I Spy Christmas

Man, did I want to enjoy the holidays this year, get in the spirit, create family traditions, celebrate. I was trying so hard that I felt like a Weeble Wobble (okay, I know this dates me, but for you younguns Weebles were these plastic toys with sand or something in the bottom so “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down”).

Picture me popping up after we missed what was going to be Cavanaugh’s first parade ever. That’s okay. We’ve got plenty more holiday events to go to after I get over my kidney infection.

Back up after no Capitol Tree Lighting and singing carols because it was super cold outside and our coughs and runny noses had not left the building. In fact, they linger as I type.

Pop, up after I woke up on my birthday with a kicked in the kidney feeling from a resurgence of the infection that made us miss the Thanksgiving parade.

No wonder I wanted to sleep through the holidays. Every time I poked my sick little head out from under the fluffy down comforter felt like I was asking for a bitch slap. So I decided I just hadn’t found the right approach.  Maybe I needed to sneak up on the Christmas spirit.

With no advance planning (hence the possibility of said plans being thwarted), Cavanaugh, Christina my (totally outside the system informally adopted/bring her home and make her a part of the family) daughter, and her girlfriend went to meet our neighbors at a “Laser Light Spectacular” at the local shopping center playscape. The lasers made me think of Pink Floyd with rainbows shot through clouds of smoke and bouncing off the trees, Christmas music blaring, candy canes and stars flashing like kicks in a chorus line. It was fancy. But when they turned on the snow machine and Cavanaugh got to see flakes falling from the sky for the first time and I held him in my arms as he reached to wipe them off my nose, my throat closed and the tears came. I’d found winter, the holidays, and my spirit in a fifteen minute flash of lights, color, and music.

Our next successful foray came on a whim this week. I was feeling low and needed to get exercise and be outside. Cavanaugh needed a gimmick, some make-it-exciting play plan to be willing to sit in the stroller for long enough thast I’d get any endorphin release at all, so we decided to go on a Christmas hunt. We made a picture list of all the Christmas decorations we might see on our walk to the grocery store with a check box next to each image. That way when we saw it, Cavanaugh could check it off. We stopped at people’s houses while my toddler ran into yards to get an up-close look at an inflated penguin, reindeer made of wire and lights, candy canes, and gingerbread houses. The only thing we didn’t find was an elf. But we added a Christmas train, an angel and JOY. Exercise, endorphins, and what I’d been looking for all season found in one walk to and from the grocery store (with a long stop to repeatedly run up and down the ramp outside Joann Fabric).

And tonight after the boy went to bed, Mike and I laughed through our annual screening of Elf. Why didn’t we just watch it the weekend after Thanksgiving? All of the health benefits from that kind of joyful release could have saved me a lot of cash in coclloidal silver, elderberry syrup, and antibiotics.

I’ve been thinking about my last post, how there is some extra pressure at this time of year to be happy, but my expectations were my own. I wanted to share holidays with Cavanaugh now that he is more aware of them, get to go places we wouldn’t have ventured with a two year old.

I want the season from Mike’s birthday in October to New Year’s to be full of celebration and presents and empty of doctors, the wish for anti-depressants, or a bed like quicksand. Maybe I can’t sprinkle every day with glitter but I managed to spy Christmas a few times. I hoped you’ve had some sightings too.

Seasonally Affected Mama

The week before Thanksgiving, every year, I begin experiencing a low-level sense of dread. If you’ve ever been robbed, you might remember the feeling: as if you’re being watched and you’re not safe. You can set up the light timers and keep a car parked in the driveway. It doesn’t matter. You imagine your house is under surveillance and no lock you can add to the door will put back what’s been taken.

Now imagine that you’re planning a vacation right around this time to celebrate some great milestone, like earning a degree or getting a promotion. But instead of white sand beaches and turquoise water all you can think about is what may be done to your house while you’re gone. Next you try to imagine what your days will look like like when you return. Rather than a feeling of accomplishment, all you can focus on is that you have no idea what you’re going to do with your life next and the way you’ve defined yourself for years no longer applies. Everyone around thinks you should be excited and happy. But you don’t feel festive at all. You want to stay in your house, in your bed, and protect what little territory you still can.

I’m realizing the holidays make me feel this way every year: out of control and insecure at a time the world is telling me to celebrate. Last night, I read Can This Scrooge Be Saved? on The Happiest Mom’s blog. I am also a scrooge that needs saving but it’s not just from Christmas.

The end of the year starts with my husband’s birthday in mid-October, then my son’s on November 14th, then Thanksgiving. By then I am physically ill, usually a cold or flu, something that will knock me into delirium and total inability to do anything but sleep for a few days.

Somewhere around that time, Austin’s weather generally turns cold, but not a good kind of winter cold with crisp air and snow falling. It’s rainy and gray and you can’t leave the house. This year, I was hit harder than usual. I got a sinus infection and kidney infection at the same time. The rains lasted longer than usual. I couldn’t go outside because of my health and the weather. Now that my immune system is recovering a bit, I’m checking in on my mental health and the prognosis is not so good.

Because after Thanksgiving  comes my birthday—three days before Christmas—then Christmas, then New Year’s. And you know what I want? To stay under my down comforter. I want to sleep even when I’m not tired. I don’t want to answer the phone or take care of my son. I don’t want to think about where my life is or how old I am or where I’m going from here. I don’t want to hope next year is better than this one. I just want to sleep.

Is it Post Traumatic Christmas syndrome, seasonal affective disorder, a horrible societal pressure to be happy for the holidays? Anyone else out there feeling less than festive?

Photo by XactoInTheBox

I Want My Body Back

I gained so much weight while I was pregnant that one of my kind friends said it looked like I’d swallowed a turkey. And I’m short, 5′ 2”, so it didn’t spread out beautifully over the length of my figure. I was just huge. When I delivered my son, I left the hospital 36 pounds lighter than I walked in. Three years later I only weigh six pounds less than the day of his birth. I need to lose another 35 pounds to get back to my average adult weight, but it’s not budging.

Now, I have some mama buddies who have lost so much weight while breastfeeding, they are in sizes dating back to their high school years. Just to give you a context, I’m about to turn 39 and almost all of my mama friends are over 30, so high school weight is a big deal. This is not happening for me. I keep having the feeling that when my son is fully weaned, my body will let go of some of its reserves. I gained ten pounds, all in my chest, before any pregnancy test showed positive. I hadn’t started eating for two. When my body is pregnant, it just turns into a goddess figurine, round and so endowed my upper back hurts from carrying the weight around.

But this latest illness, a sinus infection and kidney infection at the same time, is a call from my body, not just to rest, but to make a radical change, a lose 35 pounds and get healthy change, and I don’t know how to do it.

I have tried making simple changes in my diet, cutting back cheese and butter, making creamy soup recipes with nonfat milk instead of whipping cream or half and half. I have tried cutting down portion sizes, but just feel hungry. For awhile, I managed to go to the gym at least three times a week. I was running, taking spin classes, drinking more water, and going to bed early enough to get eight hours of sleep. I didn’t lose half a pound. The only time in my adult life that I’ve ever lost a significant amount of weight was when I went on the South Beach Diet and took Herbalife supplements and drank crazy shakes for breakfast every morning–after I gained 30 pounds over the course of two miscarriages. I lost both babies before I was nine weeks pregnant, but I gained a ton of weight. And carrying the weight around was just a reminder that I didn’t have the babies. If I wasn’t going to get to be a mama yet, I at least didn’t want a matronly body.

Now, I’m a mama and I still don’t want this body. I’ve been reading about candida diets, the Body Ecology Diet, thinking about the maple/lemon juice/cayenne concoction that was my sole sustenance for a week as part of a body cleanse.

It’s not just vanity, though I sure would like to look at myself in a mirror again or not want to delete every photo of myself, I want to model exercise and healthy eating for my son so he won’t have the same food struggles I have or I watched both my mom and dad have.

So how do I make a major change in the way I eat and live? How do I change my relationship with food so it’s not a constant exercise in self-discipline or giving in to cravings? I was bulemic for years, can’t stand on a scale or count calories because all of the numbers turn me back into a weight-obsessed person who just needs to binge to feel better. So Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig aren’t it. My intutition tells me that getting over a sugar addiction by being on a diet that requires me to cut out most grains and fruit and eat a whole different set of food than the rest of my family (or our society, for that matter) isn’t the way to go. But these little adjustments aren’t cutting it.

How has mothering affected your body? Have you gotten your body back? If so, how did you do it?

Modeling What You Seek for Your Children

This week’s guest post is by Monica Cravotta, an Austin mama keen on discovering how to put both self-care and attachment parenting into practice. She’s the voice behind Attachmentmama.com and contributing writer for API Speaks.  Be sure to check out her site.

I have to remind myself daily how unbelievably powerful modeling is for my children. We’ve learned from Montessori schooling just how absorbent a child’s mind is from birth to around age 6. They possess limitless motivation to absorb knowledge quickly and effortlessly. As they literally take everything in from their environment, the world around them becomes what they know, what they do, how they express and how they define what’s “normal.”

It’s amazing to hear and see how I am mimicked and frequently receive a hard-to-accept, albeit necessary, mirror in my face of mannerisms that I’m modeling for my 3 year-old that I wish I wasn’t.

The latest example of this reflection is her repetitive, tersely stated, “STOP it!” that she says freely to me, her father, or her baby sister in response to any multitude of random things.

Or another recent eye-opener: “Mommy! I. Want. That. Cereal. Right. NOW!”

I need and seek new levels of patience every day and occasionally find myself cursing Alfie Kohn and his suggestion in Unconditional Parenting to simply give a toddler more time. He insists that just an additional five or ten minutes can be all that’s required. I know in my heart that he is so right on. 99% of my parenting frustration comes from wanting my 3 year-old to do something faster so we can be wherever we’re supposed to be on time, or move on to the next thing – finishing a meal, getting ready for bed, sleeping, etc.

My husband and I have both said so many times, “We just don’t have time for this.”

With the exception of school, we don’t really have to be anywhere or do anything five or ten minutes faster than my toddler feels up for.

And there’s an easy solution for getting rid of the get-to-school-on-time stress that we face DAILY that we simply must adopt. Immediately. I want to transform the morning “no, no, no” stresses to sweet family time together. We simply must set an alarm and get the whole family up and eating and having fun getting ready together a full hour before we have to leave for school.

All that to say, what’s happening is an ongoing experience from my 3 year-old’s point of view of witnessing me frustrated, saying things I feel awful about afterwards like, “If you don’t stop that right now I’m going to walk away and leave you by yourself.” UGH! This is the conditional love for children that Kohn describes so many of us falling into. I want to embody and express and model unconditional love for my girls!

Modeling is everything. And I would argue that unconscious modeling of parental behavior continues well beyond this sensitive early childhood period.

I think there are two ways we can inadvertently set up our children to not fully live a Blissful life of following their own precious, unique dreams.

One way is to fall into the conditional parenting mode in which you consistently reward behavior or accomplishments that you like and punish those you don’t, setting up a child to lose intrinsic motivation to make positive choices for herself, or to pursue a skill or craft or activity because he or she is drawn to it, versus doing it to please you. Check out Kohn’s New York Times article, “Parental Love with Strings Attached.”

The second way we can tragically set up our children to not follow their dreams is by not following our own. As long as we are alive, it is never too late to follow our bliss. And in doing so we give such an amazing, wonderful gift to our children of modeling what we hope for their lives.

Outside of parenting, which often feels like our most fulfilling, heart-expanding work – what do you love to do? Perhaps your personal interests have shifted since becoming a parent. If you could follow your own personal, precious, unique bliss today, what would it be? Are there ways to share it with your children?

Life is short. Anything is possible.

Three Year Well Check

“On the way to the doctor’s office today, Cavanaugh kept repeating, “I like to be sick.”

“You like music?” I would turn the CD on.

“No, I like to be sick.”

“You don’t like the music?” CD back off.

“No, I like to be sick.”

“You like to be sick?”

“Yes. I like to be sick.”

“What? Why?”

“I like to be sick.”

My ears are still really clogged from the sinus infection so I wasn’t sure I was hearing correctly, and I really needed to concentrate on driving rather than looking back over my shoulder to try to discern what he was saying. All we’d done differently since he’d announced, “I’m sick” last night before bed is give him a little medicine and skip our music class this morning. What could he possibly like about being sick?

Then we pulled into the parking lot at the doctor’s office and Cavanaugh said, “I’m better already.”

You’re better already? I thought you said you like to be sick.” Then I got it. “You don’t want to go see the doctor?” And here’s where I wish I could have done better because I usually do a pretty good job of hearing his feelings and not just saying, “You’re okay” but our doctor is great and we haven’t had any traumatic doctor visits where he was super upset, at least since he was a baby and didn’t like being stripped naked to get on the scale. He hasn’t had a shot for 21 months, though I had thought we might catch up on some today. What could possibly have happened to make him decide he doesn’t like the doctor?

Maybe he’d overheard me talking about the shots though I’m not sure he even remembers what they are.

The problem was we pulled into the lot at the exact minute we were supposed to be checking in inside. And talking through fears and feelings takes awhile. So, I was unstrapping him from his carseat and reminding him that he likes his funny doctor who has a Tigger on his stethoscope, then his dad reminded him that the doctor finds barking dogs in his ears and Cavanaugh started scaling my body because he hates dogs, so I said, “And he looks in your ear and finds kitty cats. What does a kitty say?”

By then we were entering the office and Mike was signing us in and Cavanaugh and I started looking at the wooden mural and finding chickens and farmhouses and trains, so he was distracted and perfectly happy to be sitting on the floor there. Normally, I would have taken this time to talk through the feelings, but again, I’m just not quite back up to par today so I spaced out looking at holiday cards families had sent into the doctor’s office simultaneously wondering who thinks of that and who gets these pictures taken.

The nurse’s assistant came and called us back and Cavanaugh didn’t want to stand up to be measured. I had to hug him while pushing his feet back towards the wall. He wouldn’t stand on the scale so I sat him on the baby one, which he was maybe so surprised by that he didn’t even wiggle.

Let’s just say I feel lucky that we have a pediatrician with the best bedside manner in the world. Our doctor took ten minutes warming Cavanaugh up and getting him to trust him so he could look in his ears after a long search for them: “Is that your ear? Where’s your ear?” pointing at toes and looking under Cavanaugh’s shirt. By the end Cavanaugh was giving him high fives and asking me to put the car sticker from the doctor onto his hand.

Probably needless to say, we gave him no shots today. And boy I still can’t decide what to do about chicken pox (which last week I was sure I wasn’t go to give him) and Hep A. We thought the window for MMR’s link to autism closed at three and I recently read four. In any case, I don’t want to give him any until we get over whatever fear of the doctor has come from I know not where.

Have your kids done this, been fine with the doctor and suddenly developed a huge aversion? I’m not sure where to even begin the conversation. Any ideas?

Photo by Gont

Mama Takes a Sick Day

What happens when you don’t listen to your body asking for a rest? It gives you one, knocks you down and takes it. At least mine does.

But when you’re a SAHM, taking a sick day isn’t as easy as calling in to work. My toddler accepts no excuses. He is undoubtedly the most demanding boss I have ever had. Unlike the office, which used to wait at least a couple of days to inquire when I might return, Cavanaugh asked, “Are you better yet?” in the Walgreen’s drive-thru, before they’d handed me my antibiotics.

So how’s a SAHM supposed to take a sick day? Hope it’s the weekend so her husband is home? Hire a babysitter so she can take a nap? I did both of those things, but the illnesses lasted longer than that. And it was my fault they did.

First I got the annoying cough that has been following everyone in Austin around this fall. It has lingered like a houseguest for weeks, but I took colloidal silver and elderberry syrup just often enough to keep it from turning into anything full blown, but not enough to get it out of my system.

Did I start going to bed earlier, eating better, listening to my body ask for a rest? No. I just kept pushing.

Then came the kidney infection. It took more than a week for me to figure out that the lower back pain wasn’t from lack of exercise since the cough had kept me from the gym. My kidney took enough attention from my immune system that the houseguest cough turned into a sinus infection. So for the last four days I was fighting both at once—and by fighting, I mean lying in bed, at one point with a heating pad wrapped around my head.

The irony is that on Saturday, in the second monthly meeting of a personal renewal group I’m in with five other mamas, the chapter topic was “The Transformative Power of Self-Care.” The chapter has four areas of self-care: mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. And one of the questions for the chapter is, “Which area is calling out to you right now?”

At about that time, my right ear started ringing and the pressure in my head was so great, everyone sounded further away, as if my head were covered with a pillow. Hmmm? Which area should I focus on?

So how do you take a sick day with a toddler? With a lot of help from other people. Otherwise, you may find yourself losing puzzle pieces in the bed or playing peek-a-boo in the pillows. Cavanaugh would have been fine with one day of that, maybe even two, but two weeks of having to say I couldn’t carry him or that Mama wasn’t feeling well were too much. When my body whispered to me that it needed more caffeine to keep going, raised its voice a little in the form of a scratchy throat, then began yelling through the aches in my bone marrow, I didn’t listen.

While we can’t prevent every bug from taking up residence, many of the mamas I know need some lessons in self-care, whether it be physical, emotional, mental, and/or spiritual. What area is calling to you right now?

Let It Snow: Kid’s Arts and Crafts Projects

Do you live someplace where your kid may never see snow? At our house, we’ve started reading all of the winter/holiday books full of snow but my three-year-old has never seen those beautiful white flakes in person.

My winter childhood memories involve either being outside in the snow or being inside drinking hot chocolate because it was so cold outside. Cavanaugh knowing nothing of the stuff– except for what we’ve read in books– is freaking me out. This past week, Cavanaugh came running in to show me the playdoh snowmen and Christmas trees he and his part-time nanny had made. It inspired a lot of snow crafting at our house this week. Even if the projects hadn’t turned out so well, Cavanaugh and I have gotten to work together, giggle, create, and have a ton of sweet time together.

Paper snowflakes – Your child may be adept with scissors. Mine isn’t yet, so I made the folds and cuts, then he unfolded (with a little help). Fortunately, I couldn’t remember how to get a six-sided snowflake so I was trying to find directions on the web. Cavanaugh started playing with my box of shredded paper while he waited and that’s where our next two projects came from.

Paper snow showers – At first, he was dropping the shredded paper back into the box, but he started putting some on his legs, dropping it onto the floor. I found myself telling him to keep it over the box then asked myself one of my favorite parenting questions. Why not? Why not let the paper out? He was having fun. And how hard is it really to sweep up some paper? Soon enough I was showering the shredded paper over his head in a simulated snow shower. I suppose if I were really adept at cutting out teeny paper snowflakes, it would have been more aesthetically pleasing, but it kept us busy for almost an hour. By the end, Cavanaugh, his Hello Kitty slippers, and I were all covered in little bits of paper and were giggling hysterically (well, the slippers weren’t, but I think they had a good time anyway).

Paper snow angels – What do you do when your floor is covered in shredded paper? Make paper snow angels. I just spread the paper around so we’d have a big enough area, then had Cavanaugh lie down. I helped him flap his arms and scissor his legs to make the skirt. Our first attempt was a little sloppy, but the second one looked like this (after I cleared out a few paper stragglers).

Cotton ball snowman – We probably could have made a snowman with the shredded paper too, but I didn’t want to pull the stuff back out again today. Instead, we used a piece of cardstock and I made three circles with a gluestick. Cavanaugh stuck the cotton balls onto the glue. Then I gave him a small pile of metal confetti snowflakes (you could draw stars, cut out trees, or just leave off the background). He made a dot with the gluestick and then stuck the snowflakes on the paper while I cut out the mittens, hat, and rolled orange construction paper for the nose. Your toddler can be the designated gluer. Mine was also the hat inspector. I had to cut out about six before he approved. I tried a tissue paper scarf first, but didn’t like it as much as the feathers. I love our fancy little snowman. Can you tell whether Cavanaugh likes it?

Coloring snow – It’s also really easy to draw an outline of a snowman, or an angel, or glue a paper snowflake onto some construction paper then let your child just color on it with markers. You can cut the shape out after s/he’s done drawing and hang it as an ornament or holiday decoration. Cavanaugh had more fun doing this after he’d already made snow angels and snowmen himself, probably because he now actually understands (kind of) what snow is.

Do you have any other fake snow project ideas? Please let me know. And, if you try any of these, I’d love to hear how they go. Let it snow!!

Books (& DVD) to Bring the Baby Home

A whole lot of my friends are either pregnant or have just had babies so I’ve been referring to this list a lot. Thought it was time for a repost of these resources I was grateful for or wish I’d had when we brought the baby home from the hospital. Better yet, I wish I’d at least skimmed through them before the baby arrived so I’d know what resources were available. So here’s my list, in no particular order.

• The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two by Drs. William, James, & Robert Sears, & Martha Sears, R.N. A friend gave me Baby 411 when Cavanaugh was born. it was supposed to be a resource for the baby’s first year. I hated it. It was simplistic, didn’t offer enough explanation, and most of the advice clashed with every instinct I had about how to parent my child. I was so grateful when I found The Baby Book. It’s a comprehensive guide with a great index and detailed table of contents so I could find just about anything I needed to know, whether it was a reminder about how to burp my baby or a question about how to take a rectal temperature.
• The Breastfeeding Book: Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Your Child from Birth Through Weaningby William and Martha Sears was my favorite of the bunch I read. It can be read cover to cover because it’s interesting and written in an engaging easy-to-read tone, but it also works very well as a reference if one just wants to look up certain information. The Breastfeeding Book will help teach you how to breastfeed including diagrams of different feeding positions, troubleshoot any difficulties with breastfeeding, support stay at home or working moms, breastpumping, breastfeeding in public, nursing at night, all the way through weaning. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding from the La Leche League had such a strong agenda that I felt like it was trying not to admit there were challenges with breastfeeding in a way that would allow mom to feel supported and helped as opposed to blamed or like she was failing. I liked the information in The Ultimate Guide to Breastfeeding by Jack Newman, but the index was horrible so it wasn’t a good reference book. The Breastfeeding Book is definitely my favorite.
• The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Sears Parenting Library) by Dr. Robert Sears or any other vaccine book that will explain which shots they’re giving your baby, what’s in the shots, and when they’ll be giving them. When I was a kid, there weren’t so many vaccines. Now, babies are vaccinated 40 – 50 times by the time they’re six years old. That’s a lot of disease for a developing immune system to handle. Maybe you’ll want to give your child all the shots on exactly the schedule the doctor recommends or maybe you’ll decide that you don’t have hepatitis and your child won’t be using needles or having sex for a few years, so you could hold off on this one. Either way, getting a good vaccine book will help you make an informed decision.
• Tummy 2 Tummy The Babywearing Instructional DVD While I was pregnant, lots of friends recommended different kinds of carriers, but all we could find to try were Baby Bjorns and Snuglis. It turned out both of those hurt my shoulders, neither were good for a newborn, and we returned those we’d received as gifts. Luckily, there was a sling library in town where we could check out different kinds of carriers and people would teach us how to tie and wear them. This DVD demonstrates how to use ring slings, pouches, Asian back carriers, and pieces of cloth to carry newborns to toddlers. It will help you make sense of the difference between a Mei Tai and a Moby and help you figure out which will work best for you and your baby.
• Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year
  Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott. She is honest about how miraculous and difficult raising a child is, how confused and tired you’ll be, and her humor and humanity will offer a light to guide you.
• The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year by Armit Brott is split up by months and covers what’s happening with your baby physically, intellectually, verbally, and emotionally/socially and what you’re going through as a parent. There’s a trilogy of these covering dads-to-be, the first year, and the toddler years. My husband swears by all of them.
• The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley. Most newborns sleep 18 – 20 hours a day. While they’re doing that, learn about all the ways you’re going to teach them to go to sleep so they learn that daddy can put them to sleep too, breastfeeding isn’t the only before-bed cocktail, and that falling asleep in different locations is great stuff.

For all you new parents, congratulations!!! You have just begun one of the most fulfilling journeys I know of. Happy parenting!

Any great books or other resources for new parents that I missed? Please let me know!

View all my reviews.

No School for Now

Cavanaugh’s school called this morning to say they have a confirmed case of whooping cough. Then the assistant director asked if I had any questions. Yep, I had a lot of them, but I realized almost none of them were actually about pertussis.

I wanted to know–with all of the kids coughing and wiping their runny noses–why the school would have them hold hands before snack (and, it turns out, in circle and various other activities throughout the day). Her answer? To encourage closeness.

Aren’t they close enough, these kids in storytime and art and the sandbox together? I mean, I know we want to teach toddlers to share, but not germs, please. Yes, they’ll be touching the same toys all day long and coughing into the air. And maybe I’m totally crazy, but I just don’t understand why we’d want to give the bugs the extra boost of hand to hand contact.  It may have all been in my nose’s imagination, tut when I walked into the building, all I could smell was mucus and pee.

All of the worry about germs got me thinking. We didn’t really want to start school until after winter, the swine flu, the cold punctuated with rain. We wanted to have Cavanaugh go in the mornings, not the afternoons. Mike could take him to school on his way to work so I wouldn’t have the 15 – 20 minute drive in both directions. Cavanaugh could get there as early as 7 a.m. (not likely) and stay till 12:30 or 2:30, if he started taking naps again (even less likely). But he’d get a good four hours in at least.

With the schedule we just signed him up for, by the time I drive him there and get home, I’ll have two hours before I have to go back. Then we’ll have a drive home with 5:30 traffic when he’s hungry for dinner. Asleep by 7:15? I don’t think so.

We took this spot because we were afraid if we kept turning down afternoons, he’d never get mornings. Once he was enrolled, we could ask for the first morning opening, but until then we were risking somebody else getting ahead of us with that morning slot plan.  That’s a whole lot of projecting into the future.

And that’s the problem with school choices. We’re trying to be prepared for three or four months from now and so we’re choosing something at the moment that is not right for our family. Though it’s not quite as ridiculous as the schools where you have to get on the waiting list while you’re still pregnant, it still feels like a lot of planning ahead when infants and toddlers are ever-changing, move quickly into a new stage, and four months from now may have an entirely different sleep schedule (that damn time change), or desire to be around kids, or get out of the house, or stay cozy in the wintertime out of the rain and cold and flu and colds and….

He’s going to get sick more often once he starts school, of course. But do we really want to start him the sickest season of the year? Will he have much fun or think fondly of school if he’s suddenly sick all the time? Will I really get a break? Nope.

So, he’s a two-hour alumni and we’re asking to be put back on the waiting list. Maybe they’ll have a slot when we actually want one. I don’t know much about then,  but I’m getting clearer about now. I’m not going to make our lives more complicated in the moment because I think in some random future, it will be easier. We’ll deal with that day when it comes.

Today, we’re asking the school to call when a morning spot comes open, hopefully sometime in the spring.

Am I being a total chicken here or following my mama instincts? I just kept thinking today, “He doesn’t have to be in school right now. Why are we doing this? We’re so lucky to have a choice. Why are we making this one?”

How do you handle making decisions about school, activities, or other big changes for your child? Have you ever realized quickly after embarking on one path that you really needed to head down another?

Holiday Expectations Denied

Almost first thing on Thanksgiving my expectations for the day were dashed. Our friends who were supposed to come over for Thanksgiving dinner had to cancel because of illness. I was glad they didn’t want to share their germs and totally understood. It didn’t hurt my day so much as change what I thought it would look like. The whole holiday weekend (and maybe my whole life) has gone that way. So I’m thinking about expectations.

My last therapist said that both expectation and worry are stories we’re telling ourselves. Our story is unlikely to play out as we imagine. Her point was that we should just stop making up stories and live in the present moment. I like the idea, but the reality is that often we need to plan ahead, which requires thinking about how things may go and what we’ll need to do or get, where we’ll need to be.

So what happens when we plan ahead and events don’t go as anticipated? Well, on Thanksgiving, instead of cooking our food earlier in the day to ready for our guests, our morning was so long and leisurely it lasted until about four in the afternoon. Mike and Cavanaugh built train tracks descending from the train table through the living room, around the couch, and back to the train table. I would never have had the patience or attention span for this. Cavanaugh was in utter heaven and Mike got to spend hours of focused time with his son. It was definitely a day to be thankful for.

Part of why the day was good is that I’ve been trying hard to let go of what I think things should look like. Who am I really? Only one of three people in this family. Why should it be my plan, my expectations fulfilled?

It happened again today when we were getting ready to decorate the Christmas tree.  Rather than finding decorations in the garage, Cavanaugh discovered a holiday train set we just inherited from a friend. He was so taken with it, he cared about nothing else. I found myself getting frustrated, even mad. I had a whole picture of how the afternoon was supposed to go. We were going to listen to cool Christmas music, hang lights, tell Cavanaugh stories about where the decorations came from. He didn’t care at all.

Luckily, I was able to stop myself from the bad mood I felt coming. I’ve started noticing recently that I feel my body heat up when I’m getting angry. I literally need to cool down. Today, I walked outside to repot a plant and left Mike inside to help with the holiday train. When I entered the house, Cavanaugh walked into my arms. The tracks kept popping apart and the train wouldn’t ride the rails. He just looked so disappointed.

I gave him a hug and said we’d go figure it out. We walked into the sunroom and tried one more track maneuver. Rather than throw it out the window, I suggested in my playful parenting voice that we just put the tracks back in the box and let the train run on the floor. We could pretend the whole room was tracks. Mike followed my lead and pretty soon Cavanaugh was chasing the battery powered train as it chugged across the linoleum. He was thrilled.

My expectations were disappointed, but I wasn’t. I felt relieved that instead of getting stuck in my plans, I could just be in the moment and let the rest go. Cavanaugh’s asleep now and Mike and I are listening to Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas album as we get ready to decorate the tree. I won’t even try to make up a story about how it’s going to go. I’ll just try experiencing it as it happens.

How was your holiday? Did it go as you planned? If not, how did you feel about that?