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Odds and Ends

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Children, Family, Parenting

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I’m still here! Adeline and I made it through spring break in one piece! (Well, actually I guess two pieces. But one piece each. You know what I’m saying.)

We actually didn’t get to do as much of the stuff as I had planned because there was a housing situation going down: we were crazily trying to find housing. Because, you know, it would be nice to know where we’re going to live when this baby comes. But more on that later, when it is, hopefully, fully resolved.

The week came to a pretty amazing end on Friday night: we dropped Addie off at my parents’ house for the weekend and went up to Kohler for a spa weekend.

Let me stop here for a giant THANK YOU to my parents for taking care of her!!

David travels for work a lot and I left Addie for a few days last August to attend BlogHer, but this was the first time we were both gone. In general I tend to be suspicious of parents who leave their infants and young toddlers for weeks to go on fancy international vacations. But I’m trying not to be judgmental**, so I won’t say any more about that. Suffice it to say, it’s not something I’m going to be doing any time soon. But I figured two nights and one full day at the spa was reasonable. And it was a-MAZ-ing.

Addie had a great time as well. I built it up in my head, worried about how she would deal with it. We talked about it all week and by Friday morning she was so excited to spend the weekend with Nana and Grandpa that she threw herself on the floor screaming when I told her we had to wait until the evening to go up there.

And then I thought, Dear god, I really need this spa weekend.

Seriously, though, it was cute how excited she was.

I missed her while we were gone, but not as much as I did last August. I was excited to see her again on Sunday morning, especially because she looked so adorable in her little Easter dress!

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And now here we are: back on schedule. Addie’s back at school and I’m back to blogging and working on my book. I think I’m about done with the fifth draft. I need comments from a few more people and then I’m going to start the sixth draft, which will hopefully be mostly a polish. It’s getting serious you guys! I think I might be close to done…. Yay!

So that’s what’s been going on with me. If you had kids on spring break, how was it? Any adorable Easter stories? Anything else exciting going on?

** Speaking of judgment, have you seen this article from the New York Times over the weekend? Entitled A Childless Bystander’s Baffled Hymn, it’s written by some childless dude and it’s all about how modern parenting has gone wrong. I actually agree with a fair amount of what he has to say, but definitely not all of it. And I think it’s pretty obnoxious for someone who has never been a parent to presume to know how to do it best. I remember thinking I knew everything. Then I had a baby and realized I knew nothing. The weirdest part to me, though, is that it’s this super judgmental article and then the conclusion is basically that how we parent doesn’t matter – genetics are more important and kids will be who they’ll be regardless of what we do. OK dude, whatever. Hope you enjoyed all those pageviews.

13 Strategies for Coping with a Two-Year-Old

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Children, Family, Gentle Parenting, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Motherhood, Parenting, Toddlers

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There’s something looming on the horizon that I’ve been trying not to think about. But it’s time to face the facts: today is Adeline’s last day of school until April 1. Next week is Spring Break. That means five days in a row of just me and Addie, home alone together.

You guys, that’s terrifying.

I mean, I love my daughter more than I could possibly express, but she has definitely entered the terrible twos. Normally she goes to school three days and Thursday and Friday it’s just us. Usually by Friday night I’m ready to stab my eyes out. Five days is going to be hard.

(I can’t even begin to say how amazed I am by moms who are home full time, all day, every day with a two year old. It’s really more than can be expected of any human.)

Four years ago I started doing DBT – Dialectical Behavior Therapy. (I know this seems unrelated, but stick with me.) Instead of endless psychotherapy analyzing how your parents fucked you up and how hard high school was and just why you decided to stop eating, it’s focused on skills. Each week there are lessons that teach a variety of different skills to help you learn how to effectively deal with acute distress, long-term emotional problems, and interpersonal relationships. It was probably one of the more amazing things that has ever happened to me.

Honestly, I think the world would be a better place if everyone had to do DBT. But in truth, it was designed for people with serious drug and alcohol addictions, with eating disorders, with other serious self-destructive behaviors or severe mental health issues.

It’s amazing how often I use my DBT skills to deal with the serious disorder of having a child, particularly a two-year-old.

So today, in preparation for the beginning of operation Spring Break, I’m brushing up on my DBT skills and making a list of coping strategies: Continue reading »

Ten Years Ago Today: Las Fallas and a City in Flames

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Life, Politics/Current Events, Travel

≈ 23 Comments

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My first and only time at Las Fallas was March 2003, during my semester abroad in Barcelona. We spent the day admiring the elaborate monuments that each neighborhood had built. Fresh off a Greek homecoming that fall, I knew how hard it was to build something like that. And our tissue-paper-puff floats were nothing compared to these: thirty feet tall, beautifully painted. All but professional. They looked too beautiful to destroy.

Una Falla

Una Falla

But at midnight that night, that’s exactly what they did. Every single one of those beautiful monuments burned down. We wandered the neighborhoods, drinking with locals, watching the fires. Giant bonfires in the middle of the city, one on every block. Fantastic masterpieces up in flames. People rejoicing.

We were college kids. All we wanted was to have a little fun. We pretended that we knew what it meant for these people, we pretended that we understood the history and meaning of this for the people in Valencia. We pretended we knew everything.

fallas

Then we went back to the hotel. The middle of the night, drunk, my memory trips me up: the flames, the cities on fire, linked more closely in my mind than they were in reality. The images more powerful than the facts.

We sat in front of a tv in our small, cheap, college-kids-on-a-budget hotel room and we watched the city on fire.

But this time, instead of Las Fallas, fires burned by residents in celebration, we watched Shock and Awe: fires started by bombs, dropped by our country, in “pre-emptive self-defense.” The flames seared into my mind, layered over the flames of Las Fallas. Linked forever in my memories. Continue reading »

Lessons from the Parking Lot

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Children, Gentle Parenting, Motherhood, Parenting, Personal Growth

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I pulled into the Whole Foods parking lot at 5:00 P.M. and knew immediately it was a mistake. It was packed, cars jammed in every direction anxiously searching for spots. Adeline, my two-year-old, sat in the back, quickly getting fussy and impatient as we circled. Between her whines and the crush of aggressive city drivers, I felt my own irritation start to boil.

Finally I saw it: the white tail lights that meant a spot was opening up. I stopped right in front of it and put my blinker on in the universal sign that I would be taking the spot when the previous occupant left.

As I waited, I saw a minivan at the end of the row, a full forty feet away, with it’s blinker on. I didn’t think much of it. When the car I was waiting for backed up I started to pull in, only to see that minivan speed down the row and start to pull into my spot. The adrenaline was too much, I gestured and swore and honked and kept driving. She screamed back at me and for a second I thought she really might run into my car. My heart was racing, my judgment cloudy, but I kept going and I won the game of parking lot chicken: the spot was mine.

And then she got a spot almost right across from me.

I knew before I stepped out that she would yell at me. When I came into view around the back of the car on the way to get Adeline, it started.

“You should be ashamed of yourself!” She screamed it, outrage dripping from every word, two teenage boys trailing her with their heads down.

“I was waiting for that spot,” I yelled back. “That’s how it works, you put your signal on and wait right behind the spot you want. Not at the other end of the [expletive] row.”

She screamed back and things went on like that. I stood outside Adeline’s door, not wanting to open it, not wanting her to hear this. Finally, the woman was gone, inside the store.

I took a breath and opened the door. When Adeline saw me, she started repeating the things I’d said (so much for that closed door), her voice loud and angry, a grin on her face. She was looking at me for approval – she wanted me to tell her how well she was imitating mommy. Continue reading »

Pregnancy Photos: Halfway There! (20 Weeks)

17 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Baby, Family, Motherhood, Parenting, Pregnancy

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I’ve made it halfway – it’s all downhill from here! Downhill to a giant belly, backaches, heartburn, inability to lift oneself off the couch . . . you get the idea. But I’m not there yet! I’m in the second trimester easy zone: relatively symptom free and enjoying baby boy’s kicks.

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The little guy is kicking like crazy these days, and I LOVE it. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this part when I was pregnant with Addie. How much, in those first days, I actually felt like I missed her, even though I was holding her in my arms. Yes, I was looking at her, but she was already more separate from me than she’d ever been before: she was no longer inside of me, communing with me day and night with her little kicks and nudges and rolls and twists.

Not to mention that a baby in the belly is a lot easier: everything is taken care of, you don’t have to worry about SIDS, and you don’t have to walk around the house for hours all night trying desperately to get the baby to stop screaming.

Still though, I know I’ll be more than ready for the pregnancy to be over by the time my due date rolls around. So in the meantime I’m going to really enjoy these kicks from my little boy.

And enjoying it is easy right now because I’m relatively symptom-free. Some backaches every now and then is the worst thing. And I just started to get heartburn, which was a big problem when I was pregnant with Addie. But it’s all manageable at this stage.

The most fun “symptom” is that I just started getting braxton hicks contractions. Really just a small tightening of the uterus right now, but enough to make it into a little ball in my stomach. I know in a few weeks I’ll be over it, but right now it’s a fun reminder that this is all going to be real in just a few short months.

I’m halfway there!!

P.S. If you thought Addie looked a little less excited than usual to be in the picture, it’s because we had to tear her away from Nana’s winter village. We’re up at my parents’ for the weekend and Addie loves to play with all the little houses, trees, horses, etc. So cute!

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Potty Anxiety

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Children, Parenting, Toddlers

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The low tire pressure indicator light had been on in my car since yesterday. But I’d looked at all the tires and they seemed fine, so we chalked it up to changing temperatures and decided to give it a few days.

When I picked up Addie from school this afternoon and went around to her side of the car to put her in, I knew I should have listened to that annoying little light: the right rear tire was almost flat.

In the fourteen years I’ve been driving, this has never happened to me. I was scared. I found the nearest tire place and drove there, slowly and carefully, Addie securely strapped into her seat, telling myself over and over that we’d make it there before the tire blew out. And we did.

Once we’d checked in and the mechanics were at work on the car, the hot panic of the flat tire was replaced with a cooler, smoldering anxiety: Addie was wearing undies and it would be at least an hour and a half before we got home and I didn’t have any extra undies or pants. And we’d somehow failed to get her daily report, so I didn’t even know when the last time she pottied was.

Oh, and this whole “undies all the time” thing is basically brand new for us. As in, we just started yesterday. Continue reading »

On Helicopter Parents and Negotiating Skills

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Children, Family, Parenting, Toddlers

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A lot of things bug me about helicopter parents. I could probably write a whole book about it. But I’ll keep it basic today: I hate how they step in to the middle of every single interaction their child is having that could ever, POSSIBLY, become negative. Thereby never giving their child a chance to work something out for herself.

Actually, you know what, I don’t really care about their child. (OK, I do, all children matter, but you know what I mean.) What I really care about is that it means Adeline never has a chance to learn about negotiating, problem-solving, and other important interpersonal skills.

Read more about my thoughts on this here – my second post for the Huff Post!!

Easier said than done

03 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Children, Family, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Toddlers, Writing

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You know what really sucks? When you just had an article published on the Huffington Post about how you’re not going to use emotional manipulation to discipline your kid, and then said kid wakes up the next morning in the most foul mood ever and starts pushing your buttons from the moment she lays eyes on you and you wish you could just guilt her into behaving but then you’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite.

Yeah, that happened yesterday. Continue reading »

Hitting the Big Time

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Children, Family, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Toddlers

≈ 7 Comments

Well people, it finally happened: I pitched Huff Post and they took my post! It only took about fifteen unsuccessful pitches so keep trying!

My post is up today, which is kind of an incredible feeling. I’m talking about why it’s a bad idea to use the phrase “You’re making mama sad” as a discipline tool. You can read it here.

If you love me, you’ll read it. If you REALLY love me, you’ll comment over there. And be nice :)

Books on Writing: My Favorites

22 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Book Review, Creative Writing, Writing

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Sometimes when I get writer’s block, I don’t do what I know would be most helpful: Just.Keep.Writing. Instead, I decide I need to read another book on writing, because that will surely help. Let’s be honest: no amount of reading is going to help when what you really need is to get your ass in front of the computer and just write.

BUT, books on writing are invaluable in the grand scheme of things. So as long as you’re reading them to improve your craft instead of to avoid your craft, then have at it. These are the best books on writing I’ve read so far. Continue reading »

Pregnancy Photos: 16 Weeks

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by in Baby, Children, Family, Photos, Pregnancy

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Well you already know the biggest news of the last four weeks: we’re having a boy! Other than that, it’s been mostly uneventful. I’m feeling some flutters, which is early but they say the second time around you do feel them earlier. But it’s still just flutters: no actual kicks yet. And I am (mostly) over the nausea, so that’s great.

But I’m also still definitely pregnant. I swear, I feel like I have to pee ALL the time. And then I go and there’s pretty much nothing in there. This will only get worse as my uterus gets bigger and presses down on my bladder even more. So, needless to say, I’m super pumped about another five months of that. And the backaches have started in earnest. Since my belly is so much bigger so much earlier this time around, the backaches have started earlier. It makes perfect sense. But it’s still less than awesome.

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Despite my aches and pains, I’m really excited. And Adeline is, too. She talks about her baby brother a lot, and she loves to look at the ultrasound picture and talk about how we saw him on the TV. That’s pretty much the cutest thing ever, so I can deal with all the rest.

Also, she loves posing for these pictures. Which is adorable.

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It’s a . . .

11 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Baby, Children, Family, Parenting, Pregnancy

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I’m laying on the bed in the ultrasound room, my belly exposed and covered in goo. The lights are dim and the room is big and comfortable. The bed is even like a real bed. You see, we’re not at a doctor’s office. We’re at a stand-alone, 3D ultrasound office. One of those places parents go when they just have to get a golden 3D picture of their baby before the little one arrives.

When the topic first came up, I made fun of the whole concept. There’s no medical reason to go (in fact they make you sign a form saying that you understand that they won’t make any diagnoses). It’s all vanity and craziness. So I said.

Then we discovered that we could find out the sex of the baby as early as fifteen weeks, instead of waiting for the medically indicated ultrasound at twenty weeks. We could know as early as three days ago if we were having a boy or a girl. Suddenly, I wasn’t talking smack anymore. I wanted to go.

So that’s how I found myself looking at my little baby on Saturday night, laying on a bed while we watched the ultrasound unfold on a big screen TV in front of us. The tech spent the first minute or two just getting in position: finding the baby, getting the best angle, etc. But we were there for one reason only: to find out the sex. So she didn’t waste any time.

“Are you ready to find out?” She was young and perky, but not in an annoying way. I liked her. But I couldn’t bring myself to answer her.

Instead, we just nodded, David holding Adeline and trying to get her to watch.

I thought the tech would tell us, but instead she started typing. The words came up slowly on the big screen, one letter at a time.

“It’s” she typed, and I held my breath, “a” . . . Continue reading »

Five Things That Terrify Me About Having Two Kids

10 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by in Baby, Children, Family, Parenting

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1. Sleep – the baby’s and mine.

I wasn’t blogging when Addie was an infant, so there are no desperate posts I can link to to prove it, but Adeline was a terrible sleeper. From the very beginning. Literally, the beginning. You know how the first day or so the baby is supposed to just sleep all the time, nature’s way of letting the mother rest from labor and delivery? Yeah, Addie never did that. Within hours of birth she was crying – no, screaming – if she was anywhere but in my arms. So we slept together. Which would have been fine if that was all it took. But within a few weeks it got even worse: during the day and in the middle of the night, she would cry for HOURS at a time and nothing could soothe her. Not breastfeeding, not changing her diaper, not walking around singing and rocking. Until we discovered the exercise ball. The only thing that worked was to sit on that damn ball for hours and bounce her up and down. And even when we did get her to sleep on her own, it didn’t get much better. For months and months she would wake up every 45 minutes ALL NIGHT LONG. I didn’t get into REM sleep for months. I was seriously a zombie. I don’t know if I can do it again.

Hours after birth

Hours after birth

We did so much work to get Adeline to sleep well, and now it’s nearly perfect. She sleeps through the night unless something is wrong, usually eleven sometimes twelve hours. I can put her to bed, spend a few hours writing or reading or watching tv, and still know that I’ll get a good amount of sleep. And now that’s all about to end.

I’m telling myself that the chances of having another colicky baby are slim. I’m telling myself that everyone says second babies are just calmer and easier. I’m telling myself that even if it is bad, it won’t be such a shock to my system because I’ve been there before. I’m telling myself that I’ll know I made it through once before and I know it ends. I’m telling myself it will be okay. But honestly, I’m terrified.

something she never actually did

something she never actually did

2. Sleep – Adeline’s Continue reading »

Real, Sexy

07 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Healthy Living, Women

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I guess I’m on a bit of a feminist rant this week. This is the post I was planning to post early this week, before the Superbowl inspired my post on Beyonce instead. But this all fits right in. It’s all part of the bigger issue of objectification: how it happens and why it’s so bad.

Scrolling through my Facebook news feed the other day, this image popped up:

sexier

I’ve seen it before and I’ve “Liked” it before. My first response is “Hell yes!” The girls on top look anorexic and unhealthy and why is our culture telling us this is what we should be trying to look like?? If this image and others like it are a step in the direction of preventing girls from becoming anorexic and encouraging our culture to embrace the appeal of a healthy weight, that’s great.

But in reality, I know that this image is really just part of a bigger problem. Continue reading »

Beyonce: Empowerment or Objectification?

04 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Women

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Last night Beyonce did her usual song and dance at the Super Bowl halftime show. People went crazy, as they always do, and she just might have caused a major blackout. (At least that’s what Twitter seemed to think.) She certainly wasn’t lipsyncing and I thought the Destiny’s Child reunion was pretty great – I really respected her for that.

But the most visually obvious part of the whole thing was that she took off half of her already scanty outfit, did most of the performance in lingerie, and danced like a stripper the whole time. To me, it seemed like yet another brick in the wall keeping women locked in as sexual objects and not much more. But so many of my intelligent, capable, female friends felt that it was so empowering. (Including Welcome to the Motherhood, whose opinion on just about everything I respect and usually agree with, and also many others.) It forced me to analyze my own feelings.

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I will say, before going into anything else, that she’s said some really right-on stuff about birth, parenting and motherhood since having little Blue Ivy. Including this quote that I think about sums up the amazing experience of motherhood: “I feel more beautiful than I’ve ever felt because I’ve given birth. I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth.” I really respect that. But her role as a mother really has nothing to do with her role as a performer. So let’s get to the meat of the issue: Was that performance empowering to women?

First, let’s just state the obvious. Beyonce has managed to build herself a media empire and become incredibly wealthy based entirely on her own efforts. No matter what else, that IS empowering to women. The more independent and strong women around, the better. And I won’t argue with that. But it’s not her as a person that I have a problem with (I don’t really know anything about her and wouldn’t presume to judge) – it’s her public performance that bothered me.

Some women feel that Beyonce’s use of her sexuality is empowering. Continue reading »