Category Archives: Parenting

Skiing

Josie has reached the magic age of four – the age of drop-off activities. I’ve dreamed about this day since she became a constantly running and climbing two-year-old, and I so desperately wanted a few quiet minutes to sit and read a magazine.

A few weeks ago we were prioritizing her activities/interests – do you want gymnastics or swimming? Ballet or soccer? – when she said, but mom, I want to do something with you.

Oh. Suddenly drop-off activities weren’t so appealing. Isn’t that just the way parenting works?

So that got me thinking about what activities we could do together. She’s too young for sailing and I’m not much of a ballerina. Can you picture me in a tutu? Eventually I landed on skiing. She went a few times last year and loved it. I love it. We could love skiing together! What could be more perfect?

I talked to Josie about skiing and she was enthusiastic. We watched a few videos of kids snowplowing, and after much thought and discussion I decided to go for it. Since I’m not one to do things part way, I bought us both season passes. Now we’re committed.

We’ve been talking a lot about skiing, mostly about how to make a piece of pizza with her skis to stop. Stop is not a word my child understands very well so it warrants extra conversation. I have a harness for her and helmets for both of us and warm gloves and everything I can imagine she’ll need.

Then, last weekend, Josie and I went to the park. She was well dressed but chose not to wear her boots or bring her hat. Fine. I dragged the wagon full of two kids for what seemed like miles, over hundreds of curbs without wheelchair ramps. It was tedious. We finally got there and Josie played for 5 minutes. Then… the crying. A complete melt-down. I gave her a snack. She told me that her hands were cold. I gave her my gloves. I held her on my lap. She was wrecked. She wanted to go home.

Paul thinks skiing with her will be an exercise in torture. I’m not sure he is wrong.

To be continued…

Morning Warfare

I’m not a morning person. It takes me a little while to wake up. My husband and ex-roommates can verify that, before kids, I had a guideline. No, it was more of a rule that it was safest not talk to me before I left for work in the morning. You could call me the minute I was out the door; that was best.

Josie is a morning person. She is 100%, in your face, loud, starting at about 6:00 am every day.

Sometimes we struggle. Some mornings there is sobbing, sibling slap fighting and resulting time out(s). On these mornings there is usually some maternal yelling and I spend the rest of the day being mad at myself and trying for forgive myself for losing my business.

As a result, I do my best to streamline our morning routine, to put out her clothes the night before, to make sure she puts socks on before she leaves her room so we don’t have to go back for them. I plan a menu of breakfast options so she has multiple sources of protein, but not so many that I have to make every breakfast food in existence.

As Josie gets older, we can talk more about mommy’s dislike of loud noises in the morning and the appropriate and inappropriate times for loudness. Paul and I try to make mornings fun by talking like pirates, challenging each other to races, and giving lots of rewards. Sometimes these tactics work. Sometimes they don’t.

The other day we had a super-great morning. Josie and I were both so chipper. I think she skipped to the car and actually got in right away and then I thanked her. There was no yelling, no crying, no children slap-fighting. If a neighbor had heard us, I don’t think they would have even thought about calling CPS. Not once.

Later that day, I found myself thinking about what we did right – a mental de-brief of the morning. What made this morning different? Then I remembered the email. Before I went into the kitchen I checked the email on my phone and discovered that The Huffington Post would be publishing my essay the next day. Interesting. Perhaps I need to work less on Josie and more on myself. Perhaps I need to be less of a pirate and more of an empathetic mother. Or, perhaps I just need to make sure I get an email that is just that happy, every morning.

The Huffington Post Adoption Essay

(c) La Luz Photography

Too Many Real Moms

A few months ago I heard an interview on NPR with Nancy L Segal, the author of “Someone Else’s twin: The True Story of Babies Switched at Birth.” The book told the tale of three babies and what happened when one singleton newborn was accidently switched with an identical twin. The “twins” were raised as fraternal and no one knew about the mix-up until they were adults.

It’s a complicated story and in the interview there was a lot of discussion of the various parents of these three girls and how they felt. The interviewer, I presume in an effort to simplify things, used the term “real” mother or “real” parents on several occasions to indicate the biological parent of the child.

If the biological parent is the “real” parent then what is the term for the parent who raised the child? The parent-in-practice? Parent-in-life? Bed-sheet-changer? At some point, it seems like 18+ years of lunch-packing should earn a parent the title of “real,” no?

Click here to read the rest of the essay in The Huffington Post.

To Be Four 

(c) la luz photography 2011

She plays with her brother like they’re puppies, jumping and hiding, then pouncing and rolling. Her toys are his and she’s willing to share almost anything to make him happy. She dresses herself in the morning and prefers to wear all one color – purple, green, blue, pink. When she’s done eating, she asks to be ‘misused.’ She thinks the ‘pider that lives in her bathroom is cute. She has two imaginary friends/sisters both named Jada.

You have to ask her 10 or 15 times to take her shoes off or put them on. You can’t get her to use her fork or stay at the dinner table. She flits about the living room, all greasy-fingered and ferile while the rest of the family eats. She’d like you to think that she can’t hear you or control her body or listen to what you are saying. But when you ask her what she wants for her 4th birthday, she snaps to attention right at your feet. You squat and she looks right into your eyes and says, very clearly, without any hesitation – a doll house, a princess doll and a remote controlled car – like she’s been thinking about this for years.

Then, just like that was a dream, that girl is gone, and she is once again dancing and rubbing her greasy fingers all over the couch because she’s in a different world occupied by Jadas and spiders wearing monochromatic clothes and she can’t possibly hear you telling her to stop.

Happy 4th birthday to my favorite baby girl.

My Life at Stack ‘n Stuff

I’m in this weird place right now. I’m kind of on maternity leave, I’m kind of a stay-at-home mom, but I also have this book thing. The official launch date of Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition was October 11th and every day that goes by, my prime book promotion window closes a tiny bit, and every day that goes by, my kids get one day older. There’s a lot I’d like to do on the book promotion front, but it all requires travel or time at my desk, which my 15-month-old will not allow. It’s an age-old parenting story. Like many parents, I want to be all things at all times. I want to be out promoting the book, but I want to be here with the kids. What’s a frustrated, driven, over-achieving mother to do?

Well, here’s one thing I do have plenty of…. Time with a toddler. I have lots of that. What can one do with a toddler? Well, one can organize her junk drawer. Then perhaps she’ll feel so satisfied she can design and install her daughter’s closet with the help of her toddler wobbling around with hammer in hand. Then she can move the spice drawer and re-organize her kitchen utensil drawer. Well, then, there’s only two more drawers in the kitchen that need help and, well, maybe she can do those the next day because it’s supposed to rain and she has this coupon and they’ll go to story time in the morning, but after nap they’ll need something to do, and there’s a playground nearby and it’s covered so the slide will be dry and so that would be just perfect. It’s just the thing!

This happens to be our routine. Morning, play around the house, naptime where I spend a few minutes at my desk, trying to get some shit done. Then afternoon snack and we head to the mall. We go to the playground first so K can blow off steam, and then to Storables so that I can. He has his fun then I have mine. The result: I’m in that store pretty much every day. I should wear a sign that says “Hi, I’m an over-achiever mother who should not be staying at home but is staying at home. Please excuse me (get out of my way before I run you down) K THX BYE! J” But, then I think, why would I need a sign? Is this not self-evident?

At the store, they greet K and me with a friendly smile and a wave. They notice and comment on his cute haircut. I load up on containers and baskets; then I go home and start getting dinner ready. When Paul opens a drawer in the kitchen, he raises his eyebrows and asks how everyone is doing at “stack ‘n stuff” today. We both know that he knows it’s called Storables but I correct him anyway. Everyone at Storables is fine, I say. Thanks for asking.

Then while Josie stands in her cape on the armrest of the couch and jumps to the floor, while K reaches up to the counter to grab whatever breakable or sharp item he can find, I reach into my supremely-organized utensil drawer and let out a contented exhale as I retrieve the forks and knives for the table, because while I may not be able to control my superhero, my counter-reaching monster, or the trajectory of book sales, I can most definitely, control the contents of my kitchen drawers.

Books and Babies

2011 has been a big year for us. Legendary. We met little K in June. Five months later Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition is being published.

Perhaps one could say that in 2011 I was expecting two babies. But there are some very distinct differences. For example, Little K is much cuter than the book. And the book doesn’t ask me to rub its head while I drive. The book doesn’t pee through its diapers at night and occasionally scream out with night terrors. The book doesn’t throw peas on the floor then burst into giant tears when you tell it to stop. The book doesn’t shriek like a baby pterodactyl when it’s tired. And, more notably, the book doesn’t pull up my shirt and try to give me zerberts on the stomach.

Conversely, Little K doesn’t sit quietly on my desk or in a box on my floor. He is rarely misplaced and never forgotten (although I can’t say the same for his shoes). He doesn’t have 139 neatly formatted pages and, so far, he doesn’t have nearly as many words, but I know he will someday.

Really, there is only one baby.

But there are some similarities. Both feel like once in a lifetime events. Both are epic creations. Both bring me joy. I am so lucky, fortunate and grateful that they both exist.

Since becoming a parent, my goals for my children have changed. No longer do they need to be the leaders of the free world. After watching them speak with bits of food falling from their mouths, throw tantrums over already-chewed pieces of gum, and dress themselves in brown polka dotted leg warmers and yellow striped socks, I’ve learned that they are who they are. What will be will be.

Now, I simply hope my children will find things – subjects, sports, activities, hobbies – they like and that they’re good at. I hope they can earn money in an endeavor related to this interest or some other career they enjoy. In short: I hope my children find their place in the world and people that make them happy.

My hopes for the book are similar. WITR had to be written. During and after treatment I was obsessed and consumed by those stories. I thought about them 24×7. I was working it all out, creating art from grief. It had to be done and now that it is done, I hope people discover its strengths and that people connect with it. In short: I hope it finds its place in the world and the people who love it.

That is all.

Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition is out! You can buy it anywhere good books are sold.

The Foster Mother in My Head

We met our daughter for the first time in an Intensive Care Unit. She was four days old, and a healthy 6.5 lb baby girl who was getting preventative antibiotics. When the nurse placed her into my arms, she was wrapped in a purple hand-knit blanket and had an orange bow stuck to her head. She was the prettiest baby I had ever seen and I wrapped my body around her and told her that we’d been looking for her and trying to get to her for so long, but that we were here now and it was all going to be okay.

I did all of this, I said all of this, while a handful of nurses and social workers watched. These people were strangers to me and my husband but they’d been caring for our daughter in those crucially important first few days of her life. They had grown to care about her and to hope that a good family would come for her soon. They were pleased we were there and encouraged us, but they were WATCHING. They were evaluating us and forming opinions, hopefully positive, about our family.

But, I have a confession; I’m not an appropriate crier. You say the words newborn baby to my mother and she’ll probably burst into tears right then and there. You tell me that my dog just got run over by a truck and I’d probably say something like oh, alright and walk away. That doesn’t mean that I am not sad. I will travel deep inside my head. I will think about this. I will imagine how it all happened and at some point I will cry and cry and cry. But probably not in front of anyone. I don’t cry at sad movies, I don’t usually cry right away when I hear sad or happy news, and I didn’t cry when I met my daughter. Thinking about it now, I want to weep like a three year old who has misplaced her blanket at bedtime, but there were no tears that day. And it was weird. It felt weird to me then and I’m certain it felt weird to our audience. What kind of mother doesn’t cry the day she meets her newborn?

We went through this again with the recent adoption of our eleven-month-old son. Instead of four days of care, K had received eleven months of care. There had been eleven months of people loving this kid. Some of them I know about. Some of them I do not. The last two months he was in nursery care with the adoption agency and his foster parents became very attached. They were there when we met K for the first time along with a social worker we had never met and will never see again.

Then and during the week of transition that followed, I was busy thinking about what was happening, processing his every move, studying and learning him. I did not cry once.

His foster mother spent the week sobbing and sniffling in the corner while we played with K. She had done this exactly eighty-eight times before (!) but, as she said, that doesn’t make letting go any less painful. They were happy we were adopting him and she thought we were the ideal family. But she was protective. As the week wore on, we got to know each other. The transition was going very well. We bonded with our boy but also with the foster parents though I still wondered if, in their eyes, anyone could be good enough.

We’d been advised to stay home in the weeks following K’s arrival, but a week after we returned to Seattle we decided to go to our cabin. The list of reasons is long and we felt like K was doing so well and that this would be the best thing for him and our family in the longer-run. Word got back to the foster mother via email and, yes, the unthinkable happened. She accidently forwarded me a message criticizing our choice, saying we hadn’t “allowed him time to adjust” and outlining how this would be detrimental. The email had been meant for her husband. There it was. The ultimate judgment. Parenting test failed.

In the weeks that followed I felt the foster mother looking over my shoulder. I questioned my instinct. I wondered if what I was doing was good enough for K and if she would approve. I felt less like he was mine and more like I was taking care of him for someone else. As if the new white mother of a black one year old boy needed more pressure.

Then I would scold myself for feeling this way. My experienced-parent, rational voice would say, of course I am right, I am his mother, but the self-doubt was there whether I acknowledged it or not. I tried to remind myself that all we could do was to keep going, continuing, and trying to make the best decisions for our family.

The other day, while I was watching J and K roll around in the grass, I had a hard time convincing myself that he hadn’t been with us since his birth. He’s brought the family into a perfect balance, a natural symmetry. Sometimes, when he melts down at the end of an over-scheduled day or I put him in front of a baby video so I can take a shower, I hear the foster mother’s disapproval. But I’ve learned that the more baby kisses, loves and hugs I receive, the quieter the foster mother in my head becomes. Pretty soon, I suspect she’ll develop a terrible case of laryngitis and be silenced forever. When that happens, you can be sure that I won’t shed a single tear.

Only 41 days until Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition comes out. The launch party is at Elliott Bay Books on October 2nd, mark your calendars!

This Girl’s Motor

Josie’s always been a strong girl. At her 2 week check up, the doctor did a test of her neck strength. She was on her back and he wrapped her little fingers around his index fingers and pulled her into a sitting position. Most newborn’s heads fall to the side but Josie held hers perfectly straight. He said it was “remarkable” and that he’d never seen anything like that before.

Gradually she grew into a chubby baby while retaining that strength. At 18 months she was FAST with no concept of danger or sense of self-preservation. Even as she moved toward three she still had a layer of chub that created a misleading façade, a pink princess wrapper on a V6 engine.

Just in the last few months, Josie has lost most of her baby chub. Gone are the delicious dimpled thighs and, the part I notice most, the creases at her wrists. Gone. There are bones there now. It is SO strange.

Without the wrapper, the engine is on display.

Clearly, I need to find this girl some more athletics. Is training a four year old for an ironman excessive?

Only 50 more days until Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish and Demolition comes out. Get your copy today!

What He’s Trying To Say

At the end of our first meeting with our eleven-month-old son, when we were all tired from intense emotions and two hours of solid play, our boy started walking around the room jabbering and touching his flat hands to his chest, turning them palms up, and shrugging his shoulders. There was a crowd of stuffed animals near the window and he spoke to them, vehemently, patting his chest then raising his palms. Sometimes it looked like he was clapping for himself. As if to say, how do you like me now? Look at me walk! Other times it was more of a question, like, what? Or what do you think?

Now that we’re home, playing with blocks and falling madly in love, our son repeats these moves often and I wonder where these gestures came from. We know very little about the first nine months before he went into the adoption agency’s nursery care. We know his birth mother was not there for him but we do not know much else.

Those first months are an empty book, and I find myself trying to fill the pages, looking for clues to patch together a story – a way to make sense of what happened. It’s becoming clear to me that there was someone, a grandparent, cousin or aunt, at least one person in his life who loved and cared for him. There are telltale signs, the broken hairs along his hairline that may be the result of tight cornrows, the well-fed, ham-hock thighs with creases you can lose fingers into, his affection and willingness to bond. I analyze these movements the same way. I wonder if someone who cared for him used this gesture or something similar. Did they pat their hands to their chest while talking to him? Were they joking with him? Were they dancing?

Maybe this is just me being a mom. Maybe it’s just me not being able to imagine someone not loving this baby. Maybe the thought of him alone in his crib is too much to bear.

Sometimes our boy has trouble going to sleep at night. I usually rock him until he is solidly out and then transfer him to the crib. The other night he fell asleep on my shoulder, then when I transferred him to the crib, he woke up. We started over. We repeated this two or three times. He’d spend minutes sound asleep on my shoulder and just when it was time to transfer, he’d bolt awake and swipe the glasses off my face.

He had every right to his insomnia. He was in another new place with another new set of people, but I was frustrated nonetheless. We’d been rocking for over ninety minutes when, as he squirmed, grabbed and pulled away, I sat him squarely on my thighs, looked him in the eye, and said, “Hey, kid, what is it you want me to do? Just tell me, because clearly what I am doing here is not working for you.” I know, he doesn’t speak, but I was desperate.

He dropped his shoulders, tipped his head down just a bit, touched his hands to his chest and pulled them away, palms upward. This time, the gesture meant, I don’t know. I just don’t know. This kid was even more tired and frustrated than I was.

So I rolled him onto his side, we found a new position, we went back to our rocking and I went back to wondering what his life had been like. Had he been placed into his crib fully awake? Did he even sleep in a crib? I wondered how his caretaker was doing. Gradually, our boy drifted off. Even in sleep, he’d occasionally pat his chest and raise his palms. This time the gesture looked a lot like gratitude.

PS – Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish and Demolition ships exactly two weeks from tomorrow. It’s available for pre-order anywhere that books are sold. The time has come!

 

At the end of our first meeting with our eleven-month-old son, when we were all tired from intense emotions and two hours of solid play, our boy started walking around the room jabbering and touching his flat hands to his chest, turning them palms up, and shrugging his shoulders. There was a crowd of stuffed animals near the window and he spoke to them, vehemently, patting his chest then raising his palms. Sometimes it looked like he was clapping for himself. As if to say, how do you like me now? Look at me walk! Other times it was more of a question, like, what? Or what do you think?

 

Now that we’re home, playing with blocks and falling madly in love, our son repeats these moves often and I wonder where these gestures came from. We know very little about the first nine months before he went into the adoption agency’s nursery care. We know his birth mother was not there for him but we do not know much else.

 

Those first months are an empty book, and I find myself trying to fill the pages, looking for clues to patch together a story – a way to make sense of what happened. It’s becoming clear to me that there was someone, a grandparent, cousin or aunt, at least one person in his life who loved and cared for him. There are telltale signs, the broken hairs along his hairline that may be the result of tight cornrows, the well-fed, ham-hock thighs with creases you can lose fingers into, his affection and willingness to bond. I analyze these movements the same way. I wonder if someone who cared for him used this gesture or something similar. Did they pat their hands to their chest while talking to him? Were they joking with him? Were they dancing?

 

Maybe this is just me being a mom. Maybe it’s just me not being able to imagine someone not loving this baby. Maybe the thought of him alone in his crib is too much to bear.

 

Sometimes our boy has trouble going to sleep at night. I usually rock him until he is solidly out and then transfer him to the crib. The other night he fell asleep on my shoulder, then when I transferred him to the crib, he woke up. We started over. We repeated this two or three times. He’d spend minutes sound asleep on my shoulder and just when it was time to transfer, he’d bolt awake and swipe the glasses off my face.

 

He had every right to his insomnia. He was in another new place with another new set of people, but I was frustrated nonetheless. We’d been rocking for over ninety minutes when, as he squirmed, grabbed and pulled away, I sat him squarely on my thighs, looked him in the eye, and said, “Hey, kid, what is it you want me to do? Just tell me, because clearly what I am doing here is not working for you.” I know, he doesn’t speak, but I was desperate.

 

He dropped his shoulders, tipped his head down just a bit, touched his hands to his chest and pulled them away, palms upward. This time, the gesture meant, I don’t know. I just don’t know. This kid was even more tired and frustrated than I was.

 

So I rolled him onto his side, we found a new position, we went back to our rocking and I went back to wondering what his life had been like. Had he been placed into his crib fully awake? Did he even sleep in a crib? I wondered how his caretaker was doing. Gradually, our boy drifted off. Even in sleep, he’d occasionally pat his chest and raise his palms. This time the gesture looked a lot like gratitude.

 

PS – Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish and Demolition ships exactly two weeks from tomorrow. It’s available for pre-order anywhere that books are sold. Do it! The time has come!

Flying Ponies

Guest post by Barbara Matousek.

On our way in to town this morning, Sammy and I were talking about the clouds.  We were winding along highway 35 between the Nathan Wolfe Memorial Wildlife area where Sam recently told me “things that suck your blood live” and the Trempealeau Wildlife Refuge where Sam says “that funny duck with the big head swims.”  A half dozen white egrets stretched their necks to fish near the wild celery, and a few others sat in the crooks of a dead tree that reflected on the water.  As our Subaru slowed to let a train clear the tracks in front of us and the bright sunlight behind us created dramatic whites and grays on the clouds hanging over the bluffs, Sam told me you can’t move clouds with your mouth like you can the fuzzy tips of dandelions.

“Clouds are heavy,” he said.

“They are?  How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because…”

“I think they’re really easy to move.  You just have to get close enough,” I said.

The last car of the train bumped across the road and the red lights stopped blinking and the large semi in front of us slowly started moving.

“Go fast, Mommy.”

“I can’t.  The truck in front of us is going slow and it takes a lot of energy for him to get started.  Remember how hard it was for you to get your bike started when we were going up the hill last night?” I reminded him.

“Yah.  That was hard.”

“It’s the same.  Once he gets started we’ll get moving fast, but right now he’s got to work really hard to get going.”

He thought a while.

“Mommy, we need to get a flying pony so we can go up into the sky and blow the clouds away,” he said.  “If we flew really super fast it would not be so hard to get them started.”

This guest post, brought to you by my good friend, Barbara Matousek. She is a single mother by choice of a toddler boy and a baby girl. She writes regularly on her blog about  http://barbsproject.blogspot.com.