The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Swedish Love
“Go meet a nice Swedish boy!” my host mother called out to me. It was my second week in Sweden. I was 23, and enjoying my stay. Officially, I was there studying their health care system for my master’s project. In truth, I wanted to travel and have an adventure. “I’ll see what I can do,” I called back.
Three months earlier I’d had a dream. It was on Valentine’s night, after having a party with my single, and not the least bit bitter (OK, maybe a tiny bit) female friends who also did not have dates on this annual night of relationship-status reflection.
(Cue dream-land music) I was taking a bus (no one I knew took the bus in Los Angeles, but it’s a dream, so work with me here) to a night club. I walked in, and saw HIM. He was someone I felt I knew, and was handsome, in a good-person way that makes you just want to smile. I was so happy that I immediately hugged him. He took my hand, and led me outside. In my journal (yes, I did write this down) I describe it as a French courtyard with cobblestones and window boxes with flowers. He leaned down and kissed me, one of the most romantic kisses I’d ever had.
I looked up and saw three moons in the sky. “Wow!” I exclaimed, “Look at the moons!” as if three moons in the sky weren’t that unusual.
When I awoke, I was smiling. I felt happy and hopeful.
Maybe the guy I’d just met at a dance club a few nights back was the one! That annoying voice in my head reminded me that the number he gave me, upon urgings from his friends, had been the wrong one. I called it four times. For some reason, he hadn’t called me. I checked my message light just to be sure. Still not blinking.
I told a friend about the dream, and she said that three moons mean three months. “Three months?” I whined. “I don’t want to wait that long. And anyway, I’ll be in Sweden.”
However, three months and two days after the dream, I was on my way to a pub with a new Swedish friend. She was bitter about a recent breakup (some things are universal) so we chose a place where she wouldn’t run into her ex.
We sat outside at a table for four. We ate dinner and talked. All of a sudden. I noticed the moon overhead. It was beautiful. “Look at the moon!” I said to her. My dream rushed back to me. I got chills as I noticed the cobblestones on the ground, and the fake windows with flowerboxes underneath them, creating a scene. I didn’t tell my friend about the dream, but jokingly said, “I’ve got to meet a Swedish boy!”
Five minutes later, two handsome guys came over to our table. They spoke in Swedish, and I smiled and nodded, pretending I could understand. I thought they were asking to take our extra chairs. Suddenly they sat down with us! That never happened to me in the U.S.
My friend said I was American, and they immediately switched to English. They were brothers. The older one, sitting across from me, liked to talk. The one sitting next to me was almost silent, except for offering English words when his talkative brother got stuck. After the conversation lulled, I turned to the quiet guy next to me, and felt an immediate connection. I had this almost-uncontrollable urge to put my hand on his knee. As if I knew him already. His name was Mats.
My friend went home around midnight, but I stayed out with Mats and his brother. I was in a country I barely knew, with two guys I had just met, but I felt very safe. We went to another bar and he bought me a hot chocolate. It was love. Around three a.m. it was time to take the last bus home. They walked me to my stop, and we exchanged numbers.
He called me the next day (significant for all you “Swingers” movie fans out there) and soon we had the first of many dates to come. Eleven years later, we are still together. Married, with young children, it’s nice to remember the romantic way we met.
Somehow, amid the diaper changes and sleepless nights, we need to connect again like we did that first night we met.
By Kristy Lund
Stumble This Post
Three months earlier I’d had a dream. It was on Valentine’s night, after having a party with my single, and not the least bit bitter (OK, maybe a tiny bit) female friends who also did not have dates on this annual night of relationship-status reflection.
(Cue dream-land music) I was taking a bus (no one I knew took the bus in Los Angeles, but it’s a dream, so work with me here) to a night club. I walked in, and saw HIM. He was someone I felt I knew, and was handsome, in a good-person way that makes you just want to smile. I was so happy that I immediately hugged him. He took my hand, and led me outside. In my journal (yes, I did write this down) I describe it as a French courtyard with cobblestones and window boxes with flowers. He leaned down and kissed me, one of the most romantic kisses I’d ever had.
I looked up and saw three moons in the sky. “Wow!” I exclaimed, “Look at the moons!” as if three moons in the sky weren’t that unusual.
When I awoke, I was smiling. I felt happy and hopeful.
Maybe the guy I’d just met at a dance club a few nights back was the one! That annoying voice in my head reminded me that the number he gave me, upon urgings from his friends, had been the wrong one. I called it four times. For some reason, he hadn’t called me. I checked my message light just to be sure. Still not blinking.
I told a friend about the dream, and she said that three moons mean three months. “Three months?” I whined. “I don’t want to wait that long. And anyway, I’ll be in Sweden.”
However, three months and two days after the dream, I was on my way to a pub with a new Swedish friend. She was bitter about a recent breakup (some things are universal) so we chose a place where she wouldn’t run into her ex.
We sat outside at a table for four. We ate dinner and talked. All of a sudden. I noticed the moon overhead. It was beautiful. “Look at the moon!” I said to her. My dream rushed back to me. I got chills as I noticed the cobblestones on the ground, and the fake windows with flowerboxes underneath them, creating a scene. I didn’t tell my friend about the dream, but jokingly said, “I’ve got to meet a Swedish boy!”
Five minutes later, two handsome guys came over to our table. They spoke in Swedish, and I smiled and nodded, pretending I could understand. I thought they were asking to take our extra chairs. Suddenly they sat down with us! That never happened to me in the U.S.
My friend said I was American, and they immediately switched to English. They were brothers. The older one, sitting across from me, liked to talk. The one sitting next to me was almost silent, except for offering English words when his talkative brother got stuck. After the conversation lulled, I turned to the quiet guy next to me, and felt an immediate connection. I had this almost-uncontrollable urge to put my hand on his knee. As if I knew him already. His name was Mats.
My friend went home around midnight, but I stayed out with Mats and his brother. I was in a country I barely knew, with two guys I had just met, but I felt very safe. We went to another bar and he bought me a hot chocolate. It was love. Around three a.m. it was time to take the last bus home. They walked me to my stop, and we exchanged numbers.
He called me the next day (significant for all you “Swingers” movie fans out there) and soon we had the first of many dates to come. Eleven years later, we are still together. Married, with young children, it’s nice to remember the romantic way we met.
Somehow, amid the diaper changes and sleepless nights, we need to connect again like we did that first night we met.
By Kristy Lund
Labels: Kristy Lund
Stumble This Post
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Bad Hand
My oldest has the week off. None of his high school vacations mesh with his sibling’s elementary school, and most of his friends are out of town.
Before he went up to the snow with his dad and brother all he wanted was to sit with me and watch season three of “Lost.” I am suddenly his only pal.
This is a huge shift, and I’ll take it, though I did have scads of other things I wanted to do. I had started painting his brother’s room and needed to finish so he could move back in. There were books stacked on the dining room table I wanted to sort through and take to the used bookstore. I needed to buy mulch.
Now my boys are up in the snow and my youngest is welded to my side. She had an episode of acid reflux. The burning feeling sent her into a panic and I pick her up early from school. The tears and fear have increased the raw feeling in her throat so now we are doing deep breathing and she is in bed with me drawing and writing in her journal.
She makes a list: relax, breathe, drink water, and eat saltines… Her drawing shows a knife going into her stomach and fire in her throat. She can’t swallow pills and it sends her into another panic when I try to put one in her applesauce and it doesn’t work. It was the beginning of our girls’ only weekend and she was not up for much more than snuggling in my bed.
The phone rings and it’s my middle son. I’m happy to hear from him but I’m not so delusional to think that with endless pizza and violent videos he should think to call me to chat.
“Hi Mom! I broke my arm.” He’s thirteen and vague on details: ducked a snowball while snowboarding, X-ray, splint, Tylenol, out for the season. “Guess I’ll get my French homework done. Here’s Dad.”
Dad is even more vague. “He’s fine. Don’t worry.” I know I won’t get details until I can physically corner one of them.
I’m fanned out like a bad hand of gin rummy.
By Mary Allison Tierney Stumble This Post
Before he went up to the snow with his dad and brother all he wanted was to sit with me and watch season three of “Lost.” I am suddenly his only pal.
This is a huge shift, and I’ll take it, though I did have scads of other things I wanted to do. I had started painting his brother’s room and needed to finish so he could move back in. There were books stacked on the dining room table I wanted to sort through and take to the used bookstore. I needed to buy mulch.
Now my boys are up in the snow and my youngest is welded to my side. She had an episode of acid reflux. The burning feeling sent her into a panic and I pick her up early from school. The tears and fear have increased the raw feeling in her throat so now we are doing deep breathing and she is in bed with me drawing and writing in her journal.
She makes a list: relax, breathe, drink water, and eat saltines… Her drawing shows a knife going into her stomach and fire in her throat. She can’t swallow pills and it sends her into another panic when I try to put one in her applesauce and it doesn’t work. It was the beginning of our girls’ only weekend and she was not up for much more than snuggling in my bed.
The phone rings and it’s my middle son. I’m happy to hear from him but I’m not so delusional to think that with endless pizza and violent videos he should think to call me to chat.
“Hi Mom! I broke my arm.” He’s thirteen and vague on details: ducked a snowball while snowboarding, X-ray, splint, Tylenol, out for the season. “Guess I’ll get my French homework done. Here’s Dad.”
Dad is even more vague. “He’s fine. Don’t worry.” I know I won’t get details until I can physically corner one of them.
I’m fanned out like a bad hand of gin rummy.
By Mary Allison Tierney
Labels: Mary Allison Tierney
Stumble This Post
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Potty Time for Mama
After four years of going to the bathroom with an audience, I wished for the thing that every mom told not to: that my kids would grow up soon in hopes of being able to visit the restroom in private.
I used to like to sit and think on the toilet. It was my place to, well, re-group. I remember as a child when my dad told me he was going on a retreat to be silent and think. My response was, “Can’t you do that in the bathroom?”
Like most things, we get used to the status quo. So, as a mom of two young sons, I would announce, “Mommy’s going to the bathroom!” and we would all march in like it was a special occasion.
My two-year-old would broadcast, after watching and listening for the signs, “Mama pee pee!” and my four-year old would shout, “Yay, Mommy!” They would take turns flushing, a system we worked out after several fights.
My two-year-old would say, “Bye-bye, pee pee!” and wave as the toilet flushed. Sometimes I asked for privacy, for womanly reasons, but most of the time, I had a cheering section.
I knew it was important to model potty behavior, as this is how they learn. But having two extra bodies in our closet-of-a-bathroom made it somewhat claustrophobic quarters for getting my daily business done.
Then it happened.
One day I proclaimed I was going to the bathroom, and they continued playing with their trains, discussing which bridge was broken, running their trams off it, fixing it, only to purposely break it all over again.
I figured they hadn’t heard me, and quietly made my way to the toilet, happy to have a moment alone. I peed, and no one was there to announce it. I pooped, and no one cheered. I was the only witness to my accomplishments.
Then I realized -- I had empty bathroom syndrome.
“Mommy went pee pee!” I yelled to them. No response. I knew what would bring them running: “Mommy went poo poo!!!”
Nothing.
As the cliché goes, be careful what you wish for. I guess my sons have grown out of our special sharing space. Their fascination and curiosity replaced by toys and trains. I never thought I would admit it – but I miss my cheering section.
Oh, well, at least I have my privacy, my thoughts and a few good magazines.
By Kristy Lund Stumble This Post
I used to like to sit and think on the toilet. It was my place to, well, re-group. I remember as a child when my dad told me he was going on a retreat to be silent and think. My response was, “Can’t you do that in the bathroom?”
Like most things, we get used to the status quo. So, as a mom of two young sons, I would announce, “Mommy’s going to the bathroom!” and we would all march in like it was a special occasion.
My two-year-old would broadcast, after watching and listening for the signs, “Mama pee pee!” and my four-year old would shout, “Yay, Mommy!” They would take turns flushing, a system we worked out after several fights.
My two-year-old would say, “Bye-bye, pee pee!” and wave as the toilet flushed. Sometimes I asked for privacy, for womanly reasons, but most of the time, I had a cheering section.
I knew it was important to model potty behavior, as this is how they learn. But having two extra bodies in our closet-of-a-bathroom made it somewhat claustrophobic quarters for getting my daily business done.
Then it happened.
One day I proclaimed I was going to the bathroom, and they continued playing with their trains, discussing which bridge was broken, running their trams off it, fixing it, only to purposely break it all over again.
I figured they hadn’t heard me, and quietly made my way to the toilet, happy to have a moment alone. I peed, and no one was there to announce it. I pooped, and no one cheered. I was the only witness to my accomplishments.
Then I realized -- I had empty bathroom syndrome.
“Mommy went pee pee!” I yelled to them. No response. I knew what would bring them running: “Mommy went poo poo!!!”
Nothing.
As the cliché goes, be careful what you wish for. I guess my sons have grown out of our special sharing space. Their fascination and curiosity replaced by toys and trains. I never thought I would admit it – but I miss my cheering section.
Oh, well, at least I have my privacy, my thoughts and a few good magazines.
By Kristy Lund
Labels: Kristy Lund
Stumble This Post
Friday, March 28, 2008
Training Day
My first bra was a hand-me-down. I have three older female cousins and I’ll never know with whom this one originated, but I did know that it didn’t fit.
My aunt told me that it was mandatory for a girl my age to wear a bra and I was under her care for the summer, so my time had come.
The bra was white cotton, with lumpy cups from too many washings and it itched. It felt like cardboard under my T-shirt and the straps pulled on my sunburn.
Riding a bicycle barefoot on the country roads in Texas in the summer had been a liberating feeling. But with this new-to-me recycled bra I felt constricted.
I couldn’t lift my arms without it riding up and then I had to stop the bike and tug it down. I was always pulling and adjusting and now I was completely self-conscious. Did it show through my shirt? The easy freedom of summer had hit a lumpy cotton wall.
Once I was back home, my bra went missing after a birthday sleepover. The birthday girl was a pain in the ass and had taken it out of my overnight bag. She told me she was going to hang it on the door of our classroom at school on Monday morning. I got there early to stake out the entrance. She didn’t make good on the threat, and she never returned my bra.
I did research and found a Danskin bra that I wanted. Sold in dance stores, this was the precursor to today’s sports bra. No hooks. No lumpy cups, and it fit. I could move!
Except for a brief flirtation with Victoria’s Secret in the 1980s, I have stayed loyal to the same style since I was eleven.
By Mary Allison Tierney Stumble This Post
My aunt told me that it was mandatory for a girl my age to wear a bra and I was under her care for the summer, so my time had come.
The bra was white cotton, with lumpy cups from too many washings and it itched. It felt like cardboard under my T-shirt and the straps pulled on my sunburn.
Riding a bicycle barefoot on the country roads in Texas in the summer had been a liberating feeling. But with this new-to-me recycled bra I felt constricted.
I couldn’t lift my arms without it riding up and then I had to stop the bike and tug it down. I was always pulling and adjusting and now I was completely self-conscious. Did it show through my shirt? The easy freedom of summer had hit a lumpy cotton wall.
Once I was back home, my bra went missing after a birthday sleepover. The birthday girl was a pain in the ass and had taken it out of my overnight bag. She told me she was going to hang it on the door of our classroom at school on Monday morning. I got there early to stake out the entrance. She didn’t make good on the threat, and she never returned my bra.
I did research and found a Danskin bra that I wanted. Sold in dance stores, this was the precursor to today’s sports bra. No hooks. No lumpy cups, and it fit. I could move!
Except for a brief flirtation with Victoria’s Secret in the 1980s, I have stayed loyal to the same style since I was eleven.
By Mary Allison Tierney
Labels: Mary Allison Tierney
Stumble This Post
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Drool
Who knew drool could say so much?
I was born with a clean face and a reasonably shaped head. However, my “Baby’s First Photo” shows a child with one beautiful cheek and one severely blemished by self-toxic drool.
It was my initiation into a society that praises outward appearance. The visitor arrives at the hospital and is barely able to get out the “What a cute baby!” before the corners of her mouth drop, then move back upward, but the eyes show it all.
I was lucky that neither scarred me for life.
When I was ten years old, nature’s glue was exemplified by the substance of icky happiness. It meant a tennis ball saturated with slobber, dropped at my feet by my dog, Misty, who kept her eyes transfixed on it until I would pick up that ball and throw it until my arm was too tired to do it again.
That drool spoke of the ease of happiness and the desire to exhaustively recreate that feeling for both of us.
When I was in my twenties, drool meant some drunken guy unsuccessfully trying to pick up on me at a dance club, spit flying in places it had no right to travel. Since I had so much independence, free will, and choice -- this time of life was about weeding out whose drool I wanted on me.
I finally found him and was rewarded with a wonderful husband.
In my thirties, I had two kids and this was my first jump full-on into the pool of drool. The quantity itself was overwhelming, and I was like a salivation magnet. Smelly drool, sticky drool, colored drool.
Since it was unavoidable, this drool was used more as an evaluation of the development of my babies, both physically and mentally. Are they teething? Does that amount of drool indicate a mental problem? Eventually they grew out of the drool and became beautiful boys.
Now, as I age and bear witness to my grandmother in her fog of Alzheimer’s, I cannot help but let my thoughts wander to the possibilities of old drool.
Staring out the window, drool hanging out of my own mouth, my grown men by my side, a hand brushed across a face blemished with life, yet hopeful that I have enough of my faculty to picture that dog, ears flapping in the wind, pink tongue wagging, hell-bent on getting that ball again.
By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy Stumble This Post
I was born with a clean face and a reasonably shaped head. However, my “Baby’s First Photo” shows a child with one beautiful cheek and one severely blemished by self-toxic drool.
It was my initiation into a society that praises outward appearance. The visitor arrives at the hospital and is barely able to get out the “What a cute baby!” before the corners of her mouth drop, then move back upward, but the eyes show it all.
I was lucky that neither scarred me for life.
When I was ten years old, nature’s glue was exemplified by the substance of icky happiness. It meant a tennis ball saturated with slobber, dropped at my feet by my dog, Misty, who kept her eyes transfixed on it until I would pick up that ball and throw it until my arm was too tired to do it again.
That drool spoke of the ease of happiness and the desire to exhaustively recreate that feeling for both of us.
When I was in my twenties, drool meant some drunken guy unsuccessfully trying to pick up on me at a dance club, spit flying in places it had no right to travel. Since I had so much independence, free will, and choice -- this time of life was about weeding out whose drool I wanted on me.
I finally found him and was rewarded with a wonderful husband.
In my thirties, I had two kids and this was my first jump full-on into the pool of drool. The quantity itself was overwhelming, and I was like a salivation magnet. Smelly drool, sticky drool, colored drool.
Since it was unavoidable, this drool was used more as an evaluation of the development of my babies, both physically and mentally. Are they teething? Does that amount of drool indicate a mental problem? Eventually they grew out of the drool and became beautiful boys.
Now, as I age and bear witness to my grandmother in her fog of Alzheimer’s, I cannot help but let my thoughts wander to the possibilities of old drool.
Staring out the window, drool hanging out of my own mouth, my grown men by my side, a hand brushed across a face blemished with life, yet hopeful that I have enough of my faculty to picture that dog, ears flapping in the wind, pink tongue wagging, hell-bent on getting that ball again.
By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy
Labels: Jennifer O'Shaughnessy
Stumble This Post
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Shouting in Public
I don’t know what got into me. I’m not someone who normally shouts at people in public.
But that’s what I did one Saturday a few weeks ago.
I was taking my son out for a walk in my family friendly neighborhood and decided to get him a cookie at our local café.
When we entered, my son immediately ran to one of two available tables, climbing up on the bench and putting his face to the window. My eyes swept the area: friendly faces, kids running around, and an unattended cup of orange juice at the table next to us. My subconscious deemed the environment safe.
I told my son to stay there, I’m going to the cash register (I pointed at it), and I’ll be right back. Now, I know a two-year-old is not inclined to “stay there,” but the register was four strides away and my eyes would be on him the whole time.
I watched him as I walked to the register and ordered. “Stay there, honey. Mom is getting you a cookie,” I said repeatedly. He was licking the window.
I turned to pay for the cookie. In those seconds, I heard a woman shout, “No!!!!!!”
Flipping back, I saw that my son had climbed off the bench and was reaching toward a cup of coffee that now appeared next to the orange juice.
“Julien!” I shouted. “Go sit down.”
I had to say this twice, but, reluctantly, he obeyed.
I took the cookie and settled down next to him, cuddling and playing.
The owner of the coffee sat down at her table and watched us. Then she spoke.
“You know, he almost got my coffee.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, no. I’m not worried about me; I was worried about him.”
“You know, I didn’t see the coffee there.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m a nurse and you know what the number one reason children come into the emergency room with?”
“Burns?” I tried, shamefully.
“Well, accidents. You shouldn’t leave your son near coffee like that.”
Functioning on little sleep, under all kinds of pressure, with my husband out of town, my son sick and refusing his naps, and my back wacked out again, the full strain of motherhood was upon me.
Suddenly, I had an edge in my voice.
“Look, I didn’t see the coffee, OK? Just the orange juice.”
“Well, you shouldn’t leave your child there…”
I snapped.
“I’m not perfect you know!” I shouted on the verge of tears.
“I didn’t say you were. I was just…”
“Being a mom is hard work,” I said, annunciating each word. Heads lifted and turned. I didn’t care.
“I, I, I was just alarmed, that’s all,” she said, and then lifted her newspaper to her face.
I went back to playing with my son, shaken but defiant. There it was. Me defending my motherhood -- flaws and all.
By Cindy Bailey Stumble This Post
But that’s what I did one Saturday a few weeks ago.
I was taking my son out for a walk in my family friendly neighborhood and decided to get him a cookie at our local café.
When we entered, my son immediately ran to one of two available tables, climbing up on the bench and putting his face to the window. My eyes swept the area: friendly faces, kids running around, and an unattended cup of orange juice at the table next to us. My subconscious deemed the environment safe.
I told my son to stay there, I’m going to the cash register (I pointed at it), and I’ll be right back. Now, I know a two-year-old is not inclined to “stay there,” but the register was four strides away and my eyes would be on him the whole time.
I watched him as I walked to the register and ordered. “Stay there, honey. Mom is getting you a cookie,” I said repeatedly. He was licking the window.
I turned to pay for the cookie. In those seconds, I heard a woman shout, “No!!!!!!”
Flipping back, I saw that my son had climbed off the bench and was reaching toward a cup of coffee that now appeared next to the orange juice.
“Julien!” I shouted. “Go sit down.”
I had to say this twice, but, reluctantly, he obeyed.
I took the cookie and settled down next to him, cuddling and playing.
The owner of the coffee sat down at her table and watched us. Then she spoke.
“You know, he almost got my coffee.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, no. I’m not worried about me; I was worried about him.”
“You know, I didn’t see the coffee there.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m a nurse and you know what the number one reason children come into the emergency room with?”
“Burns?” I tried, shamefully.
“Well, accidents. You shouldn’t leave your son near coffee like that.”
Functioning on little sleep, under all kinds of pressure, with my husband out of town, my son sick and refusing his naps, and my back wacked out again, the full strain of motherhood was upon me.
Suddenly, I had an edge in my voice.
“Look, I didn’t see the coffee, OK? Just the orange juice.”
“Well, you shouldn’t leave your child there…”
I snapped.
“I’m not perfect you know!” I shouted on the verge of tears.
“I didn’t say you were. I was just…”
“Being a mom is hard work,” I said, annunciating each word. Heads lifted and turned. I didn’t care.
“I, I, I was just alarmed, that’s all,” she said, and then lifted her newspaper to her face.
I went back to playing with my son, shaken but defiant. There it was. Me defending my motherhood -- flaws and all.
By Cindy Bailey
Labels: Cindy Bailey
Stumble This Post
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Full Circle
I wrote this in 1975 after spending a day with my son who at the time was two years old, going on three. I sent it to him today as he is the stay at home father of Ruby Nicole who is two going on three.
I had come into the house from an hour or two spent in the yard exploring nature’s wonders and
playing in the sandbox. I put him down for a nap and sat down to my typewriter and wrote.
I want to thank you, Nathaniel, for keeping me in touch with the intuitive.
What you know at two, I must learn again. Is this wisdom?
I must learn the love and fascination of simple things: moons, bugs and love.
I thank you for teaching me that the answer to “I love you” is “I know it.”
I thank you for forgiving my hassles and mistakes, listening to my home-made lullabies, and being someone fun and rewarding to be with.
I thank you for the instantaneous joy of lizards, butterflies and creek water that ripples over our bare feet, and the pleasure of wading in puddles after the rain.
I thank you for proving that a penny is still a magic coin that buys bubble gum from the machine and shouts of “I got a blue one,” or yellow or green. A penny still fits in your shoe and gives a bounce to your step with thoughts of the delights it will buy.
A penny makes the red flag in the parking meter disappear. A penny is a power that spins and rolls and sometimes disappears down cracks producing laughter, sighs, and tears.
You teach me that tears are free, self-created floods that release the pressure behind the dam and allow the sunny smiles that follow close behind to appear again.
You make me happy that I am still here to see you turn three. You teach me simplicity while you daily learn complicated things.
You make me realize that all your intuitive truths will be severely tested before you turn them into wisdom and that maybe this will never have a chance to occur.
But today, I thank you most of all for just being you, almost three, and at this moment, here with me.
Love you, Mom
By Ruth Scott Stumble This Post
I had come into the house from an hour or two spent in the yard exploring nature’s wonders and
playing in the sandbox. I put him down for a nap and sat down to my typewriter and wrote.
I want to thank you, Nathaniel, for keeping me in touch with the intuitive.
What you know at two, I must learn again. Is this wisdom?
I must learn the love and fascination of simple things: moons, bugs and love.
I thank you for teaching me that the answer to “I love you” is “I know it.”
I thank you for forgiving my hassles and mistakes, listening to my home-made lullabies, and being someone fun and rewarding to be with.
I thank you for the instantaneous joy of lizards, butterflies and creek water that ripples over our bare feet, and the pleasure of wading in puddles after the rain.
I thank you for proving that a penny is still a magic coin that buys bubble gum from the machine and shouts of “I got a blue one,” or yellow or green. A penny still fits in your shoe and gives a bounce to your step with thoughts of the delights it will buy.
A penny makes the red flag in the parking meter disappear. A penny is a power that spins and rolls and sometimes disappears down cracks producing laughter, sighs, and tears.
You teach me that tears are free, self-created floods that release the pressure behind the dam and allow the sunny smiles that follow close behind to appear again.
You make me happy that I am still here to see you turn three. You teach me simplicity while you daily learn complicated things.
You make me realize that all your intuitive truths will be severely tested before you turn them into wisdom and that maybe this will never have a chance to occur.
But today, I thank you most of all for just being you, almost three, and at this moment, here with me.
Love you, Mom
By Ruth Scott
Labels: Ruth Scott
Stumble This Post
Monday, March 24, 2008
An Appetite for Illness
I don’t exactly enjoy being sick, but I try to find the silver lining. Like catching up on the New Yorker or losing my appetite.
It’s not easy for me to lose weight. The exception was during my first trimester of pregnancy, when even opening the refrigerator door sent me running to the toilet. Each of my pregnancies began with an effortless five-pound weight loss.
But I’m long past the breeding years. And menopause has a way of making an already faint-hearted metabolism even more sluggish.
Despite these sorry truths, I’ve managed to lose 25 pounds and not find them again for more than six years. Still, not a day goes by that I don’t fume at the injustice that calories do count, even when sneaked surreptitiously in the kitchen, a sliver of chocolate cake here, a spoonful of Haagen Dazs there.
“Do you think it’s sick that I don’t mind being sick because at least I’ll lose weight?” I ask my husband.
“Yes,” he responds with disdain.
My husband fits into the same clothes he had in high school. He can eat anything without gaining an ounce. Worse, it would never even occur to him to eat pizza for breakfast or chocolate chip cookies before dinner. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.
I take to the couch for the duration of the virus, sustained by a steady diet of green tea and cough drops.
After a week, it’s time for my Weight Watchers’ meeting. I still feel like hell, but I drag myself out of bed. It’s a rare event to approach that weigh-in with confidence, and I intend to reap the rewards of the sickbed. As soon as I’m well, I run the risk of making up for lost time.
I get on the scale. It’s up two-tenths of a pound.
Who knew that cough drops could be so fattening?
By Lorrie Goldin Stumble This Post
It’s not easy for me to lose weight. The exception was during my first trimester of pregnancy, when even opening the refrigerator door sent me running to the toilet. Each of my pregnancies began with an effortless five-pound weight loss.
But I’m long past the breeding years. And menopause has a way of making an already faint-hearted metabolism even more sluggish.
Despite these sorry truths, I’ve managed to lose 25 pounds and not find them again for more than six years. Still, not a day goes by that I don’t fume at the injustice that calories do count, even when sneaked surreptitiously in the kitchen, a sliver of chocolate cake here, a spoonful of Haagen Dazs there.
“Do you think it’s sick that I don’t mind being sick because at least I’ll lose weight?” I ask my husband.
“Yes,” he responds with disdain.
My husband fits into the same clothes he had in high school. He can eat anything without gaining an ounce. Worse, it would never even occur to him to eat pizza for breakfast or chocolate chip cookies before dinner. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.
I take to the couch for the duration of the virus, sustained by a steady diet of green tea and cough drops.
After a week, it’s time for my Weight Watchers’ meeting. I still feel like hell, but I drag myself out of bed. It’s a rare event to approach that weigh-in with confidence, and I intend to reap the rewards of the sickbed. As soon as I’m well, I run the risk of making up for lost time.
I get on the scale. It’s up two-tenths of a pound.
Who knew that cough drops could be so fattening?
By Lorrie Goldin
Labels: Lorrie Goldin
Stumble This Post
Sunday, March 23, 2008
It Won't Last Forever
The babysitter took our son, Alex, to Land’s End, where vendors stopped hawking at tourists to coo at the baby. “You should enjoy ‘em while they’re this age, because it won’t last forever,” they told her.
She found that amusing. Wait a minute, I thought, that’s our kid you’re talking about. We’re paying her fifteen bucks an hour to spend a gorgeous day with our kid while I’m dusting off files to do the taxes.
I wolfed down some lunch while she leisurely strolled the five blocks back to the house. My boobs were bursting, and threatened to stain the W2s and 1098 forms. They make sure I’m never late: better at reminding me to be on schedule than the tax man.
And then it was time to strap on My Brest Friend, a cocktail waitress sort of contraption which frees me to do other things while nursing. Like the taxes. While he was perched like a baby seal on the cushion, I reached past him at a year’s worth of statements, medical records, writing receipts spread out like confetti.
Without the doting attention of grandparents or an idyllic village to raise the little ones, I spend too much time worrying about childcare.
Our regular babysitter aroused me from a last-ditch attempt at slumber early one morning. “I got scheduled for surgery tomorow, and I probably won’t make it today.”
No time to flip out. I shuffled through my mental Rolodex. Nancy, a mother of four who was hustling her last kid toward college, did not pick up her phone. My mother-in-law was lukewarm to babysitting; she’s been there, done that. Luckily, an old friend called and I rallied her out of sabbatical bliss to cover the gap in coverage between Andrew’s work schedule and mine.
When I left the house, Alex was a fed, dry-diapered, smiling imp who hadn’t mustered enough stranger anxiety to feel left once more with a new pair of helping hands. Half an hour later, my friend called to report that he was crying inconsolably.
“Are there tears in his eyes?” I asked her. That meant hunger, true suffering.
She said no. Crocodile tears, that meant he just needed some companionship.
“But I’m holding him,” she told me.
“Waaaaahhh!” Alex protested.
“Maybe he’s teething. Try the plastic bumblebee.” I could see my kid, with the big purple wing in his mouth, which gives him a Cheshire cat of a grin.
“Waaaaahhh!”
“Okay, try walking him around upright.” A change of scene sometimes works, as my husband has discovered.
Patty took him to the basement, a dungeon of baby wipes, a hand-me-down tricycle, and high chair waiting in the wings. Alex calmed down, and Mom’s anxiety ramped down a few notches.
Life with our first child has been a relay race. And yet, I’ve stopped enough amidst the frenzy to realize that this is a special time. Babyhood, like hives and acnes – both of which he’s had with a vengeance – will come to pass soon enough.
“You might take him out in the stroller, get some sunshine,” I suggested. My friend, our latest babysitter, might just be able to enjoy our baby boy at this age -- while it lasts.
By Li Miao Lovett Stumble This Post
She found that amusing. Wait a minute, I thought, that’s our kid you’re talking about. We’re paying her fifteen bucks an hour to spend a gorgeous day with our kid while I’m dusting off files to do the taxes.
I wolfed down some lunch while she leisurely strolled the five blocks back to the house. My boobs were bursting, and threatened to stain the W2s and 1098 forms. They make sure I’m never late: better at reminding me to be on schedule than the tax man.
And then it was time to strap on My Brest Friend, a cocktail waitress sort of contraption which frees me to do other things while nursing. Like the taxes. While he was perched like a baby seal on the cushion, I reached past him at a year’s worth of statements, medical records, writing receipts spread out like confetti.
Without the doting attention of grandparents or an idyllic village to raise the little ones, I spend too much time worrying about childcare.
Our regular babysitter aroused me from a last-ditch attempt at slumber early one morning. “I got scheduled for surgery tomorow, and I probably won’t make it today.”
No time to flip out. I shuffled through my mental Rolodex. Nancy, a mother of four who was hustling her last kid toward college, did not pick up her phone. My mother-in-law was lukewarm to babysitting; she’s been there, done that. Luckily, an old friend called and I rallied her out of sabbatical bliss to cover the gap in coverage between Andrew’s work schedule and mine.
When I left the house, Alex was a fed, dry-diapered, smiling imp who hadn’t mustered enough stranger anxiety to feel left once more with a new pair of helping hands. Half an hour later, my friend called to report that he was crying inconsolably.
“Are there tears in his eyes?” I asked her. That meant hunger, true suffering.
She said no. Crocodile tears, that meant he just needed some companionship.
“But I’m holding him,” she told me.
“Waaaaahhh!” Alex protested.
“Maybe he’s teething. Try the plastic bumblebee.” I could see my kid, with the big purple wing in his mouth, which gives him a Cheshire cat of a grin.
“Waaaaahhh!”
“Okay, try walking him around upright.” A change of scene sometimes works, as my husband has discovered.
Patty took him to the basement, a dungeon of baby wipes, a hand-me-down tricycle, and high chair waiting in the wings. Alex calmed down, and Mom’s anxiety ramped down a few notches.
Life with our first child has been a relay race. And yet, I’ve stopped enough amidst the frenzy to realize that this is a special time. Babyhood, like hives and acnes – both of which he’s had with a vengeance – will come to pass soon enough.
“You might take him out in the stroller, get some sunshine,” I suggested. My friend, our latest babysitter, might just be able to enjoy our baby boy at this age -- while it lasts.
By Li Miao Lovett
Labels: Li Miao Lovett
Stumble This Post
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Who's Parenting Who?
Eric is getting impossible to discipline. He beats me to the punch and takes away all of my fun.
After he gets an instant time-out for saying "stupid," "shut up," and/or "idiot" he gets sent to his room. His grand exit involves repeating the offensive word(s) with gusto and running to his room, locking it (it locks from the outside -- don't ask) and slamming the door behind him.
He is punishing himself. I didn’t even have time to put on my "mean mommy" face that usually accompanies my lecture.
"Okay, that's a double time-out!" I yell at his closed door. That will show him.
I feel slightly slighted.
I wanted the pleasure of escorting him to his room. I was all set to explain that we do not call names; that we need to use our nice language; that good behavior gets rewarded.
Whatever! This is his new favorite expression.
I try to enjoy the quiet. Where was that article I was trying to read before I was interrupted?
After ten minutes (the amount of a double time-out for the bad language and door slam) I go to release him. He is not interested.
“Go away!” he calls through the closed door.
“I want to be alone, please Mommy?”
Whatever. I unlock the door and go back to my magazine.
When he makes his re-appearance (sometimes even a half hour later) he is all smiles. "Sorry Mommy! Watch what I can do!"
He goes on to show me something new he discovered while locked in his room.
No more tears? How dare he sooth himself?
Are his self-directed time-outs actually working better than my constructive parenting?
By Cathy Burke Stumble This Post
After he gets an instant time-out for saying "stupid," "shut up," and/or "idiot" he gets sent to his room. His grand exit involves repeating the offensive word(s) with gusto and running to his room, locking it (it locks from the outside -- don't ask) and slamming the door behind him.
He is punishing himself. I didn’t even have time to put on my "mean mommy" face that usually accompanies my lecture.
"Okay, that's a double time-out!" I yell at his closed door. That will show him.
I feel slightly slighted.
I wanted the pleasure of escorting him to his room. I was all set to explain that we do not call names; that we need to use our nice language; that good behavior gets rewarded.
Whatever! This is his new favorite expression.
I try to enjoy the quiet. Where was that article I was trying to read before I was interrupted?
After ten minutes (the amount of a double time-out for the bad language and door slam) I go to release him. He is not interested.
“Go away!” he calls through the closed door.
“I want to be alone, please Mommy?”
Whatever. I unlock the door and go back to my magazine.
When he makes his re-appearance (sometimes even a half hour later) he is all smiles. "Sorry Mommy! Watch what I can do!"
He goes on to show me something new he discovered while locked in his room.
No more tears? How dare he sooth himself?
Are his self-directed time-outs actually working better than my constructive parenting?
By Cathy Burke
Labels: Cathy Burke
Stumble This Post
Friday, March 21, 2008
Long Ago
HELLO!
That’s what’s on the front of the tattered box of greeting cards I found in the attic when my husband and I finally decided to make a dent in emptying out some of the cardboard boxes we had stored the last time we moved four years ago.
The greeting cards were made by my then twenty-six year old boyfriend, which is pertinent since I was sixteen at the time. We worked together in a summer camp in Starlight, Pennsylvania. He was a janitor and I was a waitress. I served and cleaned up after a table of ten- year old boys and their sarcastic jock of a counselor, who was very handsome, but not my type.
Nick drove upstate with his friend, Joe, to visit Joe’s girlfriend, Marci, who was the camp lifeguard. Two long-haired hippies arriving at a camp filled with spoiled rich kids made my life much better. It was a very beautiful place and they liked it so much there, they applied for jobs and stayed the summer.
I can’t even remember how it happened, but we quickly became a couple. We went on lots of afternoon hikes and made night time campfires day after day. We drove a fast three hundred miles to New York City on our night off, and explored his favorite spots in Manhattan. We ate at his beloved Italian restaurant. It was the first time I’d eaten eggplant parmesan or cannolis.
Nick was an artist who made his living making greeting cards. He was also a poet and wrote beautiful poetry to me all summer long. It was wild and fun and he was a loving and respectful guy full of life and wonder.
The summer ended, I finished high school and went to college. We visited a couple of times. One day he wrote me that he was marrying his best friend, someone he’d met in an art class. It was OK with me. While I really liked being with him, I didn’t know about love and had my whole life in front of me.
Marriage was not in my plans.
The years passed and eventually I did marry and have my own family and a messy attic. Fast forward. I took that box of cards and Googled him. I saw that his wife wrote a cooking column and that they had written a recipe book together. He seemed happy.
After thirty five years I decided to take chance. One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy.
“Hi, is Nick there?” I ask in my friendliest voice.
“Yeah, he is, who’s calling?” the woman on the other end said.
“Oh, my name is Gloria. I’m an old friend of his.”
“NIIIIIIIIIIIIICK, it’s your old girlfriend!” she yelled out.
I guess she’d heard of me before.
He was totally blown away when he came to the phone. I hadn’t expected to talk to him because it was a business line. It turned out to be the same number as their home phone. We couldn’t talk long, but even in the shortish conversation we had, it was clear that he was the same, sweet guy I’d known so long ago.
Our life is made up of experiences we have and people we meet along the way. It was affirming to reconnect with another person who knew me in another time that seems like another dimension from so far away.
By Gloria Saltzman Stumble This Post
That’s what’s on the front of the tattered box of greeting cards I found in the attic when my husband and I finally decided to make a dent in emptying out some of the cardboard boxes we had stored the last time we moved four years ago.
The greeting cards were made by my then twenty-six year old boyfriend, which is pertinent since I was sixteen at the time. We worked together in a summer camp in Starlight, Pennsylvania. He was a janitor and I was a waitress. I served and cleaned up after a table of ten- year old boys and their sarcastic jock of a counselor, who was very handsome, but not my type.
Nick drove upstate with his friend, Joe, to visit Joe’s girlfriend, Marci, who was the camp lifeguard. Two long-haired hippies arriving at a camp filled with spoiled rich kids made my life much better. It was a very beautiful place and they liked it so much there, they applied for jobs and stayed the summer.
I can’t even remember how it happened, but we quickly became a couple. We went on lots of afternoon hikes and made night time campfires day after day. We drove a fast three hundred miles to New York City on our night off, and explored his favorite spots in Manhattan. We ate at his beloved Italian restaurant. It was the first time I’d eaten eggplant parmesan or cannolis.
Nick was an artist who made his living making greeting cards. He was also a poet and wrote beautiful poetry to me all summer long. It was wild and fun and he was a loving and respectful guy full of life and wonder.
The summer ended, I finished high school and went to college. We visited a couple of times. One day he wrote me that he was marrying his best friend, someone he’d met in an art class. It was OK with me. While I really liked being with him, I didn’t know about love and had my whole life in front of me.
Marriage was not in my plans.
The years passed and eventually I did marry and have my own family and a messy attic. Fast forward. I took that box of cards and Googled him. I saw that his wife wrote a cooking column and that they had written a recipe book together. He seemed happy.
After thirty five years I decided to take chance. One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy.
“Hi, is Nick there?” I ask in my friendliest voice.
“Yeah, he is, who’s calling?” the woman on the other end said.
“Oh, my name is Gloria. I’m an old friend of his.”
“NIIIIIIIIIIIIICK, it’s your old girlfriend!” she yelled out.
I guess she’d heard of me before.
He was totally blown away when he came to the phone. I hadn’t expected to talk to him because it was a business line. It turned out to be the same number as their home phone. We couldn’t talk long, but even in the shortish conversation we had, it was clear that he was the same, sweet guy I’d known so long ago.
Our life is made up of experiences we have and people we meet along the way. It was affirming to reconnect with another person who knew me in another time that seems like another dimension from so far away.
By Gloria Saltzman
Labels: Gloria Saltzman
Stumble This Post
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Dinosaur Extinction
The plate is at the top of the stairs, where we put stuff we’re ready to discard.
“That’s odd,” I think to myself. But things have ended up in stranger places when my husband unloads the dishwasher. He forgives my never remembering how to use the flash drive, and I forgive his never knowing where anything goes.
I put the plate back in the cupboard. My husband takes it out again.
“Do we really need this anymore?” he sighs.
“Yes!” I reply, a little too adamantly.
“See if you can move it somewhere else. It’s in the way.”
Smiling dinosaurs in bright colors chase each other around the plate’s rim. Three separate compartments enforce the First Commandment of Children’s Food: Thou Shalt Not Touch. Smooth melamine ridges segregate the applesauce from the mac and cheese. Suspicious interlopers like spinach are safely sequestered in their own tiny corral. The brave toddler who stomachs the two-bite portion is rewarded by uncovering twin baby triceratops frolicking with their delighted mom. She, no doubt, is also encouraging her offspring’s herbivorous adventures.
My wary toddlers are now 17 and 19. They favor fusion foods and can be trusted with dishes that shatter.
Still, I need this plate. The dinosaur era is one of the sweeter pleasures of parenting. What other passions appeal to both sexes, all ages, inspire awe, and transform a trip to the museum from torture into an adventure? Besides, I have packed so much away in packing my children off to adulthood; I’m not yet ready to say goodbye to the little green creature hatching out of its eggshell. Maybe our grandchildren will eat from this plate someday, discerning T-rexes from brontosauruses as they diddle with their vegetables.
My husband’s ready, though. He wants to clear out the cupboards to make room for what the children’s needs have obscured. What might we assemble together without all the clutter?
With one last fond sigh, I put the plate on the discard pile.
By Lorrie Goldin Stumble This Post
“That’s odd,” I think to myself. But things have ended up in stranger places when my husband unloads the dishwasher. He forgives my never remembering how to use the flash drive, and I forgive his never knowing where anything goes.
I put the plate back in the cupboard. My husband takes it out again.
“Do we really need this anymore?” he sighs.
“Yes!” I reply, a little too adamantly.
“See if you can move it somewhere else. It’s in the way.”
Smiling dinosaurs in bright colors chase each other around the plate’s rim. Three separate compartments enforce the First Commandment of Children’s Food: Thou Shalt Not Touch. Smooth melamine ridges segregate the applesauce from the mac and cheese. Suspicious interlopers like spinach are safely sequestered in their own tiny corral. The brave toddler who stomachs the two-bite portion is rewarded by uncovering twin baby triceratops frolicking with their delighted mom. She, no doubt, is also encouraging her offspring’s herbivorous adventures.
My wary toddlers are now 17 and 19. They favor fusion foods and can be trusted with dishes that shatter.
Still, I need this plate. The dinosaur era is one of the sweeter pleasures of parenting. What other passions appeal to both sexes, all ages, inspire awe, and transform a trip to the museum from torture into an adventure? Besides, I have packed so much away in packing my children off to adulthood; I’m not yet ready to say goodbye to the little green creature hatching out of its eggshell. Maybe our grandchildren will eat from this plate someday, discerning T-rexes from brontosauruses as they diddle with their vegetables.
My husband’s ready, though. He wants to clear out the cupboards to make room for what the children’s needs have obscured. What might we assemble together without all the clutter?
With one last fond sigh, I put the plate on the discard pile.
By Lorrie Goldin
Labels: Lorrie Goldin
Stumble This Post
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Human Anatomy, Preschool Style
My four-year-old son has a new curiosity about the human anatomy.
Boobs, breasts, ta-tas, hooters, or whatever you call them. He has endless questions. “Why do boys have nipples, but not boobs? Why aren’t Mommy’s boobs flat so that baby Colby can be “closer?” How does Mommy make milk? Why doesn’t Daddy have breasts?”
I prefer the current boob obsession to his discovery of private parts when he was two. In the bath, he’d yell, “Penis!” as he yanked his little dude with glee. I shrugged and guessed it must be a guy thing. At least he was still in diapers, so I didn’t have to battle the “hands in the pants” habit. Still, I was relieved when he stopped yelling, “I have penis? Mommy has ‘china?’” in public restrooms.
A year later, he was fascinated with my enormous belly and concerned about how his baby brother would make it out. I thought I’d done an adequate job of explaining that there was a special tunnel until he began requesting “A Baby is Born” for his bedtime book every night for weeks. Each time we’d look through the book, he’d have more questions until he’d developed his own monologue to accompany the photographs.
Thankfully, like Mommy’s “china,” this phase ended and I thought we were in the clear until puberty.
But, I’d forgotten about boobs. Lately, the human breast obsession has expanded to include animals --“Does our dog, Daisy, have boobs?” -- and toys.
“Storm Troopers are girls.” He informed me, analyzing one of his Star Wars figures.
“Oh, really? Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, because they have these bra things,” he explained pointing at the Storm Trooper’s chest plate.
I think I better go hide my tampons.
By Maya Creedman Stumble This Post
Boobs, breasts, ta-tas, hooters, or whatever you call them. He has endless questions. “Why do boys have nipples, but not boobs? Why aren’t Mommy’s boobs flat so that baby Colby can be “closer?” How does Mommy make milk? Why doesn’t Daddy have breasts?”
I prefer the current boob obsession to his discovery of private parts when he was two. In the bath, he’d yell, “Penis!” as he yanked his little dude with glee. I shrugged and guessed it must be a guy thing. At least he was still in diapers, so I didn’t have to battle the “hands in the pants” habit. Still, I was relieved when he stopped yelling, “I have penis? Mommy has ‘china?’” in public restrooms.
A year later, he was fascinated with my enormous belly and concerned about how his baby brother would make it out. I thought I’d done an adequate job of explaining that there was a special tunnel until he began requesting “A Baby is Born” for his bedtime book every night for weeks. Each time we’d look through the book, he’d have more questions until he’d developed his own monologue to accompany the photographs.
Thankfully, like Mommy’s “china,” this phase ended and I thought we were in the clear until puberty.
But, I’d forgotten about boobs. Lately, the human breast obsession has expanded to include animals --“Does our dog, Daisy, have boobs?” -- and toys.
“Storm Troopers are girls.” He informed me, analyzing one of his Star Wars figures.
“Oh, really? Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, because they have these bra things,” he explained pointing at the Storm Trooper’s chest plate.
I think I better go hide my tampons.
By Maya Creedman
Labels: Maya Creedman
Stumble This Post
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Right Before Your Very Eyes
I’d planned the presentation in my mind long before I actually went through with it.
When my son, Brian, turned twelve years old, I asked him into the bathroom and demonstrated how to unwrap a condom, and protect a banana.
“Don’t say a word,” I instructed him as I ripped open the Trojan wrapper and placed it like a cap over the top end of the fruit. My heart raced and I felt like an idiot, but also felt propelled into the truth of my son’s future relations.
Brian’s eyes saucered as I continued my speech.
“The condom is designed to have safe sex. Leave a little extra of the latex as a reservoir at the top.” Carefully I unrolled the condom about half-way over the tip of the banana. “AIDS is real. HIV is real, and if you use Nonoxol 9 and a latex condom when you choose to have sex WITH SOMEONE YOU CARE DEEPLY ABOUT, you can enjoy sexual relations pretty safely and not become a father before you’re ready. It may not be for quite awhile, but at least I showed you what to do. You have to pretend about the banana part, but I’m sure you get my point.”
After illustrating the subtleties of how the condom unrolls, and the application of it onto the banana, my son stood speechless in front of me.
“Do you have any questions? Now’s a good time to ask them.”
What could he say?
He didn’t know I’d prepared this explanation of an adult secret. It was one of those times that being a mother separated the men from the boys.
By Pru Starr Stumble This Post
When my son, Brian, turned twelve years old, I asked him into the bathroom and demonstrated how to unwrap a condom, and protect a banana.
“Don’t say a word,” I instructed him as I ripped open the Trojan wrapper and placed it like a cap over the top end of the fruit. My heart raced and I felt like an idiot, but also felt propelled into the truth of my son’s future relations.
Brian’s eyes saucered as I continued my speech.
“The condom is designed to have safe sex. Leave a little extra of the latex as a reservoir at the top.” Carefully I unrolled the condom about half-way over the tip of the banana. “AIDS is real. HIV is real, and if you use Nonoxol 9 and a latex condom when you choose to have sex WITH SOMEONE YOU CARE DEEPLY ABOUT, you can enjoy sexual relations pretty safely and not become a father before you’re ready. It may not be for quite awhile, but at least I showed you what to do. You have to pretend about the banana part, but I’m sure you get my point.”
After illustrating the subtleties of how the condom unrolls, and the application of it onto the banana, my son stood speechless in front of me.
“Do you have any questions? Now’s a good time to ask them.”
What could he say?
He didn’t know I’d prepared this explanation of an adult secret. It was one of those times that being a mother separated the men from the boys.
By Pru Starr
Labels: Pru Starr
Stumble This Post
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saint Patrick's Day
In first grade, my son, Nick, claimed St. Patrick’s Day as his holiday to share with his classmates. Other parents came to talk about Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, Chinese New Year, Easter. But Nick was the only one with a claim on St. Patrick’s Day.
For four years, from first to fourth grades, Nick and I made a presentation to his class on March 17th. We followed the same format each year: food, oral presentation and an Irish jig. Nick had developed a new family and school tradition.
The two of us would rise early to bake loaves of Irish soda bread, using Nick’s great-grandmother’s recipe. Each year we’d argue over the modifications Nick wanted to make – no caraway seeds in all four loaves, no raisins in two of the four. At 6 a.m., I just wanted to follow the recipe. I was too lazy to divide the batter into two bowls. But Nick knows what he wants and what the kids would want and he melted my resistance each year like the butter we brushed on top of the loaves.
We varied our oral presentation each year – once reading a picture book, another year finding information on leprechauns and their relations, such as brownies and fairies. The importance of wearing green, even to bed the night before, as a preventive measure against getting pinched was stressed each year.
But the annual highlight, the piece de resistance, was Nick and a friend performing an Irish jig. Nick was not versed in jigs but somehow felt qualified to choreograph and direct himself and a friend. Several rehearsals were held at our home. The same song was used each year, an Irish tune that picks up in speed as the song prances along, forcing Nick and his willing partner to move faster and faster and faster.
Each year I’d wonder if kids would tease my boy for his dancing, for his quirky interest or roll their eyes when he’d once again dance to the same tune. But the kids loved the tradition and vied to be his dancing partner. In third grade, I was stunned when Spencer, a very cool rock-and-roller-in-training, asked to be his partner. I would never have guessed that Spencer would be caught dead dancing a jig. And in fourth grade, Austin, the class toughie and jock, relished being picked.
But now we’re in fifth grade and childish things are being put away. Nick’s not doing any jigs and seems bored with the topic. He’s even scratched me bringing in Irish soda bread. I’ll still be up early mixing the dough so I can sneak some of the warm bread into his lunch, listening to the Irish song whose name I don’t know but call “Nick’s Song,” and peeking at his beautiful, sleeping face. I knew the day would come. What I didn’t know was that the jig being up would be a rite of passage for my green-eyed boy.
By Marianne Lonsdale Stumble This Post
For four years, from first to fourth grades, Nick and I made a presentation to his class on March 17th. We followed the same format each year: food, oral presentation and an Irish jig. Nick had developed a new family and school tradition.
The two of us would rise early to bake loaves of Irish soda bread, using Nick’s great-grandmother’s recipe. Each year we’d argue over the modifications Nick wanted to make – no caraway seeds in all four loaves, no raisins in two of the four. At 6 a.m., I just wanted to follow the recipe. I was too lazy to divide the batter into two bowls. But Nick knows what he wants and what the kids would want and he melted my resistance each year like the butter we brushed on top of the loaves.
We varied our oral presentation each year – once reading a picture book, another year finding information on leprechauns and their relations, such as brownies and fairies. The importance of wearing green, even to bed the night before, as a preventive measure against getting pinched was stressed each year.
But the annual highlight, the piece de resistance, was Nick and a friend performing an Irish jig. Nick was not versed in jigs but somehow felt qualified to choreograph and direct himself and a friend. Several rehearsals were held at our home. The same song was used each year, an Irish tune that picks up in speed as the song prances along, forcing Nick and his willing partner to move faster and faster and faster.
Each year I’d wonder if kids would tease my boy for his dancing, for his quirky interest or roll their eyes when he’d once again dance to the same tune. But the kids loved the tradition and vied to be his dancing partner. In third grade, I was stunned when Spencer, a very cool rock-and-roller-in-training, asked to be his partner. I would never have guessed that Spencer would be caught dead dancing a jig. And in fourth grade, Austin, the class toughie and jock, relished being picked.
But now we’re in fifth grade and childish things are being put away. Nick’s not doing any jigs and seems bored with the topic. He’s even scratched me bringing in Irish soda bread. I’ll still be up early mixing the dough so I can sneak some of the warm bread into his lunch, listening to the Irish song whose name I don’t know but call “Nick’s Song,” and peeking at his beautiful, sleeping face. I knew the day would come. What I didn’t know was that the jig being up would be a rite of passage for my green-eyed boy.
By Marianne Lonsdale
Labels: Marianne Lonsdale
Stumble This Post
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Time Change
We have twelve clocks in our house and each one says a different time.
The big, round one that hangs on the wall in the kitchen reads 8:02. But the one on the microwave, directly across from it, claims it’s 8:13. The clocks on the coffeemaker and the oven hover around 7:56. A few feet away, in the garage, the timer on the automatic watering system says 9:07.
My husband sets the digital clock beside our bed 20 minutes earlier than something, but I don’t know what. When I open one eye to look at in the morning, I wonder: Have I overslept? Why is it so dark outside?
Olivia’s clock has stopped completely. Mateo’s ticks under his bed. My travel alarm is set to Guatemala time -- two hours before us when it’s Standard Time, one hour before us when it’s not. I synchronize it with the clock that tolls in the church tower on Fifth Avenida in Antigua. One of the reasons I love Guatemala so much is nobody cares if I’m late.
The problem is that I’m so familiar with each clock and its unique setting that I plan my life accordingly. On school days, we have eight minutes to walk down the hill to Olivia’s bus stop. The clock in the kitchen may say it’s 7:29, but I know it’s only 7:16. In the afternoon, school pick-up is 1 p.m. But I don’t get in the car until NPR announces the headline news before “Fresh Air,” which starts at 1:10, or thereabouts. My clock isn’t 100 percent reliable.
Last Sunday the newspaper said that Daylight Savings Time would be starting, and we should set our clocks ahead one hour.
Easy for them to say.
By Jessica O’Dwyer Stumble This Post
The big, round one that hangs on the wall in the kitchen reads 8:02. But the one on the microwave, directly across from it, claims it’s 8:13. The clocks on the coffeemaker and the oven hover around 7:56. A few feet away, in the garage, the timer on the automatic watering system says 9:07.
My husband sets the digital clock beside our bed 20 minutes earlier than something, but I don’t know what. When I open one eye to look at in the morning, I wonder: Have I overslept? Why is it so dark outside?
Olivia’s clock has stopped completely. Mateo’s ticks under his bed. My travel alarm is set to Guatemala time -- two hours before us when it’s Standard Time, one hour before us when it’s not. I synchronize it with the clock that tolls in the church tower on Fifth Avenida in Antigua. One of the reasons I love Guatemala so much is nobody cares if I’m late.
The problem is that I’m so familiar with each clock and its unique setting that I plan my life accordingly. On school days, we have eight minutes to walk down the hill to Olivia’s bus stop. The clock in the kitchen may say it’s 7:29, but I know it’s only 7:16. In the afternoon, school pick-up is 1 p.m. But I don’t get in the car until NPR announces the headline news before “Fresh Air,” which starts at 1:10, or thereabouts. My clock isn’t 100 percent reliable.
Last Sunday the newspaper said that Daylight Savings Time would be starting, and we should set our clocks ahead one hour.
Easy for them to say.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
Labels: Jessica O'Dwyer
Stumble This Post
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Worry Wart
I was prepared for motherhood to change me in myriad ways. I thought the adage, ‘Life will never be the same,’ meant that my body, sense of humor and priorities would be different. But one thing I never counted on is that since the birth of my son, I’ve gone from dare-devil to worry-wart.
I have become my mother.
It’s a family joke that mom is known for phrases like, “Be careful. Slow down. Don’t run. You’re going to fall.”
For a kid like me, this was impossible. There are home movies of our old Rambler station wagon pulled over at a rest stop on a road trip. My six-year-old sister is desultorily jumping rope. My four-year-old self is without rope: simply, gleefully jumping. What has always defined me was moving for the sheer joy of it.
I graduated to cartwheels, to veering down the hill on a bike with handlebar streamers flying out behind me, to jumping on planes. To anywhere. I’d buy a “Lonely Planet” Guide, get a ticket and figure arrangements out when I got there.
That was me. Before motherhood. Now slowly, I’ve come to accept that I am no longer the ‘give me a destination and I’ll go there-girl’: Hong Kong, Katmandu, all the better. Now I’d just as soon not drive on the freeway.
This is not even the worst part. I’m not just the garden-variety “Do we have enough diaps, wipes, sunscreen, juice and goldfish?” kind of mom-worrier. The “Do you think we should do X now so he’ll nap, or Z to ward off a fuss?”
My secret confession is that I’ve become absorbed with stories of children’s accidents. Detail by horrifying detail, I pour over the news of children: swept out to sea by sneaker riptides, falling out un-screened hotel windows, smothered by collapsing sand dunes. Has there been an extra slew of these things? More coverage in the news? How could I have lived my entire life and never noticed these stories before?
Reading, I swing from looking for someone to blame; ‘Where was that parent? Why weren’t they paying attention?’ to the deepest of sympathy. To shame. How many times have I made one more phone call, read one more e-mail while I vaguely knew the whereabouts of my son? How many lapses of attention could have resulted in these same horrors? Finally, I’ve come to understand my own mother’s anxiety.
Along with the expansiveness of giving birth, the unavoidable truth about mortality has slowed my life down.
So when my husband finds me an over-worrying nag, I try to clue him in to the accident stories. This hyper-vigilance must be hard-wired into us mothers, I tell him: survival of the species and all. My mind crunches out possibilities of disaster scenarios; this calculation of odds and dangers, it’s always with me. I try to strike a balance between healthy watchfulness and respect for the survivor’s tragedies. The least that I can do is to use them for perspective, to be grateful for all the gifts of motherhood, even the baby spit-up that’s gone down my back and into my shoe.
In the meantime, riveted, I scan the headlines. The same way my mother used to scan the horizon, waiting for me to come home. I hold the stories out in front of me, like a talisman, pretending I can keep us all safe from harm.
By Mary Beth McClure Stumble This Post
I have become my mother.
It’s a family joke that mom is known for phrases like, “Be careful. Slow down. Don’t run. You’re going to fall.”
For a kid like me, this was impossible. There are home movies of our old Rambler station wagon pulled over at a rest stop on a road trip. My six-year-old sister is desultorily jumping rope. My four-year-old self is without rope: simply, gleefully jumping. What has always defined me was moving for the sheer joy of it.
I graduated to cartwheels, to veering down the hill on a bike with handlebar streamers flying out behind me, to jumping on planes. To anywhere. I’d buy a “Lonely Planet” Guide, get a ticket and figure arrangements out when I got there.
That was me. Before motherhood. Now slowly, I’ve come to accept that I am no longer the ‘give me a destination and I’ll go there-girl’: Hong Kong, Katmandu, all the better. Now I’d just as soon not drive on the freeway.
This is not even the worst part. I’m not just the garden-variety “Do we have enough diaps, wipes, sunscreen, juice and goldfish?” kind of mom-worrier. The “Do you think we should do X now so he’ll nap, or Z to ward off a fuss?”
My secret confession is that I’ve become absorbed with stories of children’s accidents. Detail by horrifying detail, I pour over the news of children: swept out to sea by sneaker riptides, falling out un-screened hotel windows, smothered by collapsing sand dunes. Has there been an extra slew of these things? More coverage in the news? How could I have lived my entire life and never noticed these stories before?
Reading, I swing from looking for someone to blame; ‘Where was that parent? Why weren’t they paying attention?’ to the deepest of sympathy. To shame. How many times have I made one more phone call, read one more e-mail while I vaguely knew the whereabouts of my son? How many lapses of attention could have resulted in these same horrors? Finally, I’ve come to understand my own mother’s anxiety.
Along with the expansiveness of giving birth, the unavoidable truth about mortality has slowed my life down.
So when my husband finds me an over-worrying nag, I try to clue him in to the accident stories. This hyper-vigilance must be hard-wired into us mothers, I tell him: survival of the species and all. My mind crunches out possibilities of disaster scenarios; this calculation of odds and dangers, it’s always with me. I try to strike a balance between healthy watchfulness and respect for the survivor’s tragedies. The least that I can do is to use them for perspective, to be grateful for all the gifts of motherhood, even the baby spit-up that’s gone down my back and into my shoe.
In the meantime, riveted, I scan the headlines. The same way my mother used to scan the horizon, waiting for me to come home. I hold the stories out in front of me, like a talisman, pretending I can keep us all safe from harm.
By Mary Beth McClure
Labels: Mary Beth McClure
Stumble This Post
Friday, March 14, 2008
An Appetite for Illness
I don’t exactly enjoy being sick, but I try to find the silver lining. Like catching up on the "New Yorker" or losing my appetite.
It’s not easy for me to lose weight. The exception was during my first trimester of pregnancy, when even opening the refrigerator door sent me running to the toilet. Each of my pregnancies began with an effortless five-pound weight loss.
But I’m long past the breeding years. And menopause has a way of making an already faint-hearted metabolism even more sluggish.
Despite these sorry truths, I’ve managed to lose 25 pounds and not find them again for more than six years. Still, not a day goes by that I don’t fume at the injustice that calories do count, even when sneaked surreptitiously in the kitchen, a sliver of chocolate cake here, a spoonful of Haagen Dazs there.
“Do you think it’s sick that I don’t mind being sick because at least I’ll lose weight?” I ask my husband.
“Yes,” he responds with disdain.
My husband fits into the same clothes he had in high school. He can eat anything without gaining an ounce. Worse, it would never even occur to him to eat pizza for breakfast or chocolate chip cookies before dinner. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.
I take to the couch for the duration of the virus, sustained by a steady diet of green tea and cough drops.
After a week, it’s time for my Weight Watchers’ meeting. I still feel like hell, but I drag myself out of bed. It’s a rare event to approach that weigh-ins with confidence, and I intend to reap the rewards of the sickbed. As soon as I’m well, I run the risk of making up for lost time.
I get on the scale. It’s up two-tenths of a pound.
Who knew that cough drops could be so fattening?
By Lorrie Goldin Stumble This Post
It’s not easy for me to lose weight. The exception was during my first trimester of pregnancy, when even opening the refrigerator door sent me running to the toilet. Each of my pregnancies began with an effortless five-pound weight loss.
But I’m long past the breeding years. And menopause has a way of making an already faint-hearted metabolism even more sluggish.
Despite these sorry truths, I’ve managed to lose 25 pounds and not find them again for more than six years. Still, not a day goes by that I don’t fume at the injustice that calories do count, even when sneaked surreptitiously in the kitchen, a sliver of chocolate cake here, a spoonful of Haagen Dazs there.
“Do you think it’s sick that I don’t mind being sick because at least I’ll lose weight?” I ask my husband.
“Yes,” he responds with disdain.
My husband fits into the same clothes he had in high school. He can eat anything without gaining an ounce. Worse, it would never even occur to him to eat pizza for breakfast or chocolate chip cookies before dinner. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.
I take to the couch for the duration of the virus, sustained by a steady diet of green tea and cough drops.
After a week, it’s time for my Weight Watchers’ meeting. I still feel like hell, but I drag myself out of bed. It’s a rare event to approach that weigh-ins with confidence, and I intend to reap the rewards of the sickbed. As soon as I’m well, I run the risk of making up for lost time.
I get on the scale. It’s up two-tenths of a pound.
Who knew that cough drops could be so fattening?
By Lorrie Goldin
Labels: Lorrie Goldin
Stumble This Post
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Human Anatomy, Preschool Style
My four-year-old son has a new curiosity about the human anatomy. Boobs, breasts, ta-tas, hooters, or whatever you call them. He has endless questions. “Why do boys have nipples but not boobs? Why aren’t Mommy’s boobs flat so that baby Colby can be “closer?” How does Mommy make milk? Why doesn’t Daddy have breasts?”
I prefer the current boob obsession to his discovery of private parts when he was two. In the bath, he’d yell, “Penis!” as he yanked his little dude with glee. I shrugged and guessed it must be a guy thing. At least he was still in diapers, so I didn’t have to battle the “hands in the pants” habit. Still, I was relieved when he stopped yelling, “I have penis. Mommy has ‘china,” in public restrooms.
A year later, he was fascinated with my enormous belly and concerned about how his baby brother would make it out. I thought I’d done an adequate job explaining that that there was a special tunnel until he began requesting “A Baby is Born” for his bedtime book every night for weeks. Each time we’d look through the book, he’d have more questions until he’d developed his own monologue to accompany the photographs. Thankfully, like Mommy’s “china,” this phase ended and I thought we were in the clear until puberty.
But, I’d forgotten about boobs. Lately, the human breast obsession has expanded to include animals (Does our dog, Daisy have boobs?) and toys.
“Storm Troopers are girls.” He informed me, analyzing one of his Star Wars figures.
“Oh, really? Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, because they have these bra things,” he explained pointing at the Storm Trooper’s chest plate.
I think I better go hide my tampons.
By Maya Creedman Stumble This Post
I prefer the current boob obsession to his discovery of private parts when he was two. In the bath, he’d yell, “Penis!” as he yanked his little dude with glee. I shrugged and guessed it must be a guy thing. At least he was still in diapers, so I didn’t have to battle the “hands in the pants” habit. Still, I was relieved when he stopped yelling, “I have penis. Mommy has ‘china,” in public restrooms.
A year later, he was fascinated with my enormous belly and concerned about how his baby brother would make it out. I thought I’d done an adequate job explaining that that there was a special tunnel until he began requesting “A Baby is Born” for his bedtime book every night for weeks. Each time we’d look through the book, he’d have more questions until he’d developed his own monologue to accompany the photographs. Thankfully, like Mommy’s “china,” this phase ended and I thought we were in the clear until puberty.
But, I’d forgotten about boobs. Lately, the human breast obsession has expanded to include animals (Does our dog, Daisy have boobs?) and toys.
“Storm Troopers are girls.” He informed me, analyzing one of his Star Wars figures.
“Oh, really? Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, because they have these bra things,” he explained pointing at the Storm Trooper’s chest plate.
I think I better go hide my tampons.
By Maya Creedman
Labels: Maya Creedman
Stumble This Post
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Kickass
In trying to be a responsible parent, last week I pulled aside one of my daughter's fencing coaches and informed her that Natalia’s father and I were beginning the divorce process, and that this might affect her performance in class.
The coach said that indeed she was holding back, and that she was not progressing at the rate that they had anticipated, given her stellar start.
Ouch.
A few days passed. As we prepared to leave the house one morning, I said – and it just came out like this – “Hey, Natalia, you go to fencing tonight. You have to train so you can kick some ass at the invitational this weekend.”
My daughter giggled. I shrank. Oopsy, I thought, I ought not use that language. I could have said, "It’s OK to win. It’s OK to want to win. No need to be a lady."
Or, I could have gone the let’s-talk-about-our-feelings route. "You know, honey, Coach says you’ve been holding back. Is anything wrong? Do you want to talk about it?" But, dear friends, what I said worked.
The next practice, she reverted to the aggressive fencer that she was before, and was much happier for it. I remember the moment when I lost my fear of skiing. I was in a van with my brother and a bunch of his medical student friends, none of whom I knew and all of whom I feared.
Vermont was six hours away. What would I do with all that time if I had no intention of talking with them? I decided that I was going use the time to brainwash myself. I was tired of being a wimpy skier. I had been cautious way too many years, and I felt bored. So I began my silent self-hypnosis.
I am not afraid of skiing. I am whizzing down the mountain and I feel exhilarated. I am strong.
The next day, I pushed myself off the chairlift and without hesitating, I headed straight down the mountain. I am not afraid. I am strong. Whee!
I want my daughter to feel the same liberation in all the things she does. If it takes a few choice words to steer her toward that, well, that’s what it takes. Language is meant to be used, no?
By Vicki Inglis Stumble This Post
The coach said that indeed she was holding back, and that she was not progressing at the rate that they had anticipated, given her stellar start.
Ouch.
A few days passed. As we prepared to leave the house one morning, I said – and it just came out like this – “Hey, Natalia, you go to fencing tonight. You have to train so you can kick some ass at the invitational this weekend.”
My daughter giggled. I shrank. Oopsy, I thought, I ought not use that language. I could have said, "It’s OK to win. It’s OK to want to win. No need to be a lady."
Or, I could have gone the let’s-talk-about-our-feelings route. "You know, honey, Coach says you’ve been holding back. Is anything wrong? Do you want to talk about it?" But, dear friends, what I said worked.
The next practice, she reverted to the aggressive fencer that she was before, and was much happier for it. I remember the moment when I lost my fear of skiing. I was in a van with my brother and a bunch of his medical student friends, none of whom I knew and all of whom I feared.
Vermont was six hours away. What would I do with all that time if I had no intention of talking with them? I decided that I was going use the time to brainwash myself. I was tired of being a wimpy skier. I had been cautious way too many years, and I felt bored. So I began my silent self-hypnosis.
I am not afraid of skiing. I am whizzing down the mountain and I feel exhilarated. I am strong.
The next day, I pushed myself off the chairlift and without hesitating, I headed straight down the mountain. I am not afraid. I am strong. Whee!
I want my daughter to feel the same liberation in all the things she does. If it takes a few choice words to steer her toward that, well, that’s what it takes. Language is meant to be used, no?
By Vicki Inglis
Labels: Vickie Inglis
Stumble This Post
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Haircut
I had spent a good part of my day doing the thing I enjoy least – cleaning. This meant I was not spending time with my daughter. She noticed.
“Mommy come see what I drew.’
“In a minute,” I said repeatedly. Mimi came into my bedroom. I heard her words before I saw what she had done.
“Do you like it?” I don’t think I’ve screamed that much since, well, I was giving birth to her. Mimi had cut her hair so the sides were now above her ears, while the back remained well past her shoulders.
She started crying, we hugged and I told her we would make her hair work. I sat Mimi on the toilet and stared. Mothers routinely pull out miracles, but I was thinking salons are closed, it’s late Sunday and she has school early in the morning. How does one correct an unintentional mullet haircut?
I had to think.
Bangs or no bangs? I didn’t know. Then I noticed something. There was a long strand of hair that she had somehow missed in front. Hmm. And Mimi has those Angelina Jolie-esque pouty lips. I thought, if I cut her back hair short, so it curled, and with some gel. . . maybe? Perhaps something stylish could emerge??? I cut the back as straight as I could.
Then I tried to angle her already too-short sides and gave the front a side part. That long strand framed her face, revealing it in a way that her formerly long hair had not. To my complete surprise, it worked! She looked kinda Asiany-Frenchy.
After the incident had passed, I asked Mimi why she had cut her hair. My five-year old said to get attention. She used those words. It was an extreme act. And she won’t do it again. But I must admit that I do admire that at such a young age she does know how to get her needs met. By being able to do that now, she will save a fortune in therapy later.
I did stop cleaning. Which made her very happy – and me, too.
By Dawn Yun Stumble This Post
“Mommy come see what I drew.’
“In a minute,” I said repeatedly. Mimi came into my bedroom. I heard her words before I saw what she had done.
“Do you like it?” I don’t think I’ve screamed that much since, well, I was giving birth to her. Mimi had cut her hair so the sides were now above her ears, while the back remained well past her shoulders.
She started crying, we hugged and I told her we would make her hair work. I sat Mimi on the toilet and stared. Mothers routinely pull out miracles, but I was thinking salons are closed, it’s late Sunday and she has school early in the morning. How does one correct an unintentional mullet haircut?
I had to think.
Bangs or no bangs? I didn’t know. Then I noticed something. There was a long strand of hair that she had somehow missed in front. Hmm. And Mimi has those Angelina Jolie-esque pouty lips. I thought, if I cut her back hair short, so it curled, and with some gel. . . maybe? Perhaps something stylish could emerge??? I cut the back as straight as I could.
Then I tried to angle her already too-short sides and gave the front a side part. That long strand framed her face, revealing it in a way that her formerly long hair had not. To my complete surprise, it worked! She looked kinda Asiany-Frenchy.
After the incident had passed, I asked Mimi why she had cut her hair. My five-year old said to get attention. She used those words. It was an extreme act. And she won’t do it again. But I must admit that I do admire that at such a young age she does know how to get her needs met. By being able to do that now, she will save a fortune in therapy later.
I did stop cleaning. Which made her very happy – and me, too.
By Dawn Yun
Labels: Dawn Yun
Stumble This Post
Monday, March 10, 2008
Memory
My memory is lost.
Between Mom Brain and menopause, I lose chunks of memory for minutes or hours. I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t get flustered if I can’t remember my next-door neighbor’s name – I know that her name will return to my memory at a later date. My son does not like my memory lapses. I rushed to BART from work one afternoon, did a short leap from the platform to the train, and then remembered I’d forgotten my purse at the office.
I hopped out as the train doors were closing. Hustled back to the office, took a later train and called my husband to tell him to pick up Nick. I told my silly story about the forgotten purse while we ate dinner. I was laughing and I looked across the table to my son. Nick was crying.
“It’s not funny, Mommy,” he says. He was pissed. “You need to stop forgetting everything.”
I realized that to Nick I appear out of control. The Mommy he depends on to keep his world spinning, to keep order for him, could not even remember her purse. Ah, I thought. This is the start of him finding out I’m not omnipotent. Not perfect. And also the start of me realizing that maybe he doesn’t need to know everything about me.
Maybe I just give too much information sometimes.
By Marianne Lonsdale Stumble This Post
Between Mom Brain and menopause, I lose chunks of memory for minutes or hours. I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t get flustered if I can’t remember my next-door neighbor’s name – I know that her name will return to my memory at a later date. My son does not like my memory lapses. I rushed to BART from work one afternoon, did a short leap from the platform to the train, and then remembered I’d forgotten my purse at the office.
I hopped out as the train doors were closing. Hustled back to the office, took a later train and called my husband to tell him to pick up Nick. I told my silly story about the forgotten purse while we ate dinner. I was laughing and I looked across the table to my son. Nick was crying.
“It’s not funny, Mommy,” he says. He was pissed. “You need to stop forgetting everything.”
I realized that to Nick I appear out of control. The Mommy he depends on to keep his world spinning, to keep order for him, could not even remember her purse. Ah, I thought. This is the start of him finding out I’m not omnipotent. Not perfect. And also the start of me realizing that maybe he doesn’t need to know everything about me.
Maybe I just give too much information sometimes.
By Marianne Lonsdale
Labels: Marianne Lonsdale
Stumble This Post
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Maternal
I finished reading a memoir of a painful childhood by a favorite writer who tenderly depicts suicide, secret affairs, abject neglect, and intellectual genius in her family.
It touches my heart, partly because when I was in my early 20s, I was engaged to the little brother in the story. In being reminded of what he had gone without, and lost, in his vulnerable early years, which ultimately played out in the demise of my first true love story, I cried for both of us.
Looking back, way back, at him from my current midlife mom position, I feel maternally protective and soft-hearted toward him. I start feeling how I failed him as he was falling into self-destruction. I walked away. Having children is the difference in my reading his story and changing his depiction in my life story. I understand the child in the story more deeply, having lived the vulnerabilities of my own trusting and permeable babies.
Kids gave me a bigger heart and eased my sharp judgment. One memory from long ago with the man in this book, so long wrapped in anger at his seeming betrayal of poor me, is allowed some breathing room. My little
My maternal self has given me the gift of being able to forgive, remembering that we’re all someone’s child and none of us was born wanting anything more than to be loved.
By Avvy Mar Stumble This Post
It touches my heart, partly because when I was in my early 20s, I was engaged to the little brother in the story. In being reminded of what he had gone without, and lost, in his vulnerable early years, which ultimately played out in the demise of my first true love story, I cried for both of us.
Looking back, way back, at him from my current midlife mom position, I feel maternally protective and soft-hearted toward him. I start feeling how I failed him as he was falling into self-destruction. I walked away. Having children is the difference in my reading his story and changing his depiction in my life story. I understand the child in the story more deeply, having lived the vulnerabilities of my own trusting and permeable babies.
Kids gave me a bigger heart and eased my sharp judgment. One memory from long ago with the man in this book, so long wrapped in anger at his seeming betrayal of poor me, is allowed some breathing room. My little
My maternal self has given me the gift of being able to forgive, remembering that we’re all someone’s child and none of us was born wanting anything more than to be loved.
By Avvy Mar
Labels: Avvy Mar
Stumble This Post
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Mugged
Mugged
A middle-aged, olive-skinned woman with salt-and-pepper bobbed hair and a nylon jacket staggered to my apartment playground clutching her chest.
I ran across the lot to her, thinking she was having a heart attack. But in limited English and desperate body language, she conveyed she’d been mugged: her purse, grocery bags, and head scarf had just been stolen from her.
With my heart racing, I looked back at my girlfriends to make sure they were watching my children, and used my cell phone to call 911. Wishing I could speak any foreign language at all, I tried to understand her English. At first I thought her son had robbed her, but eventually I figured out that by saying a "son" had grabbed her things from her – she’d actually meant "boy."
From a swoop of her arm, I also figured out that the mugging happened just half a block up from the playground. She was upset and shaken, pale with red around those soft brown eyes. I touched her shoulders and clumsily attempted to embrace her. She sighed heavily. As the state trooper response center on the phone transferred me to the local sheriff, she sank to the cold ground holding her side, closing her eyes shut tight. Kneeling next to her, I realized I didn’t know whether the thief had injured her or if this was just the body’s natural response to fear and vulnerability. When the sheriff arrived five minutes later, he patiently phrased and re-phrased his questions to get accurate answers. She sadly shook her head “no” many times.
No, she hadn't seen the thief – here she covered her head with her arms and cowered, showing us how she'd turned away from him when he assaulted her. And no, she didn’t have any ID – here she raised her hands, her eyes pleading with mine.
“No keys, no money, no phone!” she cried.“Of course,” the sheriff said softly. “They’re in the purse.” In the end, a sheriff's car headed off in the direction the thief had fled (a fruitless gesture, to be sure), and the assisting officer said I was free to go. He'd take the woman to her apartment – just a hundred yards up the hill from mine – to find a relative who might speak more English, to interpret her Farsi.
This happened several months ago at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday morning. I haven’t seen the woman since, but I’ve thought a lot about her – essentially every time I leave my home, every time I look over my shoulder when I’m out alone or with my children. I’ve thought about crime, danger, fear, and loss. I’ve also thought about safety, protection, community, and love. And, even though I haven’t seen her near the playground or out on a walk or at the store, I dare to hope that it’s not because she no longer comes out alone. Instead, I hope it’s because I simply don’t recognize her: a scarf on her head, a purse over her arm, and clear brown eyes without a trace of red around them.
By Anjie Reynolds Stumble This Post
A middle-aged, olive-skinned woman with salt-and-pepper bobbed hair and a nylon jacket staggered to my apartment playground clutching her chest.
I ran across the lot to her, thinking she was having a heart attack. But in limited English and desperate body language, she conveyed she’d been mugged: her purse, grocery bags, and head scarf had just been stolen from her.
With my heart racing, I looked back at my girlfriends to make sure they were watching my children, and used my cell phone to call 911. Wishing I could speak any foreign language at all, I tried to understand her English. At first I thought her son had robbed her, but eventually I figured out that by saying a "son" had grabbed her things from her – she’d actually meant "boy."
From a swoop of her arm, I also figured out that the mugging happened just half a block up from the playground. She was upset and shaken, pale with red around those soft brown eyes. I touched her shoulders and clumsily attempted to embrace her. She sighed heavily. As the state trooper response center on the phone transferred me to the local sheriff, she sank to the cold ground holding her side, closing her eyes shut tight. Kneeling next to her, I realized I didn’t know whether the thief had injured her or if this was just the body’s natural response to fear and vulnerability. When the sheriff arrived five minutes later, he patiently phrased and re-phrased his questions to get accurate answers. She sadly shook her head “no” many times.
No, she hadn't seen the thief – here she covered her head with her arms and cowered, showing us how she'd turned away from him when he assaulted her. And no, she didn’t have any ID – here she raised her hands, her eyes pleading with mine.
“No keys, no money, no phone!” she cried.“Of course,” the sheriff said softly. “They’re in the purse.” In the end, a sheriff's car headed off in the direction the thief had fled (a fruitless gesture, to be sure), and the assisting officer said I was free to go. He'd take the woman to her apartment – just a hundred yards up the hill from mine – to find a relative who might speak more English, to interpret her Farsi.
This happened several months ago at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday morning. I haven’t seen the woman since, but I’ve thought a lot about her – essentially every time I leave my home, every time I look over my shoulder when I’m out alone or with my children. I’ve thought about crime, danger, fear, and loss. I’ve also thought about safety, protection, community, and love. And, even though I haven’t seen her near the playground or out on a walk or at the store, I dare to hope that it’s not because she no longer comes out alone. Instead, I hope it’s because I simply don’t recognize her: a scarf on her head, a purse over her arm, and clear brown eyes without a trace of red around them.
By Anjie Reynolds
Labels: Anjie Reynolds
Stumble This Post
Friday, March 07, 2008
Here and also Present
“Mom, you’re doing it again!”
“Huh? What honey?”
“You’re doing that thing you do! I’m talking to you and you’re not answering! It’s like you’re not here or something!”
Maybe I’m not.
I know what she’s referring to. While shuttling the kids to yet another activity, I let my mind wander. It’s a deliciously self-indulgent past time. I notice the green of the trees and open the car sunroof to breathe in the clear blue sky. I just breathe and listen to my thoughts, eyes ever focused on the road ahead. New ideas sprout and thoughts resolve.
And I simply breathe.
It’s my own form of meditation. I don’t release to the moment, but retreat to the sanctuary of my pondering.
The backseat may be a buzz of activity but unless it hits octaves indicating siblings battling, I tune it out and retreat.
I’ve always been a daydreamer. Lots of ideas and thoughts are fruitful distraction. My oldest daughter seems to have inherited my propensity to allow the mind to wander. We both don’t fair well during church sermons, or any sermon for that matter. There are too many tempting ideas to explore.
Back home my kids hold my attention captive and I find myself lately fighting to stay present. I just want to sink into my thoughts and “take a moment,” instead of explaining why you can’t hold a cloud, or whether we can set up a play date for that afternoon.
I just want to have time to think, which is such a rarity nowadays with an active household of three young kids.
It’s a push-pull that my children win out but they don’t necessarily have me present. They seem to know it, too. We drift through those moments or afternoons, everyone unfulfilled. They don’t have me and I don’t have me. It’s getting harder as they’re getting older and I need a plan before frustrations build further.
I just need time to think of what that is.
A balance is required between my need for quiet contemplation and my family’s need for me, clear and present. For now they know they sometimes have to demand my time rather than request it in order for me to fully hear and be here.
Perhaps in my old age I’ll just be considered “hard of hearing; hopefully the mind still brimming with ideas.
By Maija Threlkeld
Labels: Maija Threlkeld
Stumble This Post
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Out of the Mouth of Babes
“You know mom, I wish my dresser was shorter and wider so that the clothes wouldn’t be so cramped in the drawers, because I don’t like to fold my clothes and that’s why they’re all so bunchy and don’t fit in the drawers
“But if you folded them, they would fit, but I don’t like to, so I don’t. So I don’t care. It’s fine. The dresser is fine.”
And then she stood on the pulls of the bottom drawer to reach the uppermost drawer to carefully and neatly put away her precious rainbow-striped ankle socks.
And that is an example of the ego and the superego working it out.
By Lianne McSwain
Labels: Lianne McSwain
Stumble This Post
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Impaired Judgment
Why is this?
Is it lack of sleep? Or is my lack of sleep yet another example of bad judgment? If I know how much sleep I need (in order to function and succeed in my endeavors) why don’t I get it? What makes me stay up that extra half hour, then hour, knowing I will be too tired in the morning to figure out what to do with myself? Can’t I do the math? I do my best to make sure my children get enough sleep, but I forget to take care of myself.
Some choices are made for me. Appointments to honor, carpools to drive, etc. But it seems that every moment I am confronted with a choice that is mine to make I panic in anticipation of making the WRONG choice. Go to the gym or take a walk? Walk alone or take the dog? Long hike or short walk?
AAHG!
Whichever one I decide upon I instantly regret it. Rather than enjoy every step, breath deeply and take in the fresh air, I inwardly complain. I wonder why I didn’t go the other way. I worry that I did not leave myself enough time. Why, I moan, why?
Upon returning from my too short/too long walk with too many/not enough hills, I dread the list of chores waiting for me at home. If I start laundry will I have time to dry and fold it before I leave? Maybe I should just wait and do it tonight. Wait! Maybe I can ask Bill to put it into the dryer for me and fold it when I get back? Wait! What if he forgets and I am stuck with moldy towels?
Forget it.
What about that pile of paperwork that has been expanding on my desk? Is there enough time to tackle that? What if I don’t finish and am left with ten more piles to deal with? Where do I even start? Why even start?
I watch the clock-time flying forward. I still have to shop for dinner. Chicken or steak? My husband does more than his share of the cooking, but often burdens me with the choice of what he is going to cook.
The pressure!!
I walk slowly up to my room where my still unmade bed looks so inviting. Maybe I could just take a twenty-minute nap? That would give me time to stop for coffee on the way to pick up the kids. If I go to sleep now, I will have time to get there early. With a prime parking spot I can sit and read before school gets out. My chores can wait. The paperwork will still be there tomorrow as will the laundry. But who knows when I will get another opportunity to take a nap? I let my “to do” list drift to the floor.
Maybe the judgment I need to work on improving is my critical judgment of myself?
By Cathy Burke
Labels: Cathy Burke
Stumble This Post
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
My First Kid
He arrived with great joy fifteen years ago this March.
He has absorbed all of my tears, shared my playful joy and loved me unconditionally. I have, in turn, woke up at night to quiet his screams, cleaned up after his messes, gave him medicine when he was sick, made sure somebody responsible looked after him when I was away, and loved him unconditionally.
Thankfully, he approved of my husband when I got married and my husband willingly accepted the fact that he was part of the package that came with me. My husband gladly adopted him and embraced loving him, holding him and waking up to feed him.
He has even put thought into his gifts at Christmas and embraced the fact that he gives me so much joy. My first “kid,” Siren is my Siamese Blue Point cat.
Unlike my children, ever since day one Siren has pooped in his “toilet” and ate every last drop of whatever food is put in front of him. However, like my children, he wakes up several times at night, screams as loud as he can for no apparent reason, and wants my attention at his every convenience.
Siren prepared me for experiencing the level of annoyance, joy and unconditional love that children bring to my life. Unexpectedly, the magnitude of these feelings grew exponentially with the birth of my own boys.
By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy Stumble This Post
He has absorbed all of my tears, shared my playful joy and loved me unconditionally. I have, in turn, woke up at night to quiet his screams, cleaned up after his messes, gave him medicine when he was sick, made sure somebody responsible looked after him when I was away, and loved him unconditionally.
Thankfully, he approved of my husband when I got married and my husband willingly accepted the fact that he was part of the package that came with me. My husband gladly adopted him and embraced loving him, holding him and waking up to feed him.
He has even put thought into his gifts at Christmas and embraced the fact that he gives me so much joy. My first “kid,” Siren is my Siamese Blue Point cat.
Unlike my children, ever since day one Siren has pooped in his “toilet” and ate every last drop of whatever food is put in front of him. However, like my children, he wakes up several times at night, screams as loud as he can for no apparent reason, and wants my attention at his every convenience.
Siren prepared me for experiencing the level of annoyance, joy and unconditional love that children bring to my life. Unexpectedly, the magnitude of these feelings grew exponentially with the birth of my own boys.
By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy
Labels: Jennifer O'Shaughnessy
Stumble This Post
Monday, March 03, 2008
Missing -- Your Brain
Here’s the dirty little secret they don’t tell you in the glossy parenting magazines.
You miss your brain.
You miss conversations where you had something to offer other than this floaty, under-water feeling, this blank mush that used to be your frontal cortex that can no longer be counted on to fire.
You watch and listen to adult activity going on around you and think, “Do something now,” but your brain is on strike. “Ya talkin’ to me?’ it says, at which point, you’ve missed your opening and the conversation moves on. You smile gamely; you keep expecting some version of your former intelligence to be available. Time after time, it surprises you that all you have left is this blank, vacuous, space in your head.
Conversations aren’t the only challenge. There’s also the brain-dead activities: like when you go to the grocery store and come back with everything but the crucial ingredient for the recipe that you’re trying to prepare. Or you go to the computer to order a prescription on-line and instead answer a bunch of meaningless e-mails but log off without the re-fill. Even after you have bypassed all those political ‘must-read’ messages.
Someday, you tell yourself, you will be politically informed again. In the meantime, you’re very active in another sort of politics; in fact, you’re sort of an ambassador of peace. You patrol the borders of the daily sibling squirmishes and the uncertain dynamics of playground inclusions and exclusions; you negotiate play dates that teeter from gleeful to hostile, moment to moment.
You hope these are good enough excuses as to why your brain is so fried. But you even got sleep last night and today, have childcare. You should be making a list, getting organized, knocking things out. Instead, you’re sitting glazed over, watching the world pass.
Last night, when you sat with Little Sister clinging and drooling all over Big Brother’s book, attempting to defuse his annoyance before it escalated to outrage, “Why does she always ruin my stuff?” because the last thing you wanted were tears before bedtime, that wasn’t at all what you’d pictured when you’d snuggled down with both kids who were miraculously bathed and powdered before eight-thirty. This was supposed to be the sweet time of the day, during what were supposed to be the good years. At least that’s what all the older parents keep telling you as they watch your kids twining themselves around you when you just want to extract your wallet in the grocery line. The older parents stand there, wistfully telling you how much you’re going to miss these tender years.
But there was nothing pleasant about trying to prevent Big Brother from pulling out all Little Sister’s hair, or buying him off with promises of a new book tomorrow, just go to sleep now so you can get off Damage Control Patrol.
Last night when you got yourself through those melt-downs by picturing these glorious two hours that you have, all to yourself today, you didn’t imagine that you’d be sitting here like a sticky lump of Play dough, unable to move.
Your brain and body don’t seem to recognize each other anymore. They may be permanently estranged. Maybe it’s from eating only brown and orange-colored food for oh, about three years. The only things that have passed your lips are: Gold-fish, graham crackers, hot dogs, mac and cheese. And don’t forget those peanut-butter crackers that are basically fancily packaged sodium.
Or maybe your brain has gone on strike from the sheer monotony of being a Ph.D. who’s now working as a sandwich-maker/ sponge-mopper/ shelf-stocker. Maybe it’s from the years of having your musical repertoire reduced to a tune sung off-key by a fuzzy red creature. “La-la-la-la, Elmo’s World.”
What makes it worth losing your mind like this?
* * *
You return from your un-productive alone time and look at your children. Big Brother has his arm around Little Sister as he ‘reads’ her a story, flipping through the heavy pages of his card-board book. This time he doesn’t seem to notice the drool dripping off her chin, only that she’s gazing up at him, pouring adoration out of her toothless grin.
Your world opens up; the sky is raining love. There is a moment of sweetness. La-la-la-la.
by Mary Beth McClure Stumble This Post
You miss your brain.
You miss conversations where you had something to offer other than this floaty, under-water feeling, this blank mush that used to be your frontal cortex that can no longer be counted on to fire.
You watch and listen to adult activity going on around you and think, “Do something now,” but your brain is on strike. “Ya talkin’ to me?’ it says, at which point, you’ve missed your opening and the conversation moves on. You smile gamely; you keep expecting some version of your former intelligence to be available. Time after time, it surprises you that all you have left is this blank, vacuous, space in your head.
Conversations aren’t the only challenge. There’s also the brain-dead activities: like when you go to the grocery store and come back with everything but the crucial ingredient for the recipe that you’re trying to prepare. Or you go to the computer to order a prescription on-line and instead answer a bunch of meaningless e-mails but log off without the re-fill. Even after you have bypassed all those political ‘must-read’ messages.
Someday, you tell yourself, you will be politically informed again. In the meantime, you’re very active in another sort of politics; in fact, you’re sort of an ambassador of peace. You patrol the borders of the daily sibling squirmishes and the uncertain dynamics of playground inclusions and exclusions; you negotiate play dates that teeter from gleeful to hostile, moment to moment.
You hope these are good enough excuses as to why your brain is so fried. But you even got sleep last night and today, have childcare. You should be making a list, getting organized, knocking things out. Instead, you’re sitting glazed over, watching the world pass.
Last night, when you sat with Little Sister clinging and drooling all over Big Brother’s book, attempting to defuse his annoyance before it escalated to outrage, “Why does she always ruin my stuff?” because the last thing you wanted were tears before bedtime, that wasn’t at all what you’d pictured when you’d snuggled down with both kids who were miraculously bathed and powdered before eight-thirty. This was supposed to be the sweet time of the day, during what were supposed to be the good years. At least that’s what all the older parents keep telling you as they watch your kids twining themselves around you when you just want to extract your wallet in the grocery line. The older parents stand there, wistfully telling you how much you’re going to miss these tender years.
But there was nothing pleasant about trying to prevent Big Brother from pulling out all Little Sister’s hair, or buying him off with promises of a new book tomorrow, just go to sleep now so you can get off Damage Control Patrol.
Last night when you got yourself through those melt-downs by picturing these glorious two hours that you have, all to yourself today, you didn’t imagine that you’d be sitting here like a sticky lump of Play dough, unable to move.
Your brain and body don’t seem to recognize each other anymore. They may be permanently estranged. Maybe it’s from eating only brown and orange-colored food for oh, about three years. The only things that have passed your lips are: Gold-fish, graham crackers, hot dogs, mac and cheese. And don’t forget those peanut-butter crackers that are basically fancily packaged sodium.
Or maybe your brain has gone on strike from the sheer monotony of being a Ph.D. who’s now working as a sandwich-maker/ sponge-mopper/ shelf-stocker. Maybe it’s from the years of having your musical repertoire reduced to a tune sung off-key by a fuzzy red creature. “La-la-la-la, Elmo’s World.”
What makes it worth losing your mind like this?
* * *
You return from your un-productive alone time and look at your children. Big Brother has his arm around Little Sister as he ‘reads’ her a story, flipping through the heavy pages of his card-board book. This time he doesn’t seem to notice the drool dripping off her chin, only that she’s gazing up at him, pouring adoration out of her toothless grin.
Your world opens up; the sky is raining love. There is a moment of sweetness. La-la-la-la.
by Mary Beth McClure
Labels: Mary Beth McClure
Stumble This Post
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Meditation
When I was 16 a group of friends and I decided we would learn to meditate. I wanted to do it, but was a bit hesitant. There was a pair of Frye boots that cost the same as learning to practice Transcendental Meditation, the hottest new thing.
I let the choice simmer, deciding that the boots would last two seasons at most. Meditation a lifetime.
We had to bring flowers, an offering. I took some from my mother’s garden. My friends and I each went into a room and young man who could have been my parents’ accountant, smiled beatifically. I bit my lower lip so I wouldn't laugh as he chanted, something I had never heard before.
Maybe I should have gotten those Frye Boots.
“Ima,” he said. “Repeat. Im-ma.”
“Ima,” I said tentatively.
“This is your mantra. Yours alone. You must not share it with anyone,” he said solemnly. He rang a gong, we got it on (not really -- just an old T-Rex song) and it was over.
I went home, closed the door and tried to meditate. The idea was as a thought came into my mind, I was gently supposed to push it away. I practiced saying my mantra out loud over and over until I could do it silently in my hyperactive mind.
At first I could only sit still for five minutes, soon it became ten and eventually the required twenty. It was supposed to be done twice a day but that was too stressful. I meditated once daily.
Soon something shifted. I felt a calmness inward; an awareness outward.
My girlfriends and I were at my best friend, Amy’s house, when she asked us what our mantras were.
Andy, an artist and one of the more serious among us, was aghast. “You CANNOT tell anybody else your mantra.” She couldn’t believe Amy would ask such a thing.
“Ima,” Amy quickly said with an enormous smile. “Ima! Ima!” she shouted with joy.
“Ima!” I joined in.
“Dawn,” admonished Andy.
“Well, mine’s Ima, too,” said Bonnie.
“I’m Ima,” added Jane.
Andy was all deep sighs and shaking head. She didn’t have to meditate because now she had the ability to telegraph her feelings: disgust.
“Sacred what?” Amy asked. “It’s a sound.”
It was more.
There was something profound that at such a young age we were seeking something deeper, searching within, yet still acting our ages, skipping school, getting stoned.
It’s some 30 years later and after a few years of stopping my practice, I have recently resumed meditating. I do it after I drop my daughter off at school in the morning.
The last two years have been difficult. I’m trying to get back to the place I was before a medical journey I had no desire to take overtook me.
I want my groove back.
I sit on my couch, stare at Mt. Tam and the guardian angel tree in our backyard, the one that has a chronic disease much like me, and sit with my legs folded, my hands resting on my knees, pray for protection for my loved ones, and I, internally, repeat, “Ohm.” I have found over the years that the singular sound, rather than a double consonant works more comfortably and quickly.
During a recent meditation, at the top and bottom of my mind was darkness. Black. In the middle were what appeared to be white teacups sitting one atop the other. I started to push this thought away when I realized I was being shown something.
The darkness represented the muck that I sometimes feel stuck in when I’m overwhelmed, tired and unwell. The white teacups? A lotus flower. Despite the dark, light is growing within. I felt refreshed, renewed and filled with remembrances of the power of meditation.
Not long ago I saw a pair of Frye Boots in the store. Maybe now I will buy them. They're back in style.
By Dawn Yun Stumble This Post
I let the choice simmer, deciding that the boots would last two seasons at most. Meditation a lifetime.
We had to bring flowers, an offering. I took some from my mother’s garden. My friends and I each went into a room and young man who could have been my parents’ accountant, smiled beatifically. I bit my lower lip so I wouldn't laugh as he chanted, something I had never heard before.
Maybe I should have gotten those Frye Boots.
“Ima,” he said. “Repeat. Im-ma.”
“Ima,” I said tentatively.
“This is your mantra. Yours alone. You must not share it with anyone,” he said solemnly. He rang a gong, we got it on (not really -- just an old T-Rex song) and it was over.
I went home, closed the door and tried to meditate. The idea was as a thought came into my mind, I was gently supposed to push it away. I practiced saying my mantra out loud over and over until I could do it silently in my hyperactive mind.
At first I could only sit still for five minutes, soon it became ten and eventually the required twenty. It was supposed to be done twice a day but that was too stressful. I meditated once daily.
Soon something shifted. I felt a calmness inward; an awareness outward.
My girlfriends and I were at my best friend, Amy’s house, when she asked us what our mantras were.
Andy, an artist and one of the more serious among us, was aghast. “You CANNOT tell anybody else your mantra.” She couldn’t believe Amy would ask such a thing.
“Ima,” Amy quickly said with an enormous smile. “Ima! Ima!” she shouted with joy.
“Ima!” I joined in.
“Dawn,” admonished Andy.
“Well, mine’s Ima, too,” said Bonnie.
“I’m Ima,” added Jane.
Andy was all deep sighs and shaking head. She didn’t have to meditate because now she had the ability to telegraph her feelings: disgust.
“Sacred what?” Amy asked. “It’s a sound.”
It was more.
There was something profound that at such a young age we were seeking something deeper, searching within, yet still acting our ages, skipping school, getting stoned.
It’s some 30 years later and after a few years of stopping my practice, I have recently resumed meditating. I do it after I drop my daughter off at school in the morning.
The last two years have been difficult. I’m trying to get back to the place I was before a medical journey I had no desire to take overtook me.
I want my groove back.
I sit on my couch, stare at Mt. Tam and the guardian angel tree in our backyard, the one that has a chronic disease much like me, and sit with my legs folded, my hands resting on my knees, pray for protection for my loved ones, and I, internally, repeat, “Ohm.” I have found over the years that the singular sound, rather than a double consonant works more comfortably and quickly.
During a recent meditation, at the top and bottom of my mind was darkness. Black. In the middle were what appeared to be white teacups sitting one atop the other. I started to push this thought away when I realized I was being shown something.
The darkness represented the muck that I sometimes feel stuck in when I’m overwhelmed, tired and unwell. The white teacups? A lotus flower. Despite the dark, light is growing within. I felt refreshed, renewed and filled with remembrances of the power of meditation.
Not long ago I saw a pair of Frye Boots in the store. Maybe now I will buy them. They're back in style.
By Dawn Yun
Labels: Dawn Yun
Stumble This Post
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Two Boys, Less One
My two sons were born four months prematurely. Every one calls them twins, but secretly I wince at the word because they are really triplets. Their oldest brother did not live long enough to even make it to the intensive care unit. It is such a long and complicated story that when a stranger approaches cooing, “What beautiful twins,” it is easier to respond with the appropriate niceties.
People ask which boy was born first and I want to shout, “Neither!” but I lie and point at the second eldest.
Before things went wrong I had mapped out scenes from our future. I think every parent does. Whether it is your baby’s first smile, how you will look walking down the street as a mom, or where your child will go to school. I suspect the image is different for everyone. I had a picture of what it would be like to be wheeled to the front doors of the hospital clutching three baby boys. How everyone would turn their heads and say, “Triplets!” I have always liked to watch this imagined scene unfold.
I am an OB/GYN so I see it a lot. The father or partner nervously sprints to the car and as the mother passes by cradling her precious bundle, almost everyone smiles and remarks on their baby. It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement of a newborn. The mothers are like beauty pageant winners, clutching a baby instead of roses, their faces beaming with excitement as they glide through the hallways as if they were taking their first turn on the stage before an adoring crowd.
No one looks at the mother without a baby. We are the invisible.
I had come to the hospital pregnant with three boys and I now had two, who had a tenuous grasp on life at best. Even as a doctor, I do not think that I understood the gravity of the situation until I left the building. The sound of the car door closing was like punctuation for all that pent-up emotion. I began to sob. I have never felt so completely devastated. I was crying for my son who died, for my boys who might not live, and for all the dreams that had vanished.
A mother should never have to leave the hospital without her baby.
As a doctor, I still come and go from a hospital daily, just as I have done for more than 20 years. To this day, I have to turn away when I see those smiling mothers as they glide in their wheelchairs toward the hospital doors as it reminds me of how I felt getting into our car so many years before.
I can never escape it.
It is a visceral reminder of all that was lost. These are wounds that cannot heal. I know it is not their fault that my pregnancy did not go as planned, that after months of intensive care I left the hospital with two critically ill boys instead of three healthy ones, but I cannot help it.
Seeing those happy, smiling parents is a reminder of all those original dreams long discarded, but never forgotten.
By Jennifer Gunter Stumble This Post
People ask which boy was born first and I want to shout, “Neither!” but I lie and point at the second eldest.
Before things went wrong I had mapped out scenes from our future. I think every parent does. Whether it is your baby’s first smile, how you will look walking down the street as a mom, or where your child will go to school. I suspect the image is different for everyone. I had a picture of what it would be like to be wheeled to the front doors of the hospital clutching three baby boys. How everyone would turn their heads and say, “Triplets!” I have always liked to watch this imagined scene unfold.
I am an OB/GYN so I see it a lot. The father or partner nervously sprints to the car and as the mother passes by cradling her precious bundle, almost everyone smiles and remarks on their baby. It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement of a newborn. The mothers are like beauty pageant winners, clutching a baby instead of roses, their faces beaming with excitement as they glide through the hallways as if they were taking their first turn on the stage before an adoring crowd.
No one looks at the mother without a baby. We are the invisible.
I had come to the hospital pregnant with three boys and I now had two, who had a tenuous grasp on life at best. Even as a doctor, I do not think that I understood the gravity of the situation until I left the building. The sound of the car door closing was like punctuation for all that pent-up emotion. I began to sob. I have never felt so completely devastated. I was crying for my son who died, for my boys who might not live, and for all the dreams that had vanished.
A mother should never have to leave the hospital without her baby.
As a doctor, I still come and go from a hospital daily, just as I have done for more than 20 years. To this day, I have to turn away when I see those smiling mothers as they glide in their wheelchairs toward the hospital doors as it reminds me of how I felt getting into our car so many years before.
I can never escape it.
It is a visceral reminder of all that was lost. These are wounds that cannot heal. I know it is not their fault that my pregnancy did not go as planned, that after months of intensive care I left the hospital with two critically ill boys instead of three healthy ones, but I cannot help it.
Seeing those happy, smiling parents is a reminder of all those original dreams long discarded, but never forgotten.
By Jennifer Gunter
Labels: Jennifer Gunter
Stumble This Post
