Tag: parenting

Sweet Tooth

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“It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Edmund Hillary

My math brain likes to discern patterns. If you call me out of the blue at 4pm on Monday and then do it more than once, I’ll jump to wondering what you are doing Mondays at 3pm that makes you think of me.

The patterns that interest me most are the ones that take me a long time to pick up on. Here’s one.

I have a sweet tooth. Like a big sweet tooth. More than one – actually, a whole mouthful. I’ve frequently argued with it, sometimes ignored it, but very rarely analyzed it.

My dad had a big sweet tooth as well. Are these kinds of things inherited?

But recently I was describing my sweet tooth to someone as something that starts with Halloween, carries through the holidays, and best case, abates sometime around Memorial Day.

When I started stashing those mini candy bars in my pantry again, I chalked it up to the pre-Halloween availability of those bite size snacks. Besides, I’m especially busy, so it’s just part of keeping up the quick energy to get everything done, right?

And then my recent description of my sweet tooth jiggled something loose. The memory that last year my reason was that it was because I was traveling for work. And the year before that? I don’t know – probably post-pandemic back to in-person school or something.

The point being – I have a new reason every year. If I look at the pattern, it starts with fall. I start feeling like sleeping more with the earlier sunsets and crisper evenings. And it’s a little harder to get up at 5am in these cold, dark mornings. I’m looking for the natural summer productivity that I get here in Seattle with the 16 hours days, to be all year round. When my body tries to pick up the seasonal cues to slow down, I jack it up on sugar.

You know what? I bet my dad did that to a degree too. He also had a problem slowing down, being anything less than on-the-go. So is it inherited? Well, maybe it is. The go-go pattern not the sweet tooth. Not that I’m ruling that out either.

Now that I see it, I wonder if this is a pattern I want to pass on. Isn’t that a funny thing about families? Sometimes it’s hardest to see the patterns closest to us.

For a related post about change in energy, please see my Heart of the Matter post Department of Low Energy.

The Gift of Hard Things

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“Experience is the hardest kind of teacher; it gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.” – Oscar Wilde

Summer is winding down in the Northern Hemisphere. I can feel all the tell-tale signs, the nights that are chilly before we go to bed, and have that cool calm when I get up at 5:30am. The relenting brightness of the sun starts to give away to the softer light of fall. And, we are getting ready for the start back to school.

Last week, my eight-year-old daughter was giving me the breakdown of the third grade teachers that she might get for this next year in school. One yells a lot, one is neutral, and one is nice. As she was talking about who she hopes to get for this year to come, I felt an upwelling of tension surge through my spine. Putting my finger to it, I’d say it’s because of that protective desire for her to get the nice teacher.

But that’s at odds with what I know about life. My lived experience tells me that everything doesn’t always work out the way we want, that sometimes we have to wade through the year(s) of muck to get to the side of clarity, and that sometimes we get the crusty teacher.

For all the resilience I’ve learned about life, I find that my children challenge my worldview. That is to say, my desire to give them a life that was better than my own sets up a tension with the reality of how life unfolds. There is about zero chance that I can root for my daughter to get the mean teacher even though she may learn a lot more about uncovering the gem in the rough if she does.

It reminds me of a letter my dad, who was a Presbyterian pastor, gave me when I was going through my divorce about 12 years ago. It was tucked in the page of a book he was giving me: Know Doubt by John Ortberg. The letter said in part.

I have seen so many people in my ministry going through times of deep change in their lives and it seems that those are also times of deep thought and reflection that have been creative and good for them. You are in the middle of a lot of change these days. There must be some serious disappointment that your marriage has not worked out as you had dreamed and intended. Your life has been the story of one big success after another and you don’t have many things in your life that don’t work out well and so this time must be unsettling. So just maybe this time of change is also a time when you are questioning and thinking about big stuff like faith and doubt and your life-view. If so, I really think this little book might be a good read for you.

Dick Leon

He acknowledges the unsettling nature of life – but that unsettling times of life also lead to creativity and good. Did my dad wish for me to have hard times? Absolutely not. But did he think that goodness was going to come out of it? Definitely.

I wonder if my tension about not wanting my kids, or any of my loved ones, to go through hard times comes across. Maybe as anxiety? It’s way harder to watch others face uncertainty than to go through it myself.

In another sign that summer is coming to an end, my daughter just celebrated her birthday. At the end of the day, she pulled me in tight and whispered in my ear that she didn’t want the day and her birthday to end.  I thought “Ah yes, my dear, but finding the magic in all the other days of the year when we aren’t front and center creates the sweet spot of life.” The lessons are harder to find on the days we get everything we want.

I find I can reduce my anxiety about the hard days my kids will have by remembering, as my dad did, that creativity and deep understanding comes on those days, not on birthdays.

Check out my Heart of the Matter post today for a lesson I’m learning about taking a new job in my 50’s: Going with My Gut

(featured photo from Pexels)

Try, Try, and Try Again

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“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

I’m sure I’m not the first parent to say that my kids are making me insane. I don’t mean that in a pull-my-hair out kind of way though. I mean it according to the phrase, “insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

Because it feels to me that letting my kids do the same thing over and over again, often comes with the different result.

Last week, Mr. D wanted to ride his bike home from pre-school. We couldn’t do it on Monday or Tuesday. But when Wednesday rolled around, I dropped him at school with his bike, that he proudly rolled in to park next to his teacher’s bike, so that we could ride home.

I had Miss O and her friend with me that afternoon so the three of us rode to Mr. D’s school to pick him up. It took us about 10 minutes to get there. Mr. D sagely choose to walk his bike down the hill to the bike path to begin the mile-and-a-half home. Which is a long way on a bike with training wheels, but he, as our leader, bravely started out.

And then 50 yards later stopped and said he couldn’t do it. Uh-oh. We were a long way from home. So I suggested we take a snack break. After a nice snack break in the shade, we were back on the bikes. Mr. D again set off as the leader and this time went about 100 yards before stopping and declaring he couldn’t do it. That time we stopped to look at ants.

In that fashion, we slowly made our way home with a great deal of tension between the two girls who were antsy to race ahead and Mr. D taking breaks. It took us almost an hour-and-a-half.

The next day, Thursday, when we got in the car to take Mr. D to school, he said, “I want to ride my bike home from school.”

Oh boy. I might have rolled my eyes when no one was looking. But here’s the thing – I know he can do it. He’s done it before, just not at the end of the day. So I loaded his bike in the car and dropped him at school. This time when I picked him up, Miss O wasn’t with me and I attached a third wheel seat to the back of my bike so that if he chose not to ride his own, he could sit back there.

For that attempt, he made it about halfway round the lake before he decided to try out the third wheel. I chained his bike to a tree and we rode home that way, even though he’d never wanted to try that “trail-a-bike” before. Then I had to pack up both kids into the car, drive back around the lake to pick up his bike chained to the tree. The result – another hour-and-a-half expedition to pick up Mr. D from school a mile and a half away.

So then Friday rolled around. When we got in the car to take Mr. D to school, he said, “I want to ride my bike home from school.”

This is where the insanity comes in — I said “Okay” and loaded the bike into the car. On the way home, he made it half way round, I chained the bike to the tree and he rode the rest of the way on the third wheel. But it was easier this time and I popped by the tree to pick up his bike when I went to get Thai food after my friend Eric arrived for dinner.

And each time? Well, there were moments of tension but we also had a good time, and had fun trying. My kids constantly remind me that life is insane – in the best way. That the boundaries of what I previously thought I could do are just mental barriers to blow through. That there is joy in trying the same thing over and over again – and getting a different result.

I’ve written a companion piece about kids and joy: Bundle of Whose Joy? on the Heart of the Matter blog. Please pop over there if you have a minute.

Healing the Micro Wounds

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“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi

When my best friend, Katie, came over to hang out with us yesterday morning she asked three-year-old Mr. D how he slept on the night of the time change. He answered, “I slept in Mama’s bed. It was big and hot.”

I was aiming for familial warmth but it seems I’ve overshot the target. Ha, ha!

There’s a picture of me as a three-year-old sleeping with my blanket on the wood floor outside my parent’s bedroom in the Philippines. The way I heard the story is that my parents didn’t want me coming in so they locked the door. My mom said my dad was firm about no kids in their bed so he could get his sleep.

I’ve always considered that a cute little story in what I think of as a happy childhood until I had kids and then I wondered how that went down. Did I just encounter a locked door and then lie down quietly? Or was there some kicking and screaming before accepting the fate? Something tells me it wasn’t the first option.

So even though I’m not aware of as any sort of trauma, I have to consider that some things we do as adults are healing the little wounds we got as children. Maybe we all do that a little – even when it’s not conscious.

How I’ve come to choose to let my kids sleep in my bed is the subject of my Heart of the Matter post today: Beds, Boundaries and Beyond. Check it out!

(featured photo from Pexels)

Fresh From the Source

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“People like you and me never grow. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” – Albert Einstein

On Tuesday, Mr D wore his construction outfit to school so when I went to pick him up, I called out, “Is there any construction worker available? I have a project at home!”

He took it at face value and then I needed to find something for him to work on at home. Out came the ladder and then Mr D hunted around for all his tools and I helped him get them organized on the ladder.

He still wasn’t tall enough to reach the ceiling so he wanted to step on the last step. When I showed him the sticker that says not to step on that last step, he said, “How about we get a new ladder with no sign on it?“

Made me laugh and think of all the times I’ve thought it was the rule that was the problem. And all the times I’ve stepped on that last step on the ladder because I was just sooo close to what I needed to reach.

And I realized that when I wrote the post for Wise & Shine yesterday Things About Parenting I Think I’ve Learned So Far that I forgot one of the most important ones: Write down what your kids say. It’ll make you laugh, wonder, and think because it rings of an authenticity that comes with being fresh from the Source.

Owning This Emotional Ride

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“Diaper backward spells repaid.” – Marshall McLuhan

I read Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina when I was pregnant with Miss O. It had these great categories for nature versus nurture (which the author re-branded as seed and soil) and what we can do as parents and caregivers to influence and understand both.

It said that as our little ones’ brains developed, it was helpful to help them identify the emotions that they were feeling. And it advised that to do that, we need to own our own emotions.

I remember laughing and thinking there was no way I was doing that. I was going to be the one parent that could help their child be emotionally mature without doing it myself. Ha, ha, ha!

So, add one more thing to the list of things I thought I’d never do that parenting has taught me how to do. Identifying some of my negative emotions is the topic of my Wise & Shine post today: Emotional Literacy

Generationally Speaking

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“You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you’ve become yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Back when I was interviewing my dad about his faith, I came across a passage in psychiatrist and author Dr. Scott Peck’s book Further Along the Road Less Traveled that described four stages of faith. He described an experience of what can happen generationally when kids grow up in stable, religious homes:

What happens to a child raised in such a stable, loving home and treated with dignity and importance? That child will absorb his parents’ religious principles – be they Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or Jewish – like mother’s milk. By the time the child reaches adolescence, these principles will have become virtually engraved on his heart or ”internalized,” to use the psychiatric term. But once this happens, they will no longer need to depend upon an institution for their governance. It is at this time, which in healthy human development is usually at adolescence, that they start saying, “Who needs these silly myths and superstitions and this fuddy-duddy old institution?” They will then begin – often to their parents’ utterly unnecessary horror and chagrin – to fall away from the church, having become doubters or agnostics or atheists. At this point they have begun to convert to Stage Three, which I call “skeptic/individual.”

Further Along the Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck

I’ve heard this progression described in other contexts as well. From social psychologist Jonathan Haidt who described kids who grow up as beneficiaries of capitalist wealth demanding more socially and environmentally responsible policies as they come of age.

And from therapist Jacob Ham who talks about first generation survivors of war being primarily focused on physical and financial security with little capacity to talk about their emotions. It isn’t until the next generation comes along that they start to unpack emotional intelligence.

How life changes between generations is the topic of my latest post on Wise & Shine: Enough is Enough.

Carried by Joy

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“Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there.” – Rumi

The other day I needed a photo of myself. I used the search feature of my phone to find pictures and although I wasn’t entirely shocked, I was a little surprised that it only came up with 3 of me by myself in 7 years. Virtually all of my pictures are with one or both of my children. And a few were with my beloved dog, Biscuit.

What I like to eat, where I want to go on vacation, what I do with my days – all these things have been hijacked in my life as a parent. I wouldn’t name this time as the marker of high personal happiness in my life – but wow, is it filled with joy. And it has been joy that has carried me through times when I’m sleep- deprived, achingly tired and spent. Which is why I wrote about happiness and joy in my Pointless Overthinking post this week: Good Mood of the Soul.

Do One Thing Well

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“A year from now, what will I wish I had done today?” – unknown

Deep into the section on expectations in Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart, I had a huge a-ha moment. She was talking about a conversation with her husband in which they both confessed to each other that they had an easier time parenting on the weekends they did it solo. Because they set aside their expectations to be able to do anything other than parent for that weekend.

This put a shape to the experience I have had as a single parent. Because I never expect that someone else will take the night shift or be there on the weekend, I have had to set really clear boundaries on the work and hobbies that I do because I know I won’t be able to duck out for a couple of hours.

That means that nights and weekends, I pretty much focus on hanging out with my kids. I do get a few chores around the house done with their “help.” The tradeoff for giving up Saturday morning hiking with my friends has been the gift of not believing I can try to do both things.

I know many of my parenting friends do an incredibly great job of splitting up the parental labor. One person will do the 9am-noon shift on Saturdays so that the other can go swimming and then they switch and the other gets “time off.” I have a pretty good inkling that if I was doing parenting with a partner that I would try for that approach and be a lot more confused about what I could handle.

I don’t know who said “Do one thing at a time and do it well.” My mom? Winnie-the-Pooh? Or maybe it’s not ascribed to a particular person because everyone who has learned the wisdom repeats it. When I wrote the post a couple of weeks ago about being invited to climb a mountain this summer, so many of my dear and wise blogging friends reminded me that parenting goes fast and there will likely be time to return to my hobbies later.

I believe that at some point I will have a partner again and more personal freedom. However, there isn’t anything I would trade for this uncomplicated time where I learned to really spend time with my children and enjoy it. Sometimes not having help forces us to distinctly draw boundaries we wouldn’t know to set otherwise.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Fantasy Climbs

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“One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art in conducting oneself in lower regions by memory of what one has seen higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.” – Rene Daumal

I felt my phone ping with a message while I was trying to get dinner on the table the other night. At that moment, one little person wanted raw carrots instead of the perfectly grilled carrots and needed more hummus. The other little person was tired and having a moment of personal crisis and didn’t want to eat at all. As I was shuttling between kitchen and table, I snuck a glance at the message. It was my friend inviting me on a mountain climb of Mt. Adams with him and his son this summer.

Oh, it was so easy to envision myself away from that disastrous dinner and instead picture eating instant noodles from a tin cup on the side of a mountain at our base camp at 9,750 feet. I felt like it would be a complete luxury to say “yes” to climbing and trade in the work of parenting for a couple of days of slogging up a mountain with only the sound of our breathing and our footsteps crunching in the snow.

Even though I could rationalize how safe a climb Mt. Adams is with no crevasses or avalanche danger and rest in the reassurance of climbing with a friend that I’ve summitted that mountain twice with, I knew I’d have to say “no.”

Because even a safe mountain climb means being on the side of a 12,281 foot mountain for a couple of days, exposed to weather and human frailty. And in the very slight case that anything happened and I got hurt or dead, I’d be so angry at myself for leaving behind two young kids. Even if I was dead – I’d be dead and angry!

It highlighted for me the wide chasm between who I am now and who I used to be before kids. First of all, I’m entirely flattered that my friend thinks I could make it up Mt. Adams.

Secondly, it was a moment of realization of how completely my priorities have changed thinking about how I use my time, not only for the climb but also the commitment it would take me to get in shape to climb again.

But most of all, it made me feel yet again the wonderful work of our friends as they hold space for us when we are otherwise occupied, off on our quests to find meaning or just not feeling ourselves. Those friends that we can journey through all the phases of life and still find something to talk about with are a sacred gift.

So I told my friend, with a huge heaping of gratitude, that I’d have to take a rain check until I get my kids in shape and we can all climb together. In lieu of me going, his son is going to borrow my backpack and ice axe so a little bit of me is going by proxy instead. Maybe I’ll get to send my tin cup also so it can have dinner on the mountain too!

(photo is mine – of sunset from base camp on Mt. Adams)