Parenting
Happy Easter! We’re back in the saddle here in Saint Paul after a whirlwind ten days on the East Coast. Overall, I’d say we traveled well. The kids had their moments of glory and moments of dolphin-like high-pitched protest screeches. You know. But the other adults & family we visited were amazing without any of those shrill sounds, surprisingly! Find me over at Blessed is She this week, Fumbling Towards Grace, and The Fisk Files. Sorry I’ve been kinda absent. Getting back in the groove of life back home. Nunu. She was my travel guru. Ready to prove her grandmotherly travel skills of shushing and soothing the baby, stern looks and sweet snuggles with the tantrum-filled toddler, along with hand-holding and whining-whispering the pre-k’er, she did it all. No one can keep up with her pace of walking with this double stroller that saved our bacon. We could never have navigated the airports, parks, and long stretches of sidewalk walking without it. Good thing she remembered to bring it. Tia KK. She is the ultimate auntie. Devoted to her nieces and nephews, she’s always ready to sing them a new song, play a freshly made-up game, or distract them from their deep distress over sharing. She saved all of us from even more crying my taking the saddest child in the room away to love them up. Cannot travel without her. Period. Tia B. My oldest sister runs the computery stuff for a really amazing international film/show streaming web service (think better than Netflix) called Drama…
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I have no time. I’m sure you don’t either. There’s no time for quality conversations with other adults. There’s no time for quality skin care (thank GOD for my sister’s products or I would look even older than I already felt). There’s not enough time to even make more time. So what do we do? We moms of littles. We moms of many. We moms of one. We working moms. We at home moms. We healthy moms. We struggling moms. We strong moms. We tired moms. We bold moms. We translucent moms. I’ve been hit hard with this. In some ways, since I had my third, I’ve been on the go. In other ways, I was so forced to stop and slow down I thought I’d never be able to have my get up & go again. We have traveled a lot, conference, other conference, weddings, family visits. But I also was in bed for almost two months after I had him because of that pesky infection in my uterus that knocked me supine. Time is slipping away, wriggling away from me. I never have enough time on the phone with my siblings. AA and I never have enough time with each other. I can never get enough of reading with my kids and answering their insistent questions. SuperBoy: So when we die, our bodies decompose, and the deer eat us? Me: Not necessarily the deer, but yes, our body will decompose. SuperBoy: Why not deer? Vultures? Moose? Black Bears? SweetPea: But why…
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I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it at all before I had kids. Why my friends in law school would cancel. Why they would show up late, not dressed for the occasion, why they would leave early, why they would say no. No, I can’t come for brunch. No, I can’t come for late studying. No, I can’t come back to work on that binder review. I mean, I thought I got it. I babysat for a number of them. They had kids so that meant they were busy and had to worry about things like pediatric dentistry and kindergarten round up or maybe diaper rash. But I didn’t really get it. I didn’t know what it looked like to have a minivan full of small children after a long day of classes and the forecast of all night homework. And their husband was working evening shifts. And they missed a meeting we had scheduled. I didn’t get that when their wife just had a baby, maybe her infection would mean trips back to the hospital and no sleep and crying parents + baby. And therefore law review work wasn’t done. I didn’t get that enthusiasm for community events would be stamped out when their wailing shrieking no-napped toddlers has slammed their fingers in the coolers two too many times and I would be left to cleanup without some of the crew. I thought that they chose to have a family and make commitments to me, their studies, their whatever…
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My awesome girlfriend from law school, Nicole, is an expert on many things. Remember her two part series on her son’s autism? Parts one and two for your perusal. One of her passion topics is reading and literacy in general. I was messaging with her one day about reading and when should SuperBoy really be really reading and what does that mean??? She was gracious enough to share her expertise with all of us today. So sit back and read her essay on not stressing about reading. Because I really enjoyed it and I think you will too. She also just wrote this fantastic piece over here. — I am a teacher, a homeschool parent, and perpetual graduate student. Looking into many homeschool groups, I see there is often a lot of anxiety surrounding reading and I know a lot of parents worry about it. Even the government is pressuring pre-school and kindergarten teachers to get their charges to read at younger and younger ages. This anxiety seems well-placed because reading is a foundation skill; if you can read, you can teach yourself to do anything else. But…I don’t worry about reading. Seriously! There is an approved-and-perceived-to-be-correct way to teach reading, and I’ll tell you the secret of that method, but first, I’ll tell you what the trained teachers often don’t know about reading and that you, as a home-based educator need to know in order to make sense of everything to decide when, how, and if you want to teach reading. Yes, I said if.…
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That sounds awful. A mom who doesn’t care if her kids are happy? What kind of a new level of tiger-mom is this?? Adjectives I do not care about as they are proscribed to my children while they are children or adults: happy; productive; smart; or pretty/handsome. Well some of those, sure. I mean, if your kid isn’t the most prettiest thang ever, okay, we’re all trying to avoid being superficial here. And sure, maybe my kid isn’t super smart but instead is really nice. {Nice is a Minnesotan way of saying a pejorative of any kind, by the way.} And sure, your kid might grow up to work as a menial laborer instead of finding the cure for cancer, so we’ll take that because at least she’s productive. I’ve written about how I struggle with hoping my kids will be perfectly healthy. I think “productive” kinda falls in those lines. My children might not contribute to society in a tangible, material way. That’s a different post. But happy? Of course we all are seeking happiness! It’s elusive. We’d like it to be purchasable in chocolate form, vino form, or a new outfit via amazon prime. I want my dopamine hit, thank you very kindly. Why I don’t care if they are happy for their lives is based on my experience that happiness as a feeling doesn’t last. After I gorge myself on ice cream, hoping it will bring lasting joy, surprise, surprise: cue NOT. And marriage isn’t about lasting happiness, either, as I just…
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Cleaning out my closet which has been a project nearly a year in the making, most of that time just in my head, I came upon this journal we had written in during our honeymoon. Nearly six years ago. We had these beautiful goals for our marriage. These really, truly lovely and lofty ideals of how we would proceed in developing our lives together. I read them with a little bit of a sneer. How idealistic. How childlike. Clearly I hadn’t experienced the devastation of pregnancy on my whole body. Clearly I hadn’t felt the disruption of sleep for years on end. Clearly I hadn’t fought with the haze of long hours without each other hanging between us, that resentment of your hardworking lover whose absence pains you. Then I read them aloud to AA. I choked up a little. Okay, a lot. Maybe because our beloved friends in Scythian have been in town (the kids are WILD about Joey. Very wild about Tim, too!) and I’ve been listening to their new album, Old Tin Can, and weeping copiously especially at Clare to Here and our first wedding dance they played in our front yard, If Ever You Were Mine. Why have I become–dare I say?–cynical? Why is everyday about surviving the tests and tantrums, the deadlines and stresses, somehow pulling dinner out of a magic hat, and crashing or retreating to my computer or sewing machine to get revitalized before another day of the same? Why do I scoff at me &…
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