Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Modeling good behavior

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Oh, my, this parenting thing brings a whole new layer of perspective to rude people. I tend to thrive on confrontation. In business and personal relationships, I am quite forward about what I need, want, and will tolerate. I don’t mince words and it doesn’t make me any extra friends. But having a small child watch my every action and listen to my every word has changed the way I do things. Even when people are really nasty and horrible.

We were in Target this weekend, which is now a whole different adventure than it used to be. I used to avoid Target because I found so many things I “needed” and would walk away with a whole apartment redecorating project, garden renovation, and new beauty regimen. Now I’m lucky to run the half mile to whatever random household product we need and make it to checkout before Peanut loses his patience with the whole shopping thing. Luckily, he has no tolerance for shopping, whether in sling, cart, or on foot. I relish this because, aside from the biannual Target spendfest, I loathe shopping and would rather get everything on amazon (once they stop including disgusting McD*n*ld’s advertising in every one of my organic, vegetarian food shipments). So it’s nice to have a child who, likewise, has patience for 4.2 minutes in a store, and then wants out.

Anyway, he needed to use the facilities, and we headed toward the ladies’ room. (He prefers it when I take him into the men’s, and when we’re somewhere that it doesn’t matter, I do. I told him that our society has some people who think everyone should use the same potty, and some people who think men and ladies should go in different rooms to pee. I don’t know why, I told him. It seems silly. Nobody has a men’s and ladies’ bathroom sign at home. Whatever. I blame a lot of things I don’t understand on “society,” and I’m sure some year he’ll go dressed as “society” for Halloween.)

On the way to the ladies’ room, he saw a standalone handicapped-accessible bathroom. He was excited, because he knows that means more room and a lower sink. He’s used to the family-friendly bathrooms at the hospital and the mall (shudder), and prefers them greatly to the cramped quarters of a single stall. I looked around to see if anyone was headed that way. There was a woman with a cane in her cart making a beeline for the same bathroom. So I stopped and asked, “Are you headed in there?” I figured if she wanted the room, it was hers.

“Yes,” she barked. “That’s what it’s for.” She grabbed her cane and waved it. “I’m handicapped.”

No problem, I thought. But Peanut, of course, began his now standard line. “No share. No share that lady. Peanut turn. Please no share.” It used to be, “Hit that lady! No lady! Hit! Hit! Hit!” but we’ve managed, through talking, ignoring, and offering new words, to eliminate the hitting chorus of his skipping record. But the lady didn’t like the sound of his new song.

“It’s not for children, you know. It’s for handicapped people.”

“And families with small children,” I answered. That was my first mistake. I know damned well it’s for people with different abilities, who need more time, more space, more features. I know that. But don’t tell me off, and don’t snap at my kid. It just pushes my buttons. Imagine a family with three or four kids, who has trouble keeping them all perfectly well behaved in a huge, cavernous Target bathroom. If they want a shot at an empty, unwanted handicapped standalone bathroom, I say they deserve it. I don’t care what the picture on the door says. If the standalone is empty, my recently potty-trained kid with a fear of regular bathroom stalls gets it. I don’t believe in expectant mother parking. I don’t believe parents should get privileges that the child-free don’t have. But I think if a bathroom is empty and nobody wants it, a family that walks the balance beam of keeping everyone in a socially-acceptable mood can use the differently abled standalone. I know it’s not polite to occupy that bathroom in case someone else needs it . But life’s not fair and I have a kid with bathroom avoidance issues.

Plus, she goaded me.

“No, it’s not. It’s not. I’ve been handicapped for a long time and I know that much,” she sneered.

“No share that lady,” repeated Peanut. “No share. That lady no share.”

“Yes,” I said calmly to Peanut, mostly for the woman’s benefit. “We’re going to share with that lady. It’s her turn. When she’s done, you can have a turn,” I said calmly. I wanted to tell her we were there first, but I knew we didn’t really have a right to the bathroom, so I wanted to teach him that we wait graciously when someone else needs it first, even if we were technically in the geographic area first.

She left her cart and cane outside and started into the bathroom. “Wait,” she said, as she had almost closed the door. “Do you mean for changing diapers?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to silently hurry her. I have a recently potty trained toddler, lady, who needs to go. Please, please just go in there and so I can convince him to use the other bathroom. He won’t listen to me while you’re here and he con’t compromise while he can see into the Holy Land of Big Potties. There was no way, I figured, that he would let go of the idea of the big room. Not now. He had seen it and he knew he was next. So either shut the door and let me reason with him, or get down to business so we can be next.

“There’s a diaper changing area right over there.”

“Thank you. We’ll wait.”

“I’m handicapped you know, and even I know there are diaper changing areas in the other bathroom.”

I’m not an idiot. I know there are diaper changing areas elsewhere. I know most babies hate the changing tables and most moms wind up with babies on the floor. I know I don’t need a diaper change, I need a small bladder emptied in the potty. Get the f*%& in the bathroom! “Thank you. Please. Go.” I indicated the room. “Go ahead. Have fun.”

Ooops.

“Have fun? Have fun?!?! You’re an a**! You’re an a**”

Without Peanut there I might have chosen a few words for her. I might have walked away. I might have done a million different things. But I felt little eyes on me, and felt a warm calm come over what is normally a very hot temper.

“I don’t like that kind of talk.”

“You’re an a**!”

“That’s not nice talk. Please don’t talk that way in front of my child.”

“I have raised all my kids and I know you’re an a**!”

I picked up Peanut. I whispered to him, ignoring her. “That lady is feeling grouchy. It’s okay to have a grouchy day. It’s not okay to talk like that to people. She’s being not nice right now. That makes mommy sad and angry.”

She was FURIOUS that I was talking to him instead of her. She was railing on about how long she’d been handicapped. By myself I thought, so did you start out nice and being handicapped made you horrible, or were you horrible to start with? But that’s not nice talk. I know nothing about her life, and I just can’t do this right now. I’m holding my child and trying to put myself in her shoes. Maybe someone else had been rude to her today. Maybe she’d had bad experiences with kids playing in the handicapped bathroom when she needed to go. Maybe her different abilities include developmental delays that make outbursts more common. All I knew was that I treated her just like I would any other human being. I believe that people who need help should get help without feeling like it’s charity. I believe people should have every chance to have some of that pursuit of happiness stuff that seems to get disproportionately distributed lately. I hold the door for people who look as though they might need or appreciate the help. I offer my place in line or my seat to someone who looks like they’ve had a long day. I want to be as helpful as I can to anyone who needs it, handicapped or not. But I don’t like rude people. I’m sorry if life dealt you a shitty hand. I’m sorry if you’re usually nice and are having a hard day. I smiled at you, I le you go first, and you’re really pissing me off.

“GO AHEAD!” she shouted, pointing to the bathroom. “Go ahead and I hope you’re never handicapped.”

Me, too, I thought. I stared right at her and calmly turned around and walked my scared son into the main bathroom. Because he was distracted, he didn’t notice the loss of the fun bathroom. Because he really had to go, we had no issues with balking and refusing the small stall. And because I have to be a different person now, I talked with him quietly about how feeling grouchy is okay. How being rude is not okay. How I felt sad and angry that the woman yelled.

Unlike my former self, I didn’t want to have a whole conversation with her. I didn’t want to explain my point of view and feel satisfied that we were both heard. I wanted to take a deep breath and walk away.

If that’s what I’ve learned from child-centered parenting today, it was a really good day.

You say, russet? I say, leave the kid alone.

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What is wrong with people?

My son loves painting. The day he saw me paint my toenails (he was in the bath, Spouse was watching him carefully, I was bored, the polish was nontoxic-ish) he fell in love with a new artform. He paints his own toenails about once a week now. He paints his father’s toenails. He tries to paint the cats’ toenails. He loves using a different polish for each toenail, then covers most with “russ-sit,” his favorite.

He paints a lot of toe with toenail. We pretend we don’t care. At first we quickly wiped off the excess, horrified at all the chemicals seeping into his otherwise Dr. Bronner’ed body. Then we stopped caring. ‘Cuz wiping tiny skin next to itty bitty toenails leads to smudges, and the boy hates having his art mucked up. Plus, since we’re trying to be all green and organic and nontoxic, we figure he has a few healthy liver cells to spare. It’s like we’ve been all hyper-organic just to save up purity credits so he can formaldehyde himself once a week. Sigg bottles all the time, with nailpolish on a third of his body. Like drinking organic Coke.

So yesterday we’re walking the ‘hood and a neighbor points at his toenails. “What are you doing with this girlie stuff?”

Um, he’s two and a half. He doesn’t know there are things society reserves for girls and for boys. He doesn’t know because we don’t feel the need to tell him. He doesn’t know that small-minded people will close off half of his joys in life soon enough. He doesn’t know why the shoe lady resisted, for a moment, bringing him the pink butterfly boots he asked for, or why when he asks for purple clothes, there aren’t any in his section. (Yes, most of his jammies are pink and purple…HOLD THE PHONE. What East Coast freaks are in charge of Word’s spellchecker? Because since when is jimmies a better guess than jammies? There’s no such word as jimmies. They’re sprinkles. It’s a shopping cart, not a carriage. It’s a freaking purse, not a pocketbook. At least give me the West Coast version of Word, not the Boston edition. If I type milkshake is it going to correct to frappe? Or better yet, cabinet? Geez. Come on. They look like sprinkles. They act like sprinkles. Why in the hell would they be jimmies? And why, you stupid little paperclip freak, would I have my kid wear jimmies? Jammies. Now I have to go teach autocorrect a lesson or two in California vernacular. Damned thing probably says PEAbuddy instead of Pea-Body.)

(Wait, do they mean jimmies as a verb or a noun? I guess jimmy as a verb occurs more than jammies…no it doesn’t. Nighttime is every day, and jimmying things open is rather rare. If not, get yourself in good with a locksmith or a carpenter. Because life’s too short to jimmy things open all the time. Or to have to recorrect jimmies to jammies, when you typed what you wanted in the first place. Meddling coder geeks.)

Anyway, why do strangers feel the need to put their ubermasculine malarkey on my kid? So he polishes his toenails. So? So he likes butterflies and ladybugs. So? He likes pink. A lot. Used to be, parents were told to dress their boys in pink because red was too strong a color for girls, who were conventionally dressed in blue. (Note that it all changed to blue/boy, pink/girl when the Baby Boomers showed up. Dagnabit, could more of the world revolve around that generation?! When will they go away and let someone else have a chance at determining the nation’s priorities?)

My parents gave me a dump truck when I was in the hospital at age 2, and the nurses thought we were from some cult. I liked freaking trucks, y’all. And I didn’t turn out anything except open minded. All toddlers like trucks and trains and bugs and dolls, so why do we have to be wiping half of that off the map-o’-funness for them based on their plumbing? Spin mama’s son erupted from the bathroom five years ago and pronounced, with his hair wrapped in a towel and nothing else on, that he was a beautiful princess. “Yes, you are!” we all fawned, and went back to our conversation.

I love that Spouse goes to the playground with his son, both of them in sandals and toenail polish. Spouse doesn’t think twice about saying “yes, please” to our little painter. And when friends give him hell, he just looks at them without flinching and says, “My son did them for me.”

Gives me a tangible reminder of why Spouse is the best spouse for me and the best dad for Peanut.

So all y’all who have a problem with the two men in my life painting their toenails, you can just shove off. ‘Cuz I like them more than I like you, anyway.

It’s a yucky, icky world out there

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I don’t like the world, right at this particular minute. Everything that’s gross and violent and scary is getting worse, and everything that’s supposed to be safe isn’t. Aside from the whole “poisoning ourselves with every single thing in our over-produced and over-consuming country,” the lead stories today include a decapitation on a bus, a video-taped torture death, and a preacher killing his wife and freezing her body. (Sorry, no links. I can’t bear it–I didn’t read ant of those stories. The headlines were enough.) I was going to let all of that go, but, a blogger I found tag surfing at wordpress, whose kids have developmental differences, went to the library and burst into tears when storytime made her feel that she can’t even do normal things with her kids. Cried in the library.

Dude, that’s not okay. Some days, this is not a nice place to exist. Neither is the third world, I know. But I don’t live there and don’t have the energy to empathize that far today. I really don’t. I know that my absolute darkest moments are diamond-laden sunlight compared to the lives of 99% of the people in this world. I’m sorry if my kvetching dishonors those living in war-torn, impoverished countries. But seriously, a guy can’t sleep on a bus without being stabbed and decapitated? wtf?

People have been asking me, while Spouse is temporarily working in a galaxy far, far away, how I’m faring as a single parent. And without taking more than a nanosecond to wallow in missing him, I know that having a spouse be away is nothing at all like being a single parent. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to raise kids by myself with the added sorrow/fear/anger/joy of a relationship that ended, regardless of how amicably. (‘Cuz there are a lot of those around, right? Amicable divorces? Sure.) I can’t imagine how hard it would be to lose not only a co-parent, but a person with whom you once felt friendly/safe/loved. (I don’t want to be presumptuous about other people marrying someone who makes them feel warm and fuzzy, for one minute of work in domestic abuse organizations makes you rethink what marriage means. Can’t imagine that, either.) While we’re at it, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to raise children while working two or three jobs (thanks, ‘country that has nice ideas about democracy but totally sucks in its priorities,’ for completely abandoning the working poor, for letting the minimum wage drop to a relative fifty-year low, for being an international embarrassment on family leave, for letting our public schools undereducate our kids while a big chunk of the country teaches belief instead of science, and for proposing that a minority view trump women’s health). I can’t imagine how hard it would be to work three jobs and raise children by myself, with child care I could barely afford. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to do any of that with a child who doesn’t fit a typical developmental profile.

So, no. It’s not hard without Spouse here. It’s a little quieter and a little cleaner. And our phone bill is a lot higher. And I stay up too late blogging. But it’s nothing compared to what most people do everyday.

It’s still a yucky, yucky world. We’ve gotten a damned good deal so far, seeing as how I didn’t marry a preacher who killed and froze me, I didn’t sleep on the bus for part of the ride, and I didn’t die while being tortured. And I didn’t sink into lonely despair because a librarian snapped at my kids’ differences.

So, I guess…happy, happy day?

There’s a new pranayama in town

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Back in the era where I had hours to myself to set my own schedule and wrap my writing around a sense of centered intelligence, I found that yoga helped enormously. My practice helped my body, my balance, my breath, my thinking, my writing.

But I haven’t put any time into my practice since Peanut was born, and I’m feeling the loss. My posture, my flexibility, and my breath are all distorted. But mostly, my sense of balance is off. Mentally and emotionally, I’m a mess.

My sense of what I need on any given day to be a patient, present, decent human being is totally off. So I was thinking this morning when I gave myself a timeout (I’ve decided I need timeouts more than Peanut does, because he’s just exploring and testing boundaries and doing his job by driving me to drink, and it’s MY job to find the patience, creativity, and flexibility I need to parent him respectfully. The only way I’ve found to regain my centered willingness to teach and play in the heat of the moment is to breathe and think. And being in the circle of a screaming toddler maelstrom is not a great place to breathe or think. Plus, I love just leaving the room when he’s pushing my buttons. That technique is totally Spouse’s m.o. for conflict with me, and I loathe being on the receiving end of someone who has to leave the room to avoid saying something nasty. But it’s been successful so far to leave a frustrating small person to figure out what he really wants while I go breathe. He seems to find clarity around his choices much more quickly when I’m in the other room refusing to play his reindeer games.)

Anyway, I was thinking, as I forced long, deep inhales to calm myself, that maybe I need to bring pranayama (yoga breath) back into my life. Even if I don’t find time for the full practice, complete breath should help, no?

One breath answered my question as it brought tension to my shoulders, neck and face: Nope. There is a time and place for warming, meditative breath. While you’re pissed off is not one of these times.

As humans, we need a lot of oxygen. As yoga practicioners, we need a lot of oxygen, too, but we try to still the breath and make it rhythmic, sustained, and transformative. And pranayama focuses on steady breathing that creates warmth, sound, and an internal metronome. All of those require friction in the airways, a slight constriction that serves as a gatekeeper for the large volume of air flowing into a yoga-engaged body that needs the breath to last a long, centering time. But even shitali pranayama, the cooling breath, takes a lot more constriction that I need when I’m counting to ten and trying to regain my balance.

Trying to calm anger requires a lack of constriction. Anger needs big, open gateways for air to flow through, because it’s precisely the cooling flood of air that squelches the fire of rage. Angry people need to breathe like runners–mouth open, chest swelling, maximal oxygen without interruption.

So that got me thinking that maybe I could begin to practice again, if only a few moments at a time, if I tried to do a hybrid yoga, changing breath from a single rhythm to a double. Maybe I could engage fully in a vinyasa with a deep, open runner’s breath if there was a whole cycle for each asana. Instead of moving through the poses as each half of the breath cycle completes, I could inhale freely, then move on the exhale. Inhale, exhale, move. Inhale, exhale, move.

I tried it (later, when he slept), and it worked. The same sense of rhythm, even if it was less meditative, returned to my newly rejuvenated practice. I was thoughtful about my movement, I was present in each asana. I wasn’t forcing a kind of breath I just can’t sustain right now. And finding my own kind of balance, even if it goes against what I’ve been taught, makes sense right now. Because I’m not the person I was, I’m not living in the body I once had, and I’m not trying to calm and focus the mind I once trained. I’m playing a whole new ballgame now. And I might as well write the rules to fit my search for a new self, body, and mind.

One minnow. Couple mice.

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Ah, parenting a two-year-old. Good, good times.

I’m spending a lot of my time these days wishing I hadn’t taught him this, that, and the other. Mostly the dialogue bit. As K.D. says, why did I ever teach this kid to talk?

I long ago introduced compromise to Peanut’s vocabulary, a negotiating skill that gets me out of feeling like I’m caving, and gets him in a position that he thinks is powerful. “Mommy says all done and you say more. So let’s compromise. One more minute, then all done.” Yet for every time that a compromise works, there’s another time that I rue the day I taught him the concept. It’s not like knowing how to compromise will give him any social advantage later in life, or anything.

After an hour and a half at the library, he wanted more and I wanted to go. I was cranky, I was hungry, and I just couldn’t drink one more cup of pretend water from the library’s new play kitchen. I can’t. I’m pretend waterlogged.

So.

“Time to go.”

“One minnow.”

“You want one more minute to play?”

“Huh.”

“And after one minute, when mommy says time to go, you’ll say yes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. One minute.”

[dum dee dum dee dum]

“Okay one minute is all done. Time to go.”

“One minnow.”

“One minute is all done. Time to go.”

“Mommy couple mice.”

“I did compromise. You had one more minute. Now all done. Time for car.”

“One minnow. Couple mice. One minnow. One minnow library. One minnow books. One minnow ‘tend kitchen.”

“All done library. Time for lunch. Time to go.”

“Mommy couple mice.”

“Mommy did compromise. And, need I remind you, you compromised, too. You said that after one minute if I said time to go you’d say yes. You have to uphold your end of the bargain or compromise won’t work.”

(At this point, a previously kindly-looking elderly lady is giving me a look. Not completely nasty, but appropriately sprinkled with “are you crazy?” Because, seriously, I talk that way to a two-year-old when I’m flustered. Not good parenting, granted. See previous posts for self-aware declarations that I have a long way to go—my methods aren’t ideal, but they aren’t soda in a sippy cup and regular beatings, so…)

He’s almost crying now.

“Mommy, couple mice. One minnow.”

I try not to laugh. I would honestly LOVE to trade a couple mice for one minnow, rather than have this conversation. But mice squish easily and I don’t carry around a pocket full of freaking fish, so, let’s go.

Here come the big guns:

“Well, you can choose to take one more minute, but I’m leaving. I’m hungry. It’s time to go and time for lunch.” Turn, walk.

“MOMMEEEEEE. Come! Coming!”

I turn around and sweetly say, “I know. I’m waiting for you.”

I suck. I’m awful. But I’m noticing a lot of parents using the same tactic. If you don’t do it my way I’ll abandon you. Raising some good, well adjusted citizens, we are. Nothing keeps marriages, companies, and democracy together like threatening dissenters with abandonment.

But it got me to lunch, so I’m okay with it today. I’ll search for alternatives tomorrow.

“No Mommy clews sraw.”

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Peanut’s accelerating search for independence and control is really quite awesome.

Yesterday he was coloring and asked, please, for a cup of water. I got a cup, half-filled it with water, debated a lid, and reached for a straw. My hand collapsed back toward my body, slapped back by my half-addled brain that reminded me grabbing a straw would get me in big, big trouble. (If I ever make the mistake of taking on one of his roles, like pushing the blender buttons or putting the clean silverware away, or hanging the key on its hook, or pushing the car alarm button, I am chided very quickly and borderline hysterically. “Noooooooo! No Mommy turn. No. stop. my. turn!” Country Mama swears this sounds like, “no suck my toe!” and is still deciding whether to question the conversations Spouse and I have with Peanut when she’s not there.)

So now I know that anytime I’m fetching a drink for Peanut I have to let him choose his own straw. And not just ask what color. Offer the whole selection, and not touch any of them. Peanut had already forgotten the water (a welcome change from the normal script wherein he asks thirty-two times even if mom has patiently said yes to the first thirty-one). So I asked. “Peanut, would you like to choose your water straw?”

He turned to me and let a gorgeously bright smile spread across his face. “Yes. Pl-ease.” He seemed so happy that I remembered what was important to him. If felt quite yummy to be so appreciated and to know what was important in his life.

Sure, it drives me nuts that I’m usually asked (nay, told) to patiently watch him touch them all and play a bit and choose one (while every cell in my body screams, “It’s just a freaking straw! Pick one! If you’re really thirsty the color won’t matter!)

But today it was really nice to watch him feel completely in control of what goes in his body, how it goes in, when it comes out, and where it comes out. It seems that all the work it took to show him we respect his wishes and choices whenever possible finally made him realize that we do respect what he has to say and what’s important to him.

Aaaah.

Can’t wait until he does the same for us.

Parenting ambivalence

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One of my friends expressed great distress at a discussion the other day, wherein many moms detailed their children’s latest adorable moments, and I asked if we could please, please talk about something other than children. Had anybody read a good book or seen a good movie or disagreed with a politician’s stance on something? I got a few muted shrugs and one dirty look. (Yes, I need new friends. We’re moving. I’ll fix that part of my isolation soon enough.)

I’m often the mom at parties and in email volleys who brings up The Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart; who warns young couples talking excitedly about becoming parents that they are in for the best and the absolute worst time of their lives. Nobody seems to appreciate the warnings, or the realism, or the honesty. Well, they can go jump off a Hallmark-stacked bridge because the smarmy, simpering, rose-colored glasses crap does not help make you a better parent.

Here’s the thing: the parenting gig can be amazing. I love running, and I have never had more fun running, never felt so completely tickled with head-to-foot silly happiness than when Peanut and I are playing chase. I have never particularly liked the beach (or, more specifically, getting dirty and sandy and salty and seaweedy at the beach), but experienced top-ten delirious HOURS of joy one morning with Peanut and Spouse, running and splashing and wandering the tidepools. I have never felt more moments of pure, warm bliss than I do sprinkled throughout every week with my little family. And I genuinely relish them, bask in them, luxuriate in them. I process every nanosecond of joy with the small person and the large person, because those moments feed me. They have to. The rest of the week is a big bunch of physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting bull puckey. (Hi, grandpa. I miss you.)

Because as intense as the radiant joy can be, I have also never been more frustrated in my life than I am every single day. I’ve never been more angry at a small person than I am each time I gently, calmly, supportively offer two options for the eighth or ninth time. [Time number ten and your head will be forcibly removed, my little friend, so f*#&@g choose.] I have never wanted so badly to hurt a person as I have when Peanut willfully ignores a reasonable request or when Spouse sleeps through Peanut being particularly trying. They both need a good shaking. (I will never, never think it’s okay to strike a child, but I think it’s really very much okay to fantasize about it. If sex experts say it’s healthy to pictures others while with your monogamous partner, parenting experts must think it’s okay to picture throwing screaming your kid against the wall while you try to comfort her.) I never had to give myself timeouts in my professional jobs. I took a deep breath and reasoned with whomever was wrong. But there are often times now that my reaction needs to be managed, and it’s easier to just leave the room and announce that mommy’s in timeout because she needs to think and breathe. “I have to go…or I’ll beat the crap out of you,” I think as I press myself into a tiny corner.

I have never wanted so badly to just do some freaking dishes in peace. I don’t even dream of reading or write or having a job where colleagues respect my contributions. I crave just performing some mindless, productive, useful physical labor. It scares me how low my expectations have become. I find Zen moments of meditative stillness and presence in prepping green beans for the steamer, if there is a safe and self-entertained Peanut in another room.

So ambivalence dominates my parenting. That doesn’t, oh lady who wants to tell me everything about her kid’s funny snot and poop stories, and is horrified to hear that I’m all cute-kid storied out, make me a bad parent. I have given over every moment of my day, every drop of my energy for two years to helping Peanut become a good, decent, responsible, useful member of society. (It hasn’t worked yet, at least not the useful part, but I’m willing to brave the long-term gratification gamble to hope one day the President will call with a Supreme Court nomination. Or that some band will need a drummer. Or that some sweet neighbor lady needs a dog walker. I don’t have parameters within which I define productive member of society. Remember that part about my low expectations.)

If parenting was all playing and tickling and teaching I’d be ALL over it. But it’s not. It’s planning and patience and cleaning and cooking and lovingly getting up several times at night and staying intently focused all day and ignoring impulses to direct energy into personal needs (sleep, bathroom, showering, exercise, quiet, books). And I don’t like that. I just don’t.

And this phase ends, sure. The intense neediness of very smallness is already sunsetting. (That’s tomorrow’s post, unless the house sells.) Eventually children are more self sufficient. I’ve given myself over entirely because that’s what the Peanuts of the world need to be secure, reasonable, well-adjusted adults. But even if all the work pays off, they won’t do stuff my way, so why the heck bother with all the attachment parenting? (Because we wouldn’t have it any other way. Every time I complain about not sleeping, someone tells me I can let my child cry. But that is not a real parenting option for us. Why in the name of all that is nurturing would we do that? When said child can get up to use the bathroom by himself, get himself a cup of water, and use soundly developed coping skills to get back to sleep, he will. Until then, any kid at my house who wakes from a deep slumber screaming in fear and sadness gets his mom. End of story.)

You know, ambivalence isn’t apathy. Maintaining a really passionate stand at two ends of a spectrum does not even slightly resemble meh. And while holding on so tight might be counterproductive, I’d rather struggle fiercely to control the pendulum than let go and founder in the fair-to-middling of just getting by.

Selling in a buyer’s market

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If our house ever sells, I’m going to go a week without doing dishes, cleaning countertops, and putting laundry in the basket. In fact, I’m going to leave wet towels on the floor and tell Peanut there’s no need to put away toys. I am so freaking sick of making my house immaculate every morning, noon, and night, that I’m ready to just…well, that’s where my petulance stops. Because what am I going to do? Lose even more on this frickety-fracking house by leaving it in our typical tornado style? Feel vindicated when someone buys it, mess and all…two years from now? Take it off the market and have to clean it for renters? I have no choice but to keep it camera-ready all day everyday. So I tidy when we first get up, I tidy after breakfast, I tidy before nap, I tidy before dinner, Peanut tidies after dinner, and I do a thorough cleaning before bed.

When we first put the house on the market, this whole process was like a gift. Suddenly, we had to keep things in their place, keep counters and horizontal surfaces clear, and maintain the yard with manicure scissors. It was lovely to realize how much less time it takes to put things away right after using them, rather than putting 47 things away at the end of the day. It was glorious to have horizontal surfaces again. It was lovely to see the tile it took us so long to select, and the cork it took several gracious men so long to install.

But now I’m just plain sick of having everything in its place. Just the fact that I have to rather than choose to is making me want to go on a dirt binge. I want to gather sand from all the local playgrounds and beaches, and make piles in the living room. In the kitchen sink. In the master freaking suite, right in the middle of an unmade bed. Ah, how sinfully wonderful it would be to have an unmade bed again. Without all the annoying decorator pillows.

My mom’s friend used to joke that, while she was selling her house, she’d attach a duster to her bum and walk through the house briskly each time she was about to leave the house. Ha freaking ha. I get a toddler ready to go, with the typical 30 minutes of creative games and suggestions for getting clothes, shoes, EWG-approved sunscreen, and hat on (good heavens, just put on your f$%&*@g shoes so we can go!) and then realize I have to tidy seven rooms before I get the kid out the door.

So much for those condescending new-mom articles about how you can’t do everything and might as well relax your housekeeping standards when you have a child, else risk losing your mind. I didn’t have much mind left before the house went on the market, and what little remained has long since been scrubbed away with eco-friendly cleaner. Doesn’t matter whether I’m scrubbing or spouse is scrubbing. It’s a pain, it’s a hassle, it eats into my half hour of sanity time, and it sucks. And I have to do it or we’ll never get out of this house.

And I wonder why I’m not finishing my novels—reading or writing. I’m too busy cleaning, complaining about cleaning, and contemplating not cleaning.

Mmmm. Not cleaning. That sounds lovely right now.

Revealing naught but cutting to the quick

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There are so many things I can’t tell you about. It’s rather exciting. For me. For you, this entry will be an exercise in frustration. Such is life. If you want obvious, listen to popular radio.

First, good vibes traveled to Maryland and now need redirecting redirecting to D.C. And the wilderness for a while. Just think really good thoughts, please.

Second, I can’t tell you about Operation Last Chance, but please send your good vibes to the 13 border.

Third, I can’t tell you about Targeting Tout de Suites, but please send any leftover good vibes toward my old route. It (see what I mean about frustrating? a pronoun with no referent but that which resides in my voice-addled mind) is nigh impossible, but nigh not is not nil, you know?

Fourth, tomorrow is a big anniversary for someone small, and two people big. Yay for all of them.

Now that I haven’t gotten that off my chest, we simply must settle in for the revelation of my week (don’t hold your breath; it’s pretty pathetic by my old standards, and painfully important in my new game of hang-onto-sanity-and-patience-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth).

I’ve figured out how to get a toddler to tolerate nail trimmings. [That didn’t need a drumroll for most of you, I know. But nobody told you to read this schlock during your free time, you know. You allegedly have free will. So please rethink your judgments and click away if you must roll your eyes at me.]

So the secret is this—trim the nail so that the soon-to-be discarded trimming is left dangling. If possible, do half of each nail at a time, leaving a piece dangling in two different corners. Small one thinks she rules the world because she can peel off the dangling bit. Wee one feels he gets the last word because you only start the process, and he clearly trumps you in usefulness by ripping the offending nail off and tossing it wherever you both decide is appropriate.

Ah.

Terrible, really, that such revelations take hours off my week and two degrees off my slouch. But nobody (except BNPs) said it was going to be easy.

But, oy, did they sugar-coat it.

Arrested moment of reflection

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The instant Peanut goes down for a nap, I fire up the computer. My goals are always to check email, to read the news, and to do some writing. Often I spend the whole time at amazon, but that’s an entry for another day.

Today the first thing I check is the CNN homepage. Staying at home with a small person makes me feel frighteningly isolated, and I often worry that nobody would tell me if the sky were falling, or there were a terrorist attack, or we’d finally gotten rid of the electoral college, or Kurt Vonnegut died (I’m still not over that I didn’t know for a few days about that one). Ten minutes into nap (not right away because I have to pee some time. When Peanut was a baby I never had time because I had to much to do. Now I don’t have time because..well, because I have too much to do. And because he barks at me, in two-year-old-ese, Mommy No Pee!! I don’t let him tell me what to do, of course, but I like to do what I need to do without someone hanging on me, whining at me, yelling at me, and watching me. Label that what you will.)

Anyway, ten minutes into nap, when I finally sit down, the lead story on CNN announces Randy Pausch’s death. I’m sure you’ve seen the lectures on YouTube , or the Oprah special, or something. If not, please do. I’m not generally a “live your life as though today was your last day” because I’m not that smaltzy and because even the people who believe that don’t really live that way all day. It’s a goal, fine. It’s a lovely sentiment. It’s just not me. But Dr. Pausch’s lecture was compelling in his message to his children. Well written, funny, warm. Parental. Not patriarchal. Not pedantic. Just darn parental.

And I’m sorry, so sorry, for his family that he’s gone.

As I read, I begin to think about the lecture, its meaning, my family, my life; and I get about 3 seconds into a life-affirming and potentially attitude-altering moment when my cats start going at it. Not just the afternoon wrestling, but serious, fur flying, yowling, painful fight about a foot from my ear. So much for thinking about what my family will mean to me when I’m dying—I’m deciding how to handle the little bastards’ intrusion into my hour of peace.

I coo at them, gently berating them to be nice to each other because, as I remind them, they’ll be dead some day and then they’ll regret treating each other so poorly. Not the best parenting, I know. But I use them as practice. I have to get out all the sarcasm, the clichés, and the detritus so I’ll get to the good stuff by the time Peanut needs perspective on why we don’t beat the tar out of each other while mommy is trying to freaking think about life and death.

If I was living the lessons of Sarah Napthali’s Buddhism for Mothers: a calm approach to caring for yourself and your children, I might have just observed the cats’ altercation, gently redirected them to more pleasant activities that respected their need to engage in physical activity, and guided my thoughts softly back to Randy Pausch, his family, his students, his life, my life, my family, my goals, my dreams, and my aspirations for making the world a better place. But I’ve only gotten a few pages into Napthali’s book and haven’t really internalized the whole “living each moment fully” central tenet of Buddhism. My moments for reading are few—during Peanut’s nap or nighttime slumbers, but only after I’ve tidied, washed and put away dishes, dragged Peanut’s bathwater out to the garden (screw you, Al Gore, Bono, and all the rich people who have “people” or technology to handle their grey water), swept, done a load of laundry, packed lunches for the next day, checked email, returned phone calls, paid bills, done client work, cleaned visible dirt, changed the litterbox, regretted not working on videos and photo albums, exercised, snacked, washed, brushed, and changed. So maybe in a few years, when I’ve read a few more pages, I can react more appropriately to the rude interruption during contemplation of Randy Pausch’s words.

Maybe I’ll think about how to live more fully tonight after I do a few things around the house. Or maybe I’ll save all the work for tomorrow, so I can spend all of Peanut’s waking hours doing chores instead of interacting. While I’m at it, I can regain my focus on writing, thinking, and being a whole person instead of being awash in the confusion, frustration, and giddiness of being a newish mom. I could push our toddler to the back burner and make some headway on my projects. But that would mean I hadn’t learned anything from Pausch’s lecture, and what kind of student would that make me?

(Okay, seriously, they’re going at it again. I can’t even wax semi-philosophical for a stinking blog without the cat bastards intruding into my otherwise tenuous grip on adult thought. Why, why, why didn’t I just adopt a newt?)