September 6, 2008

You Moved Us

From Stephanie-

Whether you love her or hate her, we can't seem to get enough of Sarah Palin, and I appreciate Scribbit's Sarah Palin- An Inside View this week. (She's from Alaska, too, after all.)

From Megan-

Melissa's 3 Month Letter to her baby, "Mookie" (and the first and second month letters also on her blog, Galloping Cows) captures her tiny daughter's milestones so perfectly. Not just stats, they're beautiful moments that unfold before a loving mother's eyes. These moments, and the post, are simply not to be missed.

From Veronica-

Chaotic Joy used to believe that her kids were polite and well-behaved because of her excellent parenting. Then she had her beloved, strong-willed daughter, and learned that life is a little more complicated than that. You can sample her tasty humble pie in her post, A Public Apology.

From Kelly-

I've recently discovered the fabulous blog Extraordinary Ordinary written by the thoughtful-funny-talented blogger Heather. Her recent post- Out Of Focus- about trying to make room in her soul for all the Heathers that are needed in her world is brilliant. I think we all relate to the struggle to balance the different hats we wear.

From Beck-

I found Kelli's What I'd Like For You To Know guest post at Rocks in My Dryer about living with a chronic illness incredibly moving and informative and at the end, hopeful.

What moved you?

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, You Moved Us by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 1 Comment

September 5, 2008

Remember September

By Stephanie

We all know what day is coming next week. Not just the possible arrival of my new baby, but that day. September 11.

Noah was just a baby, almost 7 months old. I remember nursing him in our TV room, then putting him in his bouncy seat. Jeff was getting ready for work and I was in my pajamas. I had the Fox Morning News on.

I watched as they announced the first plane hit. I didn’t realize- nobody realized- what was really happening. It seemed to be a small plane. It seemed to be an accident. I casually called to hubby, “Oh, a plane hit the World Trade Center.” Said more like “weird” than what we’d know it to really be.

I remember calling to hubby again as he was about to step out the door… “Another plane!”

That got our attention. I am sure it got yours, too. I didn’t leave the TV for days straight. I’d never watched that much CNN in my life. Nothing else was on, and this was all we wanted to watch. Over and over- how many times did we need to see the planes hit- again and again, the people running in the streets, the buildings crashing, the smoke. So much smoke.

The darkness. It was so dark and smoky and ashy and death was all around when the buildings collapsed. We didn’t know what was going to happen next. We live near Chicago and we prayed that the terror didn’t come this way, too. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon. Another one in a field… what is happening? How could this happen?

This was something that took days to process in our minds. And still to this day when there is footage, or when the 1 year anniversary came around and we sat and watched it all played out on the news again, we still couldn’t look away.

9/11 was a turning point for our nation, and most of the world. There is no going back. We’ve all changed, whether we choose to realize it or not. Carter, our middle son was considered one of those 9/11 babies when he was born 10 months later during a baby boom that was credited to families drawing close for comfort from the sudden shaking of our world as we knew it.

Things changed. History happened that day, and we were a part of it. How is it that I felt so involved and affected, and I didn’t even have a loved one inside a plane or one of the Towers that day? I am guilty of moving on and forgetting some days, letting that roll into years now, and not praying like I did that first day and the weeks afterward.

What a reminder to me- this world, our country, needs our prayers now more than ever.

Originally published on September 11, 2006.

I don't know who I'm voting for in November. I honestly don't know where to stand with any of the political choices we have anymore. But I will vote. And I will pray. And I will believe for a change.

Stephanie also blogs at Adventures In Babywearing.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Stephanie by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 7 Comments

September 4, 2008

Transfiguration

By Beck

(Thanks to a technical glitch at my house - Now Home To Technical Glitches All The Time! - the melancholy post I wrote for today has been lost and in its place is this melancholy post from February of 2007. Let's hope this one posts, or I'll be forced to start using The Girl's stories again.)

If you were a child (well, a girl child) in the 1970s, you will remember Wonder Woman bathing suits. All of the cool little girls had one. I did not, and how I yearned for one, yearned with a force that would later be replaced by yearning for certain men, and now with yearnings for booze, chocolate and privacy. I was certain that the bathing suit was the key to elusive popularity, that it would change me.

I never got it. It would not have helped: I was unfixably nerdish. I know now that I am essentially unchangeable, that ME - this loquacious, moody, self-centered, mawkish, thoughtless person - is who I am, for good or bad. And I am very happy, mostly, but I will never alter.

I saw a baby t-shirt the other day which read "Here to change the world" which is sweet, but I don't know - a bit too hopeful? I can't even get myself to stop biting my fingernails, and it seems a bit presumptuous of me to then expect some newborn to be able to bring peace to the Middle East. Do I necessarily want my child to be a world changer? Too many world changers's bright ideas have only led to millions of people dead in mass graves and yes, I am looking at you, Karl Marx.

An acquaintance of mine bumped into me the other day, her 10 year old son in tow. He seemed downcast, sadder than before, and she confided in me, spitting out the words, that he'd been diagnosed with a serious learning disability. He is the same boy he always was - kind-hearted, gentle, fond of little kids and legos - but you could tell from the look on her face that she was through with him, that she regretted this child, her only child, regretted the work and effort of raising someone who will not change the world. I wanted to take him home with me, because frankly we're too overwhelmed with keeping everyone fed and clothed and reasonably clean to truly fret over whether they're going to be physicists or plumbers. The love which should have been his without condition turned out to be very conditional indeed, dependent on him fulfilling her middle class aspirations and you could see that he knew this, that he would have put off his skin like it was only a costume, allow himself to be changed utterly if his mother would only turn her gaze back lovingly to him again.

Find Beck blogging at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Beck by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 24 Comments

September 3, 2008

Bedtime Thoughts

By Kelly

The kids wouldn’t go to sleep tonight. They sat in their beds and read books and played Legos and skittered down the stairs to suggest that they might sleep better if they could just get some scissors out of my office and create a pretend computer out of paper before turning in for the night. The air was full of whispers and giggles and "thunks" that shouldn’t have been.

The baby was no better. At seven months old, she’s like a tiny Dora the Explorer, always on a quest to discover something new. “Carpet. Plant leaves. Dirt in the mouth! Say it with me.” Even though she’d been awake since 2:30 – or more likely, because she’d been awake since 2:30; over-stimulation, anyone? – she wasn’t the least bit interested in sleeping. She squirmed through my attempts to nurse her, she lurched toward the floor where her blocks beckoned. She spit up, for good measure. She made a spectacular dirty diaper, for even better measure.

And I just wanted them all to go to sleep. “Be sweet little children, and give Mommy her hour of alone time before her head falls off.”

Then I remembered this quote from Anna Quindlen about her years as a parent.

The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Ah yes. The next thing. I'm a master at looking ahead, especially on nights like this, when I'm solo-parenting. Dinner, bath, book, bed. I have no energy to soak up the details. I'm just trying to survive.

But that's no way to live.

So the kids finally fell asleep, and I fell onto the couch to record this: a lesson on living in the moment. Because when I read this post in a few years, I won't remember the exhaustion. I won't remember the march through the bedtime routine.

I'll remember the giggles and the smiles and the trusting faces. I'll remember how much I love being a mom.

It's worth it. Even when they won't go to sleep.

Find Kelly also blogging at Love Well.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Kelly by Kelly

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 12 Comments

September 2, 2008

Ex Substantia Matris

By Veronica

I lie in the half-light, a pillow propping up my back. My baby lies on her side, suckling, her head cradled in the crook of my arm. Her eyes, an undecided color, are wide open, looking into mine. She is curious and uncertain of the world around her, but certain of me. I am always there, nourishing, comforting. She has no doubts.

She is content. I thank God for his goodness that has created such a thing, this wordless bond between mother and child. Satisfying her need is my contentment, a new and joyous feeling for me this third time around.

My first two children were thin and I made milk with difficulty, leaving me with a constant anxiety that even in memory brings the sour taste of adrenaline to my mouth. Their connection to life seemed so tenuous, too dependent on my flawed care and imperfect body. This baby, so plump and round from the beginning, supplies confidence as she luxuriates in life, nestling into it like a sleepy woman into a freshly made bed. My little voluptuary.

I rejoice in the physical joy of holding her as no one else can and sating her trusting hunger. My father said a few weeks ago that the exhausting demands a baby makes on her mother bring with them a privileged closeness that father and baby never have. I have remembered his words often since.

Charles Williams said that God created the world in order to become part of it. The Incarnation was the purpose of creation. From the beginning, God planned to be born of a mother. In John Donne’s sonnet to Mary: “Ere by the spheres time was created thou/ Wast in His mind.” As I hold my baby, I know that in the mystery of God, I am participating in something holy, something planned from the foundation of the world.

The interdependence of mother and child begins a life of inescapable connection with others. Williams called it the “Web of Exchange,” the complex ways in which every life touches all those around it. God made this weave for good, but it is so inextricably a part of creation that even evil shimmers across the web, spread from one person to the next. Evil will touch my baby’s life too - in some ways it already has - but I thank God for the peace and prosperity to hold her in safety for now.

It has become theologically fashionable to speak of God as Mother, a metaphor I haven’t much use for. But I am moved beyond words to know that God made the world in order to have a mother. I look at my tiny helpless baby and I remember God became this, too, and I rest my eyes in praise.

Originally posted June 12, 2007 at Toddled Dredge, where you can also find Veronica writing and expecting a new little one any day now.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Veronica by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 5 Comments

September 1, 2008

Putting Learning in Its Place

By Megan

This particular Megan, not FriedOkra Megan, but a pretty awesome substitute, for sure, is mama to two gorgeous girls and is never one to shy away from bathroom conversations. She and her family are making their way back to their home state of Oklahoma after many happy years in Texas. When not in the throes of major life changes, you can find her blogging at SortaCrunchy.


Next month marks three years since I started using cloth diapers. When I first started, I didn’t know prefold from a pocket, nor a doubler from a soaker, and certainly not a Fuzzi Bunz from a Happy Heiney. The learning curve was intimidating and steep, and so I turned (as most modern mothers do) to various internet message boards for tutelage.

(Get it? Tutelage on diapering? Tootelage? Clearly, I have been spending way too much time with my husband.)

Within a couple of weeks, I sorta started to figure out the lingo. Amongst the discussions on which diapers were the most daddy-friendly and which detergent works best in a front loading washer and which cloth wipe material was the softest and most absorbent, I kept coming across a phrase I found bewildering: potty learning.

Potty what-ing?

Hanging out in natural parenting circles allowed me to understand a little more about the concept of potty learning, and the idea started to grow on me. Essentially, potty learning allows for the fact that each child becomes potty ready at a time that is unique entirely to him, and that time is based on his own physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Where potty training is more parent-directed with the parent deciding when the child will learn to use the potty and employing techniques to train the child in how to accomplish this milestone, potty learning is more child-directed in that the child isn’t trained at all, but rather learns about the pottying process and is provided with the tools and encouragement to make a natural transition from diaper-covered bum to big kid underwear.

When it all comes down to it, potty learning sounded so much easier to me, and I am always and forever all about the easy, so this was the path I planned to take. I have to be honest, though, and tell you that by the time our daughter reached two and a half and showed zero, nada, zilch signs of interest in the potty, I started to get a little antsy in my own pantsies. Um, had I missed the boat? Fewer and fewer of her friends were sporting diaper roll-out above the waistlines. What were their parents teaching them that I wasn’t communicating to my determined-to-be-in-diapers toddler?

But by this time, I was nearing the end of my second pregnancy and it was summer and I was hot and tired all the time, so I figured we’d just keep coasting. I had the luxury of freedom from any deadlines being imposed on our potty learning experiment. There was no preschool or Mother’s Day Out or Sunday School class or pushy grandmother or nosy neighbor mandating a day when she had to be out of diapers, so we figured we’d just continue to follow her lead (she’s not the sort of child that can be talked into much of anything anyway), and if we had forever damaged her psyche in the process then we’d just shell out for her therapy sessions on down the road.

(Sidenote: It was about this time that I read Tina’s Antique Mommy post on Whatever Dude potty training. Oh, it was so inspiring! Whateverr Dude became my mantra.)

Fast forward to two months before her third birthday, and one night she decided to sit on the potty while I bathed her baby sister and voila! A tinkle! And you know what? That was it! In one weekend, she went from Diaper Diva to Diaper Dissenter. Oh sure, it took us a little longer to get that number two business down, but I can honestly say that the potty learning approach was a beautiful, effortless, tear-free, stress-free path to diaper liberation for us.

More than a simple change in my lexicon, I so appreciate what the shift from training to learning did inside me. I got a little worked up and stressed out at times, but I found peace in the knowledge that I was staying true to what was right and appropriate for us, not someone else’s timeline. And I actually learned quite a bit myself - most importantly that just as surely as I can trust that Mommy Instinct to give me a gentle nudge down the path I know is best for my family (no matter how non-traditional it might be), I can also trust my daughter to move ever forward towards independence, confident in the knowledge that her proud mama is cheering her on every step (and potty break) along the way.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Megan by Megan

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 5 Comments

August 31, 2008

Being A Mother Is Harder Than I Thought

By Melodee

My daughter is four and a half. As the youngest child and only girl in my family, she exerts her will on her brothers by crying. She sobs, weeps and screams, in fact, which punctures my eardrums and spins my head on my neck. Her brothers, ages 14, 14 and 9, cannot remember being four years old. They can’t remember being irrational or whiny or unreasonable. They demand that she act fairly, adhere to rules, and never follow them around. They accuse me of letting her get away with everything. They critique my parenting and offer me parenting tips.

They cannot get along with her. So she cries.

This dynamic is driving me nuts.

They whisper insults just to get her goat. She wails. I holler. They protest. She sobs. I lecture. They comply. She stops. Until the next time.

I am a terrible mother, no doubt about it. I thought I would be a dandy mother, a singing in the kitchen, humming under my breath, eye-crinkling, smiling at all times mother.

But then again, I thought I’d give birth to Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy and we’d embroider, play sonatas on the piano and converse in quiet tones about Papa. (In lilting British accents.) I would have been a magnificent mother to reasonable, sane, creative, gentle girls. (I would. Don’t argue with me.)

But I am the mother of whiners and kids who stink. I am the mother of children who have the temerity to point out my faults to me. I am the mother of children who sass me and question my authority on the basis of my flawed human judgment. I am the mother of boys who are digging a coffin-sized hole in my backyard, the mother of a barefoot daughter who refuses shoes outside even on forty-five degree rainy days. I am the mother of children with no interest in contemplation, meditation or quietness. And they leave wet towels and inside-out underpants on the floor.

I am a mother with chipped edges and missing parts, a mother without a map who wonders if she should retreat rather than forge ahead. I am a mother with no clue if I’m doing all right or if I am destroying my children with my temper tantrums.

Tonight I thought of that sunny afternoon in September of 1989 when my dad beckoned my sisters and me into his brown-toned living room. He sat in the rocking chair. Terror filled me because we were not a family who had family meetings or sat around chatting. This meeting must have a purpose and that purpose would be bad. I knew in my thumping heart.

The sun rays striped a horizontal pattern on the carpet. My dad took off his glasses, swiped a hand over his balding head and face. His hands were always rough, his fingertips so dry they cracked and sometimes, I’d say, “What did you do to your hand?” and he’d shrug and say, “I don’t know.” I couldn’t imagine not knowing why I bled, but now I’m a mother. My hands are dry and sometimes, I find a streak of blood and I have no idea why. I don’t even notice the pain.

He began at the beginning, describing the time he couldn’t read some writing. This puzzling event led him to the ophthalmologist, who sent him immediately to a neurologist who ordered tests which revealed a brain tumor. That news resulted in a grim prognosis: four months to two years.
Then he crumpled, broke down and sobbed. I circled his shoulders in an awkward hug–we were not a hugging family, but this news demanded a hug, even an awkward one. Some time passed while we all cried.

When we stopped, he mentioned a hidden two-pound bag of M&Ms. We tore it open and ate M&Ms in defiance of his impending death.

I wondered for the first time tonight if he wasn’t crying for himself. I don’t think he feared death at all. But as a father, did he look at us and see orphans, victims of his cancer? He knew we’d suffer the loss, that we’d be broken, that we’d have to find our way through his illness, his death, his funeral, the grieving, the unknown.

He’d miss meeting his grandchildren, reaching retirement, and pleasures of vibrant colors of autumn, Kringle at Christmas-time, hot-fudge sundaes, bratwurst you could only buy in Wisconsin. But beyond that, he was a father. Did he cry because he knew his death would cut us to the bone? Did he cry for himself? Or did he cry for us?

Almost twenty years later, I wonder.

What shocks me is how keenly I feel the loss of him the older I get. He was the guardrail, keeping me on the road, protecting me from falling off a cliff. And although I can stay on the road without a guardrail, I drive so much more carefully, I worry so much more, I fear sliding off the road. I resent the fact that my father was taken from me when he was so young, while I was so young, just when we were getting the hang of being father and daughter.

Maybe this has nothing to do with feeling feel like a substandard mother on days like today when I said too often, “Please! Go play!” and rushed to judgment instead of investigating the crying.

Being a parent is hard. I thought that my parents were just not very good at parenting, but as it turns out, they did the best they could under the circumstances. The job itself is difficult. Especially when you aren’t parenting little women, but real kids who forget to brush their teeth unless you steer them into the bathroom and point at the toothbrush.

Melodee can also be found writing at Actual Unretouched Photo.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Melodee by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 13 Comments

August 30, 2008

You Moved Us

From Stephanie-

This recent post by Partners in Prayer For Our Prodigals reveals in a heartbreaking and touching message that anyone can make a difference no matter how much others may feel they are a nobody.

From Veronica-

Country Doctor's Wife moved me to tears of laughter at her description of the challenges of raising boys. This mom of all girls felt entirely different about my messy bathroom after reading CDW's post.

From Kelly-

Susanna at Confessions of a Tired Supergirl has a wise and funny reflection on how we face "today." I've been surrounded this year by reminders to live in the moment, for it is all we have right now.

From Beck-

At The Hand Of God… heartbreaking fictionalized account of how one family did and did not cope with their child's serious medical condition.

What moved you?

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, You Moved Us by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print Comment

August 29, 2008

Sleeping Is So Overrated

By Stephanie

I type with heavy fingers that are more like thick thumbs attempting to translate my hazy mind into a comprehendable blog post. The last time I had a decent night's sleep (my definition being at least four hours in a row during the night, in my own bed, like normal people sleep) was last Thursday, I think. Or it might be the Thursday before that. Thursday just sounds familiar right now.

Last night looked promising, with a quiet house and the last kid bedded at 10 pm. My eyes were wide open and I did laundry, read a book, then finally became sleepy by 2 am. Just as I cozy up to my pillow, there are sounds of a sick child in the other room (Mom radar says: Carter. Top Bunk. Vomit.)

I leap out of bed, like Elastigirl in fast forward, one hand reaches into the bathroom to swipe a washcloth as the other hand flips on the hall light, and I am at his side. Poor baby. Bathtime. Cleanup. Sheets, pillows, blankets folded up in one big wad down to the basement laundry. Start the load and basket up the clean clothes out of the dryer. Gray wakes and giggles at the middle-of-the-night excitement. All three of us have a party watching cartoons and folding laundry. 3 am passes us by.

At morning, all are miraculously sleeping and I assess that no one will be going to school. I make the necessary call and see hubby off to work in my car as his decided not to start today. As he pulls out of the garage I reach longingly and yearn… no Starbucks…

With all three boys home, there was no window for a Mommy nap. Instead, delirium kicked in and I caught up on all the laundry, made soup, read a book, played mom, and baked pumpkin seeds. All on maybe 4 hours of sleep in the past 24 hours. If that.

I remember the sad story of another mother and I wonder if she knows all too well the midnight steamy bathroom remedy for her baby's barky cough. Or the sweet half-asleep chatter, as you kneel beside the bathtub in the middle of the night and your son says I love you Mommy and Thank you for taking care of me. The wrenching of your heart in the most tender corner, twisting with hurt for how much you'd do absolutely anything for your child to be ok. To know he's loved. And that you will always be there to take care of him.

Or the feeling that a hundred days of no sleep is worth even just one moment of this marvelous thing called Motherhood.

Originally published October 1, 2007 at Adventures In Babywearing.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Stephanie by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 7 Comments

August 28, 2008

Family Tree

By Beck

My husband and my oldest child were sitting on the kitchen floor yesterday, making corn dollies. My husband is the one to go to for any task that involves manual dexterity, and even though he came home from work very sick with a summer cold, he still patiently sat there making little heads, little arms, The Girl cheerful and industrious with him.

I read in a book, I told her, that some little pioneer children only had corn dollies for toys. She frowned, wrapping the corn bodice around her doll carefully. Where any of our families pioneers, she asked?

No, I said, not in that sense. I told her about my mother's family, who had been early settlers to this area - but that was in the late 1800s. I told her about her great-great-great grandfather, who ran away from the priesthood to Canada with only a title from his aristocratic family with him, meeting her great-great-great grandmother on the boat - but that was still of relatively recently vintage. And her daddy's family had come to New York City from Ireland. No pioneers, I said. And then I remembered - oh, my grandfather.

He vanished from our lives when I was one - not dying, but willfully removing himself away from everyone, moving away to the mountains of Arkansas. We would talk to him once a year on Christmas Day, saying awkward hellos to a complete stranger on the phone. And so my brother and I felt like we were growing up with only 3/4 of a family, that 1/4 of ourselves was missing.

He came from hardscrabble Illinois roots, coming out of deep poverty caused by his father's death - he was hit by a train - and led a life of deep and somewhat terrifying adventure. I did not know anything about his family until I got old enough to look on my own, and then I found out that they had been there for hundreds of years, that yes, they had been pioneers. Maybe some little great-great-great-great-great grandmother was happy for corn season because it meant that she could sit there on the kitchen floor, making dollies. I will never know.

Looking at that picture, I'm not even sure which one is my grandfather - he's one of the two younger standing boys, and something terrible will soon happen to him. You will run so far away, I think, looking at the little boys, at my own child's deft hands, thinking of these vanished people, the holes these absences leave forever.

Find Beck blogging at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.

Filed under 5 Minutes For Parenting, Beck by

add to kirtsy
Thanks! Kirtsy is our Favorite. :)
Permalink Print 21 Comments