "Are they ready for solid food? Should I move them out of the crib?  Can I switch them to a forward facing car seat?"  All these things I could look up on the internet.  Nowadays it's not as easy.

J has been struggling with fitting in.  When we take him to parties, he refuses to interact with the other kids.  He'll go off and play by himself somewhere, or worse, cling near us.  It's maddening.  I want to say "Go!  GO!  Stop hanging on me.  Take off the floaties and SWIM for God's sake!'  (Actually, I do say that.  Not the swim part, cuz that's a metaphor.   Unless it's a pool party, in which case, yes, I do literally want him to swim).    However, he's inherited Matt's shyness and my social awkwardness, which is just about the worse mix of DNA he could have been born with where parties are concerned.  So he clings.  He refuses to take off the floaties and swim independently.

On the other hand, we have PG who announced to me a few weeks ago that she wanted to watch The Hunger Games.  I hadn't let her seen it because it's basically a story about kids being forced to kill other kids for the entertainment of adults.  Dark stuff.  But that's my Gracie.  She's dark like that.  I have to acknowledge that side of her, so I told her that if she read the book and still wanted to see the movie that we'd rent it.  So she did.  She read it in two days.  She was kind of obsessed with it.  So we let her watch the movie and she loved that too.  In fact, my Mother's Day card from her stated that I was "as strong as Katniss Everdeen."

Wow.  Thanks PG.  That's pretty strong.

I thought I had done a pretty good job of judging when it was okay to take off the floaties and let her enter the land of young adult books with more mature themes.  But then she started having nightmares about mutant monkeys with sharp teeth, so now I'm back to square one.  Did I have misjudge and take the floaties off too soon?  

Then there's 9, who we had to force to get his driver's permit last July.  His 17th birthday is coming up and he's finally decided that he wants to get his license.  Yay!  I'm pretty sure that some of this decision was made partly due to the fact that he's going to the Prom this weekend and there is a very real possibility that, unless he figures something out in the next 24 hours, I will be driving he and his date to the prom in the back of my minivan, with all three of his siblings in tow.  Nothing like the threat of a little parental humiliation to motivate a teen to take his own floaties off.

All this was passing through my mind while sitting on the pool shelf, nodding vacantly to Roo and throwing an occasional thumbs up.  To break up the monotony, I called to J: '"Hey!  Why don't you teach Roo to float?"  And J, my middle child who never passes up an opportunity to be an authority on anything, turned to her and then said something very wise and relevant.  For all my pondering about when it's okay to push your child or keep them close, I forgot that sometimes it’s helpful to stop worrying and just be still for a moment.  It’s okay to just sit and let things be where they are.  J summed it up for me in his instructions to Roo:

“Just take a deep breath and lean your head back.  Then peace!  Harmony!   You just float."

A PSA for PMS

Okay guys.  I've been holding onto this post for a while- since October, actually.  I haven't published it because HELLO MARITAL PROBLEMS, which is a pretty good reason to not publish something.  Mr. C hates it when I poke fun at something on this blog that's actually a real true life problem for us.  And I get that.  I do.  However, I've come to believe from talking to my friends and sisters out there that this is a real true life problem for many many many couples.   So really, publishing this is kind of like putting out a public service announcement.  It's something we maybe can all relate to and learn from.  Maybe we can even laugh about it when all is said and done.

So I'm doing it.  I'm publishing this.

(And just in case any of you are still uneasy with this, you should know that I showed him this ahead of time.  I'm publishing this with his blessing.)

Allright.  This post is best said with pictures, so here we go.

P.M.S Week

How I react to messes:

How I react to the kids' squabbles:

How I react to Mr.C:

What all that reacting does to my inner dialogue and my waist size:

Then I feel bad.  I want to make things better.  I apologize to Matt for acting crazy.

And that's when he says this.  

He thinks he's being understanding.   

But he's not.

Ladies, I think you know where I'm going with this. Gentlemen, if there are any of you reading out there,you are probably feeling lost or confused.  Maybe a little nervous too.  All those feelings would be appropriate.

You see, us women know how to read between the lines.  We're quite good at it.  In fact, we're so good that we can read between lines that you gentlemen didn't even know were there.  Now, Matt thinks  that what I hear him say is that he "understands", but that is not what his words mean at all.  His words really mean "Oh, good. She sees her crazy.  I can forget about everything she just said because none of it is going to matter once she's feeling normal again."  

And THAT my friends, is when the real crazy starts.  He thinks I'm apologizing for everything.  I'm not.  I'm only apologizing for my behavior.  Whatever he did that initially upset me.....that I am not apologizing for. In fact, whatever it was has probably been bugging me for quite a while.  I haven't made as big a deal of it because at the time I had logic and stable hormones and sanity on my side.  And just because on this particular day those traits happen to be absent, does not mean that he should just dismiss the argument-THE ARGUMENT ABOUT THE THING THAT HAS BEEN BUGGING ME FOR WEEKS- AND BLAME IT ON MY HORMONES!!!!!!!! 

Do.Not.Blame.The.Hormones.  

Deep breath in.  Breathe out, annnnnddd....

This has been a public service announcement.  Thank you.  

Thigh Gaps: Scarier Than a Break-In

Thanks all for your concern and support regarding the break in.  We’re all moving on.  I think the kids have more or less forgotten about it, and as for me, while it’s still taking up too much head space, I’m trying not to let it affect my mood or my outlook. This is easier said than done most of the time.  I have to confess something to you: I posted on FB a few days ago that I cleaned out my closet.  The reason why I cleaned out my closet was that…. well one, it was really messy and needed to be done, but reason number two was that I actually found myself wondering what kind of judgments the thieves passed on me when they saw the mess of shoes on my floor and the pile of dirty clothes shoved in the corner.  

I am totally aware of how twisted this is.  I may be the only woman on the planet who would be motivated to clean her closet by the fear that the punks who broke into her home would perchance dare to think her a slob.

I don’t know how I got this way.  I’m pretty sure it’s not how I started out, and I blame the insanity of motherhood.

So be it.

Anyway.  Turns out there more scary things out there this week than break-ins.  Do you know what this is?

This would be a thigh gap.  Apparently, according to Lara Spencer on Good Morning America, American teenage girls are obsessed with it.  More than anything else in the world, America girls do not want their thighs to touch. In fact, the more inches of air space between point A to B, the better. 

So, yes, young women have now invented yet another way to tear each other down and make themselves feel inferior, insufficient, not enough and it all depends on how much negative space one does or does not have between her thighs.

Fabulous. 

That’s not even the worst part. 

The interviewer asked the group of girls if boys cared about thigh gaps.  The girls all agreed that boys aren’t even aware of what thigh gaps are, to which the interviewer replied: “ Well, if boys don’t care about thigh gaps, why is it so important?”

Yes.  Because if boys had an issue with thigh gap, then somehow this stupid obsession would be more legitimate.  

Do I really care about this?  No, not really.  Am I surprised by it?  No, not all.  And I think you probably aren’t either.  I suppose I can say that I speak for a lot of women when I say that having been at this game for some time now, we all know that it’s bullshit.  Our brains know that our bodies and their shapes do not in any way reflect our value as humans, as friends, as wives, as mothers.

Except for one thing.

If my brain knows this, then why (WHY) was it impossible to resist the temptation, upon my next trip to the bathroom, to sneak a peek in the mirror to see whether I myself possessed a thigh gap? 

I’ll tell you why. 

It’s because I know it, but I don’t know it.  The voice inside my head that tells me that I’m perfect the way I am- with my flabby thighs, soft stomach and smile lines around my mouth and eyes- is drowned out by the messages of the hundreds of sexy ads I’m bombared with every day.  It’s drowned out by the voices of men in my life- some of whom I love very much- making negative comments about other women’s bodies.  And it’s taken down to a whisper by voices of other women who critique themselves so strongly that I know they must be silently judging me in the same manner. 

And the fact that my own voice gets drowned out and looses it’s power?  That’s scary.

Never before have I felt more overwhelmed at the thought of raising a girl in this society. 

PG happened to be in the room eating her cereal when the whole thigh gap story was on, so I was able to talk to her and tell her my problems with it.  She listened and took in all that I had to say.  It was nice.  However, the time for that is SO limited.  In a few short years, everything I say will seem so lame to her and her friend's adolescent opinions will hold more weight.  How in the world am I going to teach her to value herself in this superficial culture of ours?  Especially when I myself still struggle with it?

(By the way, I think I may have a bit of an answer for that.  I think the best way for us to take the focus off of superficiality is to engage in meaningful service to others. I guess you could say that it’s ironic that I would choose service to others as a way of combating the “good girls please others” mentality, BUT call me crazy....wouldn’t you think that it’d be hard to worry about the size of your thigh gap if you were in the midst of helping another survive for another day by providing them food or shelter or some other necessity?)

Look.  The reason I was compelled to look for my own bullshit thigh gap is the same reason why I felt like I should have a clean closet lest thieves break into my home again.  It’s craziness, I know it’s craziness, but getting past the I’ve been taught the “pleasing others” lesson looms nearly impossible for me.   Judging from the volume of social media that zeroes in on a girl’s insecurities such as thigh gap , I’d say it’s a difficult lesson for others to discard as well.  Here we are, fifty years past the women’s movement and our girls are still being taught the same lesson.  We’ve just made the lesson more covert, and they’ve just become more adept at reading between the lines

I don’t have anyway to end this, except to restate what I’ve already said earlier in this post: 

I don’t know how we got this way.  I’m pretty sure it’s not how we started out. I blame the insanity of being a girl.

So be it.  

  

Break In

So our house was broken into this morning.

I suppose it makes me a bit of a drama queen to harp on this and blogging about it, but if ya'll will bear with me here, writing is how I process things sometimes.

(The fact that I'm even using language like "processing" most definitely makes me feel like I'm being over dramatic.  I'm not even sure that the way I feel right now is process worthy.  I feel pretty calm.)

(In light of the above sentences, if I'm not being a drama queen, I guess I am definitely guilty of over thinking things.  I'm debating with myself over whether or not I need to process my feelings.  WTF?)

(Never mind.  It's apparent from all of the above sentences that I'm a wreck.  I just needed to write all that to see it. See?  We've come full circle to my original point- writing is how I process and understand things.)

Deep breath.

Okay.  So I returned home from tutoring today, unlocked the front door to my home, took one step inside and noticed that a drawer to the table in our foyer was pulled open.
My mind registered it as odd.

I took another step inside and saw that the cable box and DVD player were pulled out and that their wires were hanging off the shelf like strands of hair.
I froze.

What a weird thought process- to be looking around your own house and to know that things are very very wrong and yet to have your disbelieving mind still try to rationalize it.  I thought to myself, "Well, maybe we left it this way this morning?".  Even as I slowly leaned forward and saw that the desk was pulled out from the wall and that the antique piece that we have in the dining area had all it's drawers open, I was still trying to come up with an explanation besides the obvious one.

Fortunately, my legs weren't as interested in rationalizing the situation.  They took one, then two steps backwards and then I was out the door.

I crossed the lawn to the sidewalk and called Matt at work, who then instructed me to stay out of the house and to call the police (That instruction was a total formality.  He knew I wasn't going back in. I only called him first to touch base with reality because everything felt so odd.  I called the police immediately after I got off the phone with him).  

You all don't need the details with the police.  They were fine.  Came out and did their thing.  I doubt we'll ever hear back from them.

Here is what I need to get off my chest.  Again, please bear with me if I'm being too dramatic.

The absolute worst moment in all of this came when I reentered the house.  It'd been about 15 minutes and I was still waiting for the police, but by this point, I was pretty sure that there was no one inside.  My friend came (thank you Lord, in times like these for the gift of friends) and stayed with me while I walked inside to check it out.  There was still a part of me that had been hoping that I was being silly, that there was an explanation, and that everything else in the house would be undisturbed.  But when I stepped into the hallway and looked through the door to the master bedroom and saw that all my drawers had been dumped out, clothes strewn across the floor, and jewelry box open, my blood turned cold.  Looking the other way down the hall gave me a view of the kids room, where their toy boxes had been pulled out.  The drawers in the linen cabinet were pulled open.

I was so reluctant to even move from the spot I was in.  I guess that's because that's the point when I had to accept that some absolute strangers had been in my house, rifling through my drawers and putting their disgusting hands on my stuff, my family's stuff.  There was no rationalizing it anymore.  Now all I could do was deal with it.

So that's what I've been doing.  Dealing with it.  Mostly by disinfecting.  The feeling of being violated is very prominent. I know that's normal.  (Not to trivialize, but my drawer full of "good underwear"  was all over the floor and now I just want to burn it.)  I've also stared down any stranger who happens by my house in the last few hours.  Everyone is a suspect.  I hate being distrustful like that, but can't help it now.

Mostly though, I'm trying to keep perspective.  My family is safe.  I have good friends, both near and far, who either helped me directly by being there today or indirectly by just empathizing on Facebook.  Like I said, thank God for friends.

And thank God for karma.  May she find these guys and kick their lily livered big fat droopy arses from here to the north pole, and when they get to the pole may it come into direct contact with their family jewels and may their pain be excruciating.

And may they then be poked in their eyes by a pair of large reindeer antlers.  And then may they be eaten by polar bears.

With extra sharp teeth.

And razor sharp claws.

Amen.  

Taking Grace on the Road

I've been thinking a lot lately about living a more graceful life.  Not graceful as in less clumsy- although I did drop a pretty large jar of coconut oil yesterday on my foot and could potentially benefit from a more graceful life.  But that's not the type of grace I'm talking about. Nor am I referring to Gracie, my daughter (in case the title misled any of you). I'm actually talking about grace grace. You know. The spiritual kind. The kind that allows one to let go of negative emotions in lieu of compassion, empathy, kindness, and understanding.

 Maybe it's been motherhood or maybe it's just been my mid to late thirties, but somewhere in the last few years I've become much more wary of anger and judgement and much more aware of grace.  Maybe that's just a natural part of getting older. (By the way, are you guys familiar with that Ed Sheeran song that says something about a woman's face "crumbling like pastries"? Lately that line goes through my head everytime I see my reflection.  Seems to me that I'm going to need a big dose of grace just to survive the aging process.)

Anyway, I decided in the last few months that a tiny stockpile of grace could only be a good thing, so I started consciously trying to practice it.  Instead of giving in to my short fuse, I tried to step back and offer kindness or compassion in place of anger.  I still messed up every day, but for the most part it was good.  My kids and husband were targets of my anger less often. I felt less stress.  I hated my white tile floors less.  Zen was practically oozing out of my pores.  But my friends, I made a fatal error.  I began this quest for grace during high season out here in the desert.

Let me tell you about season, for those of you who don't already know.

For the most part, the months of January to May are the best time of the year out here- and I think every senior citizen in every snow region from Washington to New York City to Canada  knows it.  They all come and infiltrate the desert with their expensive town cars, poor driving skills, and sense of entitlement. I've complained written about them before here in this post.
I am not lying when I say that currently one in every five cars out here have an out of state license plate.
That means that 20% of the people that I'm on the road with daily have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING OR WHERE THEY ARE GOING.

(Sorry for yelling, but it felt necessary to convey the frustrating experience that is driving during season.)

(Also, it's probably clear from my tone that I haven't really mastered grace in the long term.  I can only manage grace in the moment, but that's a start. Right?)
  
Practicing grace on the road during high season out here in the desert turned out to be a bigger challenge than I was prepared for.  I mean, I did good for the first few days.  For example, when I saw a car turn left onto the wrong side of the divider, instead of marveling at the driver's stupidity, I had the presence of mind to pray for his/her safety.

When a car cut me off by turning right in front of me even though there was no one behind me and they could've saved me the need to brake wildly by waiting a half a second, I was able to conjure up some empathy by remembering that my own grandfather is on the road and may make the same mistakes.  I would want other drivers to offer him grace.

I do confess, when someone honked at me because I stopped for schoolchildren in a crosswalk, I did roll down my window and ask him if he'd prefer if I'd run the pedestrians over- but I managed to do so in a joking manner with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.

And when a driver with Washington plates failed to move until the last second at a green left turn arrow, thus leaving everyone behind him to sit through another red, I was the only one of five cars who did not honk at him.  I figured the other honkers spoke for me.

However.

Turns out I have a limit. (I say that as if it's a surprise.)

The other week I was picking the kids up from school.  Nowadays I avoid the Devil's Lot by picking them up on a corner in the neighborhood across the street.  I had stopped for a truck in front of me who had double parked to let his kids get in. Upon beginning re-acceleration (key word there, as I had just put my foot back on the gas), I passed a young lady parked on the side.  She was getting her baby out of the back seat.

And that's when it happened. She yelled at me to slow down.

(This is the part where, if I was telling you this story face to face I would expect you to say something like "Oh, NO she didn't!" just so I could say "Oh YES she did!" back.)

(Let's pretend that we had that exchange.)

OH YES SHE DID!  It was too much.  After weeks (WEEKS!) of biting my tongue and being witness to countless numbers of idiots drivers making deadly mistakes on the road, she was going to yell at ME when I hadn't even hit 20mph on my odometer?

Not caring that my kids were in the car, I slammed on my brakes.  I rolled down my window.  Bug eyed, I leaned out and yelled "LADY!!!!!!  I WASN'T EVEN GOING 20 MPH!"

And she started screeching back at me about how there was a school across the street and how I needed to slow down.

So I screeched back "I KNOW THERE'S A SCHOOL ACROSS THE STREET!  I AM HERE PICKING UP MY CHILDREN!  YOU DON'T GET TO YELL AT ME TO SLOW DOWN!  I'M THE ONE WHO YELLS AT PEOPLE TO SLOW DOWN!  ME!  NOT YOU! ME!"

Those words actually came out of my mouth.  I'm not proud.

The good new is that she probably didn't hear me in her determination to drown me out by repeatedly screeching "Slow down!"  in the same manner that little kids cover their ears and shout "LALALALLALA" when they don't want to hear something.

I wish I could say that that's when the absurdity of the situation hit me, but it wasn't. (That didn't happen until I actually sat down to write this.)  I did have the presence of mind however, to realize that in that moment, I was being a terrible role model to my kids.  I guess if I really thought about it, I would've realized that I was also being a terrible role model to that new mom as well, but that's another topic.

And while I was still angry enough at her to imagine scenarios where I got to tell her off and say things like "Welcome to parenthood lady!  You and your baby against the big bad world.  Get a grip." (Wouldn't that have been SO satisfying?), I also realized that I was in the middle of a big grace fail.  Huge.

And there's the thing about grace.  It doesn't require perfection.  In fact, imperfection is it's starting point.  So you get to start over.  And over.  And over.  And over again, until you learn the lesson grace is trying to teach you.

So, I took a deep breath and chastised myself for yelling at a mom with a newborn carrier.  I am truly ashamed of that.  And I remembered back to when I was pregnant and waddling through parking lots, how offended I would get towards the drivers who zipped past me.  Maybe they weren't going faster than 20 either, but to someone who was new at trying to protect an tiny little life, it didn't matter.  I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, and felt like there should be more people working on my side.

Between that and the fact that I realized she was the reciepient of some pent up anger I'd been feeling towards the other idiots on the road  snowbirds, I was able to clear my head.  In fact, I saw her cross in front of me a few weeks later in the Target parking lot and the urge to put my car in park and rev my engine at her was very, very small.

Thank you, grace.

For my desert readers, approximately 75 days until the end of season.  That's 75 opportunities grace allows us to start over, and I have a feeling I'll be using up every one of those opportunities.    

Learning the Rules, Breaking the Rules

I love being married to an art major.  I’ve said this before.  I love going to museums with him and trailing behind him like an infatuated student following a master teacher. I love that he can explain a hidden meaning in a painting, or a subversive technique used by an artist on the canvas in front of us.  I find it fascinating. I love watching him look at our kids through his camera lens.  I love it when we’re heading out the door and he runs back and grabs his camera bag.  Whenever he does that it’s like a switch goes on in my head and I immediately start paying attention to my surroundings, playing little guessing games in my mind as to what kind of pictures I think he’s going to frame.  Most of the time what turns up in his viewfinder is never what I think I’m going to see. 

He has an expression that he teaches his students.  He didn’t make it up- in fact, I’m sure it’s something many art teachers say- but I love it nonetheless.  He tells his students “You have to know the rules before you try to break the rules.”  He tells them this because people like to think that in art, rules do not apply.  They would be partially right- sometimes rules don’t apply in art.  But the people who cause the biggest stir in the art world are usually the ones who are most familiar with the classical traditions and methods.  For instance, did you know that Picasso- possibly the most famous rule breaker the art world has known- was a classically trained painter by the age of 19?  I mean, he was considered the premiere Spanish master of his time.  So, he knew the rules of art.  He just decided to push them a little bit.  Then he became famous for it.  So then, (and I absolutely adore this about him), he went on to explore the rules of art in other mediums so that he could break them later: light painting, print making, drawing, photography, ceramics.  

Such a creative mind.  Too bad he was such an asshole in real life.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking of this expression lately.... knowing the rules before breaking them, and the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this applies in so many areas of life.  

I know a couple of people who have become first time parents in these last few months.  I’m watching them on Facebook and they all are so concerned with getting it right.  Doing well.  Knowing the best way.  I think I’ve kind of forgotten that feeling, but I’m so grateful that I’ve been paying attention to them lately.  It’s made me reminensce.  It’s also made me think about something I said in my last post about Parenting magazines.  

To quote myself, I said: I've come to hate parenting magazines with all their ultra PC articles offering clean, formulated, logical solutions for any parenting conundrum imaginable.  Nine years of motherhood has taught me that there is no formula, parenting is mostly illogical, and it is most definitely not clean.

Look.  My stance has not changed in this short time. It probably never will.  I think parenting magazines, at this stage of my experience, are useless.  I believe they project a very shallow image of what constitues “good” parenting, and worse, too often they employ fear mongering tactics.  (My favorite example comes from a magazine in which there is a monthly series titled “It Can Happen To You!”.  The title itself irritates me, and the content is usually worse.  For example, one month featured a story titled “My Son Slammed His Penis in the Toilet Lid.” First of all, if your toddler’s-ahem- appendage was large enough to actually reach from his pants and lay all the way across the toilet rim in such a manner that the toilet ring could actually close on it, well...... congratualtions, I guess.  Second of all, I think I’ll forego your “experts” advice on purchasing a toilet ring lock and accompanying my kid to the bathroom every time and just live with the fact a) the chances of this happening to my kid are next to nothing and b)if it does, it’ll only take one time before he gets smarter about making sure the lid is all the way up before he goes.  Problem solved.)

(Forgive me for that above paragraph.  I’ve needed to vent about it for a while.)

Moving on. 

However, I remember now.  I remember, after having PG, feeling disbelief and dismay that the hospital staff was actually going to let me take her home and be in charge of keeping her alive by myself.  I’m not being sarcastic.  I sincerely questioned their intelligence.  Yes, I was in love and enamored and I loved her little baby smell, but I was also exhausted and incredibly hormonal and sore and weepy and full of self doubt and I just knew that I was going to screw this up somehow. 

 When I needed to feed her, I bombarded the nurse in the room with a million questions.  Was this right?  Was she latched on?  Why was she making that weird noise?  What do I do if she stops suddenly?  I was frustrated at the nurse’s seeminly ambivalent answers: Yeah, sure we looked fine.  If she wasn’t crying, then she was probably latched on.  Babies always make noise.  If she stops, maybe it’s because she’s not hungry.

When it was time to burp her, I called the nurse in.  When it was time to change her, I called the nurse in.  When she cried, I called the nurse in.  I had a million questions and no one answering seemed to pick up on the urgent tone in which they were delivered.  They were all as cool as cucumbers.  Cool, gentle, patronizing little cucumbers outfitted in light pink scrubs.

I tell you, it was a little frustrating.  And crazymaking, too.   

Looking back I know, as you know reading this, that the nurses didn’t respond to my urgency because there was no need for it.  They knew I had to just find my confidence.  But what I also see, in looking back, was that when I was asking all my millions of questions, there was really only one question that I was seeking an answer to: What are the rules?

I have to feed her.  What are the rules? 

I have to change her.  What are the rules? 

I have to burp her.  Bath her.  Trim her nails.  Pick her up.  Put her down.  

What are the rules?  What are the rules?  What are the rules? 

Now I see it.  

So also do I see it in my friends with their own new babies.   When you’re starting out, you need the rules.  So you read.  You read What To Expect When Your Expecting.  You read the parenting magazines.  You read whatever baby books are hot on the best seller list at the moment.  

And then you grow as a parent.  Your confidence grows.  Your experience grows.  You discover that you don’t need the rules as much anymore because you can make up your own.  You can leave the rules behind- but how wonderful that they were there for you because that feeling of overwhelmingness?  It’s terrible.  It’s paralyzing.  The rules are like a nice, little bridge with a safety net under it.  As long as you don’t stay there too long, you’ll be just fine. 

There’s one more thing that Matt teaches his students about art and rules.  It’s actually a quote from Del Close, and it says “The last rule is that there are no rules.”  

I guess if you even get there, it could be considered supreme parental enlightenment. 

Huh.  

Well, good luck with that.  I bid you all a good night!

Preachin' What You Don't Believe

Sometimes, as a parent, you have to preach a lesson to your kids that you don't fully believe in yourself. For example, I tell my kids that because we're a family, we share everything.  Do I believe that?  Heck no. There are items around this house that I am absolutely without question unwilling to share.... like the secret ice cream at the back of the freezer.  That is not to be shared.  Ever.

Ever, ever.

Yet I still tell my kids that families share everything.  There're two reasons I do this: one, it simplifies my life.  It's much easier to tell my bickering kids to "share it or lose it" than it is to investigate the conflict, play judge and jury and then deal with the unhappiness of whichever party doesn't get their way.  So there's that.  And then there's the fact that I also believe in the idea that families should share everything.   It's a fair concept, and perhaps if I were a more generous person who was able to find a healthier way to release my stress late at night, well.....then I probably wouldn't mind sharing my secret ice cream.  (But I'm not.  So the ice cream stays hidden, it stays secret, and it stays mine.)

This past week, I've realized that there's another lesson I've been teaching that I don't fully believe in (though I really wasn't aware of just how wishy washy I am on the subject).  I've been preaching "use your words, not your fists" since my kids were itty bitty.  And, like the above example, I preached it mostly to simplify my life.  I also believed in the idea of it- which I still do- just not as much as I did at the beginning of the week.

After school last week, I went to pick up the kids.  I could immediately from the way the kids were walking towards the car- J stomping along with a defiant look on his face and PG following behind looking slightly troubled- that something huge had just gone down.  So I decided to spook them with my swami mommy powers and asked as soon as the doors opened, "What'd I miss?".  They froze, exchanged uneasy glances, climbed in, and then PG, in her best "let's be reasonable" voice turned to J and said, "Jake.  I have to tell her, okay?"

Jake slammed himself back against the seat rest and scowled.

I confirmed that, yes indeed, she had to tell me, and this is what she said:

"A few minutes ago a second grader grabbed J's arm and twisted it up behind his back.  So J got mad and punched him in the stomach."

I narrowed my eyes and clarified.  "A kid just went up to him and twisted his arm?"

They both nodded, with J still scowling.

"And Jake PUNCHED him?" My eyebrows reversed direction and shot up to the middle of my forehead.

"Yes," said Grace.  "And then that kid got all red and he started crying."

"The kid started CRYING?" My eyebrow calisthenics continued.

Again, an affirmative nod from the back seat.

"Good!"  I said, and then mentally clapped a hand over my mouth.  There was no doubt that I was proud of Jake, but I started questioning not only whether it was okay to feel that way, but whether I should even let him know that I felt that way.  Fighting is very un-PC nowadays.  Most schools have a zero tolerance policy against it- it doesn't matter if it was self defense or not, all parties involved are held accountable.  Not to mention there's all the articles in the parenting magazines about how to teach your child to solve bully conflicts peacefully (someday I'll write about how much I've come to hate parenting magazines with all their ultra PC articles offering clean, formulated, logical solutions for any parenting conundrum imaginable.  Nine years of motherhood has taught me that there is no formula, parenting is mostly illogical, and it is most definitely not clean.)

I was suddenly very confused.  I thought about the few fight stories I've heard from guy friends over the years.  In all of them, it seemed that their parents' main concern after hearing that their child was in a fight was who got the best of who.  I realized that this generation is a whole different ball game and for a moment I was a little jealous that we no longer lived in that time.

I glanced in the back seat at Jake.  He was still angry, but I thought I saw a bit of smugness blooming at the corners of his mouth.  I thought about how, since he started school I've always been a bit worried.  He's small for his age.  His pants from preschool still fit him around his waist (although they're highwaters).  His little sister only weighs 2 pounds less than him.  I can wrap my thumb and forefinger around his bicep and have them touch.  How in the world did he hit a bigger kid hard enough to make him cry?

I made them both repeat the story.  This time I asked for more details.  J still wasn't sure if he was going to be in trouble or not, so it was PG that did most of the talking.  Turns out that the kid had been at the corner before.  He'd never been physical with the kids, but they said he taunted and teased a lot.   On this day, he was bragging about how strong he was and he decided to demonstrate by grabbing J and twisting his arm.   Then he let go, and it was then that Jake punched him.  So it wasn't so much self-defense that made J punch him in the gut as it was the fury at the violation of being manhandled.  To which I still say, good for him.  To every fight, there are two aspects: the psychological and the physical.  If you ask me, triumph on the psychological side is a bigger victory, and I believe in this case, J probably came out on top.  I have a hunch that the other little boy's tears were more from shock and humiliation than from any pain.  This hunch was confirmed when Grace later told me that as they were walking to the car, J angrily muttered to her "I didn't even hit him that hard.  That kid is a wimp."

The next part of the story is my favorite though.

I asked PG what happened after the kid started crying.

"Then, (and she gets very indignant here) the kid looked at me like I was supposed to do something about Jake!"

"What'd you do?"

She shrugs. "I said to Jake, 'Tell him you're sorry.'"

I couldn't help it.  I started smiling.

"You made your brother apologize?"

She is totally exasperated now and says "I don't know, mom!  The kid was crying!  Jake wasn't.  So I made him say sorry."

Whenever I play out this entire scenario in my head, that part of it just makes me so happy.  I think it might be because even though G doesn't realize it, she is totally Jake's mom when I'm not there.  (No one say anything though.  The realization would probably be the end of her.)

Once we pulled into our driveway, I turned off the engine and turned around to look at the kids.  J still didn't know if he was off the hook, and frankly, I still wasn't sure if he was either.  This is the kind of thing I like to handle with Matt, but since everyone present was waiting for me to make a call, I felt kind of backed into a corner.  So I said "Look.  When you guys are at school, or really, anywhere in public, I expect three things.  I want you to be kind, I want you be one of the helpers, and I want you to never start anything.  But if you've been all those things and someone else starts something, then I expect you to stand up for yourself.  I'll never be angry at you for sticking up for yourself." Then I looked at J, who was looking a bit too smug now that he realized he wasn't going to get in trouble, and I said "Jake. You probably could have handled that situation just as well if you had told that kid if he touched you again, you'd hurt him.  You didn't have to hit him."

He nodded while I thought silently to myself, "But I'm glad you did."

Then I went inside, grabbed the phone and took it into the bathroom where I locked the door and called Matt.  I related the whole story to him and he parroted back the surprising parts as I had done ("He PUNCHED him?" "The other kid cried?") and then he said, "Well.  GOOD!"

Apparently we were on the same page.

After all that, here's the lesson I learned this past week:  One, I'm proud of my kids.  I'm proud of Gracie for making her brother apologize.  I love that she did that.  Of course, I would have been equally proud of her if she had said "Yeah, kid.  There's more where that came from SO BACK OFF." (Obviously you can tell that I've been fantasizing about what I would have done.)

Also, I'm proud of Jake- not for punching the kid, but for standing up for himself.  I would have preferred it if he had used his words, but that's asking a lot from a six year old in this situation.  While  I've been teaching my kids that fighting is not an answer, I've also learned that sometimes such situations aren't that cut and dry.  I guess Jake figured that out ahead of me.  And he did what needed to be done for his own self respect.  He felt on his own, in those few moments, the psychological side of what was going down, and for Jake the physical pain in his arm was nothing compared to the emotional injustice of being manhandled.  The fact that someone treated him that way pissed him off and he felt the need to let that kid know that he wasn't going to tolerate it. And you know what?  I'm glad he did.  I feel relieved of a lot of my worries about him.  Thank you, God.  The boy has gumption.  He has guts.  He has some self respect.  He's small, but he's mighty (ish).  This mama's going to sleep a little better tonight.

Right after I finish off the secret ice cream hidden in the back of the freezer.