napless

Clark seems to think it's time to give up his nap. He's 3 and a half, and perhaps it is indeed time. I've looked forward to this on one hand because having to come home for a nap does tie us down; if there were no napping kids we could stay out and run errands or go play, whatever. But there's a snag, I'm finding - besides the general one, which is that the newly-not-napping kid is still tired as hell and hollering in exhausted frustration because his gum is the wrong flavor. The snag is how to do downtime.

Frances needs downtime. She would go and go and go all day if I let her, and then she would fall to pieces. I believe in, as Waldorf philosophy says, letting the day breathe. In breath, out breath. Outward activity, inward quiet. Then again. During Clark's nap she has developed some space for herself which works well; she quietly sings while she draws (the most common) or sets up a carnival in her room or dresses herself for her doll's tea party. It's amazing and wonderful to watch. When Clark wakes up she comes out of her inward time and they run off with hysterical laughter to play.

Clark knows nothing about downtime. Whenever they are both awake they are together, playing. Vigorously. I haven't figured out yet how to enforce some down time for both at once. I could send them each to their rooms to play, but right now there aren't any toys in Clark's room. (An easy thing to rectify.) Yesterday I had them lie with me on the bed and I read a thousand books until Clark actually fell asleep. Today I thought myself quite brilliant and turned on a CD story that is this minute working well while I write this blog post.

I'm feeling at a loss for what kind of activity he could do, as he usually doesn't play by himself. A few minutes ago the story ended and I gave him some lacing cards. Which he seemed interested in for about 40 seconds until he discovered he could hang onto the lace and throw the board and it would kind of glide like a frisbee. "Look Mama it's a surf board!"

Maybe I should get a table for his trains. I'm open to suggestions here! Maybe raw materials for building? Like rope and silks and boxes? Do I just need StarWars legos instead of plain??? Help!

(As I write this I'm realizing: I'm probably going to have to participate in his quiet time for a while. I did that with Frances. I drew with her, or did drawing games with her, until she enjoyed doing it on her own. (My favorite is when Frances and I take turns adding to a picture until it's a full scene.)  Clark doesn't like drawing and crafts, but I could come up with something to build and do it with him to get him going. The problem I was having was trying to come up with an activity that doesn't include me so I can get other things done during that time. But that thinking is backward. For a bit I'm going to have to give up my time in order to teach him how to have quiet time. Yes yes yes. Tomorrow I will begin.)

solo time

Sunday morning we went to the Memorial Art Gallery because there's a show coming up called Extreme Materials which uses odd or everyday objects to make the art, and one of the installations was going in that morning. I thought the kids would find it cool to see one as it went up. And it was - made of plastic chinese restaurant spoons. Turns out the gallery is an excellent place to be with kids first thing on a Sunday morning. Since we were the only people in the building that didn't work there we wandered around and found our way to organ music upstairs. There was a man in a big hall playing, no one around, and we listened for a bit. Clark put his hands over his ears and said, too loud let's go, but Frances wanted to stay. After a while we went up beside the organ and waited for the organist to pause, and we said hello. He said if we liked it we should come back later for the concert. Frances wanted to.

Clark stayed with his dad while Frances and I went alone to the concert after dinner. She was the only child in the room, and I wondered, when she got squirrelly, if folks around questioned my wisdom in bringing a five year old to an organ concert. But I didn't bring her; she brought me. She sat through an entire hour, which was more than I expected. Some of that time was spent trying to get up the nerve to move from the end of the 3rd row where we were, up to the open seats in the front row. She finally did it, then spent a good bit of the time up there turning and studying the people behind her, goading them to smile at her. Luckily the performer in an organ concert is not facing the audience, a thing I'd never considered one way or the other before. We did spend the last song in the gallery studying the inclusion of genitalia in the 16th century pietas, about which she had lots of questions.

Afterward we went to tell the organist how much we enjoyed it, and he lifted her onto the bench and let her play some sounds. When we left the building it was pouring rain and dark, so we held hands and ran in the rain to the car which was all the way around the other side of the gallery. She thought that was great. AND on the way home when we stopped at the grocery, the cute checkout girl asked Frances if she wanted to scan the bread and bag it.

Back in the car Frances said, "This was the best night ever."

in the garage

I am this minute squeezed into a cushioned kids chair in the garage in the dark with the computer on my lap. I can't turn the lights on because the kids might see me from inside the house, and they think I'm at the grocery or walking the dog but probably not sitting in the garage with a bottle of wine. In fact, I am listening to some impressive music while on hold with applecare. (Who picks their playlist? Sometimes Apple marketing astounds me.) I've spent many an hour recently entertained by their playlist while on hold with applecare. Generally I'm holding while the good spirited front line fella named Jake talks with someone in the back who knows which end is up. Not that Jake doesn't. Just somehow I've dug myself into a digital hole from which only experts can save me.

We had swim lessons tonight, which end later than the kids should be in their pjs, and Mitch is at a work dinner. Sometimes I pressure myself about doing it alone - feel that if I'm a good mom I should be able to put them to bed by myself forcryingoutloud, but other times I'm pretty clear about acknowledging my limitations. Given Clark's incessant screaming and general volatility, my limitations these days come sooner than they have other times. Good Enough Mommy, right? So tonight I have a sitter just for bathing them and putting them to bed. It's someone they love, and whom they haven't seen for a while. Everyone was happy when I lugged my electronics out here.

You may be pleased to know that as long as I don't die from a spider bite I might soon have pictures on a computer again. I have pictures, but I can't get them off the camera. So many I've wanted to post here recently! I have faith in this round of computer support. Maybe it's the wine.

A few minutes ago I nearly killed myself tripping over a trike while unplugging the computer from the wall as requested by Applecare Jake. Besides that, and the spiders, it's rather nice out here. I can hear the rain and smell the sawdust left by the guys who've been working on our house. I can also hear my son screaming absolute bloody murder in the upstairs bathroom. My guess is it's about getting out of the bath, though really, it could be about anything. It's hard to be three. Poor Sitter Liz, but she's a capable human and besides, it's good for Clark to have to receive comfort (and reactions) from people who are not Mommy.

Sometimes Mommy needs a break. I'm pretty sure I would not have believed you if prekids you'd told me that a satisfying break would involve sitting in my dark garage in a kids' chair drinking wine and listening to music akin to The Shins while on applecare hold. Ah, the poetic twists our lives take. I hope Clark doesn't scare away Liz. She's a great sitter, and she folds laundry and does dishes. What more?

job description, again

I've been thinking lately about my 'job'. It used to be changing diapers and spooning runny food into mouths and nursing and changing diapers and making sure no one choked on the legos, but now it's different. There are times when it seems amorphous to me, when I can't get a handle on it exactly. And then there are other times. Like a couple of nights ago when Clark didn't want to go to sleep. He'd already been read to and sung to and had someone lie down with him and sung to again by multiple people (including my mom, who was visiting), but still he was not asleep. I met him halfway down the stairs and told him he needed to be in bed, and he asked what we grownups were doing downstairs. We were spending grown up time together, I said. "Are you sitting down?" Yes, we were sitting. "I want to sit with you, Mama. Can I pweeeeeesssseee?" Oh my. We were, in fact, watching Dancing with the Stars, which Clark loves. I told him he could come down for two dances, then it was back to bed.

Of course, when it was time to go back to bed Clark was not ready. By now it was an hour and a half past his bedtime, and I was done with negotiations. It was time. So I carried him upstairs shrieking hysterically and I put him in his bed. He climbed out and stood next to the bed. I picked him up and put him back in. He rolled out and stood. I put him back in. He rolled out. Again and again. Every time he rolled out he screamed NO I WON'T and he kept trying to push my anger button. There was a moment when I thought about getting angry, but decided against it. I thought two things: 1) good thing I didn't go to the gym because I'm now getting a great arm and back workout picking him up over and over, and 2) what else do I have to do? I mean, it would have been nice to go downstairs and hang with my mom, especially since it was her last night. But what struck me is that this is my job. This. Standing patiently, putting him back in his bed over and over, however long it takes. I don't have anywhere else to be, anything else to do. I did need to move the laundry to the dryer in the basement, but that could wait. In fact, it all could wait for this.

I thought the same thing last week when Frances had a screaming fit while I was cooking dinner. The end of it found her standing on the stove sobbing down! down!. I lifted her off the stove and she crumpled in my arms, and I just sat with her on my lap, as long as she needed. We could always eat tuna fish and crackers if I didn't finish cooking.

Over and over I learn this same lesson. I don't know why I forget. I slide into thinking that keeping the house is my job, or having things run on schedule, or organizing unruly and amazing amounts of clothes (a feat all its very own): goodwill, pass to friend, next season, too big. And while those certainly are my responsibilities, they are not primary. Simply being with the kids when they truly need me and my attention: that is my job.

Back to Clark, in case you're wondering how that turned out: after a while I started to count how many times I put him back in his bed. My guess is we'd gone about 15 rounds when I started counting, and I got to 32 (he was rolling out much more slowly each time by then though the screaming was just as lively). I was wondering how it would look when he finally gave up, then Mitch came to relieve me. Glad I've been lifting weights these days. 

the Overview Post

I do believe this is the longest stretch between posts since I started the blog. It's been a steady stream of off-kilterness since my birthday: school started for one kid (week 1 september); school started for the other kid (week 2 september); Frances had a multi-leg birthday celebration culminating with a fairy party (photos to come) and a ceiling high stack of gifts; a crew of fellas showed up to work on the house (woodworking guys, stucco guys, painters, their stuff so packed into my garage that my car hasn't been in there for two weeks); grandparents visited; I left Mitch with the kids and spent 4 days in NYC w/ my bestfriend; and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. (Didja hear that? It's true! I left Mitch with the kids and went to NYC all alone on an airplane! Good looking famous people sat one table over at lunch in a charming Village restaurant! I slept til 8 am two days in a row! Excellent times abound!)

It's perhaps because of all the BBETRA (Back to Back Events That Require Adjustment) that Clark is the creature he currently is. Or perhaps because what he is, is a 3-year-old. It appears that I'd forgotten what 3 looks like, though it was only 2 years ago that I had the joy of visiting this stage in FrancesWorld. In case you don't know or don't remember, three is not pretty. This mama blogger says it pretty well (in her recent post "Rule of Three" which for some reason I can't link to directly), and it wasn't actually until I read this post that I realized this was perhaps a stage. STAGES ARE A PAIN IN THE ASS. He's pushing every button I've got and I just keep up the mantra: itsonlyastage itsonlyastage itsonlyastage.

Again - this pattern being pointed out to me by my friend Andrea - when one child is particularly difficult, the other turns into the sweetest lilting tune you've ever heard. They trade. It's always a little bit of a disappointment when Frances throws her fits during Clark's naps: because he's not there to witness them he doesn't know to take on the Fabulous Offspring role when he wakes.

What else? (Since I've been having a bit of trouble coming to the blog at all, I'm not going to be too ambitious with this post. As the title notes, this is an Overview Post, a summary of this corner of the world, no groundshaking observations. Hopefully it will warm me up so I can return with more heft before long.)

• I have all these wrinkled folded up pieces of paper in my purse covered with hand written blog posts. I think that's how they're going to have to stay: in that archival form of putting hand to paper. It is a nice sensory exercise. 

• Went to the top of the Empire State because I hadn't been up there in decades. I recommend it. It was night, and dark, and bright lights, and we saw a whole full size firework show over by the Statue of Liberty, the bright blooms of sparks so tiny from up where we were. 

• Clark requests a new song, Mommy every single night, so I've been going back through my music to remember songs I mostly know by heart and to learn the lyrics to ones I know less. It's turned into a part time job all its own. 

• Bought some Frye boots in NYC that bring me irrational happiness. 

That's about all, folks. Watching while the seasons change. 

40.

I'll be 40 on Tuesday. I've been thinking a lot about 40, as might be expected. And I've been thinking about  babies, specifically a new one of my own. Oh, babies (new, little, soft ones) are so sweet! And being pregnant - mmmmm. I just loved it, feeling this creature moving inside me of its own accord; a completely raw experience of the mystery of life. Oh, and the nursing. I love nursing a tiny baby, the ability to offer sustenance and comfort, to be able to keep alive another human with only my own body. Okay okay, enough of that. I'm aware that this picture in my head conveniently forgets the other side effects of pregnancy (which I will let go unnamed here), plus mastitis, engorgement, irritation that I alone am in possession of the only source of complete comfort, and the accompanying feeling of strangulation and tetheredness. I've been reading over some old posts. They do a lot to help with this visual.

Besides, lately I've been remembering a time when, lying in bed at night with Mitch, we mused that one day we would be able to sleep in. The kids would get up and play or turn on the tv or whatever, and they wouldn't need a pair of eyes on them to make sure they didn't accidentally kill themselves. It was sort of a shock for me to discover that that day has arrived. Actually, it snuck in, slithered up quietly, and now we're here, no idea when that happened. Needless to say, having another would return the train to the beginning of the track.

This is the way it occurs to me now: my 20s were rather a train wreck, my 30s were recovery, and my 40s are all mine. When I thought of it this way, I realized that I am indeed done having little babies.

I am 40.

AND! If that weren't enough evidence, my son wore his last diaper on the day of my (surprise) birthday party. I smell a little symbolism here. We've had someone in diapers, you know, since September of 2006; a good chunk of that time I had two someones in diapers.) I told him at the grocery store as I put the diapers in the cart, "Clark, these are the last diapers we will buy. After these are gone, there are no more diapers; only big boy underwear." He was down with that. Told his dad that night about the diapers and what happens after. The last diaper just happened to fall on the day of my party. And Clark very willingly sat on the potty and then put on his (fabulous exciting Diego) underpants. That was yesterday. We've only had a few accidents and many successes.

I can take the changing table out of his room. We're done with diapers.

Wow.

I put the cloth ones on Ebay this week, most auctions to end tomorrow.

Done with diapers! And I'm 40. 

we welcome all comments here!

Last week I got what might be my favorite comment ever. It was in response to this post. I've been thinking about it some and thought you'd appreciate seeing it. Here's the comment:

wow...to call your little baby a "little fucker" ?? you should be ASHAMED of yourself for even thinking that, let alone posting that on the internet. some of these posts are pathetic. grow up. if you can't handle kids, you shouldn't be a mother. i know plenty of single working moms who don't bitch and moan about how hard their lives are and they don't have the luxury of being a stay at home mom while their husband provides everything. you need to get your priorities straight, and think a little more about your children, and the good things you do have in life. you may have been an only child and gotten your way all the time, but it's time to stop being the drama queen and focus on your children, white trash mama.


Well! Let's take a look at this, shall we? I like particularly that she tells me I should be ASHAMED for even thinking those thoughts. Sigh. This is exactly the public's attitude I talk about all the time. This is the reason I started the blog in the first place (you can read more about that here). I believe it's the main contributor postpartum depression and anxiety, because we are taught that in order to be good mothers, we can never have a negative thought about our children. Yet all worthwhile relationships in this world are complex. They have multiple sides, attitudes, feelings; both positive and negative. To think otherwise is to ignore reality.


After all, we feel what we feel. Ignoring our feelings - or even worse - being ashamed of them, only bottles everything up and creates a big mess. In order to move past these feelings to the other ones, the ones in joy, we have to acknowledge the hard ones, respect their power, see what they have to teach us, then let them go. 


It's true that plenty of single working mothers don't bitch and moan as much as I do. There are plenty of stay-at-home ones that don't either. I'll be the first to admit that I do more moaning than is ever necessary, and my navel gazing does indeed reach irrational proportions. She got me on that one. I even admit my over-complaining in this post.


At the same time, this blog is about the trials of being a mom (as it says right in the subtitle up on the banner), particularly a stay at home mom, and I'm willing to bet that any working single mother would have plenty to bitch about were she to write her own blog. There are other blogs that celebrate momdom rather than bitch about it, and they are great. They, in fact, provide me with a lot of inspiration in my daily life. I choose not to write about those moments, however, and I talk about why in this post. All in all, I find writing about the struggles cathartic. Sometimes it helps me regain my sense of humor, even if it doesn't always come across on the page. 


As for how I should "think a little more about my children," I don't even know how to respond to that. My concern for my children, and how to wade through these young child years gracefully while also giving them every opportunity and support, and indeed sheltering them from my negative feelings, is my prime motivator in writing. Maybe this was the only post she actually read from the blog.


AND I'd like to point out that she left her comment anonymously. I mean, really. If you're going to land that kind of trip on someone else, you should at least own up to it, doncha think? 


Now that I think about it, maybe she doesn't have kids. If I had to take a guess, she's pregnant, is dreamily looking forward to the moment she first lays eyes on her beautiful baby, at which time all the pieces of her life will come together in a magical fusion that leaves her complete. She's trolling the internet for information about being a mom, and my post's proposition - the idea that she might have negative feelings about her sweet baby - threatens her sense of self and maybe even the steadiness of the world. Well, all I can say is bless her heart, and she'll find out when the time comes. 

vacation caboose

(So I just found this post I wrote over 2 weeks ago, before we got back to Rochester. Meant to post it before, clearly, but I thought I'd go ahead and post it now because maybe it sheds some light on the Frances-attitude-situation. Plus some parenting thoughts.)

We're in Michigan now, returned from our 2,054 hours in transit to my in-laws house where the kids are. They were (of course) SO excited to see us. But the next morning Frances was in a funk. When we brought out the gifts from India, she was excited to see, then disappointed. She pouted, wouldn't talk to us. Then outside she got in a scuffle with her grandma and not only wouldn't give the big wheel back to Clark though he very nicely asked, but she wouldn't talk to anyone. Just sat heavy on the big wheel with her chin down and her face set. Later on I found her outside by herself on the big wheel, riding in circles on the brick patio, sobbing. When I opened the door she stopped crying and wouldn't talk to me. Hey- sometimes a girl just needs a good cry.

As I've mentioned before, she has a hard time with transitions. And this is a big one in her world. We've been gone 7 weeks from our house; she's been here in Michigan with Clark for 2 weeks without parents; here we've come home and probably we are not the fabulous people she missed so much in her mind, but instead just ourselves. Emotions are hard to handle, especially when they loom so large in a nearly-five-year-old body. AND I forgot some of my new resolve to attend to my children differently, and rather than spending the morning with her sitting on my lap, if that's what she wanted to do, I organized my india photos on the computer while she helped Grandma with the pancakes and periodically tried to get my attention. Bad mommy! I could have done that later, and should have. But it is what it is, and now I remember said resolve, and I'm back in the game.

In fact, I've got a whole new approach to parenting up my sleeve for when we return. Much of its success will depend on my emotional state, which I'm hoping will remain positive and relaxed, and we'll see.

I will:
~ do more planning ahead for activities, as complicated as art projects and as simple as riding our trikes to the big bush down the street.
~ leave the house more. visit friends just to say hi for an hour, or go to Ellison park to roll down the big hill, or seek out a bubble gum machine at the strip mall.

(And there I quit the post, which is why I never posted it in the first place: it needed an ending. I don't have one now, however, and I'm here to offer you these thoughts anyway. Cheers!)

the girl tries me

Seriously new territory. I need a book or something to tell me how to wade through this. Is it true that if the girl child is particularly difficult at age 5 she won't be so bad at 13? Can I only hope? It's like she's hormonal or something. Seriously. Here's what happens: she gets upset about something (like my telling her to please stop wrapping Clark's blankie around his head, though he's screamed "STOP IT SISSY!!" eight times already and shoved her away her twice) and she gets this look on her face. She just stands there, stony, and won't talk to me, won't move. Then she does something with the absolute intent of pissing me off. Yesterday she put both the phone and the oven timer in the trash, then she tossed my Kendle across the room. Ahem.

Conversely, Clark is the sweetest cutest three-year-old on which I have ever laid eyes. "Do you know," he asks at dinner, his eyes big with import, "that frogs are bigger than bugs? Do you know that?" Tonight I was off to the grocery while he ate his snack before bed and four times he said, "Mama, can I have just one more hug?" I put my arms around him and he lays all his weight into me, so warm and sweet.

It's true that Frances has just had a major adjustment. We are home (home boring home) after 7 weeks of travel and entertainment round the clock. She's always been more sensitive than Clark, less able to roll with it. It's like her skin is thinner, more exposed, tender. And everyone I tell about her behavior says, "Frances? She's so polite and sweet and easy to be around." For you, maybe. She saves up the other just for me.

Although it could very well be nothing more than boredom and adjustment, my inclination is that it's about control. After all, kids in general are on the receiving end of lots of directives. Time to go. Put on your shoes. Climb in the car. Buckle up. Eat this. Brush your teeth. Turn off the tv. No cheetos before 10am. Wash your hands. Don't chew the paper. Please take the tutu off the dog. One would indeed feel powerless. So she's figured out how to get a little power for herself. Oh, the myriad of responses I could have... I've been trying them all out. I am seriously at a loss about it. Traditional techniques are being met with sweeping failure and escalating behavior. Lovely.

Is it a stage? Just a stage that will pass like the others? It's always so hard to tell. About all I know for sure is that it's a pain in my ass and I feel like I'm missing some essential piece of information, like the 6-page instruction manual came without pages 3 and 4.

And there are other times when she's perfectly wonderful. Sweet and loving and fun to talk with and laugh with. I'll focus on those in my mind. 

august day

You know the Frog and Toad story The List? Where Toad writes down on a list everything he's going to do for the day? Here is Frances' list.

When she said she was going to make a list, I don't know, I thought she was going to "write" (scribble, random letters, squiggles that resemble my writing) lines of text. I'm rather impressed with her thinking of drawing her list instead. At the top is the bed for her to get out of in the morning, then apparently we're having cereal for breakfast and using a spoon, then art camp where she used a slab of clay yesterday that I suppose resembled this one, then I wish I knew what was on that lunch plate, then naptime, then go to the pet store because they have a gumball machine and Frances has quarters (four of them, and she happily shared two with her brother), then a toothbrush that looks rather like a tree to brush teeth, then bed. And that's just what we did.