Parenting
To my husband on his big mid-thirty’s birthday little fingers– inside your heart all sunshine long —- sleepy eyes perk up before dawn snuggles —- big brain hold small hands inside his arms —- laugh tender growing squiggles our family of five —- You would never know my thesis was a poetry manuscript. This is all I got, people. If you too love this Janod firefighter set, I cannot recommend anything from that company highly enough. Brilliant design. The box is part of the toy. Costco pjs? Don’t mind if he does. And yes, note the Scythian sticker on the kids’ learning tower. They love their adopted uncles. If you don’t own Cake for Dinner, the kid album of the world’s bestest band, your life is incomplete. I have a copy or two for a giveaway I’ll run later this month! Our now weekly visits to his work that include AA getting me a very large hot cocoa & the kids croissants from the Starbucks in his building, meeting us at the car, having a visit in the don’t-park-here-just-load-here spot, and then being recharged enough to survive the next 8 hours without him. It’s like drive-through love. Pictured here the kids actually got to get out and go in with him–because it was above 30 degrees finally.
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Me, fat & happy at 34 weeks with BabyLoves. Yes, this is a St. Joan of Arc tee I got at Zara in Vegas years and years ago. Big fatty disclaimer: this is not a treatise on how staying home is morally superior to working outside the home. Not a jot. I do not believe that to be the case. I support moms coming up with what’s best for their children at different times of life. And that they have the right to chance that opinion, modify it, and not be judged any/either way. This is just about how I have paused my lawyerly career to be a stay at home mom. Something that spurned on these reflections were an article in the Atlantic I read last year that a friend brought up again by Anne-Marie Slaughter called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” The dichotomy of either working or mothering. The lack of space for a good dose of both in our society? Read it–it’s more interesting than my little essay here! I’m not a lawyer for right now. It’s a weird thing, to feel that my career is on long-term hold. I still am a lawyer, technically. I’m still admitted to the Bar. I’m inactive, but that’s still the field I worked in for years and the diploma in my closet. It’s weird. Having a career-defining job title “lawyer” and stepping away from it. And when people ask what I do, I say, “I’m a lawyer who…
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Oh, did your kid scream her head off during the large-scale playdate you hosted? First off, don’t be embarrassed. I’ve had this exact same experience, as has any mother of a 2+ year old. All the other moms have either had this experience, or if their child is extremely unusual and they’ve never hosted anything, maybe they were horrified. Truly, though, this is totally normal and to be expected. Why? Because your kid is 2+ and is developing at lightening speed internally and behavior can’t keep up! When I last had this happen and we had about 7 other little monsters over, and SuperBoy was completely ballistic out of his mind, luckily, my mom was home that day. She took him upstairs so I could continue to host and he could reclaim his brain particles. But what about when it’s just you & the monster & maybe a baby in arms and a room full of other mothers? A few things that have helped me: 1) Prep prep prep. Prep the kids ahead of time: “Children are coming. they’re going to touch all your toys. If there is a toy you don’t want to share, let’s put it in your room. We want our friends to be happy, so we’re going to share.” I often have to remind them mid-date (if they’re acting up) that “We’re going to have a wonderful snack. Little children who share nicely get a really nice treat!” I’m not above bribery, or attempts thereof. 2)…
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A friend just messaged me about being pregnant with number three. Did I have any tips on preparing oneself? I had to laugh a little because my pregnancy has been so rough in so many ways that getting it through and done is the biggest part of preparing myself for three, four & under! Then I thought about it a little more. How did we know we were ready for another life, or the possibility of it? How was I crazy enough to embark on throwing up for weeks and weeks on end? And then the capstone: wanting no pain meds for labor?? The answer is that you have to leap, always, when you’re open to more kids. There will be unknowns and unexpecteds. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. There will be floods of joy over your porous heart. Porous because they keep stabbing you in it. I also hate being pregnant, but know it’s not a disease and I’ll get over it (as my paternal grandmother used to tell my mom and her five miserable pregnancies). How I’ve actually prepped myself for three kids? A few of the following, but lots of ice cream, lying in bed when I could be productive, and letting my husband play rough house with the kids right before actual bedtime. 1) Get help. Now. My family is awesome. They’re really about as close to perfect as you could get. Devoted & doting grandparents, super involved aunties & uncles, and many…
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Okay, so death is not really on the line. Maybe more like screaming and shrieking to death. That’s probably the biggest risk involved here. And my hearing. My sanity? My own patience? Anyone with two kids aged over 1 and over 3 have witnessed this: SuperBoy playing happily with one truck. He zooms it. He shoves things into it. He talks to himself about what it’s doing. He proudly tells me what it’s doing “going to mass and then to the baseball game to bring the players their communion.” Doo dee doo. SweetPea enters the scene. She had been happily coloring all over a coloring book from the 80’s (90’s?) from the thrift store. You know, long stripes of crayon in an erratic fashion. I glance over at it and wonder “should I be reinforcing circles, counter clockwise? Is this another example of her happily learning and experiencing on her own or am I supposed to intervene. If she were at pre-school, would a certified teacher be correcting her?” Then I decide that’s part of why she’s not at pre-school. And that if I get up, everything will hurt. She pops up and over to see where his truck is going. Suddenly it happens. She shrieks before she sweeps. Like an eagle. Out of the sky. Onto its tiny mouse prey. And the tousle starts. NO NO IT’S MINE! he shouts as she full-body embraces the truck, splaying over it like that mean kid who licked all the cupcakes at the party so no one…
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Someone asked me over the wedding weekend what it meant that I wrote a “parenting blog.” Do you write your blog everyday? Do you chronicle your parenting? Does it include how-to youtube videos? were a few of the followups. It took a few minutes to sort through my own mind of what it is I’m doing here, and why, and how to answer this polite person who was genuinely interested in unearthing what on earth I meant by “parenting blog.” Or sometimes I respond to the question And what do you do? with the answer that’s simplest: I’m a stay-at-home mom, expecting my third. Or I do the whole: I’m an attorney who’s on hiatus home with our children (which begs the question of when this hiatus will end). Or sometimes if they really seem to want to know what I do, I say all three: I’m a stay-at-home lawyer mom taking a break from legal practice who runs a natural parenting blog and organic goods etsy shop. It’s so convoluted, they usually have only one follow up question: what’s etsy? In response to this person’s question, and my own that I pose in the title, I had to eat a bowl of mint chip ice cream (hey, Fat Tuesday is tomorrow. Our Jesus-induced diet of Lenten no sweets is coming up in just mere hours), survey my very dirty studio floor, the insane amount of indoor seedlings my husband is growing right next to my computer and practically on top…
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