Category: Parenthood

The Great Turnaround

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“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington

The other night we were eating dinner outside and my five-and-half-year-old daughter was feeling discontent. She didn’t like what we were eating, she didn’t like the chair she was sitting in, nothing wasn’t quite right with her and I don’t think she could name the source. Then the ice cream truck came and she asked if she could get some. I said she could if she handled the transaction and used her own money. She asked $20? And I said, “No, $4” which still seems like a ridiculous price to me.

She went inside, found everything she needed: wallet, mask and shoes and for the very first time, handled the ice cream truck transaction all by herself. It was just on the other side of the fence from where I sat so I could hear the tenor of what was going on, if not the details, and I knew my neighbor was there to help her if she needed it.

Soon enough she came back…with two popsicles. She had chosen to get one for her brother. The ice cream man told her she needed to pay $4 more and she debated about the big spend but decided that her most beloved brother was worth it.

The transformation of her mood was the most remarkable thing. She felt confident and generous. It was like watching a drooping flower stand back up and shine again. She told the story with all the details multiple times and just radiated!

It was a beautiful lesson for me. That we are all better when we are giving. And that to turn things around in a day, it just takes one moment of choosing to do something gracious and it will lift up everyone around. When her brother couldn’t finish his popsicle and gave it back to her to finish, it was easy to see that the spirit of giving had turned into the spirit of giving back.

Looking and Finding

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“People miss that all prayers are heard. But sometimes the answer is no.” – Pastor John Gray

The other day I was packing a lunch for my daughter and she was wandering around looking for her sunglasses. I wasn’t paying much attention to her search knowing that whether or not she found them, she wouldn’t likely wear them for more than a couple of minutes making the whole venture a little pointless. I asked a couple of mom questions like “where did you last see them?” and “have you packed everything else you need?” but mostly just listened to her narrative as she did a lot of talking and not much looking. Exasperated, she said in her most plaintive tone, “Why are you NOT helping me?”

It struck a chord in me. It is the tone that I hear inside my head when I want something specific and I think God isn’t helping me. Why are you NOT helping me? It’s funny the moments I have watching a scene with someone else that resonates with my own questions. It’s the lived experience coming full circle to help me find an answer to something I’ve pondered or struggled with.

In this case as I regarded my daughter’s question, I realized two things about when I whine to God. First of all, I’m probably asking or wanting something that God doesn’t think is important. I remember being about my daughter’s age when my beloved older brother would tease me by holding something in the air out of my reach. I’d jump and climb and claw and scratch to get up there but because he was six years older, he could always keep it from me. It worked as long as I continued to be fixated on whatever was held in the air when the reality was that all I really wanted was my brother’s attention. As in the case with me now, I struggle because I’m not getting something that I want and the struggle is the key part of the learning, not the getting.

The second thing that occurred to me in the “Why are you NOT helping me?” moment was the component of individual responsibility. My daughter’s quest to find her sunglasses wouldn’t even be a thing if she put them back where they belong. As it relates to me, I spin and get frustrated when I lose my center. The solution is always to quiet down and find that sacred still spot within myself. In the moment when I’m spinning out worrying about what next summer will be like because I won’t have the nanny I have now and imagining what that’ll feel like if I have to take the job as daily entertainment director on top of everything else…I just have to stop. Peace is only findable when I seek it, not the other things I’m trying to control.

Seeing myself in my daughter’s whine, I felt so much empathy for her struggle. I put down what I was doing, took a hold of her hand so she’d know I was with her and helped her find a hat which could work instead of the sunglasses. And miracle of miracles, we found the sunglasses on a bench in the garage as we went to leave the house.

Rethinking the Rote

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“Everyone wants to get enlightened but nobody wants to change.” – Andrew Cohen

This morning I woke up in my bed for the first time in four days. As the temperatures rose during recent heat wave that enveloped the Pacific NW, I kept lowering our sleeping locales because we don’t have AC. First to the first floor and then as the we kept breaking the record high temperatures and the house barely even cooled at night, down into the basement where my son slept in a storage room and my daughter and I in the garage.

Each move meant small adjustments to the every day routine. Like not being able to empty the recycling or not turning on the tv because it would disturb where my daughter was sleeping. Not restocking the fridge in the evening or doing the dishes because it would disturb where my son was sleeping. Instead I sat out in the garden reading a book. So as we returned to our proper beds last night, I realized how much I do by rote. Small things that I do by habit like grabbing reusable shopping bags on the way to the car became visible when I had to rethink how I do them because the car was parked in the driveway and I used a different door.

Exposing the myriad of things that I do without thinking made me think about how deep my groove is and whether it is providing me efficiency or making me inflexible. It was harder to feel like I was getting things done over these days that were different, probably because I was having to make more decisions. But it was also a chance to make the unconscious conscious and make sure it serves me.

It feels good to be doing things as usual this morning. But I’m also taking away some intentional changes. I don’t need to turn on the tv or do the recycling every night and should instead spend more time sitting out in my garden. Disruption is an amazing teacher.

Co-Creators

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“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” – Dalai Lama

Listening to a podcast with Tara Brach and Dr. Kristin Neff about fierce self-compassion, Kristin told a story about a man she worked closely with and once supported who turned out to be a narcissist and sexually abusive to young women. She said something like, “Until this happened, I had no idea how many narcissists were around but so many people I’ve talked to have a story about one.” And sure enough, what popped into my head was the narcissist that once was in my life. I worked with him and he was once good friends with my ex-husband. Because our relationship was tangential, I’ve largely dismissed any effect that he had on me but I realized as I listened that there are so many unkind things he said about women that pop into my head more than they should. Like the time he said a particular woman was like butter. And I naively asked what? “She’d be totally hot but-her face.”  That I remember that probably a dozen years or more since it was said, goes to show how powerful words can be.

Later on in the podcast Dr. Neff, an assistant professor of research at University of Texas, talked about the idea that we are co-creators of our lives. The people around us influence who we are. That makes me so grateful that I spend most of my time with my kids who are joy monsters. And it also explains why they affect me so deeply – not only because my observations of them resonate with my own experience in such a lived way that I learn great lessons but also because they are changing me as part of my ongoing story.

It also calls me to really intentional about what I let in. As I was listening to the podcast, remembering about the narcissist who used to be in my life and the things he said, my eyes caught a picture of my wise and kind dad. In great contrast to the narcissist, my dad would have never said those unkind or demeaning things about women. I had this perfect a-ha moment when I knew I’d let a narcissist affect my assumptions about how men thought of women in general and that was a great deal more influence than I should have ever given him. If our lives are co-created with other people, I want to make sure to draw my conclusions from those around me that I admire, respect and inspire me and to edit out the rest.

The Price of Anticipation

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“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown

My mom invited my five-year-old daughter over for a sleep over at her apartment this weekend. Her place is air conditioned and she had a ton of fun plans like piano lessons and songs to wake up to. My daughter was so excited. Mostly because Nana’s apartment is a place full of treasures that she hasn’t been able to visit during this pandemic but also because her friend that is just a little bit older at 7-years-old is always talking about sleepovers. What a thrill! But then my mom had to cancel because she lives in a retirement community and they reinforced the message that no children under the age of 16-years-old are allowed, even if they don’t go into any common areas. My daughter was so disappointed! She said to me, “I’m just going to expect that good things get canceled.”

Of all the emotions, disappointment seems the easiest to avoid. As my daughter said, you can just expect good things won’t happen, right? It only means giving up anticipation. The feeling of waking up in the morning, remembering what you are going to do today and feeling, “yay!” because it’s something fun.

But what about love then? Is it tempting to decide not to love because the feeling of heartbreak is too crushing to endure? Or what about hope? Giving up the tug that we can, will and might just be lucky enough make our lives better just in case we fail?

All of my favorite emotions have their shadow side. I’ve struggled with trying not to feel any of those and come away worse for the wear. As the brilliant writer, Ashley C. Ford said in a podcast I heard a couple of months ago, “I tried to live a disappointing life so that I wouldn’t ever be disappointed.”

I’m finally understanding the idea of leaning in towards life instead. When getting a little off tilt, leaning forwards, not backwards. But my daughter’s disappointment this weekend made me realize that while I have been practicing that for myself, I’ve been doing the opposite with my kids. I often don’t tell them about things that might be canceled so that they don’t get disappointed. I hold myself as a back stop for all their possible shadow side feelings. As is so often the case, having kids has given me another level of practice. I can still lean forwards with my kids in my arms, ready for joy and also holding them in disappointment.

The Magic of Sleep

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“We are like someone in a very dark night over whom lightning flashes again and again.” – Maimonides

I overslept! Instead of waking two hours before my kids get up as I do almost every other day of the year, I woke up 30 minutes after. I had been awake in the middle of the night worrying about how to keep my kids entertained and cool in the heat wave that is enveloping the Pacific NW and then I went to back to sleep for hours.

There’s a Buddha quote – “sleep is the best meditation.” In this phase of life with young children, I understand that more than ever. I go to bed feeling all the grime of the day and awaken feeling all the possibility. I go to bed with worries and doubts and awaken with faith that I can tackle them. I go to bed struggling to understand what I’ve learned and awaken with one more page of my story written.

When I finally woke up this morning, no one was crying or upset and instead we were all rested. Maybe the best proof that there is God helping us through this life is experienced when my eyes are closed and my brain is quiet. I lose the certainty of it every day, only to discover it again each night.

Let the Games Begin

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“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

Before I had kids, I had this vision that I’d run my family would be like a sporting event. I’d use the referee calls, cheer the goals, help practice the plays. When I would have a babysitter, I’d give them a referee shirt and a whistle. It was mostly humor, a way to envision what life would be like, and I even got my dearly departed dog, Biscuit to do some signs in that year and a half he over lapped on this Earth with my daughter.

When you borrow from all the sports, there is a great list of calls to use. Here are some of my favorites, adapted to my purpose:

  • Delay of game: Any time we are dilly-dallying on the way to the car, the bathroom or bed
  • Roughing the cooker: No touching the cooker when knives and hot pans are involved.
  • Illegal use of hands: This has wide latitude for interpretation but means getting into anything or everything that Mom says “no” to is not allowed.  
  • Out of bounds: A very useful call because Mom gets to decide what is in and out of bounds
  • Water hazard: We live in Seattle – there are a lot of water hazards, especially in the Spring that need to be avoided whenever we are going somewhere without a change of clothes.

The possibilities are endless! And useful if you could hand out yellow cards for “fouls” and the players would know to mind themselves? As much fun as I had thinking all these up, it isn’t the way I run my family. Mostly because I’ve found I’m more in the game than a referee. But there’s one idea that has stuck in my head. As a single parent, I have to play the full 90, as they say in soccer. There are no substitutions. And the last few minutes, the ones right before I get the second child to bed, especially if there are “extra minutes,” are when most mistakes can be made. In those minutes, I just try to keep my head down, bring the game to the close and pay no attention to any trash talking. Because as soon as the whistle blows, I can head back to the sidelines, mark the day down as a win, lose or draw and rest up for the next game.

Discovering our Plenitude

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“When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions it’s our job to share our calm, not join their chaos.” L.R. Knost

Yesterday was our first day back to “life” after our short vacation to Whidbey Island. My toddler had to go back to daycare, my 5-year-old daughter had nothing planned because it was the first day of summer break at home and I tried to work while my nanny hung out with my daughter. After the little bit bumpy jarring of re-entry, we were all together last night and found ourselves gathered around the strawberry planter on the back patio. The warm weather and lack of pickers for few days meant it had about eight perfectly ripe berries.

My son, who at almost two years old doesn’t have a perfect picking technique and sometimes will eat the stem, was first to get his hands in there. Which led my five-year-old daughter to want to control the process. She started grabbing berries and instead of eating them, just holding them in her hands. She then grabbed one out of my son’s hands in an effort to pluck the stem out for him and he started to melt down. In good circumstances, he lets her do most everything and she’s quite supportive of him but in that moment, all the pains of the day descended and for everyone, THERE WASN”T ENOUGH!

I was trying to manage the scrum all the while observing the feeling of when life doesn’t go our way. When we get parked in our small spaces because something has been hard or tiring and suddenly there’s no energy to be expansive, to recognize that there’s enough. Everything centers on one moment when that ball in the gut feels like it needs to get fed or else.

This is one of the first times that I observed that happening collectively to us as a family. Probably not because it hasn’t happened before but because I wasn’t tuned in to see it. When it happens to me as an individual, if I can have a split second of awareness, one deep breath helps me start to break the pull of it. But the group dynamic flummoxed me until the cat jumped onto the fence and everyone looked up at the sound and it broke the tension.

I don’t like these moments. They pull me out of my happy place, or my I’m doing fine place, whichever I am at, and remind me of my humanity. When we break into a collective feeling of scarcity and panic, I feel like walking away. I heard Melinda French Gates once describe a family as a mobile and that moms often take on the job of keeping the whole system balanced. Sometimes I don’t feel like leading but the strawberry scrum is so ripe for a teaching moment, for me and for my children. It offers the chance practice awareness, distraction and feeding our possibility, expansiveness and calm and because I know they’ll be many more, also gratitude for the opportunity to remember we always have enough.

Strong Back, Soft Front

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“Do small things with great love.” – Mother Teresa

Last night we returned from a small outdoor party right at my son’s bedtime. I went to take off his shoes and socks and start to get him ready for bed and he was lying on the couch, head on the pillows, looking very much like a little grown man taking a load off after a long day. When I told him it was time to get his jammies on and stooped to pick him up he said, “No tank ooo.” At 23 months “no thank you” is his most powerful phrase and although I’d never claim that he fully understands the politeness of it, it’s still quite effective.

It makes me think of a phrase I first heard used by Brene Brown, “strong back, soft front” but I believe was originated by Roshi Joan Halifax, a Buddhist teacher. Strong back, as I think it relates to parenting, is all the things I try to hold the line on to raise healthy, happy and kind children. Bedtimes, self-care, routines, boundaries with each other, politeness. They are all the things that I feel like I repeat over and over again until I hope they pick them up for themselves.

And while I’m doing that, my soft front is so often moved by the sweet little things they do, their cries when life gets too much, and the moments of pride when they show they are learning something I’ve said. It’s my soft heart that gets opened over and over again by the bravery, dignity and earnestness of little people.

The thing I’ve noticed about parenting with a strong back, soft front is that dichotomy keeps me upright in those moments when I’m out of my depth. Either I’m too tired or too confounded by a situation that is challenging me, I can hold both ideas to create a balance that will see me through. I can be overwhelmed by my love and empathy AND still have the wherewithal to get my kids to bed.

Which is what I did last night. I stopped and talked with my toddler for a minute about the day, I listened to his “no tank ooo’s” and then I scooped him up to go upstairs and read.

NOTE: For anyone interested in a great description of strong back, soft front, I found this post by Bev Janisch that includes content from Brene Brown and a guided meditation.

Vacation

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“Another name for God is surprise,” – Brother David Steindl-Rast

Twenty years ago my friend Jill and I were looking for something to do for a vacation and considered going to a spa in Arizona but as lovely as the hiking, yoga and pilates schedule and menu sounded, we never could pull the trigger. We thought we’d get bored. Instead signed up for a trip to climb two Mexican volanoes, Mt. Ixtacchuatl (17,200 feet) and Pico de Orizaba (18,500 feet). While I already summitted Mt. Rainier (14,400 feet) once (as had Jill) on my second attempt, that was in my backyard since it was 60 miles southeast of Seattle where I live. This trip was the start of what I came to think of as vacations in my early adulthood. I’d sign up for a trip, usually with a friend or two to climb something as time and budget allowed. It was how I saw Russia, Nepal and Peru when I was single – usually dirty, tired and out of breath but so delighted for the change of perspective and chance to adventure.

Now I’m redefining what vacation means as a mom with two young kids. Our range is a lot closer to home and my budget is a lot tighter so we’ve tried a few things pretty close to home. The first trip we tried was six hours by car – that was too far as I can feel all you experienced parents inclining your heads in agreement. The second trip was eight hours by boat but a big boat that we could move around on. Better because the boat was an adventure in and of itself but we came home a little stunned from all the pounding through water. This weekend we went with a friend to a AirBnB cabin on Whidbey Island about an hour and half trip from our house. Better yet!

But regardless of how we have gotten to our destinations, I’m fascinated by how the kids take it in. They get to the new environment, and then regardless of what is outside, explore every nook and cranny of the temporary quarters.  In the first place we rented, they seemed to have a plethora of toilet cleaning brushes and my toddler discovered each one and wanted to carry each one around until I confiscated them. Nothing is familiar so it seems the kids spend a lot of energy mapping out their new world as I follow along making sure it’s safe.

Then come the new activities – beach combing, swimming in the pool, finding new playgrounds. Everything, even if it’s an activity that we’ve done at home, seems more adventurous. If it’s a beach like it was this weekend, it seems to come with cataloging it as a new entry of what a beach looks like – more sandy, less rocky, more sea life, less driftwood. My five-year-old daughter ran through every tide pool with her arms outstretched yesterday in a glorious expression of taking it in.

So eating and sleeping become huge issues. They seem to consume massive amounts of food to support all the novelty. Going out to eat is not only new because they are places we haven’t gone before but also because we haven’t done it much during COVID. There is a dichotomy of wanting to have the staples I’ve brought from home as one form of familiarity and willingness to try something new since everything else is new. Sleep, I’ve learned is much harder if we all try to do it in one room. WAY too exciting when it’s WAY too necessary.

I come to the end of each time away absolutely exhausted. This is where I have had to redefine what vacation means to me. It certainly isn’t less work. It’s definitely less predictable. But now I see that’s part of the joy – to find the Universal where we go. Somehow God makes it so that by switching everything up, we are renewed in our life together.

I’ve realized that I never liked vacation where I just sat around and thank goodness, because that doesn’t seems to be part of this new era. And I’ve found in another way, it’s like my mountain climbing vacations – I’m usually dirty, tired and out of breath but also delighted for the change of perspective and chance to adventure, this time seeing the world… through the eyes of my children.