2008 Archives
FallThis Little Light of Mine
Last night my 3-year-old son Finn’s preschool held its annual lantern walk. Finn’s teacher had explained that the preschoolers would each make their own lanterns at school and then meet at a park after dark along with their parents and siblings. We would sing songs as we walked through the trees by the light of flickering candles eventually to return to the starting point for hot cider and snacks. Everything about this appealed to me; getting my family all bundled up, the sweet lanterns, the little lights in the darkness and finally, our cold hands wrapped around warm mugs of cider. I’ll admit, I loved the lantern walk long before we lit the first tea light.
The reality was just a tiny bit less romantic. My husband arrived home just in time for me to start issuing orders for loading up coats, kids, strollers and raingear. Plus, since the walk would take place at exactly the same time as my boys’ normal dinnertime (and hunger is never our friend) I had packed extensive snacks that my husband fed to the boys over his shoulder while I drove. When we arrived at the park and I started bundling everyone up I realized that we had somehow left Finn’s coat at home. Not a great start.
Eventually we got squared away, I took a deep breath and we started the walk. It began smoothly enough and the lanterns and the paper bag luminaries that lined the path were beautiful, glinting invitingly in the darkness. Alan pushed Indy in the stroller and Finn grasped my hand firmly, clutching his glowing little lantern in the other. I smiled at Alan. We sang songs as we walked and admired the moon, glowing through the trees.
After a few minutes, however, Finn started to seem a little, well, bored. Apparently, the novelty of being at the park after dark had worn off and he was starting to get a little antsy. Up ahead, alongside the path the candle in one of the luminaries had gone out and the bag was tipped over. Finn released my hand and began working his way through the families in front of us. Suddenly, while his classmates softly sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Finn jumped up and stomped on the paper bag luminary with both of his big, muddy feet. And that’s when he really started having fun. His eyes were gleaming as he looked back over his shoulder at me and Alan as if to say, “I know that was a little naughty but it was awesome! Did you see it?!” I rushed up to him, pulled him over to the side of the path and as his classmates and their families passed I whispered at him desperately to please not do things like that. He seemed to agree and we continued on with our walk. Only he refused to hold my hand. Slowly but surely, as we walked through the darkness of the park, he inched his way away from us up towards his teacher at the front of the group. And then it happened, while I watched helplessly, Finnigan broke free of the pack and took off down the dimly lit path at a dead sprint, his little lantern swinging beside him. Even from 25 feet away I could hear his peals of laughter.
Finnigan learned to run almost as soon as he learned to walk. While other toddlers at the park hovered around their mothers’ legs Finn would take off running toward the distant baseball field without so much as a backward glance. Over the past couple of years I’ve tried everything from reason to bribes to threats and back again in an effort to control his urge to dash away from me without a thought to cars, strangers, dogs or distance. The only thing that seems to have had any effect at all, however, is the passing of time. As he’s gotten older Finn has become more reasonable and usually limits his running to more appropriate times and locations. But last night the temptation was just too great; the crazy adventure of being in the park after dark, the beautiful, smooth, paved pathway, the huge audience…
As Finn started to run I heard his teacher call out something about being happy that he was so brave but to please come back and join the group. From experience I knew that Finn was probably already out of earshot of anything but the most massive bellow. I watched for a second or two, weighing my options as his little legs pin wheeled beneath him and his gleeful laughter grew fainter. Damn. I set my own lantern carefully beside the path and took off running after him. Finn is surprisingly fast and when he realized I was chasing him both his laughter and his speed increased. When I finally caught up with him the group was a good 200 feet behind us. I had to run in front of him to cut him off and wrap my arms around him to get him to stop, “Finn, what are you doing?! We’re having the lantern walk. It isn’t a race!!” He looked at me earnestly, not even winded from his sprint and replied, “It IS a race, Mama, and I’m winning!!”
It is sometimes difficult for me, as a mother, to reconcile the way I expected things to be with the way they actually are. Learning to roll with things and recognizing that I am rarely the one in control have been important to the preservation of my sanity the past few years. Even so, I had created such a beautiful, quiet, and romantic of image in my head of the lantern walk that my first reaction to its becoming a “lantern run” was one of frustration. As I reflected upon it later, however, I was reminded (even though Finn is a boy) of the bumper sticker, “Well-behaved women rarely make history”. I, of course, want Finn to think for himself, follow his own heart and march to the beat of his own drummer, etc. etc. But I often find myself trying to rein him in when he behaves in a way that does not conform to my preconceived ideas of appropriate behavior.
When I think about it now I realize how good the cool air must have felt on Finn’s cheeks as he sprinted into the darkness. How thrilling it must have been to break free of our group and to feel his little legs beneath him, strong and fast. How daring he must have felt to hear the voices of his classmates singing “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…” fading into the darkness behind him as he dashed away.
I’m not sure, even now, how I might have handled the situation differently. There are questions of safety and listening and learning to follow directions. But there is also the reality that the way that I tell Finn to do things and the way that the world will tell Finn to do things are not necessarily the right way for him. It is the people who question supposed rules who do amazing, creative, ground-breaking and daring things. And I want Finn to be one of these people. So, perhaps next year I’ll take Finn to the lantern walk a little early so we can preface it with our own little “lantern run” because who knows? Maybe I'll like it and besides, I can’t think of anything I want more than for my little boy to let his light shine. Let it shine…
June
Something Lost, Something Found
Last week I lost my glasses. Initially, when I had trouble finding them, I wasn’t particularly worried. My two little boys find my glasses endlessly fascinating so I am forever putting them on little perches where they can’t reach them—the mantel, the top of the fridge, the kitchen windowsill, on top of the armoire… So, when I first sat at the computer and realized that my glasses weren’t sitting on my desk I wasn’t alarmed, I knew they would turn up the next time I walked through the house. But, they didn’t. Over the next two days I checked all of the usual haunts and then, as I became more desperate, I moved on to heater vents, binocular cases, dresser drawers, pillow cases, laundry baskets and bathroom cabinets. I started to feel like a crazy person, I was convinced that Finn had nestled my glasses into a very special place as he often does with his treasures for what he calls “safekeeping”. But, while I found a lot of very interesting little trinkets, the location of my glasses remained a mystery.
I haven’t always worn glasses. In fact, like my ethnicity or my eye color, I always assumed that my 20/20 vision was an integral part of who I was. It had never really occurred to me that it could change. But change it did. A few months ago my husband and I were watching a movie on DVD and during a climactic scene the main character opened a note. The camera lingered on the piece of paper for a moment and then shifted to the character’s reaction. “Hold on!” I said, pausing the movie, “I don’t get it, why was the paper blank?” My husband gave me a strange look and we backed the movie up and paused on the gleaming, blank piece of paper which my husband proceeded to read to me. I made an eye appointment the next day.
I didn’t take to my new glasses right away. It felt strange to see the frames out of my peripheral vision and it bothered me that it was now uncomfortable to read on my side in bed with my glasses digging into the side of my face. Plus, since I only needed them for reading and working on the computer, I constantly found myself getting all settled into my office to get some work done, only to realize that my glasses were still in the kitchen or upstairs beside the bed. Most disturbingly, though, I soon found that I was quickly growing dependent upon them. It wasn’t that I couldn’t read without my glasses it was just that reading was just so much easier and more pleasant when I had them on.
Getting older is weird. I mean, it seems like just when I got good and comfortable in my own skin it began to change. In addition to needing glasses I’ve recently spotted a few grey hairs and my body seems just a little more sore after workouts than it used to. As I turned the house upside down looking for my glasses, however, it occurred to me that the issue I’m really wrestling with is not my vision or grey hairs or sore knees, it’s that these things are physical symbols of the fact that I won’t always be here. I suppose the awareness of one’s own mortality is the type of thing that inspires people to climb Everest, bike across Europe or go bungee jumping. As for me, I’ve resolved to spend a little less time worrying about getting older and a lot more time playing with my two little boys.
As for my glasses, I found them a couple of days ago, right where I had left them on a shelf just out of my sightline. When I showed them to Finn he seemed almost as excited as I was, “Mommy, you found your glasses!!”. Then he gave me a high-five and we went outside to play.
May
Little Alien Energy Suckers
The women in my family sometimes affectionately call our children “energy suckers”. I like this image of my boys. I picture cheerful, brightly-colored (perhaps even polka-dotted!) little alien-types waiting for me as I skip downstairs in the morning. With their first hugs of the day they gently attach their little suction cups that work their energy sapping magic all day long. There isn’t any malice involved, they suck up the energy, and I give up the energy, everyone’s happy. Tired, but happy.
As moms, every day that we care for our children demands our physical energy for feeding, bathing, dressing, playing, entertaining, protecting, carrying and chasing our kids. Not to mention the emotional energy we invest in the admiring. My 2 ½ year old can often be heard hollering, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, watch me!” before he performs any number of stunts varying from jaw-dropping to ridiculous. I, of course, am impressed and amazed by each and every one. My sister-in-law once told me that her toddler would call out for her attention and then perform such dazzling feats as popping a Goldfish cracker into her mouth, chewing it up and swallowing it…”Ta da!.”
This desire for attention is not altogether foreign to me. I lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles in my twenties where the “look at me” sentiment was alive and well. In retrospect, my friends and I weren’t all that different from my niece gobbling her Goldfish, only instead of chomping crackers we showed off by wearing expensive shoes and sipping cocktails.
This era feels like a lifetime ago to me. If you had told me then that I would someday wear the same jeans three days in a row and a big day would be one in which I wore mascara I would have found it hard to believe. I may have even insisted that that would never be me. But having kids has shifted my priorities so completely that it no longer surprises me when I realize that I haven’t actually sat down for a meal all day or that it’s been over six months since I’ve had my eyebrows shaped.
Most of the time this is just fine by me, my job as a mom may be difficult and exhausting, but it is also joyful and rewarding. Recently, however, my husband and I had a dinner to attend with some of his colleagues from work. As I rifled through my closet looking for something to wear I realized that I hadn’t been shopping for anything for myself other than maternity clothes for over two years. As I tried on outfit after outfit I was repeatedly discouraged by clothes that either didn’t fit or were hopelessly out of style. I realized with horror that I had drifted so far out of the “look at me” stage that when I finally did find something to wear I was going to be a little embarrassed if anyone did in fact, look at me. I mean, when did I start thinking it was ok to wear running shoes for anything besides running?
When I was little I remember asking my mom on Mother’s Day why there wasn’t a “Kids’ Day”. She gave me a big kiss and a hug and said, “Because every day is Kids’ Day”. At the time I didn’t really understand what she meant but I do now.
The evening of my husband’s work dinner was a turning point for me. I woke up the next day determined to shift a bit more of my focus back onto me. I made myself appointments for a haircut, eyebrow wax and a teeth cleaning. I booked a sitter so I could go to Nordstrom sans children and I loaded the boys into the double stroller for a great power walk. A couple of weeks later my husband and I went on a date and I wore one of my new outfits. I felt great and I acknowledged consciously what I had known deep down all along; taking care of myself didn’t make me feel guilty or selfish; it made me happier, relaxed, and ultimately a better mom.
Make no mistake, I’m happy to leave my martini-swilling twenties behind and I’m delighted that I no longer wear shoes that leave my feet numb for the next two days but boy does it feel great to have some cute new tops and newly shaped eyebrows. So even though my mom was right that every day is “Kids’ Day”, I’m going to work on making a few more of them “Mom Days” too.
Happy Mother’s Day!!
April
**This Classic Thoughts on Motherhood was originally published in November 2006**
Is “The Hottest Mom in America” a Better Mother Than You?
I recently received a spam email inviting me to audition for a new television show called “The Hottest Mom in America”. At first, I thought it was kind of funny. I pictured a woman trying to put on liquid eyeliner while her two-year-old pulled at her elbow with maple syrup covered hands. I imagined her going in to find her 5 year-old using her recently-ironed dress as a cape and discovering that her shoes were missing altogether, stolen by her 7 year-old to create obstacles for his monster truck rally.
But when I realized what the show would probably really be like, I got a little cranky. I could almost hear the well-toned women with sparkling white teeth and perfect hair telling the world that they don’t understand why people think it’s so hard to have children and still turn heads at the playground.
Now, on top of keeping my 15-month-old safe, happy, well-rested, entertained and relatively clean I am supposed to be “hot”?!? After steaming around the house for awhile, my little guy woke up from his nap and somewhere in the midst of making him lunch, building castles with Legos, going for a walk, playing “spy the squirrel” and chasing him around the backyard I forgot to worry about being hot.
That evening I got to thinking about why the email had bothered me so much and I realized that it played into something that has long frustrated me about motherhood. As mothers, no matter how incredible of a job we’re doing, we still think we should be doing something better. It isn’t enough to see our children growing up happy and well-adjusted, a tiny voice in the back of our heads tells us the house should be cleaner and that we really shouldn’t let the kids watch so much Sesame Street. It tells us that now is the time they should be learning a second language and what about music class?!. While we’re on the subject, the little voice says, I can’t believe you let them eat anything that isn’t organic. What kind of mother are you?!
I think it’s time to let ourselves off the hook. In spite of silly shows like “The Hottest Mom in America”, motherhood is not a competition. At the end of the day no one is going to give you a bouquet of roses and a tiara because you manage to get your kid to 47 activities a week and still somehow get yourself to the gym every once in awhile.
The measure of our success as mothers isn’t how good we look in our jeans, the whiteness of our teeth or the flawlessness of our skin. It’s not even if the kids ate ice-cream for breakfast and spent the morning watching television because we needed a break.
So then, how can we know? What is the true measure of our maternal aptitude? I say that what makes us good moms isn’t the big stuff; our child eventually getting a full-ride to Harvard, playing professional soccer or becoming the youngest CEO in the history of CEOs. No, I think that the true measure of a mom is the things we take for granted, the things we do every day. Like taking a deep breath instead of freaking out when you discover your toddler has dumped finger nail polish on the carpet. Getting up in the middle of the night over and over and over again with sleepless kids and still eventually getting up in the morning. It’s making three different lunches for three different kids because they just can’t all agree on PB&J, Top Ramen or mac & cheese.
Let’s stop beating ourselves up for not being good enough and let’s start congratulating ourselves on the great moms that we are. And that little voice in the back of your head that likes to whisper that you could be doing it better? Ignore it. Instead, listen to the little voice that is whispering in your ear, “I love you, Mama.” It’s coming from a much better judge.
March
For the love of Barbie
I’ve always felt a little weird about buying Barbie Dolls. I’ve never found them all that offensive, but purchasing them feels like a betrayal, somehow, of the feminist students I went to college with in San Francisco. As an undergrad I heard all about Barbie’s absurd proportions, her tiny feet, her ridiculous obsession with clothes and the disastrous effect her existence had already had on millions of impressionable little girls. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago, when one of my nieces really wanted a Dancing Princess Barbie for her birthday (and I had no other ideas) that I got over my hang-up.
So, this week, with another princess-loving niece having a birthday I went in search of a special Barbie and oh, what a Barbie I found. She had long, curly brown hair, a sparkly green dress, blue high heels and, of course, a matching blue tiara. She even came with a tagalong little sister who wore her own, coordinating, age-appropriate outfit.
Now, our son, Finnigan is a great, loving 2 1/2 year old but sports are his passion, not baby dolls. The shelves full of stuffed animals in our home go completely ignored until one of his female cousins come to visit. We joke that when another child pulls down a bear or stuffed rabbit from the shelf in the living room Finnigan cocks his head and thinks, "Weird, how long has that been there?" So, it took me off guard when we returned home from playing baseball and Finn’s eyes lit up when he saw the sparkly Barbie princess and her little sister sitting on the table. All evening he carried the box around chattering about the princess and the castle that was drawn on the back of the box. My husband and I smiled at each other, shrugging at this new interest. Finn kept asking to open the box and we explained, over and over again that this was a gift for his cousin, he was just borrowing it until we wrapped it up and sent it to her. When Finn’s interest continued through the next morning, however, I finally gave in and let him open the box. “Ooh, beautiful princess,” he said, stroking her long, brunette locks.
Watching Finn play lovingly with his Barbie who he named “Princess” and her little sister who he calls “Jenna” has brought me face-to-face with my own feelings and expectations about kids, toys and gender roles. It has been heart-warming for me to see my sporty son showing such a tender interest in a type of toy that has, up until now, gone largely ignored.
Over the past few days, however, something has been nagging at me. While I may not entirely agree that Barbie is bad for little girls, the idea was easy for me to accept. Yet, when my son started playing with Barbie I considered it a manifestation of his sensitive, loving nature. Why the double standard? I mean, if Barbie has such a disastrous effect on the self-images of little girls, will it have a similarly disastrous effect on my son's image of women? Will playing with “Princess” make him expect all women to have her unrealistic physical proportions? Will it make him disrespectful of women? Will he someday find women with large feet unattractive? Should we make Princess disappear now before she does irreparable damage to our sweet 2 ½ year old?
These questions seem absurd to me. I am certain that Finn will form his ideas about women by watching me and the other the influential women in his life; his grandmas & aunties, every single one of whom is smart, thoughtful, strong, loving and yes, beautiful. Toys are important and I respect their role in our children’s lives but I think that the way we interact with our kids and who we surround them with is far more important than if they make guns out of sticks or spend hours playing dress-up with their Barbies whether they are boys or girls.
This morning as I mulled over the new presence of Barbie in our lives, Finnigan brought Princess over and asked me to take off her dress. This seemed a little strange to me so I explained that if we took off her dress that Princess might get cold. Finn then carefully showed me how his Barbie’s leg gets stuck when she kicks with her dress on. "I see," I said, "why is she kicking?" Because, Finn explained, Princess wants to play soccer.
And with that I knew, Barbie stays.
February
Sure, the kid’s having fun, but what about me?!
Last weekend it occurred to me that I hadn’t spent any time alone with Finn, our 2 ½ year-old, since our second son, Indiana, was born 5 months ago. So, with my husband home to care for Indy I decided to decided to take Finn swimming.
I had never swam in the pool I was taking Finn to but chose it because it boasts a zero entry kids’ “leisure pool” complete with a 2-story slide, current channel and huge, spraying, interactive play feature.
Following a two-hour process that included packing a bag, getting Finn and myself ready, convincing Finn to get in the car, driving to the community center, finding parking, standing in line and getting the two of us changed into swim gear we finally walked out onto the deck of the pool. As Finnigan’s little hand clutched mine it suddenly occurred to me that this might be a disaster. Two-year-olds are unpredictable little beings and I worried that Finn was about to balk at getting into the water and that our grand day out might soon come to an abrupt end.
To my amazement, Finn trotted right up to the edge of the pool and I had to grab him around the waist to keep him from jumping in without me. I hopped in and he leapt into my arms, his eyes absolutely sparkling. I took him to ride the current and then to play in the spraying water feature and life was pretty darn good. The water was warm, there were laughing kids everywhere and Finn was having a blast.
And then he spotted the slide.
The Mt. Scott Community Center water slide is a bright yellow, half-tube that originates from a height about two stories above the water. Riders climb a long flight of stairs, sit down in the rushing water at the top of the slide and wait for the lifeguard stationed there to give them a thumbs-up. Once the lifeguard has given them the go-ahead, riders push off and speed down around a series of watery turns before shooting into the pool far below.
With wide eyes Finn watched as a little girl came bursting out of the bottom of the slide and landed in the water with an enormous splash. Finnigan turned to me with a look of pure wonder that something so amazing could actually exist, “Slide?” he asked hopefully.
I couldn’t imagine that they would allow a toddler to ride so I was amazed and more than a little relieved to discover that small children were allowed to ride on an adult’s lap.
The first time we climbed the long flight of stairs to the top of the slide I expected Finn to show a little trepidation. I even wondered if he might change his mind when he looked down and realized how high we really were. Instead, he hustled right over to the top of the slide with fearless enthusiasm and plopped down on my lap. Our first trip down was a little harrowing for me as we zipped around the corners, gaining speed as we went. I held Finn to me tightly and had no idea what would happen when we reached the bottom. When we finally burst out into the pool I did my best to keep Finn’s head from going under but he still ended up with a healthy face full of water. I cringed and was about to comfort him when he turned to me, water streaming down his joyful face, “More slide?”
He and I spent the next hour and a half speeding down the water slide and then dashing back up the stairs to ride it again. At some point I suddenly realized that I was having fun.
I have spent a great deal of time over the past couple of years in various baby and toddler-oriented germ factories reminding myself how much fun Finn is having. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the Children’s Museum or Indoor Park or The Science Playground, but, let’s face it, I probably wouldn’t hang out there if I didn’t have a toddler.
As Finn and I zipped down the slide together it occurred to me that for a long time I have been doing thing with Finnigan that he enjoys and then carving out separate time for myself to do the things that I enjoy. But here suddenly, the two worlds had intersected and I could suddenly see the future of our family in an entirely new way. For the first time I could imagine the four of us doing things together—sports, hiking, playing at the beach, camping, surfing, watching movies—and all of us having a great time, not just the kids. This realization made me so excited to see what the coming years will bring and, I’ll admit, made it a heckuva lot easier to schlep off, yet again, to indoor park in the morning.
