Motherese

Have You Seen the New Motherese?

2010-02-15T10:26:00.003-05:00

Motherese has moved! Please come check out my new place: mothereseblog.com. I can't wait to see you there!

I've Moved!

2010-02-10T07:01:00.000-05:00

In honor of my 100th post, I thought I would treat myself to a little something special: my very own domain name and a new WordPress page to go with it!

So please click on over and check out my new digs at mothereseblog.com.

Thanks for the memories, Blogger. It's been real.

Image: waves by gin soak via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Flickering Faith

2010-02-09T06:00:00.043-05:00

I am honored today to offer you a post from Lindsey at A Design so Vast.

Lindsey is not only one of my favorite bloggers, she is also one of my favorite writers. I found Lindsey's blog last summer and was immediately drawn in by her honesty, her insight, and her beautiful writing. With bravery and clarity, Lindsey asks questions of herself that inspire me to reflect on my relationship with my self and my spirit and make me feel a sense of gratitude that I am not alone in living a life of wondering. As I said to Lindsey in my first e-mail to her, the sense of not-aloneness I gain from her writing has been powerful and empowering to me.

After we commenced our virtual relationship, Lindsey and I learned of a powerful "real world" connection that only enhances the tremendous respect and affection I feel for her and her words.

Last Tuesday I guest posted at A Design so Vast and shared some of my own reflections on faith and safety. Many of my thoughts were inspired by Lindsey's remarkable post, "Safe." I am profoundly grateful to Lindsey for sharing with us more of her ideas on the question of faith.

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… embracing a view of the world that welcomes people who dare and refuses to punish those who are willing to be confused and disoriented in pursuit of something tender, something honest, something true.

I love that passage, and in fact Jen Lemen’s whole post about faith.

I think about this a lot, aching with how much I want to trust, how much I want to have faith. In my deepest heart I do believe there is some order, some design so vast, I really do. But how abstract that seems, in the moments when all seems dark and confusing.

I wonder if my affection for patterns is part of this deep longing for faith: by seeing reassuring, repetitive order in the world I can trust that it is also there beneath the surface. That underneath what may look like chaos there is some scaffolding that makes sense. This likely underlies my affinity for symmetry, for the way the New York skyscrapers look reaching into the sky. Also, my teeth-clicking counting off of things by 8s: cars in a parking lot, bottles of nail polish at the manicurist, window panes across a waiting room. All of these things can be categorized and understood, and I am comforted by what that implies about the greater world.

But at the same time, my favorite images are those of the sky and of clouds. And these have, almost by definition, no symmetry. There, the design is truly so vast as to be not at all obvious to the naked eye. Somehow, the beauty of the sky is in its very randomness and it is this utter lack of pattern that summons my weak faith. Looking at the blue sky streaked irregularly with clouds, I feel as though I can believe.

I suppose it is obvious, then, that it is when the pattern is inscrutable that we must call on faith. When things look messy and confusing, our only option is to trust. In fact, if I could let go of my desperate desire to wrestle the world into an understandable and predictable set of equations and probabilities, I would likely be a lot happier. Of course the reason I cannot let go easily is precisely because my faith is so weak. It is in that space, that free fall between order and disorder that faith catches us. And I’ve never liked the feeling of falling.

Of course, the disorder in the wide world is nothing compared to the disarray inside us. There is no counting off in groups of 8 my feelings, no way to categorize and subdue the instincts and fears that roar in my head. It is here that I need faith most of all: belief that the determined pursuit of emotional truth will take me where I need to go, conviction that getting lost is the only way to be found, trust that I am still safe even when hopelessly lost and buffeted by reactions so powerful they scare me. The sad realization that sometimes even my very best effort is far from good enough lurks around the corners of my consciousness, but I see no option but to continue to try to both understand and manage my reactions.

So I will hope that my flickering faith will strengthen and not go out. I will renew my efforts to let go and believe. I will try to not be afraid of my feelings, to parse the difference between where I can manage my reactions better and where I must just experience them in order to understand. I will welcome the swell of comfort and well-being that sometimes crashes over me like a wave, whether it’s looking at a glorious sky, speaking in unison with other people in church or yoga class, or running my hand through my sleeping son’s hair. I will be grateful for the faith that I do have.

Choices vs. Fait Accompli

2010-02-08T06:19:00.038-05:00

A recent article in the New York Times captured my attention, not only for its subject matter, but also for the comments that it drew. In "How to Speak Nanny", Hilary Stout explored the uneasy relationships that exist between many working mothers and the women they hire to care for their children.

According to Stout:

Many mothers who employ nannies are actually overstretched working women, a number of whom (contrary to their professional personas) suffer from an inability to clearly express their expectations and demands to the people they pay to care for their children. The result is a peculiar passive-aggressive form of communication, a less-than-ideal dynamic between worker and boss.

The headline of the article initially drew me in, just as most things related to child-rearing and childcare do these days. And it was not without a touch of envy that I embarked on the article, wishing that I could have a Mary Poppins of my very own to lend me a hand every once in awhile.

But it was the comments on the article that really got me.

An unedited sampling:

1. Why don't you raise your own kids ??..... Or maybe you should have thought about birth control if you really don't want children. Obviously the message is you can't or don't want to spend time with them.

2. The first paragraph sums up why our kids are so screwy, what was so important that the mother couldn't spend time with HER children? Why did she have children if she was going to hand them off to someone else?

3. We all have choices to make in life. I chose to be a stayathome mom until my children were old enough to fend for themselves for some time during the day. These women who 'want it all' should have the intelligence enough to realize that you can't 'have it all' and push their responsibilities onto others. Stop the bitching and appreciate all that these Nanees and Grandmothers etc. do for 'your children' .. a job you 'asked for' but are not doing while complaining about what others do for you.

The majority of the comments criticized or praised substantive parts of the article. (For instance, many readers were disturbed by the fact that, although most of the women in the article were married, their partners were almost never mentioned; the childcare decision-making seemed to fall on them alone.)

But I was surprised by the number of people who used the occasion of this article to fire venom at the working mothers featured. Granted, the professional women in the article did not always come off looking too impressive, but many responses used these women's moments of admitted weakness to suggest that they should not have had children in the first place.

Really?

Before I had kids, I thought I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And I am one. I acknowledge the tremendous rewards I reap every day. And I recognize how lucky I am to be in a financial situation in which my being at home works for my family.

But.

There are ways in which my choice wasn't exactly a choice: A move precipitated by Husband's job to an isolated location that makes my working outside the home in my chosen profession a virtual impossibility. The fact that - even if there were a job to be had - we would pay almost the same in childcare as I would earn as a high school teacher.

And I have to wonder whether some of those angry commenters might feel their own lack of choices so viscerally that they lashed out at women who they perceive to have more or truer flexibility. Commenters who don't acknowledge the ways in which the demands and realities of life can turn some alleged choices into fait accompli.

In dissecting these so-called "Mommy Wars" in her book Perfect Madness, Judith Warner writes:

I have by now talked to hundreds of women. And what I see is that working and stay-at-home moms do what they do not so much by choice - by choosing from a series of options arrayed before them like cereals on a supermarket shelf - but out of a very immediate and pressing sense of personal necessity. There are many aspects to that sense of necessity - money, status, ambition, the needs of the children and of the family as a whole - all of which play themselves out, in various ways, in individual women's lives. And all of those aspects of personal necessity are part and parcel of the condition of motherhood - not external to it, not accessory to it, not a "selfish" deviation from it. They grow naturally out of what women have done - and who they have been - throughout their lives. So their paths as mothers are not so much "chosen" as devolved from who they are, who they've been, and what the material conditions of their families require.

I, for one, would like to move to a metaphysical place in which we stop wasting time on the divisions between stay-at-home mothers and working mothers and start focusing on the conditions that unite us. On the language that connects us. (Motherese, perhaps?) On the ways in which all of our choices are limited. On strategies to expand all of our options.

Elizabeth at Boy Crazy recently summarized this idea quite eloquently in a post about her first week back at work:

It's not often black and white.
We are more complicated than our choices.
More complex than our labels.

Here's to Elizabeth and to mothers everywhere. Here's to arriving at a place in which we can acknowledge and honor complexity. Where we call a truce in the "Mommy Wars."

If you are a parent, how did you arrive at your "choice" to or not to work outside of the home? Does your reality match what you had planned before you had kids? If you are not a parent, but hope to be, do you plan to work outside of the home?

Image: Christmas Party: 12/05/09 by Nathan Branch via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

What Is It All Worth?

2010-02-07T05:44:00.008-05:00

On Friday, Big Little Wolf posted a passionate and provocative piece about the value - both monetary and metaphysical - of parenting. Both the post and a comment by my buddy Jane - about an article she had read attaching a dollar value to the job a mother does - buzzed around my brain for the rest of the day and into the weekend.

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I thought of the presumption with which I live my life - operating under the assumption that, because things have worked out up to this point, they will continue to.

I thought of the folly of presumption.

I thought of the words I've often heard my mother say: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

I thought of some other words of hers: "When you assume, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.'"

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I thought of an hourly wage formula I once saw in an article about "hiring help." A formula a woman could use to figure out how much her time is worth in order to decide when it is in her best economic interest to pay someone else to do a household chore or project.

The equation? Take your annual salary, remove the last three digits, and divide by two. So, if you make $50,000 per year, you drop the last three 0's, divide by 2, and arrive at a $25 hourly wage.

According to the article, at that salary, if you can find someone to do a job that you don't want to do or don't have time to do for less than $25 per hour, then it makes sense to do so from a strict cost-benefit perspective.

So let's see...The salary for the profession of parenting is $0. If we remove the last three digits, we're still at $0. When we divide by 2...still $0.

Hmm...I'm guessing that a parent wouldn't be able to find anyone to clean her windows or babysit his kids for less than $0 an hour.

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I thought about an article I read last year - perhaps the very one Jane read - in which a human resources group attempted to calculate the value of a mother's work. The number they came up with for a stay-at-home mom? $138,095, when you factor in the "ten jobs that moms do on an average day: housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO, and psychologist."

Who exactly is willing to pay that salary, the article did not specify.

But I'm on the look-out, BLW, for you, and for all of us.

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I've written before about the value of teaching.

I'm thinking now about the value of parenting. About the ways in which we tacitly assign meaning to different types of work by the money we are willing to pay people to do it.

And I'm thinking that my boys should take up golf. It seems to pay well. And I hear there's an opening at the top.

What professions should be compensated most highly? Did financial factors steer you toward or away from a certain career?

Would you like to come over and babysit my boys for <$0/hour?

Image: 337/365: The Big Money by DavidDMuir via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

It's Not Over

2010-02-05T06:00:00.003-05:00

Last Friday I was pleased to share with you a piece by Elizabeth Grant, one of the "21st Century Penpals" behind one of my favorite blogs, Life in Pencil. In today's edition of Won't You Be My Neighbor, I am delighted to welcome Elizabeth's partner-in-blog, Anne. Anne captured my attention immediately by outing herself as a "change phobe." A fellow "planning addict," I admire and embrace her attempts to toss the pen and live life in pencil. Anne's essays always make me think, make me smile, and make me nod in recognition - and the following offering is no exception. Thank you, Anne, for sharing this piece with the Motherese community.

When you finish reading here, please click on over to visit Anne and Elizabeth at Life in Pencil for another helping of their musings on "living life amongst the eraser shavings."

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"It’s Not Over"

By Anne @ Life in Pencil

Last time I checked, a weekend lasted 2 full days. Throw in Friday night, and you’ve got 55 hours before the weekday routine ramps up again. But if you’re anything like me, your weekend often stops short—sometime around Sunday afternoon. Not literally, of course. Only mentally—a side effect of my brain that starts worrying about Monday before I’ve given myself the chance to savor the pleasures of a lazy Sunday afternoon.

This has always been a struggle. As someone who constantly finds herself living hours, days, or even years ahead of the present, I’ve always found it difficult to get my head out of the clouds, and into the moment. When I break out the Monday to-do list and start organizing the week to come, my husband has been known to say, “Hey, why don’t we just enjoy the rest of the weekend?” Of course, he has a point. I usually smile, set down my list, and rejoin him on the couch with our books, our movies, or a little mindless TV. But there are times when my brain speaks louder than my actions, making it hard to “turn off” my anticipatory stress about the week to come.

And I’m afraid to report that it doesn’t stop there. Recently, we took a 2-week vacation to South America…the longest “break” I’ve had in over a year. It was blissful. With two whole weeks, I could almost feel the daily stressors trickling their way out of my consciousness, making room for the joy of the present. And yet, 24 hours before the end of that vacation, the symptoms of a typical Sunday afternoon crept their way into my South American bed and breakfast. I sat up in bed, and started thinking. Stressing. Making mental to-do lists. Apparently, escaping to South America wasn’t enough. I almost lost that final day of my vacation.

That final day in South America produced an epiphany of sorts. Here’s my problem: when it comes to finding the time to relax and be “present”, I’ve always had a system. I work like hell, and keep going until I find the time for a massive break. I take a week. A month. And decompress. Using this cycle, the loss of one day (due to premature worry and planning) doesn’t feel so acute. And actually, the system worked just fine during my gazillion years of school—the academic calendar actually supported my habit. I’d plug away until the end of a semester, and then bask in the sweet relief of nothingness. But somewhere along the line, I finished school. I earned my degree. And I have something called a 12-month calendar. Today, my “breaks” come in the guise of planned vacation days and short weekends. My days are simply more precious—and so my system doesn’t serve me so well anymore.

And there’s another problem. Even if I didn’t work a 40-hour week, “skipping town” (literally and figuratively) can’t always be an option when my stress level reaches its threshold. The same is true for 99% of the people in this world. We have responsibilities, and people who count on us. Spouses. Children. Dogs. Goodness knows when I’m a mother someday, my job will stick around during evenings and weekends. And so the challenge becomes turning off the worry, and turning on the relaxation. I have to believe there’s a way to be present without taking off for two weeks. Or is there?

For those of us needing to mellow out, and put down our to-do lists, what’s the solution? As a kid, I remember having “quiet time” every day, which I always believed was for my benefit. But now I have to wonder if my Mom needed it more than I did. Or perhaps I’m all wrong. Perhaps “breaks” and “quiet times” aren’t even the key. If I could simply be present—here—now—instead of somewhere in the future, I wonder if I might not need these chunks of time. If I simply lived my days and weekends one moment at a time, perhaps I’d feel more refreshed. And less desperate to escape the worry inside me.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to the talented Kristen for inviting Life in Pencil into her space. Wherever you are, enjoy your weekend. One minute at a time. And if you have solutions of your own, please share.

Tummy Time

2010-02-04T06:08:00.060-05:00

As I have mentioned before, Tiny Baby is not a fan of tummy time. Put him on his tummy and he becomes irritated. Ornery. Sometimes he'll push up and roll over as quickly as he can. Other times, he'll surrender to gravity, burying his face in the blanket, admitting defeat.

Not surprisingly, Tiny Baby's aversion to tummy time - and his parents' failure to insist that he practice it - means that he is not yet crawling. But, as "the books" say, some babies skip crawling altogether and that's just fine.

Phew.

But wait.

Isn't crawling sort of important? Say, like if he wants to, I don't know, get around before he learns how to walk? Or grow up to be a Marine? Or a sexy insurance adjuster who needs to evade a complex laser-beam security system in order to apprehend a jewel thief a la Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment?

Shouldn't I make him do his tummy time, whether he likes it or not?

Maybe so.

But you know what? That would be a textbook instance of the parental pot calling the kiddie kettle black.

Because I kind of hate tummy time too: the metaphorical tummy time that we all face in between setting a goal and actually achieving it. Those moments when the weight of our heavy heads keeps us looking down instead of straight ahead at what we want so far out of reach.

I've always been good about looking up the road. I've always kept my eyes open for the New New Thing. And when I've caught sight of that Thing, I've usually taken big steps toward it (witness my peripatetic teaching career, switching cities, levels, types of schools), often with the mistaken notion that the first step alone would produce the prize.

But I've been less good about taking those little steps, putting in the tedious labor - the professional development, the service courses - so necessary to achieve the Thing. When faced with the boring, the less romantic, the painful, I've sometimes abandoned the Thing, rolling away or burying my face in the blanket.

I've been the baby who wants to crawl without first doing her tummy time.

So I'm a little scared today.

Not for Tiny Baby. He'll learn to crawl. Eventually. And then he'll learn to walk. Not for him. Nope.

I'm scared for me.

I see the next Big Thing in front of me. It's so exciting that it keeps me up at night. It interrupts my mental musings and my real-time conversations. It energizes me and even scares me a little bit.

But will I have the patience for the tummy time? Will I have the confidence to advance - slowly, steadily, creakily, painfully - in the direction of my dreams?

In Walden, Thoreau writes:

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Okay, Thoreau, I have the dream. I imagine the life. I want the success.

But what if the advance isn't a smooth one? Will I have the confidence and the patience - the audacity - to keep moving forward anyway?

Are you good at setting goals? Do you usually achieve the goals you set? Are you comfortable with tummy time?

Image: tummy time! by methyl lives via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.

Will You D[VR] Mine?

2010-02-03T06:15:00.025-05:00

My beloved DVR,

It is customary in these parts to reflect on love at this time of year. On its pretty promise and prickly possibilities.

I have known love; for I have known you.

DVR, you had me at "Scheduled Recordings." You had me at "Series Manager."

You are everything that I dreamed a Love could be: You hear. You listen. You understand.

You know what I want. You give it to me.

Time.

Control.

Bliss.

When I'm with you, I feel like the clocks have stopped. For you have given me an additional 18 minutes in every hour. You have given me the Australian Open women's final at a civilized time. Together we are fashionably late.

Before I met you, I spent hours on the couch every evening, distracted and diffuse. My favorite Seattle doctors interrupted by moody cavemen, my beloved budding fashion designers cut off by tampon ads. My eyes closing while waiting for Lost to find me.

No longer must I languish while commercials tempt me with their tasty treats and wily wares. No longer must I suffer through cliff-hanging transitions. No longer must I submit to the Machiavellian machinations of network no-good-niks.

I know I haven't always been the greatest communicator. And you were right to let me know that. (By erasing the season finale of Top Chef and recording 38 episodes of The Simpsons in its place.)

But, DVR, sweet DVR, you make me want to be a better woman. To give others the happiness you give me.

DVR, what did I do to deserve you? (Other than pay an additional $9.95 to Time Warner every month?)

Where would I be without you? (Likely still on the couch.)

You have changed my life. (You have enabled my habit.)

DVR, you really know how to push my buttons. (Or, at least, I know how to push yours.)

xoxo,
Kristen

This post was inspired by Love it Up at Momalom and by a tweet from Charlotte about watching Emma on her DVR. (Sadly, even my cherished DVR didn't remember to record Masterpiece Classic when I repeatedly forgot to program it.)

Feeling the love? Go link up your own love letter at Momalom.

Which household gadget are you in love with right now?
Image: Remote RAW (48/366) by 427 via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Losing My Religion; Finding My Faith

2010-02-02T06:45:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

I am honored to be guest posting today at A Design So Vast. Thank you, Lindsey, for sharing your space with me. Please click over to read my thoughts on different shades of worry and finding safety through well-worn faith. Then stay awhile and revel in Lindsey's beautiful prose.

Love,
Kristen

Are We Tuning Out By Tuning In?

2010-02-01T05:50:00.002-05:00

I think a lot about the ways in which spending so much time online might compromise our relationships with the people we know in real-time. But what about the people we don't know? The larger community of mothers with kids who could use a seat, or strangers carrying trays full of hot coffee?

During some recent travel, I found myself at an airport Dunkin' Donuts looking for a table with Tiny Baby strapped to my chest, Big Boy pulling on my hand, and a flurry of bags swirling around my person. (Husband was in line ordering our breakfasts, also weighed down by the excessive accoutrement that comes with travel with children.) As I scanned the smattering of tables, I noticed a middle-aged couple sitting at table for six. Duffel bags took up two of the seats, a laptop case dominated another part of the table. The woman's coat was draped over another chair.

And both of them were on their cell phones.

I stood for a moment trying to summon a more assertive version of myself. One who would walk over to them and request that they move some of their things so that we could share their table.

But instead I continued to watch them and then looked around at all of the other harried travelers typing away and talking into their phones, and marveled at the way in which our tuning in causes us to tune out the present world - not just the people we love, but also the people we don't even know.

Soon - I like to think through the sheer force of my nonverbal communication - the man ended his call, looked up, and saw me struggling. He stood up, cleared off part of the table, and gestured for me to join them.

He was a gentleman, after all, temporarily rendered less genteel by the metallic device pressed to his ear.

Later in that trip, I was dispatched to Starbucks to pick up hot drinks for my family. After securing my order in one of those cardboard trays, I walked out behind a young woman on her Blackberry. I assumed that she noticed me only one step behind her - incorrectly, as it turned out, as she let the door close right behind her, and right into my tray of drinks, splashing one mocha, one skim latte, and a venti Pike's Place all over me.

And once again I was left to wonder whether our growing infatuation with All Things Button has made us worse citizens. Sure, we might text up a frenzy to send aid to Haiti, but what about the common opportunities for courtesy that we miss out on by paying more attention to our electronic companions than those in front of our faces?

Before I started blogging, I had the most basic cell phone package, wasn't on Facebook, and didn't really understand what Twitter was all about. Now I'm spending my downtime weighing the advantages of the Blackberry vs. the Motorola Droid and have just started to tweet - follow me? I'm still holding out on Facebook, but, with all of these new forms of technology in my life, I have to wonder:

Am I stepping onto the slippery slope to incivility?

Has the Digital Age made you less polite to strangers? Is our new-found connectedness a net gain for society?

Image: Cell Phone by JonJon2k8 via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

To Sleep, Perchance to Control

2010-01-31T05:45:00.001-05:00

In a recent post at Privilege of Parenting, Bruce offered some advice to a reader concerned about the sleep issues of her six-year-old son. In his response, he shared the advice of two of my personal parenting heroines, Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack, the dynamic duo behind Sleepy Planet and the authors of the Motherese household's childhood sleep bible, The Sleepeasy Solution.

To me, nothingdefines your parenting style quite so precisely as your approach toyour baby's sleep. There are many different camps - from the Attachment Parenting school, which advocates co-sleeping; to the Ferber folks, who suggest letting your baby "cry it out" in order to encourage independent sleeping; and everything in between.

As you may have gleaned, Iam a control freak. I am a rule follower. Give me a plan and I willexecute it. A desire for order informs my approach to mothering and mylife in general. And, for me, one of the biggest challenges of parenthood isthe lack of predictability. The lack ofcontrol. So, when Big Boy was an infant, I read everything I could get myhands on to try to figure out what sleep method would fit in best withmy desire to regain some control over our lives. I knew I needed asystem, step-by-step guidance, clear directions, a plan.

The Sleepeasy Solution was what I chose and it worked like, well, a dream for Big Boy. And it is a plan.The authors provide a blueprint for getting your child to fall and stayasleep, even suggesting sleep schedules for each age rangefrom infancy through five years. This book and its recipes forstep-by-step sleep were music to my controlling ears.

Fast forward 20 months to September of last year.

At that point, we were about a week into sleep training with Tiny Baby and I was once againworshiping the goddesses behind the Sleepeasy Solution. Tiny Baby went intoour training already a pretty good sleeper, but quickly became a nighttimesleeping champion. Within a few days of starting theSleepeasy method, he went from needing to be rocked or nursed to sleepto falling asleep on his own, in his crib, with hardly a fuss, andwithin a few minutes of being put down. (Do I sound like a testimonialyet?)

Naps, meanwhile, remained a work in progress -just as the Sleepeasy ladies cautioned would likely be the case. Tiny Baby fell asleep for naps quite easily, but he often woke up after only 30 or 40minutes and wasn't always able to fall back to sleep. And it was prettyclear that a nap that short wasn't really long enough for him anymore.And the book said it wasn't. And that he needed time to work on it. Timethat didn't involve rocking, or bouncing, or being rescued by Mommy.

All of that brings us to one revelatory Friday afternoon.

It had not been a great day. The morning went well enough. Tiny Baby had fallen backto sleep after babbling to himself in his crib for a few minutes. Big Boy seemed in a pleasant enough mood. But then we went toplaygroup, where Big Boy proceeded to have a meltdown. A real meltdownwith crying and foot stomping. The kind of meltdown that screenwritersmight conjure if penning a script called "Stereotypical ToddlerBehavior." Then after lunch I got some worrisome news from a friend.And Tiny Baby took another bad nap.

But then. After myefforts to soothe him before his next nap failed, I put Tiny Baby on hisstomach for some tummy time. Now Tiny Baby, like his brother before him, was nota fan of tummy time. But that day he became calm, entranced by a stuffedlamb that I had put in his field of vision. I rubbed his back. Heclosed his eyes. He fell asleep. Right there on his mat. On his tummy!

Breaking all of the rules of the Sleepeasy Solution (not to mention those of the Back to Sleep campaign).

Reminding me that sometimes he knows what he needs better than I do.

And that I can't control everything - least of all where and when a baby chooses to shut his eyes.

Are you a good sleeper? Are your kids?

It's Not You, It's Me...and You

2010-01-29T06:00:00.003-05:00

Today it is my pleasure to host the writing of Elizabeth Grant, one-half of the dynamic partnership behind Life in Pencil. After I discovered Life in Pencil last month, it quickly became one of the first stops each morning on my bloggy rounds. Elizabeth, a self-described "change-a-holic," never fails to impress me with her introspection and eloquence. I alternately find myself challenged by her insight and moved by her prose, and I am grateful to her for sharing this piece with the Motherese community.

When you finish reading here, please click on over to visit Elizabeth and Anne at Life in Pencil for another dose of their reflections on "living life amongst the eraser shavings."

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“It’s Not You, It’s Me…and You.”

By Elizabeth Grant

A few weeks ago I received an email from my friend, Anne. I had confided to her that, over the past several months, a number of friendships had not just fizzled out but crashed and burned, in such rapid-fire succession that it seemed as if a conspiracy was in my midst, and I wondered why that was. Searching for theories, she offered that, as we move into the third decade of our life, people drift in increasingly different directions and seem to be less tolerant of differing viewpoints and opinions. And when I thought about these crumbling relationships, I was surprised to discover that, in nearly every case, the root cause was some version of one or both parties maintaining a rigid stance. Whereas I’d always been able to navigate these relationships flexibly, the middle ground that we’d always stood on seemed to dissolve beneath us. As adults, we’re supposed to be growing ever-wiser and more mature, using our highly evolved communication skills to put aside our differences for the common good. And yet, more than ever these days, I feel as if I’m gingerly picking my way through a minefield of primitive emotion, threatening to detonate my fragile ego at any moment.

Annecontinued. “Or maybe it’s less about tolerance and more aboutrealizing you have a finite amount of time and want to spend it withthe people you click best with.” Huh, I thought. Thelonger we’re on this earth, the more acute our sense of mortality, andthe less we give a damn. We marvel at - and even applaud - curmudgeonly old folks who do what they want to do without apology or a sense of propriety. The older we grow, we’re told, the more we know who we are. Perhaps, then, our increasing inflexibility is simply our way of saying, “I know who I am and I’m not willing to compromise that. I don’t have time to waste on people who I don’t connect with.” On one hand this sounded reasonable,even logical. In our culture, we accept and find nobility in that kindof self-assured, devil-may-care attitude. And yet…there was somethingin that rigid stance that rubbed me the wrong way. But like an itch I couldn’t scratch, I couldn’t figure out why that stance bothered me so. Perhaps it’s because I lack that kind of self-confidence, or maybe Ihaven’t reached that stage where I’m willing to give the world themiddle finger. Perhaps I’m someone who naturally seeks the middleground, or maybe I justhate rocking the boat? Whatever the reason, there was something inthat attitude that didn’t just set my jaw wrong but made me feeldownright sad. And it had something do, I suspected, with a fear of change.

It’s easy to sit back and marvel at how much another person can change, to scratch our heads in wonderment at how things that were just-so for so long can suddenly be so different. It’s easy to point our finger and say, “You’ve changed,” but so much more difficult to turn that finger back on ourselves and admit, “I’ve changed.” Giventhe sheer volume of relationships that have collapsed in a finiteperiod – me being the common denominator in all cases – it’s impossiblenot to take a good, hard look at myself and wonder what part I’veplayed in this. While I haven’t gone around shaking the trees looking for trouble, and as difficult as this is for me to admit, I think I probably have changed. My response to these situations has changed. My relationshipto this constellation of friendships has changed. Whereas my 20year-old self would have turned a blind eye and swallowed my anger,I’ve spoken my peace and held my ground in ways I wouldn’t have before. What I couldn’t see was that, while I’ve moped around for months bemoaning the fact that everyone else had changed, I was inching my way to becoming that curmudgeonly old woman.

So have I changed or have they changed? Who knows for sure, but my guess is that we’ve both changed, each holding our ground for our own reasons. What I do know is that living a life in pencil asks us to accept whatever life may throw our way as gracefully as possible; and, in order to do that, we have to embrace the changes that are both welcome and not-so-welcome. I accept the fact that some of these relationships that have fallen apart will be reborn, some will change, some will grow, and some will die altogether. But, as someone who prides herself on embracing change, I have surprised myself by just how sad these changes make me. Despite being a champion of change, when it comes to relationships, I certainly haven’t done a very good job of letting people do just that. I can accept the changes these people make or walk away from them, but I can’t implore them not to change. To prevent people from changing, based on my own sentimental desires for them to stay the same, is no better than rigidly standing my ground. Sometimes I just wish things could stay the same forever, even though I know that’s impossible.

How do you deal with the inevitable change (or evolution) of relationships, romantic, platonic, or otherwise? Are you a proponent of cultivating more like-minded or more diverse relationships? Do you think relationships get harder or easier as we get older? Doyou think we become less flexible, or simply less tolerant of spendingour time with people whom we don’t ‘click’ with, as we grow older?

An Issue of Choice

2010-01-28T06:17:00.002-05:00

Are you pro-choice? No, I don't mean it like that.

Do you let your kids choose - and, if so, how much?

A post at Privilege of Parenting and a comment on a post of mine have me thinking about the choices our kids make and the choices we make for them.

On Sunday, Bruce warned us against scripting career choices for our children. He eloquently mused about his own professional path and the off-ramps he took and missed along the way, cautioning us to safeguard the realm of possibility for our kids:

So, let’s dedicate today to honoring our own dreams, as well as thoseof all our collective children—neither chickening out from what we wantto do, nor projecting our unrequited fears and desires onto our kids. In the end, it probably matters much less what we do, and how much wemake, than the attitude we bring to it and the love we put into it.

As I read Bruce's post and formulated my comment, I heard the words of Linda echoing in my head. In my post "Missing the Mouse," I asked whether, through nature or nurture, I had made Big Boy neurotic. In her comment Linda noted, "I realized I just had to stop having a secret agenda for [my daughter's] childhood...Turns out she had her own little plan for herself that was differentthan mine."

These wise words from my blogging buddies made me wonder just what choices we should and should not be making for our kids: When should we set the agenda and when should we give them the freedom to set their own?

To me, some choices are not actually choices. Any "choice" that involves a threat to safety or health falls to the mandate of the parent. As much as a toddler may like to walk on the glass coffee table (not that Big Boy would ever do such a thing, no, no, no), or a teenager may like to text message while driving, a parent has the right - and even the responsibility - to stop them.

But what about when kids choose friends we don't like? Or when they want to start dating? At what point is it our job - or even our right? - to intervene?

After my junior year in high school, a big group of my friends went to Martha's Vineyard for a week to stay at one of the boy's homes. The boy's parents would be in sporadic attendance. When I asked my parents if I could join my friends (my boyfriend included), they refused. At the time, I was furious at them; now that I am a parent - and one who has taught high school for many years - I know they made the right choice for me - or, at least, the same one I would now make - by not allowing me to choose.

And how about when our children make aesthetic choices that irk us or might get them teased? When your son wants to take up the drums instead of the flute, or your daughter wants to wear a too-short skirt to school?

I remember the story of a friend's four-year-old son who desperately wanted to wear glittery Dora jeans to preschool. The parents were torn: should they let him express himself by wearing clothes from the girls' department or should they have a teetering talk with him about gender identity and its social construction? (I wish I could remember what choice they made.)

Ultimately, the answers vary, depending on the parent, the kid, and the circumstance. But I'm left wishing for a rubric, some sort of scale to indicate when choice is a freedom we must allow and when freedom is a choice we are responsible for limiting.

Did your parents make the right choices for you? Did they give you a healthy balance of freedom and responsibility? What choices should we make for our kids?

Image: Ask Answer Choice by FotoRita [Allstar maniac] via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Are Blogs the Letters of the 21st Century?

2010-01-27T07:00:00.008-05:00

Dear friends,

I'm over at IslandRoar today, musing about whether blogs are the letters of the 21st century. Please click on over to read my thoughts and to share your own. Thanks, Maureen, for lending your space to me today!

Love,

Kristen

Revisiting the Woodpecker

2010-01-26T06:10:00.000-05:00

And now another selection from Kristen's Little Shop of Metaphors...

I told Husband recently about Anne Lamott's metaphor (suggesting that writers carve out space to write just like woodpeckers drill holes in trees to make their nests) and the post I wrote about it.

His response?

"Don't woodpeckers peck to pick grubs out of trees?"

Thanks, Husband.

Deflated, I consulted ~~my Bible~~ Wikipedia. My heart sank further when I saw that he was right. Woodpeckers do indeed drill in order to extract food from trees. But I regained a bit of buoyancy - the metaphor could survive his assault! - when I continued to read:

The diet of woodpeckers consists mainly of insects and their grubstaken from living and dead trees, and other arthropods, along withfruit from live trees, nuts and sap both from live trees. Their roleecologically is thereby keeping trees healthy by keeping them fromsuffering mass infestations.

Aha! So, we writers, woodpeckers we, drill our holes to find our food - to find our material. We then extract it; we write about it. And we writers serve an ecological function, too. Don't we keep society healthy by asking questions, thinking the big thoughts, and picking out, then picking apart, the nasty bugs mucking up the works?

Moreover, we do this stuff pretty well with our "strong billsfor drilling and drumming" and our "long sticky tongues forextracting food." We peck and peck - we look and look. We suck out the material and nourish ourselves and our readers with it. Like woodpeckers, our "species" is known for "being both highly omnivorousand opportunistic." We can find material anywhere, anytime. Our material is our lives. Our lives are our material.

That Husband couldn't rain on my parade. Indeed, he unwittingly provided more grubs for me to feast upon.

My cake was further iced (sorry for the proximity of "grubs" and "cake" in food-related metaphors; gross) when I learned that not only do woodpeckers peck to eat and therefore keep trees healthy, they do indeed drill in order to nest: "All members of the family Picidae nest in cavities...The excavated nest is usually only lined from the wood chips produced as the hole was made."

Take that, Husband. Anne Lamott is nobody's fool. She had it right all along:

In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a tree where you can buildyour nest and say, "This is my niche, this is where I live now, this iswhere I belong." And the niche may be small and dark, but at last youwill finally know what you are doing.

And his tip-off about the woodpecker-y diet only helps this metaphor to grow, I think. Our society may be "dark and wounded," but it doesn't have to be as long as we woodpeckers keep picking out the grubs, as long as we writers set up shop and keep extracting the material that needs to be exposed, considered, and processed.

Oh, and one last way we writers are similar to our feathered friends: we share a distaste for being ripped off: "Woodpeckers may aggressively harass potential competitors, and also useother strategies to reduce the chance of being usurped from theirnesting site."

Plagiarism? No way! Copyright all the way!

Alright, I think I'll leave it at that. Anne Lamott was wise enough to stick with one woodpecker metaphor. I should probably follow her lead and leave well enough alone. Too late?

Which woodpecker-writer metaphor resonates most with you? And - come on, be honest here - do I need to knock it off with the metaphors for awhile?

Image: Ladder-back Woodpecker on Cactus by Alan D. Wilson via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

Toward A New Perspective

2010-01-25T06:02:00.003-05:00

I didn't post on Saturday.

Wait. You mean that fact didn't rock your world?

It sort of rocked mine.

Since I started blogging on November 2, I had posted every day - weekends, holidays, while on vacation - until Saturday. At first, I posted daily in order to get myself in the habit of daily writing. But then I caught the fever. Blogging fever.

Hello. My name is Kristen, and I am hot for blogging.

You see, I've never been all that good at the idea of low-intensity happiness. I tend to go overboard when I get excited about something. And the excitement I've felt for blogging has been intense: I love the community I have found here. I love talking to you and hearing what you have to say. I think about your words and your ideas. I think about mine while trying to do other things.

The problem, though, is that I'm not always as good at sustaining interest - and, ideally, passion - over a long period of time. In my life, I have been a dedicated yogi, a dedicated runner, a dedicated volunteer, a dedicated student of art history. I am none of those things now.

My love for blogging is such that I would feel it as a loss if my commitment flamed out. If my "passionate intensity" doesn't solidify into "conviction."

And so it occurred to me that I need to treat blogging like I treat the most important relationships in my life - the people with whom I have achieved this sustainable, low-intensity happiness: my family, my closest friends.

And to do that, I think, I need to get some perspective.

In Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Isola wants to be a detective in the fashion of Miss Marple:

I have been looking at a book about artists and how they size up a picture they want to paint. Say they want to concentrate on an orange - do they study the shape direct? No, they don't. They fool their eyes and stare at the banana beside it, or look at it upside down, between their legs. They see the orange in a brand-new way. It's called getting perspective. So, I am going to try a new way of looking - not upside down between my legs, but by not staring at anything direct or straight ahead. I can move my eyes slyly if I keep my lids lowered a bit. Practice this!!!

I am not an artist. But I want to be: A writer - a writer who writes about life. And I am going to try a new way of looking, too. Or maybe, more accurately, a new way of living. Like Isola, I am going to try to gain perspective by stepping aside every once in awhile from writing. To stoke the fires of my passion for writing by living, by seeing "in a brand-new way."

So, for now at least, I am going to follow the lead of Delia Lloyd of Real Delia and announce my intention to observe a secular Sabbath. A day off from blogging. A day I need to move closer toward low-intensity happiness. A day to live life instead of just writing about it.

A day for perspective.

How often do you blog? How did you arrive at a schedule that works for you?

Image: Photographer's Perspective by Bruce McKay via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

The Days are Long, But the Magic is Momentary

2010-01-24T05:42:00.039-05:00

To me, the most resonant of Gretchen Rubin's Four Splendid Truths is the third one: "The days are long, but the years are short." Indeed, as far as this mother of two is concerned, truer words have never been spoken.

For the past couple of weeks, I have really been feeling that "long" part of the equation. I find myself wondering far too often if I can getaway with wearing an article of clothing a little bit longer or if it'stoo saturated with spit-up or mucus or [insert child's bodily fluidhere] to be acceptable. (This was not an issue that came up all thatoften in my professional life.) Moreover, the boys seem to have workedout an arrangement to nap on alternating schedules, guaranteeing theirmommy 14 straight hours of non-stop fun!

And the truth (splendid or otherwise) is that I'm notso good at days without downtime.

Butthen yesterday things got a little better. Tiny Baby napped well. Big Boy nappedwell (despite the best tag-team efforts of a neighboring power tool,the FedEx guy, and the medevac helicopter). Some of that nappinghappened at the same time. I read a blog post I really liked.I found time to talk to E on the phone.

And one of those magicalmoments happened and it reminded me of why we do this work - and it is work; inasmuch as it's a gift, an honor, a privilege, it is work -of parenting: minutes after his bath, Tiny Baby had what we at the Motherese household affectionately call a "poop blowout." Because of thisblowout and his general preference for a clothes-free existence, he wassitting on my lap in a diaper alone. Big Boy was sitting next to useating graham crackers. Tiny Baby then sneezed dramatically; Big Boy looked at himand burped thunderously, as if in retaliation. The noise of Big Boy'sbelch startled Tiny Baby. He flinched, knocking his fist into Big Boy's crackerand breaking it. A shard of cracker landed on Tiny Baby's naked stomach,setting Big Boy off into peals of laughter. Tiny Baby, in constant adoration ofhis big brother and eager to show off one of his new skills, echoed Big Boy's giggles with his own.

There we were, three couch potatoes,covered in graham cracker crumbs, laughing the day away.

And it occurred to me: the days may be long - sometimes they may even feel endless - but the magic is momentary.

Are you good at seeing the magic in the Everyday?
Image: Graham crackers by oskay via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Won't You Be My Neighbor, Nicki?

2010-01-22T06:00:00.012-05:00

Today it is my pleasure to welcome Nicki of Nicki's Nook, my first guest poster here at Motherese, and the first neighbor I've invited in for a chat as part of the Won't You Be My Neighbor series at The Never-True Tales.

I admire Nicki for many reasons: her commitment to writing, her level-headed perspective on raising children (six of them, in her case!), her honesty, and her generosity of spirit. Her post today gives us insight into yet another admirable quality: her dedication to creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Thanks, Nicki, for guest blogging here today!

I have written several different blog entries about my journey to a healthy lifestyle. The biggest part of this journey has been running. I swore I would never been a runner. I did not run as a teenager or while in college. I started running in 2007. At that time, I was about to turn 46.

I would get questions from friends all the time about this new “thing” of mine. My younger sister told me over and over that running was not good for me. I just laughed these concerns off as I kept going. It started with daily walking in the summer of 2007. By Labor Day, I was running and walking, my own form of interval training.

When questioned why I did this to myself, why I ran, I would say I was outrunning the heredity my parents were trying to give to me. While I may not totally outrun the high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses my parents have had, I am keeping them at bay. The side effect, and not the main reason for my running, is that I am losing weight. My goal was to be fit. I can easily say that I am probably in close to the best shape of my life. I am definitely in the best shape I have been in since my two years at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks.

I kept running, swearing I was not a runner. Then, a change came. I met and became friends with a runner, a runner who had started his journey later in his life and was now running marathons. I went to a marathon. I experienced the camaraderie of runners at an event. I ran my first race. I was hooked. Running had me in its grasps!

Now I am laying out plans for a year’s worth of running. I am going to finally hit that goal of running 1000 miles in a year. I have made this goal two years in a row and fallen short both years. This year I have a new approach. I am going to be a runner. I am going to run races – something I never thought I would do in my life. I am taking January and February of 2010 to train and build up my distance. I am going to run a race every month this year. I am going to run a half marathon. I am going to run a 10K and a 15K. I am going to run a 5K. I am going to run.

Below are the races I know I am going to run this year. I will add others as I find them but there will be at least one a month.

March – Celebrate Life Half Marathon – Rock Hill, NY
April – Ithaca Skunk Cabbage Race – Ithaca, NY
May – Mountain Goat Run – Syracuse, NY
June –
July – Utica’s Boilermaker – Utica, NY
August –
September –
October –
November – I have a couple here depending on the distance I want to run.
December – It’s a Wonderful Run - Seneca Falls, NY

All you runners out there, where are you running this year? You can follow my training on Facebook (Nicki Wright Conroy) or on Twitter.

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic: How Much Are Teachers Worth?

2010-01-21T05:43:00.045-05:00

Sorting through piles of past-their-prime periodicals, I happened upon a back issue of the Teach for America alumni magazine, One Day. Since finishing my stint with Teach for America ten years ago and putting my teaching career on hold three years ago, I haven't given as much thought to issues of education policy as I once did. Something in this issue caught my eye, however: an article on teacher compensation.

There were many things that I loved about teaching: the kids (most of them, at least), the constant learning, the sense of doing Important Work. Oh yeah, and the summer vacations. Among the things that I liked less were the relative lack of respect my career choice garnered me among some of my peers. Oh yeah, and the fact that I could barely afford, even as a single, dependent-free woman, to live in Manhattan - the very borough where I taught - because my salary was so low.

The article "A Just Reward" examines the idea of performance pay for teachers and considers the merits of compensating teachers based on how well their students "do" - on what exactly, it's not always clear. Quoted in the article is a college classmate of mine, and fellow TFA alumnus, Zeke Vanderhoek, who founded a New York City charter school where the starting salary for each of the school's teachers is $125,000 (literally five times the amount I made as a teacher in New York City in 1998; median pay for New York teachers without a master's degree is now $53,000). Vanderhoek's teachers work longer hours and meet far higher demands and, according to him, are paid accordingly.

For ten years, I was a very hard-working teacher. I prepped lessons, graded papers, communicated with parents, and coached teams before and after the school day and on weekends. I never felt that I was working fewer hours than my friends at law firms and on Wall Street.

Until the summer, that is. Sure, I spent plenty of time doing school-related work during the summer. But the rhythm of my life changed in a way that allowed me - even if only for those two months - to achieve a work-life balance that is unattainable for so many. I scraped by on my meager income and didn't gripe about it that much because I felt like I was living a manageable life.

But the stakes have changed in the teaching world, even in the few years since I've left it. Teaching to the test has become the gray reality many teachers face. But even when not gearing their lessons to help their students make gains on statewide exams, some teachers excel and others don't. As an article in The New Yorker so painfully analyzed this summer, there is a reason that the profession is saddled with so many negative stereotypes and it was both frustrating and demoralizing to work alongside those whose commitment was so much lower than my own and that of the majority of my colleagues.

Would I have liked to have been paid more for the work I was doing, for the results my kids were getting? Sure. Do I think that is a good model for our teacher compensation system? Not so sure.

In your opinion, which professions deserve the highest compensation? How do you feel about merit pay for teachers?

Image: Red Delicious by Bangin via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

Missing the Mouse: Have I Made My Son Neurotic?

2010-01-20T05:40:00.033-05:00

The day after we arrived in Orlando, Big Boy, Tiny Baby, and I visited Downtown Disney. I was excited to introduce the dinosaur-obsessed Big Boy to the dinos at the T-Rex Cafe and thought we might just catch a glimpse of a Disney character or two. Won't he be delighted, I mused.

[Big] Boy, was I wrong.

One look at the animatronic triceratops at the entrance to the restaurant and Big Boy was in floods of tears, running for the exit. Things improved temporarily with a visit to the Lego Store, but deteriorated again when I, naively, suggested a ride on the children's train. He eagerly agreed, but then - once again - melted down when he heard the train whistle, declaring the whole business "too loud" and "scary."

You can probably guess his reactions to a visit from Goofy and a carousel ride.

Later that afternoon, Big Boy and I were snuggling on the couch after his nap, reading and sharing a snack - one of those crystalline moments when I felt like bursting with love for my son. Big Boy's mind was elsewhere. Still thinking of his morning assault from the various members of the animal kingdom, Big Boy told me, "I feeled scared at that place." I then noticed his cuticles, as ragged and torn as my own, and I had to wonder:

Have I made my toddler neurotic?

Personally, I tend toward anxiety. I worry about almost everything, almost all the time. I come by these habits honestly. My mother is a chronic worrier, as was her mother before her. And I fear that - through my genes or through my habits - Big Boy is the next in line to inherit this questionable prize.

This past summer, for instance, Big Boy and I attended a Mommy and Me swimming class. Throughout the lessons, he would cleave to me, fearful of the water, fearful of being dropped, fearful of the other kids' splashing. On the last day of the lessons, the kids were invited to slide down the waterslide with their parents. I was surprised when Big Boy agreed to try. Surprised and scared, that is: you see, I didn't want to go down the waterslide myself. But, for his sake, I agreed as well. We made our way up the ladder, me clinging to him as much as he was clinging to me. When we got to the platform, he started to cry. He declared the slide "scary" and back down we climbed - him in tears, me in relief.

But now I wonder: did my own fear on that slide platform transfer to him? Have my neuroses passed from my body to his?

Is it my fault that a little boy who loves All Things Train had to leave a tame and pint-size ride because the train whistle was too noisy? Or is he just two - funny and fickle and two - and I'm being even more neurotic than usual fearing that I've made my son neurotic?

A week in Orlando: no dinosaurs, no rides, no Magic Kingdom, no Mickey.

We missed the mouse. Whose fault was it?

Which elements of your own personality did you inherit from your parents? Which do you see in your kids?

Image: Mouse-19-Dec-2004 by Roger McLassus via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

Are You a Homebody or a Rolling Stone?

2010-01-19T06:00:00.049-05:00

Flying home on Sunday afternoon after another week away, I was actually a bit sad to see the trip come to an end.

That is unusual for me: I usually prefer to stay home than to travel. I enjoy planning vacations, mapping out an itinerary, but, as often as not, I find myself counting down the days until I can return home once I am actually on the road.

I traveled a lot as a kid and as a young adult. I've visited almost all of the states and many countries. I've had my breath stolen by natural wonders and by man-made structures. I've biked on glaciers in Alaska and gulped apple wine at Oktoberfest in Offenbach.

I treasure these experiences, but sometimes I feel like a collector of memories - more interested in tucking them away and looking at them in pictures, rather than in living a trip as it occurs.

Feeling somewhat nostalgic for this recent trip that was coming to an end, I happened upon two bits of literary inspiration - one lofty, the other not so much - that helped me name these phenomena.

The first came through the typically direct words of Olive Kitteridge, the title character of Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize winning novel-in-stories, and a companion of mine on my trip to Florida. Olive's grown son Christopher invites her for a visit. She declines his request to have her stay "for a couple of weeks" with the rejoinder: "Three days...After that I stink like fish."

And I wondered if Olive's rule of thumb for houseguests might just apply to travelers as well - and if the best vacations are those that contain - almost like the best meals? - just enough to fill you up, but still leave you wanting a bit more.

This trip to Florida was just that for me. I was delighted by the sunshine and the warmer temperatures (thanks, Liz, for making that call to Mother Nature!), by the chance to walk and play outside in January, by the time with my parents and brothers. I felt full of all of these good sensations, then drove away from those people whom I love wishing for more of all of them.

For me, the ideal time away was a week. For Olive, it seems to be three days. For others, it might be more or less. The key, I think, is knowing your travel tolerance and planning accordingly.

The second piece of worldly and wordy wisdom came from one of Big Boy's favorite book series: Toot and Puddle. These porcine roommates and best friends have different perspectives on travel. Toot has been bit by the travel bug and spends most of his time on-page globetrotting - from Provence to Nepal, from Egypt to the Solomon Islands. Puddle, meanwhile, is a homebody. He occasionally joins Toot on his adventures, but is usually happier in the rhythms of his day-to-day life. At the end of Toot & Puddle, the first book in the series, the pigs are reunited at home for a December celebration.

"Here's to all your adventures around the world," said Puddle.

"Here's to all your adventures right at home," said Toot.

And perhaps that is the distinction right there: some of us find adventure through travel and some of us find adventure through staying put. And maybe those proclivities bend and evolve as we age, as our destination changes, and as our sense of home shifts.

But maybe some of us shy away from adventure altogether, evincing a preference for home but really masking a fear of the unknown?

Could it be that my own deep connection to the idea of home makes me tend toward a static life? Could it be that my risk-averse nature causes me to miss out on the brighter and deeper dimensions of living?

What is your travel tolerance (i.e. how long can you be away from home before you want to return)? Are you a homebody like Puddle and me or a rolling stone like Toot?

---

As part of the Help Haiti Blog Challenge, I will be making a $200 donation to Partners in Health on behalf of the Motherese community. Thank you to all who took the time to comment - and especially to an e-mail buddy who wishes to remain nameless who contributed a hearty sum to our collective pot.

And congratulations to Maureen at IslandRoar, winner of a copy of Tracy Kidder's marvelous Mountains Beyond Mountains.

Image: Grand Canyon NP - Arizona - USA by Tobias Alt via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

Do You Know How to Say No?

2010-01-18T06:00:00.002-05:00

"My therapist, Rita, has convinced me that every time I say yes when I mean no, I am abandoning myself, and I end up feeling used or resentful or frantic. But when I say no when I mean no, it's so sane and healthy that it creates a little glade around me in which I can get the nourishment I need. Then I help and serve people from a place of real abundance and health, instead of from this martyred mentally ill position, this open space in a forest about a mile north of Chernobyl."

- Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions (1993)

Do you know how to say no? Or do you too often find yourself saying yes when you mean no?

Image: San Francisco Botanical Garden Glade by Stan Shebs via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License.

Get Up, Stand Up! Stand Up for Haiti!

2010-01-17T06:00:00.006-05:00

In the early days of Motherese, I reflected on the November shootings at Fort Hood. Many of the emotions that filled me then resurfaced this week, with perhaps even greater poignancy, in learning about the earthquake in Haiti.

I feel like drawing the shades, locking the doors, turning off the television, the radio, the computer. I want to hold my children close to me - close enough that they will never know the violence that exploded yesterday afternoon at Fort Hood or the unspeakable crimes that befell a 15-year old girl at a homecoming dance in Richmond, California or the slaughter of 16-year old Derrion Albert on his way home from school. I look at them, their wide eyes, their smooth cheeks, and I despair - not just because I am afraid for them in this land of easy killing and thoughtless dehumanization, but because I don't want to think of them going out into a world where such things are possible. Can't I just keep them forever in the land of bears sitting on chairs, where the only wild things are the kind that devour out of love rather than depravity?

I think this morning of the parents of the victims of these crimes. I think too of the parents of older children who may see the news and ask questions. I know I am the lucky one - to have my babies safe and too young to ask "Why?"

And this morning I think of natural disaster. Of parents missing their children. Of children missing their parents. Of cries for help that go unanswered.

And I still want to wrap the boys up, spinning a silky cocoon of protection around them. Keeping the world and its realities away from them. Away from children everywhere.

How do you talk to your children about things you cannot yourself comprehend?

Please go comment on Friday's post - each comment means another $2 for Partners in Health's relief efforts in Haiti. And please make sure to visit Kelly Diels and her Help Haiti Blog Challenge post for a list of bloggers organizing to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake.

Six Quick Picks: Happiness Edition

2010-01-16T06:00:00.043-05:00

Last week my blogging buddy Liz at ...but then I had kids presented me with the Happy 101 award, given to bloggers who make you smile. Thanks, Liz! Your witty, insightful writing never fails to make me smile - so that happy thing? It's reciprocal!

Today I give you a special edition of Six Quick Picks - six things that made me happy this week:

1. Big Boy's questions: "Mommy, what's Grandma and Grandpa's planet?"; "How is a mast like a walrus?"; "Do ducks eat alligators every day?"

2. The UConn women's basketball team: A 55-game winning streak. Power, teamwork, grace. A visit from ESPN's College GameDay - a first for any women's team in any sport.

3. Tiny Baby's laugh: Surprisingly deep, syrupy sweet. A throaty blend of Kathleen Turner and Barry White. Delicious.

4. Chocolate-covered pretzels: Sweet. Salty. Perfection.

5. Peony-scented hand soap: A heady reminder of the swollen, scent-filled blossoms on the Midwestern roadside and at the Farmers' Market in June.

6. Kelly Diels and the Help Haiti Blog Challenge: Leadership by example. Social media mobilized for the greater good. (By the way, have you left your comment on yesterday's post? Each comment means another $2 for Partners in Health's earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti.)

Looking to boost your own happiness quotient this weekend? Pay a visit to my friend Linda at Barmitzvahzilla. Linda writes about her unique family with great humor and tremendous tenderness. I feel very lucky to have found her out here in the blogosphere. Linda, I pass this Happy 101 award along to you!

What made you happy this week?

Stand With Haiti

2010-01-15T15:11:00.002-05:00

Several years ago a friend and former student gave me a copy of Mountains Beyond Mountains, the book that had been her freshman summer read at Duke Univeristy. The next spring, the town of Concord, Massachusetts, where I lived and taught, chose the book as its community read. From the first page of Tracy Kidder's magnificent account of Paul Farmer, the iconoclastic physician who helped establish Partners in Health, and the people of Haiti's Central Plateau, I was riveted. Paul Farmer's mission - to establish a preferential healthcare option for the poor - and his innovative tactics - including training local healthcare workers to help deliver medical aid to the members of their communities - have revolutionized healthcare in Haiti's Central Plateau and in Partners in Health's other sites around the world. Since reading Mountains Beyond Mountains and hearing Dr. Farmer speak, Husband and I have supported Partners in Health. We now see them uniquely positioned to offer some aid to the millions of Haitians affected by Tuesday's earthquake.

Early this morning I received an e-mail from the incomparable Kelly Diels encouraging me to join her Help Haiti Blog Challenge. Although I feel paralyzed in the face of the devastation that rocked Haiti this week, I am honored to join the millions of members of the global community who have shown the people of Haiti the magnificent upside of humanity by opening my heart, my mouth, and my wallet to support relief efforts there.

So - For each person who leaves a comment on this post between now and Monday, 8:00 a.m. EST, I will follow the lead of Aidan and Lindsey in donating two dollars to Partners in Health. I will also send a copy of Mountains Beyond Mountains to one lucky commenter, chosen at random. Be sure to check back on Monday to see how much money the Motherese community raised over the weekend and to see who the lucky winner is. In the meantime, please join me in remembering the men, women, and children of Haiti.

How do you respond to tragedy - both existentially and practically?

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2010-01-15T06:00:00.003-05:00

Dear friends,

I'm guest-posting today at Amy Whitley's place, The Never-True Tales. Please click on over to check out my post, "Perfect Imperfection," the inaugural contribution to her Won't You Be My Neighbor series.

Cheers,
Kristen

Is Man Built of Words or of Actions?

2010-01-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

"'Here, what do you think of this proposition? Men are built of words. Wouldn't you say that's true?' At this he leaned forward and slapped my knee heartily, as if we were a pair of thrown-togethers at the beginning of a long train ride, discovering our common love of bookish pursuit. 'Men are defined by the words they use, and I have always said so!'
...Bitterly I said, 'Men are defined by their actions, Mr. Siringo. Yours define a bully and liar. I'll have no more discussions with you than I would with any thug you care to name.'"

- So Brave, Young, and Handsome, by Leif Enger (2008)

With whom do you agree - Charlie Siringo or the narrator? Are we defined more by our words or by our actions?

Image: Deep Springs Cattle Drive by Plowboylifestyle via Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the public domain.

The Rainbow Connection: Do You Believe in Signs?

2010-01-13T06:00:00.002-05:00

Dear M and S,

After your shower on Saturday, thoughts of you mixed with the forced air of the heater to warm me on my drive home. About an hour after I left you, a squall filled the air with snow; the flakes danced horizontally, then vertically, seeming to grow up from the highway. And then, as quickly as it came, the snow was gone. In its place, a rainbow. A winter rainbow.

The last time I saw a winter rainbow was December 31, 2003, the day before my wedding. It was a good sign, I thought. A symbol of hope, of the promise of hue among the grays.

And it was a good sign on Saturday, too, I think. To be filled with thoughts of two parents-to-be, to be meditating on their commitment to each other and on the sunshine that will warm their home - and then to witness real sunlight breaking through the blizzard, leaving a perfect spectrum in its wake. To feel as though energy and grace and light and magic were radiating out of the cosmos through me and into you.

I'm not sure if I believe in signs. But I believe in you.

I believe in the love that will surround your child. In the affection that you have for each other that will grow and change when you meet him. I believe in the web of your strength that will be a safety net for her. I believe in the flexibility and patience honed through your practice that will be a balm for him. I believe in the wisdom and humor that you will weave into stories for her.

I believe that you are ready.

And I believe in rainbows. In rainbow connections.

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that,
And someone believed it,
And look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing
That keeps us star gazing?
And what do we think we might see?

Someday we'll find it:
That Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Have you been half asleep?
And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called
The young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.

Someday we'll find it:
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Namaste,
Kristen

Do you believe in signs?

And, since you're here, why don't you go ahead and give some words of encouragement to my favorite cousin and her wonderful husband who are expecting the arrival of their first child in three weeks?

Image: Sateenkaari osa kaarta by Mp via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

Are You an Alice or a Chalie?

2010-01-12T06:00:00.004-05:00

"It was strange to have been reminded of Simon while standing in this guest cottage on the Blackwell vacation compound, strange to think how different this place was, surely, from the pea farm where Simon's family lived. He would, I imagined, find the Blackwells indulgent and vulgar and self-satisfied, and they in turn would find him dour and humorless - not that they would ever cross paths. So what did it mean that I could dwell in either camp without much difficulty? Was I mutable, without a fixed identity? I could see the arguments for every side, for and against people like the Blackwells, for and against a person like Simon. Yet it was hard to imagine Charlie's behavior, unlike my own, changing depending on whom he dated; he would always be Charlie. He had told me I had a strong sense of myself, but I wondered then if the opposite was true - if what he took for strength was really a bending sort of accommodation to his ways, if what he saw when he looked at me was the reflection of his own will and personality."

- narrator Alice Blackwell in American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld (2008)

Are you an Alice - mutable and shape-shifting - or a Charlie - fixed and unbending? Which do you aspire to be?

Image: The Shadow of a Woman by Bernardo Bolanos via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

The Happiest Place on Earth?

2010-01-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

Because 13 nights away from home over Christmas just wasn't enough for this vagabond family of four, we're off again. In just a few short hours, we will be flying south, heading for the Happiest Place on Earth. No, not Denmark. (Hi, S!) Nope, not Costa Rica either. (Hi, Gwen!)

That's right, boys and girls, we're going to Disney World.

This year marks our third annual journey to central Florida to join my parents for a week of ~~sun~~ slightly warmer temperatures and ~~family togetherness~~ the grandparents and I entertaining the kiddo (now kiddos) while Husband lurks in the condo preparing for the pending start of his semester.

Our upcoming trip makes me think back to some treasured childhood memories of travel. As I've mentioned before, my family crisscrossed the country several times by train. My older brother and I were always seat-mates and travel buddies, playing countless games of War, reading dozens of books, gulping down our country through the picture windows of the observation car, sharing semi-edible dining car fare, and then heading early to the lounge car to scout out our seats for the evening movie. Together we crawled through the Rocky Mountains, slithered across Lake Pontchartrain, and roared through Glacier National Park. Side by side we met our first Amish people and endured the sweat lodge of an Amtrak train with a broken air conditioner snaking through Georgia in the summertime.

The thing is: I remember far more about those train trips and the pit-stops we made along the way than I do about some of the places we ended up, as wonderful as they were.

And that is what I thought about last night as I repacked our barely unpacked suitcases: even though the timing isn't perfect, even though our destination may not be ideal - even with a toddler and an infant, I'd still rather visit the actual Germany or Morocco than the Epcot versions - the journey is what matters most.

What has been your favorite vacation?

And, please, if you have any pull with Mother Nature, put in a good word for these already winter-weary Midwesterners headed for (supposedly) warmer climes.
Image: Disney World by HaloFan1993 via Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the public domain.

Silly Sunday (Non)Sense: Whom Do You Look Like?

2010-01-10T06:03:00.001-05:00

My beloved Big Little Wolf e-mailed me yesterday to ask: "'Tiny Baby' isn't that tiny anymore, is he? When he turns one, what will you call him online?"

A provocative question indeed, especially since Tiny Baby has never been all that, well, tiny. In fact, "Tiny Baby" was a nickname given to him - perhaps ironically? perhaps as a means of asserting his own relative size? - by Big Boy. The not-so-tiny Tiny Baby has been off the proverbial charts in both length and weight at every pediatrician's visit. His impressive physique reminds one of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, thigh rolls and all.

And, when he gets upset, Tiny Baby bears a striking resemblance to the Marshmallow Man when the Ghostbusters attack him by crossing the streams of their proton packs.

As for me, my students used to tell me that I looked like Kristin Davis, Sex and the City's Charlotte - a flattering suggestion, but one that had everything to do with my preppy wardrobe and pretty much nothing to do with my actual physical appearance. Back in the day, Husband was frequently compared to Matthew Modine.

Neither of us seems to have a doppelganger with any cultural currency in the 2010s.

---

Speaking of the wonderful and witty Wolf, did you know that she was named one of WE Magazine's 101 Women Bloggers to Watch in 2010? I am so pleased to see D.A.Wolf and her always thoughtful, always thought-provoking Daily Plate of Crazy recognized by this national publication. I consider BLW one of my personal writing idols, a member - alongside Aidan and Lindsey - of my blogging Holy Trinity: the Mentor, the Sister, and the Gracious Spirit.

Congratulations, BLW, on your well-deserved honor!

---

Hmm...and that gets me thinking about the mysterious BLW. I have come to think of her as the fabulous stiletto of her gravatar, but anyone who writes like that must have, at least, nimble fingers and a well-appointed head to hold that considerable brain. So what notable lady might she look like?

Here's my guess: Natalie Portman's wiser, sassier sister.

Which famous figure do you most resemble?

Images: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, web-resolution screen shots from Ghostbusters; Big Little Wolf's Daily Plate of Crazy; Natalie Portman at TIFF 2009 by makoto2007 via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons. license.

Six Quick Picks: What Was the Best Book You Read in 2009?

2010-01-09T05:40:00.010-05:00

In this week's edition of Six Quick Picks, I offer up a list of the best books I read in 2009. I hope you'll join in the conversation and offer me and the Motherese community the names of some of your recent literary finds.

1. Home, by Marilynne Robinson (2008): Robinson won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for the powerful, atmospheric Gilead, which offered the reflections of Congregationalist minister John Ames on the lives of his pacifist father and radical abolitionist grandfather. Another reflection on faith and family, Home is a companion novel to Gilead, addressing the life of the aging and ailing Reverend Robert Boughton (dear friend of John Ames), his loyal daughter, and his rebellious son. According to A.O. Scott's New York Times review, Home "is a book unsparing in its acknowledgment of sin and unstinting in its belief in the possibility of grace. It is at once hard and forgiving, bitter and joyful, fanatical and serene. It is a wild, eccentric, radical work of literature that grows out of the broadest, most fertile, most familiar native literary tradition. What a strange old book it is."

2. The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, by Mordicai Gerstein (2003): Big Boy was given this children's picture book, winner of the 2004 Caldecott Medal, by his Oma. This luminous, heart-stopping book tells the story of Philippe Petit, a Frenchman who walked between the two towers of the World Trade Center on a tightrope in the summer of 1974. Reverent, but never maudlin, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers celebrates Petit's spirit of adventure and pays homage to the now fallen towers. I still get goosebumps every time I read it to my sons. If you have a child, if you know a child, treat her - and yourself - to a copy of this remarkable book.

3. The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan (2006): I came to The Omnivore's Dilemma later than many, but I nevertheless found Pollan's exploration of the industrial, organic, and local food chains fascinating. His tale is both fascinating and fluid and I eagerly joined him on his adventures through a feed lot and on a hunt for mushrooms. According to Bunny Crumpacker's review in The Washington Post, Pollan's "approach is steeped in honesty and self-awareness. His cause is just, his thinking is clear, and his writing is compelling."

4. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (2006): I would not necessarily recommend reading this book while eight months pregnant and on bedrest (as I did). After all, McCarthy's 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner is perhaps the bleakest book I've ever read. Reading it made me cry out of fear, suspense, terror, and sadness. The Road presents the story of a father and son wandering a post-apocalyptic landscape searching for other "good people," but encountering mostly desolation and roving bands of cannibals. Despite the grim gravity of the novel, it is perfectly written and presents a tremendously moving and ultimately transcendent picture of parent-child love. (Please note that, despite my deep and abiding affection for Viggo Mortensen - who, in 2001 replaced Harrison Ford as my all-time celebrity crush - I do not plan to see the recently released movie version of The Road. The mental images from this particular novel, which I have not been able to shake since reading it, are more than enough for me.)

5. Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (2008): Pulitzer Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri is probably my favorite living author. (What was up with me and Pulitzer Prize winning authors in 2009? Hmm...) On the surface, her subject matter is the experience of Bengali immigrants and especially the intergenerational challenges between immigrants and their children. But Lahiri's milieu is far wider-ranging. Like so many Vermeers, her short stories in this collection deal with the everyday with a touch that is both deft and revelatory. With sensitivity and eloquence, she paints tales that leave me hollow and full all at the same time.

6.Operating Instructions, by Anne Lamott (1993): I've written before about the impossibility of preparing for parenthood until you've actually lived it, but if there is a book that even hints at the transcendence, power, humility, rage, exhaustion, and humor that one experiences in the early days of motherhood, it is Operating Instructions. I wrote earlier this week about my newfound fondness for Anne Lamott, and here her discerning eye and truth-o-scope are in full effect. I believe this book should be required reading for all prospective parents - and all new parents who wish to feel validated, encouraged, and heard.

What was the best book you read in 2009?

Janie's Got a Gun?

2010-01-08T05:57:00.025-05:00

I am a big sports fan. Part of my morning routine includes watching a snippet of SportsCenter while nursing Tiny Baby. This morning I learned that Washington Wizards superstar (and popular blogger) Gilbert Arenas has been suspended indefinitely after bringing guns into his team's locker room and, allegedy, drawing a gun on a teammate. (Arenas admitted the first charge on Twitter - this guy is a social media marvel! - but continues to deny the second.) The Arenas story also brought to mind the recent trial and sentencing of former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress who accidentally shot himself with his own gun while at a New York nightclub.

Both of these well-publicized incidents made me think about guns and the associations we have with them. For some - including many people in my community - guns are (at least in part) a means to an end; these people are hunters and they use their guns to hunt. Others, like me, have an aversion to guns based on a complex mixture of unfamiliarity, fear, and a general association of weapons with violence. Still others have personally experienced guns as a threat and have reacted either by rejecting them or by embracing them as a means of self-defense or, perhaps, self-assertion. And then there are the legions who fall both inside and outside of these admittedly imprecise categories.

Just as these ideas were percolating in my mind, I stumbled upon a blogger who was tackling the same issues with an interesting perspective. Jennifer Fink at Blogging 'Bout Boys wrote eloquently on Tuesday about her sons' use of modeling clay to fashion a shotgun shell and a musket ball and her subsequent thoughts "about boys and the many ways our society restricts boy behavior." She writes:

Most boys have an innate fascination with weaponry and most boys have a desire to test their strength and courage against other boys. Boys have a natural tendency toward competition. Boys think, wonder and fantasize about war.
That doesn't mean that the boys in question actually want to blow each other's heads off; it just means that they're learning how to make sense of those impulses. It means they're exploring ideas. It means they're growing.
What do our boys lose when we forbid them from all expressions of violence? When we tell them what their stories can and cannot be about? Do they not learn that there's something wrong with them, at the core?

I found her words resonant and her questions fascinating, especially as they pointed to an issue I had not yet begun to ponder: will I let my own kids play with guns?

My brothers and I grew up playing with toy guns. My family did not hunt, nor did we shoot recreationally, but we did play with guns as kids stereotypically do: we were cops and robbers, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Han Solo and Princess Leia. Husband, meanwhile, reports that he was not allowed to play with guns at all. (The irony is lost on neither of us that he is now a historian specializing in, among other things, war.)

Many of my friends with kids older than mine do not allow them to play with toy weapons of any sort. And now they, Gilbert Arenas, Plaxico Burress, and Jennifer at Blogging 'Bout Boys all have me wondering whose lead I should follow. Should I keep toy guns out of my children's hands or should I let them and their imaginations dictate?

Did you play with guns as a kid? Do (did/would) you let your children play with them?

Image: Toy Popgun by Jerrid322 via Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the public domain.

Wanna Buy Some Lemonade?

2010-01-07T06:11:00.002-05:00

Last week the incomparable Jane at Theycallmejane's Blog treated me to my very own Lemonade Stand - the Lemonade Stand Award for "those who show great attitude and gratitude."

Funny, I usually think of myself as a person whose attitude tends a little too far toward the melancholy, and one who doesn't spend quite enough time being grateful for all of her considerable blessings. So, needless to say, Jane's kind gesture was both a surprise and an inspiration.

Have you met Jane, by the way? Now there is a woman who is the personification of powerful positivity. Jane tackles everything from parenting and race relations to blogging etiquette and our broken child welfare system, and she does it all with integrity, wisdom, and eloquence. I admire her strong voice and her kind spirit and I look forward to my daily stop at her place. Thanks, Jane, for sharing this award with me.

And now I'd like to pass along this sweet-tart treat to two women who leapt to mind immediately when I thought of "great attitude and gratitude":

1. Ambrosia at Making the Moments Count: On her blog, Ambrosia offers an image of motherhood that is both honest and hopeful. She does not shy away from the stickier details of life with small children, but what keeps me coming back to read her again and again are her unflinching introspection and her ability to find the silver lining in the darkest cloud. I feel like Ambrosia is my own younger, wiser sister (thanks, Lindsey, for that phrase), paving the way for me in a way, despite the fact that she is a decade younger than I and her kids are smaller than mine. I encourage you to pay her a visit today.

2. Corinne at Trains, Tutus, and Twizzlers: Like Ambrosia and me, Corinne is the mother of two young children. Through her pictures and essays, she paints a luminous, inspiring portrait of modern motherhood. Like Ambrosia, she does not gloss over bandaged foreheads or migraine headaches, but she too conveys a sense of grace and gratitude about her work. The first post of hers that I read was about a trip to Walden Pond, very near to where I once lived; I experience that same feeling of coming home every time I visit Corinne. Go check her out!

Please click on over and visit these lyrical ladies. But first, does anyone want to buy a cup of lemonade?

Is Youth Wasted on the Young?

2010-01-06T06:01:00.008-05:00

I have just come up with a hypothesis so revolutionary that I wanted to share it with you right away: Youth just might be wasted on the young.

My first piece of evidence: Big Boy has recently decided that he will not deign to eat dinner, regardless of what is served to him. Whether it be such adventurous cuisine as tofu burritos or eggplant parmesan or more standard fare like macaroni and cheese or PB&J, he categorically refuses to eat.

Some more evidence: Tiny Baby is an excellent sleeper, especially for an eight month old infant. Nevertheless, he seems occasionally scandalized by the suggestion that he lie in his crib and sleep, even when he is obviously tired. Big Boy, too, protests his naps now and then, even though he routinely sleeps three hours in the afternoon and eleven hours at night.

And I want to tell them: do you know how much I would love to be served nutritious, well-balanced meals three times a day complete with fruit (pre-sliced) and veggies (gently steamed)? To never lift a finger in their preparation or clean-up?

And I want to warn them: when you get old like me, you will be tired all the time and naps will be few and far between.

And I, the war-weary mother, want to ask them: Do you know how lucky you are? Your worries are few. Your "jobs" are to play, to absorb, and to explore. The only expectations of you are that you eat, sleep, pee, and poop. And when you do these things, praise rains down upon you. Enjoy it while it lasts, boys!

And then I think of a little girl with long brown hair and glasses. A little girl who refused to eat meat, who subsisted for several years on egg noodles and American cheese. A little girl who, in spite of being a champion sleeper, stayed awake some nights conjuring imaginary worlds in her head or exploring books with the flashlight she had secreted under her covers. A good little girl who nevertheless tried her parents' patience.

And she is tired now. Tired from spending more time preparing healthful meals than eating them. Tired from spending more time convincing other people (small people) to nap than actually napping herself. Tired from the business of adulthood.

But she is wise, too. Wise from the lessons she learned as a child, in a youth of asserting herself, of resisting the easy, of pushing back against the right-in-front-of-her. Strong from practicing adulthood even as a kid.

Knowing what you do now about adulthood, would you choose to go back and relive your childhood?

Image: A Child Sleeping by Alessandro Zangrilli via Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the public domain.

The Pleasures of the Woodpecker: Do You See Like a Writer?

2010-01-05T06:20:00.029-05:00

During my recent Holiday Hiatus, I took a break from daily writing. I fired off a few trifling posts, set up Blogger to post one each morning, and then closed my laptop, giving it two weeks of true hibernation. Up to that point, I had made time every day since launching Motherese to sit down and write. But only when I stopped this routine did I realize that I had not only made time to write, I had also made time to think. The act of writing had allowed - had ushered in really - the acts of thinking, of observing, of seeing the ordinary in a new way.

And I wondered: if I stop writing, will I also stop seeing?

Since starting to write, everything I do, everyone I talk to, everyplace I go has become possible material: a baking session with Big Boy, an annoucement from a new mother, a visit to playgroup. And that is both good and bad. On the one hand, I have begun to find new meaning in each moment and have started to think more about being present in every encounter. But on the other, I worry about making characters out of the people I love most; I do not want to mine my family and friends for stories or truths they had not intended to broadcast to a wider audience. I do not wish to use them as means to a revelation.

I went into my vacation thinking about finding a balance, contemplating turning off the x-ray vision of the writer, and wondering if I wanted to.

And then I found some help.

I am in debt to Lindsey at A Design so Vast for introducing me to Anne Lamott. Over the hectic past couple of weeks, I have blazed through two of her books. Her writing bubbles over with the wisdom, humor, and truth of the everyday, whether she is writing about her first year with her son or about, well, writing. In Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Lamott offers some clarity and encouragement for those of us fledgling writers trying to figure out what role writing should play in our lives:

In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a tree where you can build your nest and say, "This is my niche, this is where I live now, this is where I belong." And the niche may be small and dark, but at last you will finally know what you are doing.

I love this image of myself as a woodpecker, carving out some space in the world for my ideas. And Lamott's metaphor also helped me find a solution to the question of how to apply a writer's scrutiny to the business of living and interacting with real people. Now I might just think of the stuff I do, the people I meet, the places I go, the fodder of my life as the twine and twigs that make up my woodpecker's nest. These fragments support me, they are the foundation of my little hole in the tree, but ultimately it is my pecking - my writing - that tells the story.

Do you see like a writer, gathering the threads of your experience for your own woodpeckerly tales?

Image: Sphyrapicus_nuchalis1.jpg by Factumquintus via Wikimedia Commons. Photo is in the public domain.

My 27 Hour Solution

2010-01-04T06:31:00.013-05:00

Husband and I were recently talking about time. How it passes both quickly and slowly. How "the days are endless and the years fly by." How we wish we had more of it. More of it for ourselves, at least.

I reminded him then of my theory of time. I was reminded of it myself while at Christmas Mass. At 33, the 60 minute service flew by in a flurry of readings, carols, and incense. But I still remember how long that same hour felt to me as a kid. How I hoped that the congregation would speak instead of sing the Responsorial Psalm. How I rejoiced when the priest chose, as he did this year, to read the shortened version of the Gospel. How I dreaded the arrival of a visiting missionary, whose sermon would undoubtedly last far longer than that of our parish priest. How each minute felt like more. (Devout, I was not.)

I believe that time passes more quickly as we get older because each minute represents a smaller portion of the life we have lived thus far. When you are six, you have lived relatively fewer minutes and, therefore, each minute feels longer. When you are 86, you have lived so many minutes that each one is an infinitesimal drip in your cup of life.

Considering my theory of time and the ways in which I feel it slipping through my hands, I proposed to Husband a solution that, while completely impossible due to its flouting of both astrophysics and circadian rhythms, would help me tighten my grasp on that elusive passing of the moments.

And so I present to you my 27 Hour Solution:

Add three extra hours to each day: one of those hours would be just for you, uninterrupted, for whatever you wanted - reading, writing, picking your cuticles while staring out the window. Whatever. The second hour would be for your loved ones - kids, lovers, or friends. Again uninterrupted. No bills to pay, meals to cook, or soliciting phone calls to answer. The third hour would be for sleep - blissful, rejuvenating slumber. An hour added on to the night, or a nap in the middle of the day.

Three extra hours to renew self and spirit. Three hours to celebrate activity or stillness. Three hours to be.

A pipe dream, but a dreamy dream, no?

How do you make time for yourself, your loved ones, and your sleep in your 24 hour day?

Image: "Santiago Catedral Reloxo da Berenguela," by LMbuga at Wikimedia Commons via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Spain License.

Out of Order?: Some Thoughts on Birth Order

2010-01-03T06:24:00.022-05:00

Two weeks of family time over the holidays got me thinking about birth order and how it affects us as kids and as adults.

When I was pregnant with Tiny Baby, I spent some of my weeks of bed rest reading uniquely unhelpful books about birth order, gender, and age spacing between kids. These books spouted several different scary theories about how having children too close together (oops!) can irreparably harm the older one and about how having two children of the same gender in succession (again, oops!) can destine the younger one to feelings of inadequacy.

Family members also shared with us their concerns about birth order and the role it played in their lives. Both my father-in-law and my dad were raised in families with several boys close in age. Each felt negatively affected by the challenges of competing with his brothers and cautioned us of the potential hazards of having a younger son following so closely in the Stride Rite footsteps of an older brother.

Despite these warnings, neither Husband nor I worried too much about birth order. And that's probably because neither of us felt like it played much of a role in our own lives. Husband is an Oldest; I am a Middle. Both of us got plenty of attention, plenty of affection, and plenty of encouragement. Neither of us felt like we were set in competition against our siblings. And, of course, we knew we would never become those parents, the ones who neglect one child and heap praise on the other.

But then we both come from families with three children and in which he is the only boy and I am the only girl. And I wonder whether the uniqueness of our genders mattered more than the number or order of kids.

And I wonder about Tiny Baby and how being the younger brother of Big Boy - the beloved first grandchild on both sides of the family - will shape his experience.

And I wonder whether love and time and patience are all any child needs to forge his own path and chart his own course in the world.

And I wonder if I give enough of any of these things to either of my kids.

Are you an Oldest, a Middle, a Youngest, or an Only? How has your birth order affected you?

Image: "The Three Brothers" courtesy of Just B Cuz via Flickr.

Six Quick Picks: Farewell 2009 Edition

2010-01-02T06:19:00.012-05:00

In this week's edition of Six Quick Picks, I bring you some highlights from my own personal 2009.

1. January: Big Boy and I traveled to Orlando, Florida with my parents. It was on this trip that his language skills really began to explode. He started naming everything in sight. We started having conversations. At the time I didn't realize that this would be some of our last concentrated time together before I would be confined to bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy.

2. April: Tiny Baby was born, making our trio into a quartet. I remember the tears streaming down my face when I first saw his scrawny chicken body as Dr. G held him up to Husband and me over the c-section screen. He was healthy. He was here. He was magnificent. He was - he is - ours. We were - we are - delighted to have him.

3. Summer: I first started to hear about the pregnancies and successful adoption placements of several of my beloved girlfriends, many of whom finally got pregnant after battles with infertility. I was overwhelmed with happiness at the prospect of welcoming these women into the sisterhood that is motherhood.

4. August: I traveled to Washington DC for a girls' weekend with two of my favorite friends - and without Husband, Big Boy, and Tiny Baby. Ahh, the glory of solo airport Starbucks, shopping, pedicures and trashy magazines, a movie, ice cream, museums, yummy food, and uninterrupted adult conversation. I love my kids. And I loved that weekend away from them.

5. September: Big Boy turned two. We celebrated with a trip to visit the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History. The sheer exuberance on his face as he ran through the Hall of Dinosaurs (thank goodness it was a slow morning at the museum!) encapsulated for me both the magic of childhood and the need to bear witness to it before it passes away.

6. November: I took a class at Gotham Writers' Workshop and launched Motherese. I started writing daily, discovered powerful and lyrical voices here in the blogosphere, and began laying the foundation of some of the most interesting relationships I've developed in some time.

2009 will be tough to beat, but I say, "Bring it on, 2010!"

Six Years

2010-01-01T06:43:00.003-05:00

Because a holiday season packed with Hanukkah, my birthday, and Christmas just wasn't enough for Husband and me, we decided to get married, six years ago today, on New Year's Day in the city where we met, fell in love, and lived for several years - both as students and as adults.

I knew then and know today that I have found in Husband a best friend and a life companion; what I only guessed at then were the ways in which the contours of my love for him would grow and mature when we decided to bring our sons into the world. For Husband is not only a wonderful partner, he is also an extraordinary father. I am blessed to have found him and feel lucky that he agreed to walk along the path of this shared life by my side.

Husband and I were married in a civil ceremony. We chose selections from our favorite poets and authors to share with our assembled family and friends. Among those was a poem by Yehuda Amichai, "Now That The Water Presses Hard." I'd like to share it with you today, as a reminder to myself of that special day six years ago, as a reminder of the power of love in a world of prevailing indifference, as a reminder of the hope of spring on this wintry first day of a new year, on this dawn of a new decade.

Now that the water presses hard
On the walls of the dam,
Now that the returning white storks
In the middle of the firmament
Turn into flocks of jet planes,
We will feel again how strong are the ribs,
How bold the warm air in the lungs,
How urgent the daring to love in the open plain,
When great dangers arch overhead
And how much love is needed
To fill all the empty vessels
And the watches that stopped telling time,
And how much breath,
A blizzard of breath
To sing the little Song of Spring

May you and yours enjoy a happy, healthy, and peaceful new year. Here's to a fabulous decade!

Home At Last

2009-12-31T06:02:00.003-05:00

Image: "Christmas Gifts," by Kelvin Kay at Wikimedia Commons via a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.

13 nights,
3 states,
3 planes,
3 cars,
5 buses,
6 beds,
2 cribs,
6 Pack 'n Plays (or is it Packs 'n Play?),
2 nights of Hanukkah,
1 birthday,
1 Christmas Eve,
1 Christmas,
and 3 UPS boxes full of presents later,
I am home at last, home at last.

Thank God Almighty, I am home at last!

Has your holiday hullabaloo come to an end or are you still in the midst of the maelstrom?

A Tenth Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-30T06:00:00.002-05:00

At my last teaching job, I was also the coach of the varsity girls' basketball team. I hated every minute of it. I hated the time it took away from my teaching and from Husband. I hated the unreasonable expectations placed on me and my players by their parents. But most of all I hated the fact that I was really bad at it.

Coaching basketball at that level was the only thing I have ever done professionally that I was really, truly bad at. And, because of that experience, I have vowed never to do another job that I am not qualified for - no matter who asks me to, no matter if refusing to do so makes me look like something other than a team player.

Have you ever had to do a job that you were bad at?

A Ninth Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-29T06:00:00.002-05:00

Growing up, my family traveled almost exclusively by train. From our Connecticut home, we made separate cross-country train trips to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Seattle, among other western locations. As a result of our train journeys, accompanying side excursions to national parks, and subsequent trips to Hawaii and Alaska, I have been to 48 out of the 50 United States. Oklahoma and South Dakota remain.

Have you traveled more within the U.S. or outside the U.S.?

An Eighth Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-28T06:00:00.001-05:00

I was a good basketball player as a kid. This was just before women's basketball really exploded onto the scene and I managed to play pretty seriously and pretty competitively all the while playing other sports and carrying out the general business of childhood.

The peak of my career came toward the end of grade school when I was the starting point guard on a New England championship CYO team and was the state champ of an age-based foul shooting contest sponsored by the Elks. (The local Elks club then held a dinner in my honor. Very posh.) I continued to play basketball in high school, but a combination of a back injury and increasingly stiff competition benched me before college.

Were you a good athlete as a kid? Are you one now?

A Seventh Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-27T06:00:00.036-05:00

Image: "Ear," courtesy of David Bebbennick at Wikimedia Commons via a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.

My sister-in-law SEL recently pointed out an endearing, if perhaps annoying, habit of mine: I pick up quickly on unusual sayings and phrases and incorporate them readily - occasionally ad nauseum - into my own speech. This has led me to greet that very same sister-in-law with the chorus of Lionel Richie's "Hello" for several years running. I have more recently adopted her own signature tagline whenever telling a silly or uncanny anecdote: "Believe it."

I posted recently about my fine memory for song lyrics and I think there may be a correlation here. Maybe it's even a diagnosable syndrome: something like Highly Impressionable Hearing Disorder.

When it comes to clever sayings, are you a trendsetter or a trend follower?

A Sixth Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-26T06:00:00.015-05:00

I can say the alphabet backwards faster than I can say it forwards.

For some reason, my beloved but eccentric father thought that it would be fun to have my brothers and me know the alphabet backwards and forwards - literally - before going to kindergarten. And knew it we did.

Fun for a laugh to this day.

Do you have any party tricks of your own?

Merry Christmas to You

2009-12-25T06:00:00.003-05:00

"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost, 1923

---

Thank you for the gifts of your time and your words. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Merry Birthday to Me

2009-12-24T06:00:00.003-05:00

I turn 33 today. And that is troubling. Troubling not because I am concerned about getting older. It is troubling because today I turn from Magic Johnson into Larry Bird. Sigh.

---

Having a birthday on Christmas Eve was a mixed blessing growing up.

On the one hand it meant that I could never have a proper party with my friends on the day itself (bear in mind that I went to Catholic school through eighth grade) and was subjected to such indignities as birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper and cards with such clever sayings as "Merry Birthday to You!"

On the other it meant an explosion of presents starting the morning of my birthday and, just when I was starting to come down from my birthday high, bam! It was Christmas! It was almost too fabulous to believe. I also was very lucky to have parents - especially a mother - who went out of their way to make my birthday extra special given its proximity to our family's favorite holiday.

---

Kelly Diels wrote recently about a vacation in Las Vegas:

once I had two babies less than two. when I gave myself permission to fantasize, my fantasy was this: to check into a hotel with a great bed and soft sheets and cable – oh cable – and sleep for eight hours, uninterrupted. mmmmmmmmmm.

and this vacation echoes and underlines the reality of that fantasy. the most essential luxury in my life - besides love – is to sleep until I wake. unprompted. rested.

I can no longer claim to have two babies less than two. I do, however, have two less than two-and-a-half. And I hope that qualifies me to borrow Kelly's fantasy:

To sleep. Perchance to dream. "To sleep until I wake."

Wouldn't that be nice?

Wouldn't that be a Merry Birthday indeed?

No More Wednesdays With Warner...

2009-12-23T06:00:00.010-05:00

...and no more Fridays with Judith for that matter.

That's right: Judith Warner announced last week that she is signing off on Domestic Disturbances, her life and culture blog at the New York Times.

Thank you, Judith, for four years of wisdom and wit. Domestic Disturbances will be missed.

A Fifth Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Image: Home Sweet Home by John Fekner via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License.

Before I went to college, I had lived in the same house all my life. And, before I moved to the Midwest in the summer of 2007, I had never lived more than two hours away from that house. In fact, both the apartment in Manhattan where I lived after college and the boarding school in suburban Boston where I taught and lived for five years were exactly 105 miles away from my childhood home.

I have written before about home, where to find it, and how to create it. Having had such a rooted experience of home as a child has made it perhaps more challenging to feel at home in a new place as an adult.

Have you led a nomadic or a rooted existence - or both?

A Fourth Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-21T06:00:00.007-05:00

I have a heart-shaped uterus. A septum divides the two sides of my womb. This so-called "Mullerian anomaly" is a birth defect that affects less than 1% of the female population. I had no idea it "affected" me until I had some complications early in my pregnancy with Big Boy. Having a bicornuate uterus is associated with difficulty getting and remaining pregnant because an embryo (or is it a zygote? I was never very good at biology...) must implant itself in the larger part of the womb in order to have sufficient space and blood flow to grow. Because of their cramped quarters, both Big Boy and Tiny Baby were very decidedly breech and I was at risk of preterm labor. As a result, I spent many weeks of both pregnancies on bed rest (which now sounds heavenly) and delivered both boys early and via c-section.

Despite the drama it has caused for this mama, there's some poetry, I think, to having grown my babies in a space shaped like a heart.

Did your pregnancy and delivery go the way you had planned? Did your partner's or mother's?

A Third Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-20T06:00:00.006-05:00

I have an uncanny ability to remember song lyrics. In general, my memory is good, but my ability to recall the words and melodies of songs is formidable. My chops are particurly strong in the genre of 1980s television theme songs.

I once found myself stuck in traffic with a car full of people, one of whom, clearly unaware of my prowess, challenged the rest of us to a theme song sing-off. Needless to say, I defeated him soundly, when he confused Growing Pains' "As Long As We've Got Each Other" and Family Ties' "Without Us."

Rookie mistake.

Sha la la la.

Do you have a good memory? Is it getting better or worse with age?

A Second Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-19T06:00:00.003-05:00

When I was in second grade, I lobbied my teacher to be the first girl in my school's history to be the narrator at First Communion. Being the narrator was the plum speaking part and, as I pointed out to Mrs. M., I couldn't understand why a girl - clearly so fond of her own voice - couldn't fit the bill. (The fact that my brother, one grade ahead of me, had won the role the year before may have added to my motivation.) Apparently Mrs. M. was ready to break with tradition and the job was mine.

I credit both of my parents for instilling in me the firm belief that the fact of my gender would not keep me from getting and doing what I wanted. It is only recently that I have started to wonder whether or not I can really have it all. My father, though, remains convinced that I'll get back to a place where that belief seems second nature.

In a recent e-mail, in which he attempted to console me after Big Boy threw a full-blown toddler temper tantrum at our small-town equivalent of Gymboree, my dad wrote:

I know being cooped up with two babies is hard for you. I wanted you to grow up thinking that girls could do anything they wanted - and I think you did - so it must be frustrating when you can't - at least for now. Hang in there - it will be worth it when you look back - and they grow up so fast.

It must be frustrating when you can't do anything you want.

Have truer words ever been spoken about parenthood? About childhood? About personhood?

What part of your own belief system has been shaken by becoming an adult and, if applicable, a parent?

The First Thing We Don't Know About You

2009-12-18T06:00:00.050-05:00

Last week, the witty, wise, and altogether wonderful Big Little Wolf gave me my first holiday gift, the Sugar Doll award. This prize comes with the bloggy equivalent of a required acceptance speech. And so, as part of my Holiday Hiatus, I give you the first installment in this Very Special Ten Part Mostly Silly Series, Ten Things We Don't Know About You:

I am the proud owner of what Husband affectionately calls "mutant toes." Like human thumbs, my big toes are opposable. (Apparently, this anomaly is genetic; my older brother's toes are similarly sublime.) My toes are so flexible that I can pick up small items and can even write fairly legibly with them. I occasionally shock people by using my feet as an extra pair of hands, using them to carry things from one room to another. This talent has come in very, well, handy as a mother of two small children as I can easily retrieve dropped objects without bending over.

I am still waiting to discover the full range of applications of this particular gift.

Do you have any weird and wondrous physical traits?

Holiday Hiatus

2009-12-17T05:17:00.000-05:00

Friends, think of me on an airplane.

Think of Big Boy, hopefully docile. Hopefully enraptured by our new portable DVD player.

Think of Tiny Baby, hopefully asleep. Hopefully sound asleep.

Think of Husband, hopefully multitasking contentedly.

Think of the people - hopefully patient, hopefully child-loving - seated in front of us. Think of their kidneys - hopefully still intact given the unfortunate height of Big Boy's feet when properly installed in his car seat on the plane.

That's right. Today - maybe even as you read these very words - Husband, Big Boy, Tiny Baby, and I are flying east for a two week trip to celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas with our families.

So the upcoming days will look a little different here at Motherese. Because, although this trip will take us to a giant city and a bustling suburb, my access to a computer and the Internet will be limited. Or, at least, I have chosen to limit my access to a computer and the Internet.

Aidan posted last week about expectations. In it, she reflected on her promise to post for a second time in one day, the day after her site was hacked:

And now I write this and wonder about expectations. Whether they are good for us. Whether they are something that we truly control. Or whether, to some degree, they control us? Are we curtailing our own freedom by fashioning expectations that are too much and too many? Are expectations existential cuffs?

I thought a lot about Aidan's questions and about the comments on her post - especially the words of Christina, a woman whose thinking and writing I also admire:

Don’t I sound all pulled together? Hold on. Just because I am heaping grace all over the place doesn’t mean any of it lands on me. My expectations for myself are high and they are are mine alone. No one has forced me to set these goals and keep this pace. Some days I can justify my expectations because I am compelled to use each day to make a difference. To push myself, to stretch and grow. Other days I can’t justify anything. Seems there is a basic foundation for my contentment and that foundation is taking care of my husband and boys and being there for my friends and family...

Add to all this that I am feeling such guilt about my own blog and keeping up with my favorite blogs...I expect myself to blog daily and read others and comment daily so I’ve let myself down. Oh gee.

Before reading Aidan's post and Christina's response, I had planned on preparing two weeks' worth of full-length posts to publish during my trip, staying true to the daily posting course I had charted when I started blogging last month. Holding fast to the high expectations I had imposed on myself. But these women prompted me to ask, Why? Why churn out pages of content when I could - and should - be living in the Present Tense? Reveling in the magic of Tiny Baby's first Hanukkah and Christmas. Drinking in Big Boy's exuberance as he visits his favorite dinosaurs. Sneaking away as often as possible for some dates with Husband. Catching up with too-long-ago-seen family and friends.

So what does that mean for you, gentle reader?

During my Holiday Hiatus, I'll be serving up the blogging equivalent of tapas, hopefully delectable little morsels of Motherese. Hopefully enough to keep your appetite whetted and ready for more of the main course when I return.

So stay tuned.

And, until then, may your days be merry and bright.

Jon Stewart, Sarah Palin, Judith Warner, and the Civility Gap

2009-12-16T05:35:00.003-05:00

Another Wednesday, another opportunity to tell you about how Husband and I spend many evenings - side by side on the couch, each with a laptop, paying half-attention to a days old episode of The Daily Show. On the episode we watched last night (and we are quite behind), Stewart was mocking Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America, classically-trained violinist, and honors graduate of Stanford, for Googling the term "czar" on air and suggesting that she didn't know its meaning. Carlson herself was Googling the word as part of a segment that called into question the potential connection between the Obama administration and undemocratic imperial states of the past.

As I found myself getting lost trying to find the point of the segment, I started to think about popular culture and the news media and really people in general, all of whom seem engaged in some sort of Kafkaesque criticism of each other. The Daily Show makes fun of Fox News; Fox News makes fun of the Obama administration. So much for reporting news; our news sources report on the other people supposedly reporting the news. There is occasionally some thoughtful critique, but much of it is sound and fury - signifying nothing because no one's listening anymore.

How many Daily Show viewers, I wondered, spend time talking to, really engaging with Fox News viewers?

And then it occurred to me: I bet I do.

And I hit upon yet another thing I really value about blogging: I don't know much, if anything, about your politics or your religion, and yet we talk about some of the most important things out there. I don't know if you love Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin or Al Gore or Dick Cheney, are a member of the NRA or NOW or both, but I don't really care. Whatever labels you might use to define yourself if the Real World, I value your opinion and trust your advice here in this one. At a time when it seems like so many people have stopped listening to each other, we are connecting more than ever.

And then, of course, I thought of Judith Warner. (And, yes, you've got it right if you've surmised that Jon Stewart, blogging, and Judith Warner are oft on my mind.)

In her Thanksgiving post, Warner addressed these very issues of what she calls "civility, grace under pressure, and general human fellowship." No fan of Sarah Palin, Warner nevertheless applauded her recent gracious overtures to her grandchild's father during her interview with Oprah Winfrey:

Asked by Winfrey whether her once-future son-in-law, Levi Johnston, who slimed Palin with gleeful malice in the October issue of Vanity Fair and is soon due to bare all in Playgirl, would be joining her family for Thanksgiving dinner, the former Alaska governor replied, “It’s lovely to think that he would ever even consider such a thing. … He is a part of the family, and you want to bring him into the fold and kind of under your wing. And he needs that, too, Oprah. I think he needs to know that he is loved and he has the most beautiful child and this can all work out for good.”

You may be wondering how I could possibly be taken in by such obviously scripted political posturing.

But the fact is, Palin’s verbal gesture of graciousness surprised me. And the fact that it struck me as newsworthy and stayed in my mind long afterward speaks volumes about the general level of ambient aggression, thinly-veiled hostility and sheer nastiness that’s circulating — and parading, very often, as justified righteous indignation — in our society right now.

From Warner's examples of road ragers and "etiquette vigilantes" who publicly embarrass those who fail to say "thank you," to my own musings on the back-and-forth of political news television, it seems like many people now see things in absolutes, throwing out the baby because the bath water voted Republican.

But here we are, bridging the civility gap every day. Making a choice to rise above the hostility that dominates so much communication these days. Opting to engage with each other and with issues that matter. I am proud of us.

Now imagine what we could do for health care reform.

In your Real Life, how openly (and open-mindedly) do you communicate with those whose political or religious views are different from your own?

Separate but Equal?

2009-12-15T06:01:00.006-05:00

Last week I had lunch with a friend, the mother of three young boys. She passed along to me a number of books that deal with shaping the moral, emotional, and mental lives of boys. She also recommended another book, which addresses, among other things, the phenomenon of the "anomalous male," one whose interests in traditionally "feminine" pastimes cause him to bond with girls as a young boy; he then goes on to become ostracized once he reaches adolescence and those same girls find his friendship to be an albatross around their status-conscious necks.

Gulp.

For the last two years, I have spent a fair amount of time considering how lucky I am to have boys. As a kid, a sister of two brothers, and a teacher, I often felt that boys were easier somehow. Less drama. Less manipulation. Less emotion. I remember someone once telling me, "Boys play games while girls make rules." And while that, like the rest of this paragraph, is a gross oversimplification, I got it. It made sense to me based on my observation bias of boys being simple and girls being complex.

Well, apparently, I was wrong. Apparently - get this - boys are complex, too!

And, according to some of these books, one of the solutions to helping boys - and girls - embrace and explore their complexity is single-sex education.

As a child, I was not interested in going to an all-girls' school. I liked boys - both as friends and as more-than-friends. I liked having them around - as playmates, as classmates, as teammates. And in general, I start to get antsy when I hear talk of the inherent differences in the way males and females think, act, and feel.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I started to see some potential benefits to single-sex schooling. Research suggests that, when activities and subjects are divorced from their traditional gender associations (e.g. boys are better than girls at math; girls are better than boys at art), students avoid "gender intensification," wherein boys act more like they think boys should act, and girls act more like they think girls should act. Self-esteem also seems to be higher, especially for girls, in single-sex schools, according to this study. From my own anecdotal evidence based on years of teaching teenagers, I think about the school hours lost by some students who see their own social status ebb and flow along with their romantic relationships. If girls who like boys aren't around them for much of the day, might they see their position at school correlate more to their interests and accomplishments rather than to whom they are dating?

Could it be that in our quest to equalize the sexes, we are missing the diversity within each gender? Can separate really ever be equal? Can unequal nevertheless be fair?

Are you the product of a single-sex education? If so, what was your experience like?
Would you consider sending your child to a single-sex school?

Toward a New Definition of Real

2009-12-14T06:36:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine in California recently decided to move her four year old son to a new preschool. He was being bullied at his former school and the school staff did not intervene in a way that my friend found effective. When she told the preschool director of her decision, the older woman told her: "Mrs. Jones, you might want to think about the good that this exposure to the Real World will do for Timothy."*

When she told me that story over the phone, I was horrified - and not only because the idea of little Timothy* being bullied broke my heart and made me consider homeschooling the preschool-bound Big Boy next fall and every year thereafter. Mostly I was disturbed by this representation of the Real World - apparently one in which a young child should get used to being battered by a larger peer, one in which adults cannot adequately protect kids, one in which violence trumps communication.

I don't know about you, but that's not the Real World I want to live in, nor the one in which I want my children to grow up.

Here in the blogosphere, we speak often about the Real World and Real Life. Writers routinely refer to their Real Friends, their Real Jobs. But then they go on to say that they don't feel like themselves with these friends, don't feel fulfilled in these jobs.

And that makes me wonder: if you are not You in your Real Life, if your Real World isn't one in which You want to live, then isn't it time to redefine Real, maybe expand its borders a bit?

Instead of focusing solely on the empirical - that which can be seen, touched, and measured - perhaps we should consider a version of Real that includes anything that to us feels genuine, true, and unfeigned. Anything that makes your gut clench with its wisdom or your heart skip with its sincerity. Anyone whose words make you nod with knowing and being known. Any place that envelops you with security, comfort, and a sense of home.

Yes, this new Real might be an Ideal. But why do we have to settle for a Real that isn't? For a preschool that isn't safe? Or relationships that don't move us? Why can't the Real World, our Real Lives be worthy of aspiration?

* names changed to protect the innocent (i.e. those trying to get their kid enrolled in a new preschool in a competitive market)

What does your Real World look like?

Savoring the Sweet

2009-12-13T06:08:00.003-05:00

I like to bake.

Baking appeals not only to my insatiable appetite for sweets, but also to my love of order, my passion for following directions. (Yes, it is possible to feel passion for following directions.) I like to cook, too, but not in the same way. To cook well, I think, takes improvisation. And, as you may have gleaned, I am not all that comfortable with improvisation. (But that, perhaps, is a topic for another post.)

Yesterday, Big Boy and I were baking chocolate chip cookies. (Baking with a toddler and the ample metaphors it affords is yet another topic for yet another post.) To me, the perfect chocolate chip cookie is the Holy Grail of the confectionery world.

The ideal cookie can't be too chewy. It can't be too crispy. The ratio of chocolate chip to cookie dough must be just right. The chip itself can't be too sweet or too bitter. The center of the cookie must not be undercooked. (A common sin of the chocolate chip cookies available in many bakeries.) And the cookie must have just the right amount of salt.

Yes, salt.

That delectably sweet cookie needs to have the precise punch of salt.

Dorie Greenspan, author of my favorite recent baking cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours, helped teach me this lesson, one which I think applies to cookies and - wait for it - to life. In the New York Times article, "Perfection? Hint: It's Warm and Has a Secret," a number of noted bakers shared their theories on what makes the perfect chocolate chip cookie. My eyes instantly widened when I saw my beloved Dorie among those interviewed.

Although unsure she could bring anything new to the party, she went through the usual checklist: read through the recipe first, make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature, use the best-quality ingredients you can find, don’t overmix. Then she hit upon something everyone else had missed, and some home bakers are nervous about: salt.

“You can’t underestimate the importance of salt in sweet baked goods,” she said. Salt, in the dough and sprinkled on top, adds dimension that can lift even a plebeian cookie...Five years ago, sea salt as a must-have ingredient and garnish for sweets wouldn’t have registered on the radar of many home bakers, but now it has become almost commonplace, in part because of Ms. Greenspan’s unwavering belief in its virtue.

And that's just it, isn't it? Salty in the sweet. (You know, Sweet | Salty.) Think about it: how often have you heard someone express a desire for something savory when they're eating something sweet? For something sweet when they're eating something salty? For a coffee break in the middle of an afternoon at work? For a rest stop on a long drive? For a languorous stretch in the middle of a session at the computer? For a chance to stop and bake cookies with a two year old in the middle of a Saturday morning of writing?

And isn't that a metaphor (hi, Aidan) for life? A treacly tonic for our elusive quest for balance? A gastronomic reminder to stop and smell the flour?

Variety. It's the spice of life. It's the salt in the cookies. Bon appetit.

What little treats do you give yourself every day? What puts the salty in your sweet?

Momalom's Half-Drunk Challenge: Anonymous Entry

2009-12-12T09:29:00.000-05:00

Jen and Sarah, the wonderful women of Momalom, are hosting the Half-Drunk Challenge, a blogging event in which they have dared their readers to "put together your most daring, bravest and, if you so choose, most drunken writing experience." Dozens of writers have responded to the dare with truth. Truth about love, sex, pain, and parenthood.

Earlier this week I posted my own entry, "The Sense of Memory." Today, I have agreed to host the writing of an anonymous writer. Disclaimer: The following words are not my own, but I am pleased to offer Motherese as a space for another writer to say what it is that he or she feels the need to say.

Confession: I have, in the past, regularly Google Stalked the first person I ever slept with. Call him H. This probably isn’t true confession to you…I mean, I’m fairly certain that “Google Stalk” could be one of the newest additions to the Webster Dictionary for 2010. And maybe you’ve Google stalked someone already today. (And for the love of all things holy, have you used Google maps? It is the true crown jewel of Google stalking). But, it is a confession because I’ve never told ANYONE. Not my mother…who never knew him well enough to see why I loved him. Not my best friend, who knew him well enough that she would only raise a dubious eyebrow if I mentioned my…ahem…"investigative work.”

But back to the boy. The first night I met him, he got me drunk on Screwdrivers (hello, 1995!) and kissed me at my front door on the first true chilly night of autumn. In the end, he moved back to his hometown to run a hardware store with his parents; I stayed in college. I met someone else. Call him M. I loved him immediately. Even though I knew he wasn’t the type of boy who kissed outside on chilly nights…far too practical for silliness.

I married M. H came to the wedding. In the receiving line, he whispered with hot breath into my ear, “I think I made a mistake.” He kissed me in the sweet spot behind my ear on the back of neck and strode out of the church. It was my Hollywood moment.

And if you could move pass that, I raise my glass of Wal-Mart wine in your honor.

I kept up with news of him, as I could in my newlywed, pre-Google days. When Google came and EVERYONE was using Google, he was my first search string. Even home on maternity leave, I would periodically check, because I had to know. It was random. He was in community groups. He bought a house.

And then he sent me a Facebook request. And I accepted. He turned out to be a pastor. WTF. Married to a scrapbooker named Shelly Ann. WTF. Pre-diabetic, he watches his sugars. Double WTF.

Because the boy I knew then was SO. VERY. UNHOLY. He drank and smoked and did things to me that still make me blush, even ½ drunk.

I’ve had moments, especially when marriage gets hard, of wondering if I don’t still love him. Oh, but Facebook, you social networking tool with your status updates and photo albums, you taught me I don’t love him still…only the idea of him. He makes me think of when I was young and had a fake ID and was fairly certain I’d conquer most of the world by the time I was 30. I didn’t consider that I’d have children that became the center of my world, that I’d shrug off my stretchmarks on my tummy, that I’d consider getting my roots done “my me time”, that the boy I did marry would start to get gray in his hair and some days I’d love him less and some days I’d love him more, but that I would love him every day.

We, H and I, have never said a word to each other on Facebook. It’s an unwritten rule perhaps. I almost have commented or “liked” a few times in the past, but what’s the point (and I don’t want a scrapbooker named Shelly to be pissed at me, as she looks like the type that would…). But I won’t unfriend him. I need to know. I need to know that he was wrong for that one small minute in that church all those years ago. And when he posts the annual pics of baptizing his flock in the local river (not kidding), you totally know I’ll be looking.

Please feel free to comment below on this anonymous entry in the Momalom Half-Drunk Challenge.

Six Quick Picks, Vol. IV

2009-12-12T06:13:00.012-05:00

Today I present, in no particular order, the fourth installment of "Six Quick Picks," a smattering of items on the Interwebs that caught my eye this week:

1. Surely many of you are already familiar with Alice Bradley and Finslippy. This week Alice offered an exquisite post about her decision not to try to get pregnant again after having had a miscarriage. In "Only," she writes about the reactions of others, most notably her son Henry, when presented with her choice. Her words have stayed with me all week: "Henry is not an only, I want to say. Henry is enough."

2. I wish I could remember how I stumbled upon Delia Lloyd and RealDelia. But whatever the impetus behind my first visit, I continue to check in regularly for a serving of Delia's wisdom about parenthood, womanhood, and writing. This week, one of her posts, "Five Ways to Feel More Legitimate As A Writer" spoke directly to my own struggles of self-definition as I play with words and play with the idea of working with words. Whether you write for fun, for money, or for both, you will gain perspective from her sage advice.

3. There are certain blogs I read because the author's toughness, resilience, and sheer force of will force me to reflect on the hierarchy of challenges in this world - an ordering in which my own tendencies toward melancholy do not rank particularly high. Beth Mancuso at Manic Mother falls squarely into that category of bloggers. This week Beth waxed philosophical about the medical, financial, and existential crises that 2009 brought to her family in a post entitled, "2009, and Monkeys in Our Bed." Please visit Beth to learn about her trials and her indomitable spirit.

4. Some of my favorite bloggers have been taking part in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. I've enjoyed their posts so much that I decided to visit Gwen to check out her responses to her own prompts. What I found on Tuesday was a post that took my breath away with its graceful, simple truth. In her "Less Than 100 Ways to Relax this Holiday Season," Gwen cautions us against waiting for that perfect moment to find our joy: "It's okay. Work with what you have right now. This really is it. Right now, at the mall, with your shopping in your hands and three kids fighting and on the way home, driving behind the too-slow car. This is it, open loops and all. Pay attention." Click over to Gwen's site for your own breath of fresh air.

5. I sent you over to the Witch's Kitchen a couple of weeks ago. If you clicked over then, but somehow forgot to bookmark her site and return daily, you missed out this week on a post that will make you want to either slap or hug all of the girls and women in your life. Go now and read "F-Bomb Alert: Skeletor Issues," her reflection on the treacherous relationship between women and eating.

6. And now to end on a light note: Last year at this time, I frequently found myself gyrating - elegantly, I'm sure - around my kitchen doing my best to imitate Beyonce's signature moves in her seemingly ubiquitous "Single Ladies" video. (Quite a vision, I assure you, since I was rather pregnant at the time.) I never watched MTV or VH1 and yet could not seem to escape the reach of that rather catchy video. So I had to laugh out loud earlier this week when I happened upon a very clever spoof of said video by Leigh at Marvelous Kiddo. If you're looking to start off your weekend with a smile, click on over and take a look at her "Baby Mamas (Put a Sling on 'Em)."

Happy reading! Happy weekend!

December Dilemma

2009-12-11T06:19:00.022-05:00

Tonight marks the first night of Hanukkah. This fact would have meant nothing to me as a child. Now it means a lot.

Growing up, I was a good Catholic girl who went to a Catholic school in a largely Catholic town. I went to church every Sunday and every holy day of obligation. Among those holy days of obligation, Christmas was by far my favorite.

Like many little kids, I loved Christmas for the presents and the reindeer and the jolly old man dressed in red. But I also loved the mystery of the nativity story, the nobility of the poor mother seeking out shelter to give birth to her child, the wise men traveling to welcome this child with gifts. I loved looking at the life-sized creche on the altar at church. I loved laying under the Christmas tree in our living room, gazing up at the constellation of lights and tinsel and glittering ornaments. The rituals of Christmas were tied up for me with everything good about childhood - innocence, wonder, security, home.

Now there is no tree in my house, no carols, no Gospel of Luke or Matthew. We don't celebrate Christmas. I do, but we don't.

You see, Husband is Jewish. And this fact - coupled with my own faith tradition - seemed for a while like it might derail us. When we were dating - years before the idea of marriage ever surfaced - we thought long about the choice to be with someone of a different religion. We read books; we took online quizzes; we sought advice. We worried about it incessantly. We wondered how we would pull off a wedding. We wondered how our children would answer the question, "What are you?"

But then we found that we really loved each other. We couldn't imagine not being together, not having these hypothetical children - different faiths and all. And we found a way to have a wedding. And we found a way to bring two little boys into this world. And we simply don't think about it so much anymore.

People in the interfaith community use the term "December Dilemma" to connote the difficulty couples face in choosing a religious path for their mixed families. And indeed I feel a dilemma at this time of the year, but it's not the one that I imagined.

Our ad hoc solution to what to do about the winter holidays has been to celebrate each holiday with our respective families. So our boys enjoy Hanukkah, latkes, and candle lighting with Oma, and Christmas, the manger, and stockings with Grandpa and Grandma. And that is nice. In fact, it is lovely.

But I worry about the future - about sending the message that holidays happen elsewhere, outside of our home. That Christmas and Hanukkah are essentially about material acquisition. That the stories behind them are easily glossed over in packing suitcases full of gifts and rushing out of town.

Now I celebrate Christmas. I sort of celebrate Hanukkah, too. And that is fine, for now. But, whether or not Husband and I decide to have a tree, a menorah, both, or neither, I want to find a way to allow my kids to feel the innocence, wonder, security, and sense of home I always felt - and really still feel, with that soaring organ music and the choir singing "O Holy Night" at midnight mass - at this time of year.

I'm not worried about what we call it or how we define it; I just don't want our sons' childhoods to pass without creating in our own home a space for them to feel the magic I once did, to share with them an excuse to infuse the everyday with the transcendent.

How do you celebrate the holidays? Has your own observance changed as you've aged?

The Compartment Department

2009-12-10T06:50:00.062-05:00

Yesterday morning I opened the utensil drawer in our kitchen and a shiver went down my spine. Whisk intertwined with spatula. Cookie cutter collided with slotted spoon. A cacophony of kitchenware. A mess. I extracted the measuring spoon I needed and then closed the drawer quickly, turning my back on the clutter and resolving to order the drawer organizer I had seen profiled in Real Simple. (I ♥ Real Simple.) Compartments are what this drawer needs, I thought to myself. Compartments.

I like compartments. I like delineation. I like neat piles. I like work time and then play time. I am the queen of checklists, the duchess of task-oriented behavior, the baroness of getting one thing done and then moving on to the next. Try to talk to me while I'm writing or checking e-mail and I will either ignore you or offer you a response that conveys the same message.

But becoming a parent has knocked me out of my compartmentalized comfort zone.

And I struggle with jumbles. With blurry lines. With mixed metaphors. With feeding an infant, serving lunch to a toddler, and foraging for my own food all at the same time. Sometimes I watch Husband as he juggles the balls of parenthood and selfhood far more easily than I do. New Yorker always nearby, he plays with Big Boy and entertains Tiny Baby while catching up on "Talk of the Town" and Malcolm Gladwell's latest pet theory. He plays, he entertains, he reads, and he remembers. He does it all. All of it.

And parents need that ability to multi-task. The power to do it all, all at once. The ability to look at a messy drawer, grab a spoon, and move on, not worrying about order, reveling in the chaos. Sometimes I think that Husband is more of a natural in the parenting department than I am because he does it all; he does everything. When I try to do it all, I feel like I'm doing nothing. By nature, husband is a multi-tasker; I am just a tasker.

But I've been working on it.

Yesterday evening after the boys went to sleep, I went into the playroom to tidy up. I found a sea of Legos, a mountain of maracas, a landscape of dinosaurs. I looked at them and then I looked the multi-colored buckets that came with our shelving unit. When we first got it, I would spend time at the end of each day sorting Legos into the large yellow bin, dinosaurs into the medium blue bin, and musical instruments into the small red bin.

But last night, it finally occurred to me: the fun in this room comes from the mess. The Legos are joy, the dinosaurs are imagination, the maracas are spontaneity. Compartments don't work in a room that is supposed to be messy. So what if the Legos and dinosaurs and maracas spend the night mixed up in some sort of architectural prehistoric Latin debauchery? So what?

It may be messy, but that's life. That is life.

Compartments don't work in a life that is supposed to be messy. After all, how can you compartmentalize something that is not, at its essence, meant to be neat?

Are you a good multi-tasker or do you prefer to compartmentalize? What compromises have you made to your chosen organizational systems to accomodate your partner and/or kids?

More Wednesday Wisdom With Warner

2009-12-09T06:30:00.018-05:00

It's time for some more Wednesday wisdom with Judith Warner. During our first few installments, we explored balancing our premotherhood and postmotherhood selves; the burden of modern husbandhood and fatherhood; and the "Motherhood Religion." Today we'll take a look at the burden of female beauty - attaining it and maintaining it.

Over the weekend, Husband I were catching up on our backlog of Daily Show episodes. (Husband remains a steadfast devotee of Jon Stewart, while I fantasize about becoming the first lady of Colbert Nation. BLW, are you reading? Smart is sexy. But I digress.) One episode covered President Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan. In typical montage style, clips featured the skeptical reactions of a number of Republican and Democratic Congressmen. I wasn't paying much attention until I heard a female voice (that of a California Congresswoman whose name I can't remember), at which point I looked up, smirked, and snidely noted to Husband: "She looks like she just stuck her finger in an electric socket." I didn't think at all about my remark until Jon Stewart ended the segment by commenting that this same woman - an elected representative discussing a, literally, life-or-death issue - must have gone to her hairdresser and asked for the "Statue of Liberty."

And then it hit me: I am sexist. And, in this instance, so is Jon Stewart.

The topic of the segment was the troop surge; the spin was that representatives from both sides of the aisle greeted Obama's announcement with cynicism. I didn't really pay attention to any of that. But I did take the time to comment on a woman's - the only woman's - hairdo. I could not tell you what any of the Congressmen looked like, but I could pick that Congresswoman out of a line-up in a heartbeat. Me. A sexist eyewitness.

Judith Warner wrote last week about her initial surprise that NOW has come out against the so-called Bo-Tax, a provision of the Senate health care bill that calls for a 5% tax on elective cosmetic procedures. She goes on to consider the ways in which our society values and devalues women, especially aging women, based on their appearance. She then introduces the idea, borrowed from Beauty Junkies author Alex Kuczynski, of "an activism of aesthetics”:

At first glance, this seems ridiculous. And yet it says something true enough about the way many younger women understand feminism at a time when organized, real-world activism has hit wall after wall of political impossibility. Sneaker ads teach that feminism is all about taking control — of your figure...Women’s empowerment becomes a matter of a tight face and a flat belly. You control what you can control. And so many middle-aged women feel particularly out of control now, as indeed they are, in these life plan-wrecking economic times.

Certainly I have heard for years the laments of Hollywood actresses who see their roles dry up after they reach a certain age. But, until reading Warner's column last week, I hadn't realized the universality of the professional pressure on women to maintain their youthful looks. And, apparently, even when women attain a high level of career advancement - like my pal, the Congresswoman from California - they are still subject to ridicule based not on their words, but on the holding power of their styling gel. Are professional men subjected to these same standards, these same sexist drive-bys? I doubt it.

And I am part of the problem. A woman whose attention is piqued, then tweaked, by a cosmetic decision. A woman who undermines the wisdom of another woman's words by failing to look beyond her hair. And if I am part of the problem, who isn't?

Do you judge women by their looks? Do you judge men and women differently?

The Sense of Memory

2009-12-08T01:06:00.023-05:00

They say that smell is the sense most connected to memory, but I don't remember any smells from that day.

What I remember most is a sound. The squeaking of their shoes. Close your eyes at a basketball game and you will hear it: a new high top on a smooth parquet floor. The staccato squeaking of a sneaker. I heard their sneakers approaching. The squeaking of their sneakers.

I remember other sounds too. The mumbled demand for my wallet. The timidity in my voice as I swallowed a reply. The snagging of a zipper as I fumbled for my money. The fist connecting with my cheekbone, the sound of it just like in the movies: a swoop followed by a crunch. The cacophony of the bones shattering in my right hand. Kicking feet muffled by the insulation of my down jacket, the noise of a pillow fight. Their laughter. Sneakers again, this time running away. Keening, raging sobs, crying for my broken body and for help that came, but late. "Hey!" The call and then the gentle command of the man who found me: "Hold still, honey." The questions of the ER doctor. The words "gang initiation." (Their source, I can't remember - the doctor? the police officer? the social worker in the exam room?) My mother's voice on the phone, wanting and not wanting to know what had happened.

I remember sights. The almost apologetic mien of the subway station elevator operator as the door closed on the full car. The face of my watch, just starting to crack from where I hit it against the chalk ledge earlier that day. The peripheral glimpse of an approaching group: dark, puffy jackets, Michelin men. The gel, like shellac, in the hair of one of the boys. Metal. A gun? a knife? a soda can? An uneven circle forming around me, like dancers in a depraved Matisse painting. Crimson rivulets on my hands. The impossibly bright lights of the exam room in the hospital. A first glance at my face, a map of injuries, in the mirror of the bathroom. The instruments in the police car that drove me home.

I remember a taste: the alkaline tang of blood in that part of the sinus somewhere between the nose and the throat, a place reserved for only the most elemental flavors.

I remember feelings. The dry stillness of the cold air on that December evening. The softness of my turtleneck, slightly damp from the condensation of my breath. My heart skydiving into my gut when I understood what was about to happen. My stomach tightening, bracing. Pain. Searing pain. Bones splitting and splintering. The rough wool of the gloves worn by the man who helped me. The wetness of the corrugated paper napkin he used to try to stop the bleeding. The coarse cotton of the hospital gown. The tug of the thread the doctor used to sew my face. The ache of the squad car seat belt against my broken ribs.

I don't remember any smells from that day. Sights, a taste, feelings. But mostly sounds.

Mostly squeaking sneakers.

Ten years later sneakers squeak and I always turn to look. Always a little too quickly. Looking to see what is coming this way.

What sense do you most associate with memory? Do you connect different senses with different types of memories (the good and the bad)?

Please visit Momalom for more entries in their Half-Drunk Challenge.

A Sweet Treat

2009-12-07T05:54:00.001-05:00

Many thanks to BigLittleWolf who bestowed upon me my very first blogging award, the Sugar Doll.

Apparently, this honor comes with some saccharine strings attached. So stay tuned for my list of Ten Things We Don't Know About You, which I will post as part of my upcoming Holiday Hiatus. (I know, the suspense engendered by all of these Capital Letters is probably killing you...But be patient, gentle reader, all will be revealed in due time.)

In the meantime, it is with toothsome gratitude and sweet humility that I accept this award. I am particularly grateful for this recognition because it feels to me like a symbol of the community that is growing and coalescing here at Motherese. It also gives me the opportunity to sing the praises of two of the women that have helped build that community through the inspiration of their writing at their own blogs and through their comments here. Moreover, it gives me the excuse to fawn all over them without sounding like a cyberstalker. I hope.

First, a sugary shout-out to my benefactrix, BigLittleWolf.

I was first drawn into BLW's world of words through her thoughtful and intriguing comments on some of my favorite blogs. When I clicked over to Daily Plate of Crazy, I was greeted by the very best mix of the everyday and the sublime. BLW tackles every topic from dirty dishes to talking dirty, from headache to heartbreak, all with equal delicacy and eloquence. All Things Considered, indeed. Whatever her subject matter, I always want to read her wise, witty, and sometimes even whimsical perspective; this past week, though, BLW has outdone herself with a series of deeply moving posts. I thank her for thinking me even the least bit worthy of this award.

And now to pass along the Sugar Doll to one of my favorite "delightful and thought-provoking" writers: Lindsey at A Design so Vast.

Regular readers of Motherese are undoubtedly already familiar with my tremendous admiration for Lindsey's mind and her ability to express herself in writing. Before I started blogging, I lurked for a long time at A Design so Vast, consistently in awe of the profundity of Lindsey's thinking and the poignancy of her voice. The power of her prose and the resonance of her ideas continue to overwhelm me. Rarely do I leave a visit to her blog without feeling that I understand my own challenges more clearly. I owe Lindsey much more than a fuzzy button to post on her blog. Indeed, her blog - and the idea that such a community of thinkers existed out here in the ether - helped give me the courage to find my voice and start writing. And for that, I will remain in her debt for quite some time.

So thank you, Lindsey. Now limber up those fingers and get ready to give us your own list of Ten Things We Don't Know About You. I pass this Sugar Doll on to you, my new friend.

Please click on over and visit BigLittleWolf and Lindsey. And while you're at it, check out Aidan and Goldfish, my co-recipients of the Sugar Doll. You won't be sorry!

The Hazards of Love

2009-12-06T06:56:00.001-05:00

I'm thinking this morning about love.

I'm thinking of two of my very special friends, two of my Saying friends, who became mothers last week. One of them traveled halfway around the world to meet her two sons. Another welcomed her daughter in the very city where we met and became friends eleven years ago.

I'm thinking of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," a poem that Husband chose as a reading at our wedding. At the time, I found it an unusual, but fitting pick - being wed in a time of war, it felt important to acknowledge the ways in which love insulates us from the cold uncertainty of the world. Now, as I revisit the poem as a mother, I recognize a new dimension - one not just of romantic love, but of parental love as well. An acknowledgment of the risks of bringing a child into an imperfect world. A promise of tireless protection.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

I'm thinking of Ann Hood and her remarkable piece in the New York Times Modern Love column, "To Nurture Again, With Courage." Hood, her husband, and their son adopted a daughter from China after losing a child to a sudden illness. She beautifully details the small acts of bravery it takes to be a parent - the learning how to let in and the learning how to let go. She writes:

What I do know is this: there is no safe route through parenthood, or through life. When we offer our heart to others, we do not know what will happen to it. It may break. It may grow. It may take us places we never imagined. But isn’t that the risk of love? To be willing to stand on the stern on a beautiful summer day and, not knowing the outcome, to leap?

I've written before about the impossibility of preparing for the shift between our preparenthood and postparenthood selves. I'm thinking again now about the leap of faith we all make when we choose to open our hearts to our children.

I'm thinking of my beloved friends, these incredible women, these powerful educators, these new parents. I'm thinking of the ways in which their hearts will now explode with motherhood - borders expanding infinitely to try to contain the impossible boundaries of love and rupturing again and again with every scraped knee and every disappointment.

I'm thinking this morning about love. The hazards of love. The audacity of parenthood.

What advice can you offer these new parents - simple or profound or perhaps even both?

Six Quick Picks, Vol. III

2009-12-05T06:16:00.032-05:00

Welcome to Six Quick Picks, a look at a few items on the Internet that caught my eye during the past week. Collectively, you have helped author this week's edition.

On Thursday, I asked you to share the names of some of the blogs you visit to shake up your perspective. I am very grateful to everyone who took the time to comment on my post or to e-mail me their thoughts. I am also thankful to Lindsey for continuing the conversation on Friday at A Design So Vast.

Reflecting on your remarks has helped me to see that different shades of the familiar can sometimes be more provocative than great gulfs of difference. As I said in my comment on Lindsey's post: "We each have so many facets of our identities - and just because a writer is similar on one edge doesn't mean she will be on another. In fact, the point of connection can help us better understand the points of departure."

So I present you with this week's Six Quick Picks, all of which come from the links you suggested via comments and e-mail. Similar and different, these bloggers offer takes at once relate-able (to borrow a phrase from Lindsey) and thought-provoking on some of my favorite topics: life, love, parenthood, and, of course, books.

1. Book Snob: Thanks to Delia, herself the author of one of my favorite recent discoveries, who recommended Katy Keim's sharp, sassy, and savvy blog about fabulous books and the readers who love them.

2. Breed 'Em and Weep: I am grateful to Lindsey for suggesting this link to Jennifer, a crystalline-voiced single mom whose struggle with the usual challenges of parenthood is complicated by her own battle with bipolar disorder.

3. The Critical Path: Thanks to Nicki for leading me to Steve's blog, where he applies an analytical decision-making process to his emotional life. (Needless to say, an emphasis on reason over feeling isn't always my strong suit.)

4. Not Drowning, Mothering: Thank you, Becca, for steering me toward the witty tales of the Not Drowning Mother, a British-Australian mother of three who "still laughs a lot, although often her laughter turns into uncontrollable sobbing."

5. Privilege of Parenting: BigLittleWolf has introduced many of us to Bruce on her blog and in a comment at Momalom, an introduction for which I have been very grateful since first encountering his wise, gentle, and nuanced reflections on how to become "our best selves through raising children."

6. Stimeyland: Thanks to an e-mail buddy for turning me on to this humorous and human look at Stimey's life as a mother to three boys, one of whom is on the autism spectrum.

Happy reading! And here's to many more conversations ahead.

Are You a Good Person?

2009-12-04T06:09:00.004-05:00

In yet another selfish act, I went to a movie last night with two friends. The Oscar contenders have yet to arrive, so we chose some feel-good holiday fare: The Blind Side, based on Michael Lewis's 2006 book of the same name. The movie itself is not great. (I haven't read the book, although Husband did and enjoyed it.) Sandra Bullock overacts throughout the film and, knowing the outcome of the story going in, I wasn't taken in by the few moments of suspense that the overly sentimental script offered. The Times reviewer A.O. Scott calls it "a live-action, reality-based version of a Disney cartoon."

Nevertheless, the story captured by the book and the movie is a remarkable one. Baltimore Ravens left tackle Michael Oher was born to a mother addicted to crack cocaine. After being taken away from his mother and shuttled among several foster homes and inadequate schools, Oher was enrolled at a private Christian school by a father figure who stepped in on his behalf. Even there, Oher remained essentially homeless, struggling emotionally and academically, until Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy took him in and eventually adopted him. Not insignificantly, Oher happened to be an impressive physical specimen, athletically gifted enough to earn the attention of Division I coaches not long after starting to play organized football

The Touheys' act - whether fueled by a selfless interest in another human being, a cynical desire to bolster the success of their alma mater's football team, or some combination of the two - transformed the life of this young man. In one of the few scenes in the movie that captures a conversation between Leigh Anne and Sean, Leigh Anne asks her husband if she is a good person. He responds that she is the best person he knows, that every action of hers is designed to help other people.

This conversation got me thinking about the idea of a good person. Such a relative term. I wonder if I am a good person - if I ever was, if I still am. No, I have never personally uplifted a homeless and wayward youth, expanding his horizons to include a college education and a multimillion dollar NFL contract. But certainly the threshold can't be that high?

By many definitions, I think I qualify. I am nice to people. I say please and thank you. I smile at strangers. I give generously to charity. I recycle. I help short people reach things on high shelves in the grocery store. I drive a compact car. I am doing my best to raise children who will value and respect others, their similarities, and their differences.

But my Ace in the Good Person Hole is pretty far in my past. After college, I taught in New York City for two years under the auspices of Teach for America. Yes, it was hard work. Yes, I gave a great deal of time, energy, and emotion to people less fortunate than I. But doing Teach for America was selfish as well. It allowed me to live in New York, where the vast majority of my friends flocked after graduation. It allowed me to pursue the career I wanted in a way that had some wicked street cred among the pompous and obnoxious folk who looked down on my choice to teach. And, of course, it made me feel good - good to be helping, yes, but also good to be able to tell others what I did when what they did didn't sound quite so selfless.

And here I am now. I live in a comfortable house in which I crank up the A/C in the summer and the heat in the winter. Despite having lived here for over two years, I have yet to engage in any community service in a town that has been hard hit by the economic recession. Controversial ethicist Peter Singer has proposed a rather exacting standard for the amount individuals in the developed world should donate to charity; I don't come close. I try to stay informed, but I rarely act on the information I learn. I spend most of my time, even when with others, swimming around in my own head. I'm generally happier when left alone.

I'm pretty convinced I'm not a bad person. But am I good - even when I could be doing more? More for individuals? More for my community? More for our country? More for our world? More for our future?

In this season of giving, I wonder what else I should be giving. Or is living a Hippocratic life (first, do no harm) enough?

What makes a good person? Do you think you qualify?

Validation

2009-12-03T06:35:00.016-05:00

Since I wrote two weeks ago about Freudenschade, I have been thinking a lot about Lindsey's comment on that post. In her characteristically eloquent way, she wrote: "Most of the things people say to us, most of the criticism, judgment, or, even, approval, is about them and not us. We are mostly screens for other people to publish their own issues onto."

I have thought about the truth and wisdom of Lindsey's words, and the ways in which they apply to my life, particularly in the context of blogging - in the blogs that I choose to read and the comments I leave there. It occurs to me that my life in the blogosphere is really about seeking validation. Do I simply search out people who reflect back to me what I want to see in myself? And, if so, is that a bad thing?

I have been blogging now for one month and one day. During that time, I have found a number of bloggers whose words stir me, whose stories resonate with me. Almost all of those writers are women; almost all of those women are mothers; almost all of those mothers seem to share my general ideas about balancing selfhood and motherhood. So when I read their words, I often think to myself, "Oh yes, that is so smart." But perhaps what I really mean is, "Oh yes, that is just what I think so it must be right." Meanwhile, when I follow a link to a blogger whose writing style, basic beliefs, or realm of experience is far different from my own, I don't usually stick around too long, click, click, clicking my way back to safe territory.

In other words, I don't spend much time in this world challenging my assumptions; most of my time is engaged in assuming my assumptions are the valid ones.

And I think that is both good and bad. It is good because I have started to uncover a community of like-minded people, an audience to listen and voices that need the affirmation that I want to give. I have written before about the need to share vulnerable information; never would I have imagined the immense satisfaction I have found in doing so here. So I have no interest in or intention of disconnecting from these writers and their words.

But I also question my own tendency to fall into the trap Lindsey outlined, my preference for a pot unstirred and waters untroubled.

I wonder what else I should be reading. To rock my boat a bit. Maybe even to rock yours.

And here's where you come in. I have two questions for you today, followed by, in the fashion of academia, a call for submissions:

What types of blogs do you read? Do you think it's natural, productive, dangerous, or all of the above to seek out only the type of writer you yourself wish to be?

Please give me the name and url of a blogger who is going to challenge me and the other members of this community to think outside of that proverbial box and maybe even invalidate some of our assumptions.

More Wednesday Wisdom with Warner

2009-12-02T06:29:00.004-05:00

It's time for some more Wednesday wisdom with Judith Warner. During our first two installments, we explored balancing our premotherhood and postmotherhood selves and the burden of modern husbandhood and fatherhood. Uplifting topics indeed. Today we'll take a look at what Warner calls the "Motherhood Religion."

In Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, Warner traces the evolution of the idea of the perfect mother all the way to the dead end we have reached today: the image of a perfectly selfless creature, who sacrifices her own wants and needs for those of her children. Warner describes devotees of this new Motherhood Religion living their lives in a "totalizing, ultra-child-centered way": chairing every school committee; making organic, hypoallergenic soccer team snacks from scratch; staying up into the wee hours finishing their kids' homework; preparing all of their own baby food at home rather than buying commercial brands.

We all know these women. Sometimes we are these women.

In a recent post on her blog at the Times, Warner revisited the Motherhood Religion. Placing issues of motherhood in the larger context of our cultural attitudes toward women and the choices available to them, she suggested that

some of the more insidious elements of the long-brewing antifeminist backlash have become an accepted part of our cultural landscape. We’ve seen this for years in the way we talk about motherhood: celebrating selflessness, demanding an almost inhuman degree of child-centeredness, positioning the interests of mothers in opposition to those of their children, as our political and personal debates so often do.

And once again Judith got me thinking: if your time becomes consumed by your kids and their activities, the business and stuff of them, where do they end and you begin? How selfless can you be before you start to lose your Self?

Lately I have started to take steps to distance myself (and, I suppose, my Self) from the Motherhood Religion. I've started to let Big Boy play on his own more often, maybe watch a little more TV. Tiny Baby spends more time on my lap while I check e-mail and Google Reader and more time on his activity mat while I read. I've traded in the dogma of nightly home-cooked meals for a new adherence to that modern-day prophet, Trader Joe. I've secured the services of a loving and lovely childcare professional to watch the boys while Husband and I go out to eat now and then. And I have enjoyed just about every moment I've spent following these new commandments.

But, like the zealots they are, disciples of the Motherhood Religion (both real ones and the ones in my head) have tried to reel me back in, with their comments about what they do and subtle criticisms about what I could do too, if only I gave in and believed a little bit more. (Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; I have gone to the movies after my children have gone to bed.)

Once again, Saint Judith comes to my rescue, offering, in Perfect Madness, some salve to help assuage my guilt:

Studies have never shown that total immersion in motherhood makes mothers happy or does their children any good. On the contrary, studies have shown that mothers who are able to make a life for themselves tend to be happy and to make their children happy. The self-fulfillment they get from a well-rounded life actually makes them more emotionally available for their children - in part because they're less needy.

So mothers (fathers, too), keep right on loving your children. But find ways to love yourself too. Eat. Drink. Read. Write. Be Merry. Put the Self back into yourself. Your happiness - and that of your family - depends on it.

When it comes to the Motherhood Religion, are you a believer, an atheist, or an agnostic? Do you think our society needs more separation of church and state where the Motherhood Religion is concerned?

(Can you tell that I was digging the religion metaphors while working on this post? Just another benefit of nine years of Catholic school.)

The Best Intentions

2009-12-01T06:27:00.058-05:00

He lays on his back, lips curled over gums and the faintest suggestion of teeth. He lifts his legs into the air, then reaches his hands, chubby knuckles still dimpled, toward his toes. He grabs his feet and begins to rock. Instinct and presence. An unknowing yogi. A Happy Baby.

He turns his head to look at me. He sees his mom. His mouth gapes in a signature grin. And then he keeps turning and sees something better.

A blue fluid-filled fish. A teether. An object of desire.

He is more like me now, I think. Instinct mixing with and giving way to control.

His eyes widen, impossibly long eyelashes opening like a flower's petals to the morning sun. He purses his lips and sets his jaw. He rocks, hands still grasping tiny feet. He rolls on his side.

He wants that fish.

He lifts his right arm, and like a fly swatter honing in on its prey, swoops down on it.

He misses.

Tries again.

Every movement with intent.

This time he connects, gathering the fish by its tail into his meaty palm. Eyes wider than ever, he reels in his catch, bringing its fin closer and closer toward his mouth. When he finally gets it there, he rubs it against his gums, so pleased, so satisfied. Intention fulfilled.

Then he drops it. Lets it go. Turns away.

Looking for the next challenge.

It's a magical thing. Bearing witness to your child starting to think, starting to work to get what he wants. Starting to become human.

It's a scary thing. Watching your baby becoming a child. Starting to become human: wanting, wanting, wanting.

Then wanting more.

In what ways do you see your own habits reflected in your child(ren)? Does it hearten you or frighten you?

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

2009-11-30T06:43:00.004-05:00

Have you ever played the Game of Life? My older brother and I played constantly, both of us longing to land on one of the squares at the beginning of the game that entitled us to a career as a lawyer or a doctor (and the $50,000 annual salary that went with it - I guess lawyers and doctors weren't making the big bucks back in the 80s). In the Game of Life - and probably in more lives in general a few decades ago - you steered your car along a predetermined course, collecting paychecks and children, all the way to retirement (at which point, if I recall correctly, you could trade in your kids for cash...but that's a topic for another post entirely).

Yesterday I read a version of a statistic that I'd seen before, but it surprised me nonetheless: according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average American worker will change careers 3-5 times during her lifetime. Not jobs. Not 9th grade social studies teacher at Franklin D. Roosevelt High, then 10th grade world history teacher at Oak Hill Regional, then 12th grade economics teacher at Shelburne Community. Careers. Teacher. Then Astrophysicist. Then City Comptroller. (Okay, maybe not exactly, but you get the picture.)

As a kid, like my persona in the Game of Life, I often defaulted to the idea of being a lawyer. All of my dad's siblings were lawyers. They liked to talk. I liked to talk. I also liked the idea of making $50,000 a year and wearing suits to work. I liked the show L.A. Law. But in college I passed that torch off to many (most?) of my friends who headed off to law school after graduation while I headed instead to a different sort of classroom - one in which I'd be a teacher instead of a student. That's where I went and that's where I stayed until Big Boy was born. A few different jobs, but the same career.

And now I'm 32. I've had one career so far. I liked it. I even loved it sometimes. But right now I don't see myself going back to it. And, according to the Labor Department, I need at least two more careers to qualify as average. So I have to ask myself: What do I want to do when I grow up?

And you know what? I have no idea. No clue what I want to do next.

Right now I'm a mother. And that certainly takes a lot of doing. But what else do I want to do? Well, I want to read the stack of books that's been sitting on my bedside table since last Christmas. I want to wake up one morning to something other than the sound of a baby crying. I want to go back to Paris - with Husband, but without the wee ones. I want to get a massage. A long massage.

Actually, most of my want-to-do's have to do with states of being - how I've been in a different place in time, how I want to be - rather than what I want to do. And I realize that maybe the question that matters isn't, What do I want to do?, but rather, What do I want to be?

And what do I want to be? I want to be present. I want to be satisfied. I want to be fulfilled. I want to be heard. I want to be happy.

I still don't know what career space I want to land on in my own personal game of life. I still don't know how the doing can get me to the being. No, I still don't know what I want to do, but I'm getting closer to knowing what I want to be.

What do you want to do when you grow up? What do you want to be?

The Personal and the Vulnerable

2009-11-29T06:21:00.004-05:00

After Tiny Baby was born, I started a blog to keep our families and long-distance friends abreast of the life and times of our growing family. From the moment I hit "publish" on that first post, I started thinking more and more about what information to broadcast and what details to keep private. Ultimately, I decided to use our first names and to include pictures. I figured that those were safe parameters - especially since the blog would have an average readership of 5-7 people (4 grandparents plus 1-3 friends bored at work).

This fall, as I prepared to launch Motherese (and was hopeful that its audience would be at least slightly larger), I happened upon "Guardians of Their Smiles," an article in the New York Times that addressed some of the very issues I was thinking about. In it, parents aired their concerns about posting images of their children online "in the social networking age, when Facebook is rapidly taking the place of the baby book." Husband, generally more cautious about these matters, and I discussed the article and agreed that we still felt comfortable with our approach to our family's blog. BUT, I offered and he concurred, I would chart a different course with Motherese.

In this new space, I would remove the personal, while airing more of the vulnerable.

Personal. Vulnerable. Two words that feel the same, are often used to mean the same thing. But to me, the difference between them is a meaningful one, especially for the type of community and interactions I want to create. To me, personal details are actually not all that sacred or even private. My acquaintances know my name, where I live, what my kids' names are, where I used to work. Heck, the people at the bank know my most personal information (including my social security number, that Holy Grail of the personal) and I don't even know them. But what they don't know - what I don't want them to know and what it would be hard if they did know - is the vulnerable stuff. The hopes. The anxieties. The prejudices. The irrationalities. The hazy hazards that float before my mind's eye as I lay down for the night. Only my very closest friends know the vulnerable stuff.

So then why air all of that vulnerable stuff to people I don't know now and may never meet in person? Why say these things that have gone unsaid to even good friends? Why not just say them out loud to a live (if not studio) audience?

Because the Not Saying creates safety. It buffers relationships from emotional storms that can rock the friendship boat. The Not Saying puts up barriers that help armor our hearts and our egos against judgment. The Not Saying builds a fence. (And I've heard that good fences make good neighbors.) And we all need those Not Saying relationships. We need those easy friends and breezy acquaintances to chat with, to share coffee (or leftover apple juice and Goldfish crackers) with, to giggle with. Just as we can't be present in every moment without risking emotional overload, it would be exhausting to relate to every other person on the Saying level.

But, while I absolutely need them, I have enough Not Saying friends. And there are still things that need Saying. So though I may not share the names of my sons or the town where I live, or post pictures of my boys' first steps, there are few things more vulnerable to me than the words I write here every day. These are the parts of myself that I have just begun to understand and the Saying helps me get deeper into those places.

Life is generally lived in the Not Saying realm, but it's in the Saying space that truth is found.

And the lovely thing is that there seem to be ears out there Listening. Perhaps even more than 5-7 pairs.

How do you balance the personal and the vulnerable in your online persona? In your life offline? (And for more on the idea of sharing in this bloggy world, check out Aidan's post from yesterday and Jen's post from last week.)

Six Quick Picks, Vol. II

2009-11-28T06:46:00.007-05:00

Today I present, in no particular order, the second installment of "Six Quick Picks," a smattering of items on the Interwebs that caught my eye this week:

1. Have you met the Kitchen Witch? In her trademark sweet and spicy way, she honored Anissa and celebrated her own blessings in a lovely post last weekend. My only complaint about TKW's blog is the same one I have about Top Chef: I can never get a big enough bite of her creations through my computer screen - although I've tried (feel free to test for DNA evidence in my saliva smudges).

2. Heather helped kick off my week with a bit of pure poetry. Don't miss "Dip," her lyrical manifesto to living in the moment. Here's a taste: "Grace and consideration, in the dance. Like life. Fumbly and good. Either way, we keep dancing, or the music means nothing." Fumbly and good, indeed.

3. I have been lucky during my short stay in the blogosphere to find a number of writers who seem to have their fingers directly on my pulse; their posts routinely explore my own areas of interest (or anxiety) and their perspectives help me understand my own in a more nuanced way. One of those writers is Becca. This week she tackled an issue that is very much on my mind: connectedness - connecting online, connecting offline, and how to reconcile the two. Connect with Becca here.

4. For many of us, among the most crystalline moments in our memories are those that took place during and immediately after the births of our children. The sensory memory of pain. The tear-soaked euphoria. On Friday, Natalie shared a brave and poignant story about her experience after the birth of her twins. As I commented to her, I think her post should be required reading for all expectant and new mothers.

5. I discovered Goldfish through her thoughtful comments at Momalom. I visited her blog to find her struggling against an unseen enemy, one that she elucidates clearly and powerfully in her posts. As much as I have been affected by her stories, one of my favorite posts this week was a much more lighthearted one. No one familiar with Eric Carle - and no one who is still regretting Thursday's overindulgence - should miss her ode to her son and his impressive eating habits.

6. As always - or, as I did last week, at least - I leave you with something from the world of pop culture. I admitted earlier this week that I am no fashion plate. But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate true style when I see it. And one of my current fashion favorites is First Lady Michelle Obama, or, as she is affectionately known in certain circles, Shelley O. Mary Tomer has created Mrs. O, a blog devoted to Shelley O's wardrobe. Don't miss photos of Michelle dazzling the crowd at the Obamas' first state dinner. Is designer clothing an important thing to think about in tough economic times? Nope. Is it a fun thing to think about? I think so.

Home for the Holiday

2009-11-27T06:37:00.003-05:00

Aidan posted on Wednesday about the importance of place and, since then, I have been thinking about the idea of home.

Husband, the wee ones, and I spent yesterday at home. Our home. Home for the holiday. Here in the Midwest. 600 miles west of - and a cultural world away from - the Connecticut town where I grew up. It's taken me awhile to call this place that name: home. But yesterday, watching the parade, eating our nontraditional Thanksgiving fare, and sharing desserts with our friends and fellow transplants, it struck me that home isn't really about location; it's about place. The practical place. Where your stuff is. The emotional place. Where your people are. The existential place. Where you do your living. And we are here. This place is home. For now.

And I thought about a passage in American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld's account of a first lady who bears a more than passing resemblance to Laura Bush.

I read American Wife last fall, about a year into our Midwestern sojourn. Up to that point, I still felt like a stranger in this place. (I love that the word "extra" is in the Spanish word for stranger: extranjera. I felt just like that, an extra in somebody else's story.) I missed the quaintness, the charm of New England, the energy and variety of New York. I missed people, yes, but also the feeling of place that I had in those locations. The feeling of home. But Sittenfeld gave me an image of a Midwest to which I hadn't given full credit before. In the voice of narrator Alice Blackwell, Sittenfeld writes

Then we were back in Wisconsin, a place that in late summer is thrillingly beautiful. When I was young, this was knowledge shared by everyone around me; as an adult, I've never stopped being surprised by how few of the people with whom I interact have any true sense of the states between Pennsylvania and Colorado...Admittedly, the area possesses a dowdiness I personally have always found comforting, but to think of Wisconsin specifically or the Midwest as a whole as anything other than beautiful is to ignore the extraordinary power of the land. The lushness of the grass and trees in August, the roll of the hills (far less of the Midwest is flat than outsiders seem to imagine), that rich smell of soil, the evening sunlight over a field of wheat, or the crickets chirping at dusk on a residential street: All of it, it has always made me feel at peace. There is room to breathe, there is a realness of place. The seasons are extreme, but they pass and return, pass and return, and the world seems far steadier than it does from the vantage point of a coastal city...It is quietly lovely, not preening with the need to have its attributes remarked on. It is the place I am calmest and most myself.

Maybe it is merely an indication of the sway that books hold in my life, but reading Sittenfeld's words about the Midwest (no, we don't live in Wisconsin, but still...) helped me to look upon it in a more accepting way. I saw the power of the land, indeed, but also the power of the choice to live and grow and keep growing up in a place in such a way that that place becomes a home.

My brilliant and beloved friend H moved from a Northeastern city to her own set of cornfields right around the time that Husband and I relocated here. From her, I picked up a saying whose wisdom I have been hard pressed to follow up to this point: "Bloom where you're planted."

I will try, H. I will try to put down roots in this rich soil and make this house, this place, a home.

Where is home to you? Does it exist as a point on a map or is it a state of being?

Thanks Giving

2009-11-26T06:27:00.002-05:00

Thank you.

For being here. For being present.

For reading. For connecting.

For hearing. For listening.

For commenting. For engaging.

For communicating. For community.

Thank you, friends.

Another Wednesday with Warner

2009-11-25T06:04:00.060-05:00

That's right, friends. It's time for another installment of Wednesdays with [Judith] Warner. (Click here for last week's look at the balancing act between our pre-motherhood and post-motherhood selves.) This week's topic? Wonderful husbands.

This Thanksgiving week, the theme of gratitude is everywhere - we're grateful to have a bountiful meal to set before our families tomorrow; we're grateful for those families; we're grateful for new connections and a growing community of friends. Nevertheless, I we spend a lot of time complaining - if only someone else would cook the meal this year; if only our children behaved better; if only our relationships with our "real" friends felt so authentic. And yes. I We complain about our husbands. I We bemoan their work schedules, their lack of lactating breasts, their apparent inability to follow our systems of household management.

And Judith, wise, wise Judith, writes about this tendency of ~~mine~~ ours in Perfect Madness:

If you talk to women these days, and the conversation turns to marriage, a great many will tell you how lucky they are. How blessed. How grateful. Because (and this seems always to be the phrase) they have "wonderful husbands"...But keep the talk going (change the subject, shift gears) and the conversation inevitably will turn. Someone will say, "'I have a wonderful husband, but..."...and then things will go south very fast.

But then she continues and starts to spin things in a new way:

The way we define motherhood today permits women who are unhappy in their careers, or stuck in dead-end jobs, or simply not all that inspired or successful to opt out of their working lives for the greater "calling" of child-rearing. Men do not generally feel that they have that option...Many men, forced into provider roles they never hoped for, must end up feeling ripped-off. There isn't much of their financial compensation left over once the household expenses are paid. They don't get much by way of wifely compensation either: their wives are too busy nursing their own resentments to be able to give much in the way of the "consoling and commiserating" that...was traditionally considered a world-weary husband's due.

Ouch. So even while we're feeling out-of-balance and unfulfilled, our partners are cruising down a one-way road without exit ramps and with only no-frills rest stops. (Think vending machines that dispense stale coffee instead of Starbucks or even Cinnabon.)

I know that I am one of the lucky ones. Husband actually is a "wonderful husband." He is the prototype. To borrow an expression from Becca, he brings home the bacon. (He doesn't cook it, but that's okay; we're vegetarians.) He takes paternity leave. He spends time with our sons. More time, in fact, than any other father I know. He throws them in the air, reads to them about Impressionist painters, constructs elaborate tunnels out of cardboard boxes. He feeds them at night. (Or at least he did; thank goodness we are past that stage.) He does not back away from a diaper blowout. He teaches Big Boy to say "Mommy is the prettiest." He listens to them. He listens to me. He spends most of his time doing things that make my life easier. That make my life better.

I know that he would do anything for me, for our family. He has. Including putting himself on hold to help keep us moving forward. And what does he get in return? A wife whose dissatisfaction with her own life more often than not (less, at least, since I've started writing) manifests itself in frustration toward him. He deserves better. Really he does.

Maybe this motherhood thing isn't so easy on me. But it's not so easy on him either. And I get that now.

We I spend a lot of time complaining. Maybe we I should be more grateful. Grateful to Judith for opening my eyes once again. Grateful for my "wonderful husband."

Who modeled good fathering for you? Do you have an equal partner on this voyage through parenthood?

New Uniform

2009-11-24T06:10:00.122-05:00

Last week BigLittleWolf asked "What's your style?"

Her question got me thinking: Do I even have a style? Am I a style nihilist? And, either way, what does that say about me?

The elements of my style were established early on. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade - a Catholic school with typical Catholic school uniforms. For nine years, I donned the same ensemble: an unpleasantly retro brown and yellow plaid jumper; a white cotton button-down blouse with, naturally, a Peter Pan collar; brown knee socks; Mary Janes; and the signature polyester crisscross tie shared by schoolgirls and Girl Scouts the world over. It was ugly. It labeled me as a "critter," the public school kids' epithet for us Catholic school lads and lasses. But you know what? I loved it. I loved the ease of it. The waking up in the morning and having that decision made for me.

When I went to prep school in ninth grade, my options increased in every way. My circle of friends and my intellectual horizons expanded - but so did my style decisions. No jeans allowed, but no more uniform as a protective shell. Lots more anxiety. And boy did I stumble. Teal green and black striped overalls. Multi-floral print faux silk blouses. Culottes. Believe it. Yes, those were the years of Betsey Johnson and over-sized flannel everything, but still. It wasn't pretty. I wasn't pretty.

Then I discovered a magical thing called the J.Crew catalog. Tall, thin, perpetually tanned women in effortlessly casual paraphernalia. Genius, I thought. My mom? Not so much. $98 corduroy pants did not compute in her thrifty, coupon-clipping mind. (The sadist!) So I was left to recreate these outfits at JC Penney with an occasional supplement from the Gap. And, with an infusion of babysitting money, a J.Crew Outlet gem or two. Thrown together outfits, never quite cute. Never quite adding up. Never quite a style.

And my style - or lack thereof - evolved from there. Through college, through work. One eye on preppy icons, one in my closet, and the equation never balancing.

And now here I am. A suburban mother of two. A mismatched wardrobe with the wash-and-wear items given prime closet real estate. Yoga pants, 7 jeans, Puma sneakers, and Boden tops. Hair in a ponytail. Every day. Maybe a smudge of make-up every now and then.

No, I don't wear pajamas in public. I don't wear "mom jeans." Even though I now shop in the catalogs and stores I once admired, those items still don't quite belong to me. Lots of pieces, still no style.

So how do I find a new uniform that conveys in a blink of the eye everything that I want to say about myself? That although I may be pushing a shopping cart with a plastic racecar affixed to its front, I still have some sense of the power of designer jeans and a high heel shoe. That although I may spend my days rolling on the floor with two tiny lads, I still have professional ambition. That although I may have spit-up in a splatter pattern across my shoulder, I am still a woman.

How do I find a style that conveys substance?

What message does your uniform send to the world? Who are you trying to be?

Image: DN-ST-85-08492 by PH2 Jeffrey A. Salter at Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the public domain.

Cutting Through the Gums

2009-11-23T06:05:00.008-05:00

I pace the floor, leaving tracks like tire treads in the thick carpet. Singing doesn't help, nor does humming, but this whooshing - yes, whooshing - seems to. The song inside of an abandoned shell. The sound of the womb. The sound that is not sound. So I whoosh away, over and over, around and around our track, into his ear. I cradle his head in one hand and his diapered bottom in the other. I whoosh. I feel his body relax as the weight of him sinks into me, his head on my shoulder, the grip of his fists relenting. The tears seem to wane, replaced by an uneasy peace - the occasional shivering intake of air that is part protest and part resignation.

Why does this hurt so much? He wants an answer. I feel the question in his cries. I ask it too. Why does he have to hurt? Why does this hurt me?

I keep whooshing and walking, staying true to my elliptical course, contemplating the meaning of this challenge.

A first tooth cutting through the gums.

And maybe it's a good lesson to learn, at six months, that life is like this. Not just the hard part - the dull ache punctuated by sharp pain. But also the comfort. The balm on the wound. The relief that comes in the anesthetic that is love - represented here by a frozen teething ring, a mother's touch, and the ocean's waves in a tiny ear.

The lesson that many questions do have answers, many problems do have solutions, much pain comes to an end. That help will usually be on the way.

The lesson that, while you're figuring out the answer, it's best to keep walking, to keep holding on to each other, to keep on whooshing. Yes, whooshing.

What lessons does suffering teach us?

And, more importantly, how do you help a teething baby get some sleep? (Tiny Baby thanks you in advance for your suggestions.)

Breed Love

2009-11-22T06:15:00.004-05:00

Since I posted on Thursday about Freudenschade, the emptiness we're left with when another's cup runneth over, I've been thinking too about its opposite - that glimmer of glee we feel when something goes wrong for someone else.

And I've been thinking about Pecola Breedlove.

Pecola is the heroine (?) of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. An eleven year old African American girl, Pecola attempts to escape the devastating reality of her life by fantasizing about having blue eyes, imagining that her ugliness (both existentially and physically) would be assuaged if only she looked different. Pecola retreats further into her obsession after an act of unspeakable abuse and is left at the end of the book mad and alone, comforted only by an imaginary friend.

Morrison has said that she wanted The Bluest Eye to serve as a lesson on how to treat other human beings - and the book works as a cautionary tale of Schadenfreude gone too far. In the novel, she provides Pecola with really only one sympathetic shoulder, the narrator Claudia. The rest of the characters - first by their outright taunting of Pecola and later by their complete withdrawal from her - practice that most human art of Schadenfreude, about which Morrison writes:

Pecola is somewhere in that little brown house she and her mother moved to on the edge of town, where you can see her even now, once in a while. The birdlike gestures are worn away to a mere picking and plucking her way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world - which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us - all who knew her - felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used - to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.

Surely there is a great gulf between our random acts of Schadenfreude and a community turning its back on an exploited child. But the story of Pecola is instructive, I think, for the way in which Morrison captures the relationship between the antagonizer and the antagonized, the way in which she shows us how our own goodness, happiness, and purity feel that much more sanctified when we dump our badness, sadness, and guile on someone else. Ultimately, Morrison reminds us that our tacit consent or even outright happiness at someone else's misfortune is not a victimless crime.

Why do we invest so much emotional capital in comparing ourselves to others, and rejoice when we think the comparison is to our advantage? What does this tendency say about us and our own insecurities?

Six Quick Picks

2009-11-21T06:37:00.003-05:00

Today I present, in no particular order, the first (only?) installment of "Six Quick Picks," a handful (well, hand + one fingerful) of items on the Interwebs that caught my eye this week:

1. Last Friday Sarah at Momalom proposed a question: "How do you ask people to stop and take a look at your blog for five minutes a day, ten days in a row, so that you can have a chance at proving yourself?" And a mini-phenomenon was born. All week, bloggers have been coming together to create a community of ideas at Momalom's Five for Ten. And the indefatigable Sarah and Jen have been returning the favor at all of our sites. How do they find enough hours in the day to write so thoughtfully, film TV appearances, raise their kids, and maintain their senses of humor? Like the secret of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop, the world may never know.

2. Have you met Lindsey at A Design so Vast? Lindsey serves up my daily helping of poetry in prose form. On Monday, she posted about the experience of loneliness and her words have haunted me ever since. I could not possibly do justice to her post with a quick summary; please go and read it.

3. A new arrival on the blog scene, I was not familiar with Anissa Mayhew until I learned this week that this writer, an Atlanta mother of three, had had a stroke. I've read several moving testimonials about Anissa's strength and bravery during her daughter Peyton's battle with leukemia and the resiliency of her family on the occasion of this, her second stroke. But the piece that made me sit still and contemplate the paralyzing weight of the situation was BigLittleWolf's Thursday post: "I'm writing as fast as I can..." at her Daily Plate of Crazy. About it, she writes, "An event whispered: slow down, you move too fast. This isn’t life or death. And there are children still at play. Navigate carefully. Balance momentum, and the moment." Thank you for that reminder, BLW.

4. When I first contemplated leaping into the blogosphere, I told a friend about it over e-mail. She later sent me a link to Ivy League Insecurities, and said "Maybe you could do something like this?" I clicked on over to Aidan's land of Starbucks, Pinot, humor, and insight and wrote back: "Yeah, something 'like' that. Or maybe I'll become a novelist and whip up something 'like' Pride and Prejudice." Needless to say, Aidan sets the bar mighty high. This week she wrote a birthday message to her mother that was a masterful reflection on love and the relationship between parents and children.

5. As a rookie blogger, I have struggled - as perhaps we all do? - with the question of how to build a community of like-minded writers and readers. I've understood from the outset that comments are the building blocks of the blogging community, but I hadn't established criteria for myself about when and how to leave comments. I hadn't, that is, until Jane's post on Friday at Theycallmejane's Blog. Jane used the occasion of receiving her 1000th comment as a time to consider her evolution from "lurker" to "comment whore" (love it!) to someone who comments when she has "something to say." And I realized upon reading about her journey that I had become stuck in comment gluttony (as I put it in my comment on Jane's post) - commenting on everything and forgetting, as commenter Steven Harris so eloquently stated on that same post, that comments are best when they are like a "conversation" in which "sometimes we listen and sometimes we contribute."

6. It's cloudy here again, friends, but it's Saturday. And although I have previously discussed the ways in which the New Saturday is not the Old Saturday, I thought we could all use something a little lighter to pilot us into our weekends. Do you watch Project Runway? I do. And I agree with most other pop culture afficianados that the just concluded Season 6 was the worst one yet, with the (spoiler alert!) victory of "Meana Irina" serving as no consolation. Nevertheless, Tom and Lorenzo made the season much more palatable with their snarky, but knowledgable commentary at Project Rungay. If you are, or were, a fan of the show, treat yourself to a dose of their clever cattiness.

Black Friday

2009-11-20T06:23:00.033-05:00

Big Boy is in a playgroup. Friday mornings find us piling into the car, driving across town, and spilling out - leaky sippy cup, travel mug of now lukewarm coffee, exploding diaper bag, and all - into the homes of his friends. In these homes, as in ours, there is a room (at least one) dedicated to the accroutrement of childhood. Piles upon piles of toys. An orgy of toys. Riding toys, climbing toys, small toys, large toys. Plastic toys in every possible color not found in nature. A Toys "R" Us gone supernova in a basement.

Sometimes at playgroup, when I'm alone in my head, I watch the toddlers at play and think about my own childhood. I remember playing in the woods behind my parents' house. Shooting baskets in our front driveway. Riding my bike up and down the short hill of our cul de sac. Building forts out of sleeping bags and a threadbare La-Z-Boy recliner. Setting up domino rallies. Doing puzzles. Playing Twister, Sorry, and The Game of Life. Reading.

I don't have memories of toys.

We had toys, probably more of them than my parents appreciated stepping on barefoot when making their way through our family room, but their specific contours don't resolve when I look backward.

And I find myself wondering: How did we get to the point where we came to believe that our children need so many things?

I will not pretend that my own house does not suffer from an overabundance of electronic trinkets and colorful trifles. It does. I have not held the line against the onslaught of items. But Big Boy, like most kids I know, is more discerning than we parents. He spends plenty of time with his beloved Thomas train set, his miniature kitchen, and his Duplo blocks. But his favorite playthings also include a box with a handle (his "suitcase"), a paper towel roll (his "telescope"), and a Q-tip ("I'm cleaning for you, Mommy"). Yesterday he occupied himself for twenty minutes "mowing the lawn" with a long-handled shoe horn.

Children make the extraordinary out of the ordinary (with all due credit to Heather and her wonderful title for her even wonder-fuller blog). But it's wrong, I think, to expect them to make the extraordinary when the ordinary is preprocessed, prefabricated, and prepackaged. When the imagination is preprovided.

A reminder to myself this morning, as I look out my window and across the pond, at the first of the season's Christmas wreaths, its lights twinkling in the still dark of the dawn.

What does our tendency to overindulge our children say about us? What are we really trying to buy?

Freudenschade

2009-11-19T06:57:00.002-05:00

This summer I traveled to Washington, DC for a "girls' weekend" with two beloved friends from my former life. After weeks of planning and pumping and with Husband's blessing, I prepared to jet off with a light heart, a clear conscience, an out-of-date New Yorker, and a venti iced House Blend.

Then I made the mistake of telling one of my friends here about my plan. Her response, delivered with a dash of judgment and a soupcon of scorn, thinly masked behind a smile: "You're so good at doing things for yourself!"

Out of context, her words may have seemed supportive, but her tone and her expression conveyed her real meaning: You are selfish.

I hasten to tell you, and am almost embarrassed to admit, that this weekend trip represented the first nights I had ever spent away from Big Boy, with the exception of my stay in the hospital giving birth to Tiny Baby. (Oh wait, I did spend two more nights away from him when Tiny Baby was hospitalized five weeks after his birth. The evidence against me mounts.) Yes, Husband and I had left Big Boy with a babysitter for plenty of dinners out and nights on the town (i.e. ice cream cones followed by a Kroger run) and I even read a book every now and then, but, in general, I had spent the prior two-and-a-half years pregnant, nursing, or both. My hair was too long, my nails were too ragged, my muscles were an unappealing combination of atrophic and smasmodic.

I did not feel that a focus on myself was my problem.

I've read a lot lately about women and happiness. About how we're less happy now despite objective improvements in the quality of our lives. About how we have too many choices. About how having lots of kids makes us happier. And I'm interested in these ideas. Maybe I'll write about them someday. But what I'm thinking about today is how we feel about other people's happiness, especially if we're unhappy ourselves. How the structure of someone else's joy casts a long shadow over our own gloom and makes it that much more opaque. How the idea of a friend enjoying a relaxing weekend makes the drudgery of a life without change, without decadence that much more lusterless. How chipping away at someone else's shine can add some sparkle to our dullness.

Schadenfreude in reverse. Freudenschade. (Six years of German, and I'm not sure if I did that quite right. Es tut mir leid, Frau Mueller.)

Just inchoate thoughts today, my friends. Ideas percolating, but not yet fully caffeinated.

Do we feel bad (worse) when other people feel good? Do our judgments of others more often than not reflect a void in our own lives?

Wednesday with (Judith) Warner

2009-11-18T06:31:00.002-05:00

Please allow me to (re)introduce you to Judith Warner, author, mother, and guru to all people interested in motherhood at this particular social, political, and cultural moment. While I have been a fan of Warner's writing since I first discovered "Domestic Disturbances," her blog at the New York Times, I hadn't discovered her 2005 book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, until this fall, just as my own experiences as a mother were beginning to leave me feeling hollow more often than full.

Since Big Boy was born, I have spent a lot of time telling myself how lucky I am - to have a loving husband, healthy and happy children, a supportive family, financial stability, great friends, my own health. But I didn't feel lucky. I felt sadness nagging like an arthritic joint, loneliness like a weight, boredom like unwanted ballast. (Lindsey wrote beautifully on Monday about "the feeling of being lonely when surrounded by people.") Newly settled in a town devoid of cultural outlets, I went to Walmart just to have something to do, to be able to interact with other people. My conversations with the other mothers I met at Big Boy's various activities centered on diaper prices and hand-me-downs. I thought that having these encounters was better than being alone, but never before I had felt so powerless. So disconnected.

Not only did I not see myself in any of the people I met; I didn't see myself in me. And then I read Judith and was reminded that Me was still there, but I was obscuring her.

In Perfect Madness, Warner asks, "What kind of choice is it really, after all, when motherhood forces you into a delicate balancing act - not just between work and family...but between your premotherhood and postmotherhood identities? What kind of life is it when you have to choose between becoming a mother and remaining yourself?"

And that's just what my problem was (well, still is, but I'm working on it): in trying to conform to a standard of motherly perfection, I lost touch with the woman I had been. I turned away from my own identity and took up residence in a world with children at its axis, as its sun, and as its satellites.

"They" say that you can't start recovering until you accept that you have a problem. I believe that to be true. I also believe in the healing powers of community, wherever you might find it.

My nascent journey into our bloggy universe has already unearthed valuable connections that have helped I to find Me again - a reader of Wallace Stegner, an inflexible yogi, a teacher, a talker. A woman who loves children, but also loves herself.

What part of your identity have you shed? Was it intentional or unintentional? To your benefit or detriment?

How great is Judith Warner?

Milestone = Mild Groan

2009-11-17T06:38:00.013-05:00

Yesterday morning I received an e-mail from BabyCenter announcing, "Your baby is 6 months old! He is now rolling over in both directions!"

Oh, he is, is he?

Like Big Boy before him, (Not-Really-So) Tiny Baby is off the charts in terms of height and weight (and sheer cuteness, naturally), but is lagging a bit on some of those pesky developmental milestones.

When Big Boy was younger, I would graze on those child development checklists (like the ones in this book, and in this one) the way Big Boy now eats his vegetables - reluctantly, but with a vague sense that it's "what one does." Reluctantly because he didn't always measure up. He hit all of the cognitive and social benchmarks, but weeks or months would pass between the standard for movement milestones and when he actually achieved them. He rolled late, he crawled late, he walked late. And mostly that was okay with me. After all, none of those lists quantified the moments whose qualities I cared about - the first time he nuzzled into my neck, the first time he held onto me when I was holding him, the first time he reached out his arms to me. But those pesky creatures known as Other Moms sometimes got - and get - to me. Big Boy was perfect in my eyes, but I thought to protect him best I needed to start seeing him through the eyes of others as well.

Big Boy did not crawl until he was almost a year old. When we visited our pediatrician for a well-check, hearing the questioning tone of my peers like an alarm in my head, I asked the doctor - a soft-spoken, no-nonsense gentleman - if this was cause for concern. His typically laconic response:

"Put things he wants near him, but just out of reach. He will move toward them when he's ready."

And, of course, he did. Moved toward them and away from infancy, away from complete dependence, and toward a life of milestones that likely, maybe even hopefully, will not be in step with anyone else's checklist.

What was the biggest milestone in your life? What was the most memorable of your child(ren)'s milestones?

Let Me Give You a Hand

2009-11-16T06:25:00.003-05:00

This is my hand. It is my worst feature. Says who? Says me. When I look at it, I see a map of past injuries - broken fingers, gashes, a recent scratch. I see the host for my greatest vice: fingernails bitten down to the nub; cuticles frayed and torn; nail polish chipped and picked over. I see a reminder of my pale skin that has always refused to tan. I see big, crooked bones betraying my attempts to feel feminine. I see dry, cracking skin, already parched by the suggestion of winter. I see my anxieties, my insecurities, my klutziness, my compulsions.

Why am I showing you? Making you look at a part of me that I would rather you not notice?

Starting today, I want to start seeing beauty in that hand - prettiness where I now see ugliness. I want to look at that hand and see commitment - the ring that Husband gave me as a symbol of our promise to cleave to each other. I want to see strength in those fingers - the power to soothe a fussy baby, open any jar, palm a basketball. I want to see experience in those war wounds - years of turning pages, writing essays, grading papers, changing diapers, typing e-mails.

I want to show you so that I can take a good look myself.

What brings me here to this virtual world of words is the chance to start conversations about the things I don't talk enough about, sometimes things I don't really want to talk about - showing you who I am, unsightly cuticles, tortured metaphors, and all. After all, what else are we doing when we write for an audience but taking the lid off of ourselves, letting outsiders in to have a look around, to criticize maybe, or perhaps to give us back an insight that will help build strength in our weakness?

So today I show you a part of myself. Show you to tell you. Show you to show me.

And now I'm off to give myself a manicure.

Which of your physical features tells the most about you? (Any tips on how I can stop biting my nails would also be most welcome.)

Luke & Laura, Stacey & Clinton, and Dora & Diego

2009-11-15T06:34:00.009-05:00

Guiding Light, a soap opera that had been on the air for 72 years, aired its last episode this fall after years of lagging viewership. The news about the end of this program, which I grew up watching during school vacations, got me thinking about the larger cultural shifts that might be signaled by the ratings woes of soap operas in general. Obviously the audience for soaps has shrunk as more women have, by choice or by necessity, joined the workforce outside the home. But I am a stay-at-home mom, as are many of my friends - and none of us watches soap operas (as far as I know). We do, however, watch plenty of television, with and without our kids.

So is my generation of moms just looking for a different type of programming altogether?

I'm not so sure.

In fact, I wonder about the extent to which cable networks like TLC have stolen the traditional audience away from daytime soaps, all the while providing the same form of entertainment, just with slightly different packaging. Indeed, the amount of time I spend each week with Stacy & Clinton and Jon & Kate (not to mention the fabulous Randy of Kleinfeld's!) certainly rivals the hours a SAHM 25 years ago may have spent with Luke & Laura or Reva & Josh. And both types of programming offer the same opportunity for escapism - and who doesn't need a little bit of that while folding laundry, scrubbing spit-up off the carpet, or preparing dinner? Either way, a mom gets the chance to live in a fantasy world for a few minutes between diaper changes.

But maybe the dwindling ratings of soaps have less to do with what we’re watching and more to do with what our kids are watching. While I can’t tell you exactly what my friends watch, I know – from the theme songs they belt out at the playground – that most of their kids have a close and personal relationship with Dora, Caillou (Big Boy’s personal favorite), and the other characters that populate Nick Jr. and Sprout. I certainly cheered the study from Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School that found that “while…increased infant TV exposure is of no benefit to cognitive development, it was also found to be of no detriment,” but I wonder if letting our kids watch too much TV is just another means of escape.

Where do you stand on letting your children watch TV? Why? What other strategies do you have for “escaping” during the day?

Welcome to the New Normal

2009-11-14T07:05:00.004-05:00

Remember how a normal Saturday morning used to be about sleeping late, taking in a yoga class, or lingering over the weekend inserts of the Sunday Times with a bottomless mug of coffee?

Compare that to your Saturday mornings now:

Wake up to Tiny Baby's whimpering - or is that crying?

Reason with him that, although his body clock tells him it's 6:30 a.m., we nevertheless arbitrarily reset our clocks two weeks ago and therefore he is waking up at an unacceptably early hour.

Breastfeed said baby while watching the last 20 minutes of Thursday night's Project Runway.

Make coffee.

Clean Tiny Baby's spit-up off rug in living room.

Clean up coffee spilled while cleaning spit-up.

Shake rattles in general vicinity of Tiny Baby while sipping remaining coffee and checking the headlines on the Times website.

Put Tiny Baby down for his first nap of the day.

Start the day's first load of laundry.

Greet Big Boy as Husband carries him out of his bedroom and to the dining room table.

Persuade Big Boy that leftover Halloween candy is not an acceptable breakfast option.

Talk to him about making good choices while he cries into his yogurt.

Welcome to the new Saturday morning, the new normal. Welcome to life with kids.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Sartorial Choices of the Elmo Set

2009-11-13T08:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Big Boy went to a party, a "princess ball" in honor of the third birthday of one of his regular playmates. The children - mostly 2 and 3 year old girls - were encouraged to dress in costume. In order to be a "knight in shining armor," Big Boy donned an aluminum foil helmet and an old t-shirt with a coat of arms that Husband had drawn on it. When we arrived at the party, we were treated to a collection of his friends decked out in full princess regalia. (The little girl in the picture isn't one of them, just a random lass I found on Wikimedia Commons.) They looked adorable, but, it occurred to me, they didn't look all that different from how they usually look.

And then another thing occurred to me: Little girls dress like little girls; little boys dress like little men.

I've been privy to many discussions among friends and among parents of the students I taught about how fashion for girls is decidedly more provocative than it once was. From ultra low-rise jeans to, my personal favorite, pants with slogans emblazoned across the butt, clothes for girls are far racier than they were in my day. (When I look back at high school photos of myself, I don't necessarily admire my style choices, but I am fully covered, often in flannel and usually in something baggy.) But, at least for the kids I know, clothing for little, little girls still features such comforting and whimsical stand-bys as ruffles, bows, and heart-shaped buttons - all items that are in short supply in their moms' closets.

Meanwhile, clothes for little, little boys look like more and more like miniaturized versions of the clothes that hang in my husband's closet. Tiny Baby has several pairs of cargo pants (which is great, because he needs a place to stash all of his stuff); Big Boy's Gap Kids shirts are styled just like those in the men's department. (Granted, Husband's shirts boast far fewer dinosaurs and trucks.) Just yesterday, Double X featured a story on this trend taken to distasteful proportions. Dressing my small boys like little men makes me feel like they're growing up faster than I want them to - probably just how the moms of girls feel when the rainbows give way to belly shirts.

At the party yesterday, Big Boy grew weary of his knight costume quickly and spent the rest of the party in his regular clothes, jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt. He played and danced with the princesses, my mini man among the little girls.

As the mom of boys, what am I missing about the challenges of keeping little girls little?

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle

2009-11-12T20:15:00.000-05:00

I started babysitting when I was in sixth grade. My first regular gig was with a family with four stair-step kids who were six, four, two, and just a few months old when I started taking care of them. I watched them after school, on Saturday mornings, and weekend evenings while their parents went out for dinner. I helped them with their homework, played with them outside, served them meals, and got them ready for bed and off to sleep.

Husband and I need to find a new babysitter. Our current sitter is a student at the college where he works. She is fabulous, but she is a senior and she is busy. Our search and conversations with the friends we've solicited for recommendations have yielded conversations about background checks, lists of references, and required CPR classes. The women whom we've found to interview are just that - women - not 12 year old girls.

So what's changed? Why can't we bring ourselves to leave our boys with the kid down the street?

One obvious difference is that the family that hired me knew my family. Their trust in me undoubtedly rested on the fact that they knew my mom and dad. Meanwhile, Husband and I are relatively new in town and don't have the same type of connections yet.

Another change I've seen is that adolescents seem busier than I ever was, at least in junior high school. My years of teaching exposed me to a mini-generation of athletes, actresses, musicians, and socialites who barely had enough time to be students, let alone babysitters. So even if we wanted the girl next door, she probably wouldn't want us.

But I wonder if the issue is really just one of protection, maybe over-protection. Do we just spend more time these days assuming the worst will happen to our kids? Despite what one might believe from the sensationalist bent of cable and local news, crimes against children have dropped in recent decades, even if child abuse at the hands of non-parent care-givers is still a threat. I'm not even actively worried about our kids being injured by a shady babysitter, but this compulsion to perform due diligence, and then some, must stem from a desire to everything possible to protect them.

Whose instincts were/are right? Those of the family who hired me, a responsible kid; or those of these parents of two little boys, who seek an experienced, certified adult?