Entries Tagged 'Parenting' ↓

There was a time when I was a mom home with babies, and all sorts of ideas and thoughts about the world were rolling around in my head. But I had no where to go with these thoughts. No one to share them with. No community for a thinking mom. Just diapers to change and baby vomit to wipe off the floor. And such is parenting. There would be time for thinking later.

Jump ahead to the year 2008. I was a very new blogger. I had just discovered (and started stalking) all sorts of mom bloggers and political bloggers and – gasp – political mom bloggers. One in particular rose to the top. Her name was Joanne, otherwise known online as Pundit Mom. And when she wrote, I just… got it.

That summer fate stepped in and determined my path as a blogger I very randomly won a contest through BlogHer to go to the BlogHer conference in San Francisco. It was my first overnight away from my children and I arrived there wide-eyed and ready to stalk myself some amazing bloggers. I listened intently to Lesbian Dad on a panel and pushed my way to the front to meet her. I fell off my seat laughing, tackled, and forced an introduction on Deb on the Rocks. I cried listening to and (via a couple glasses of wine) jumped in front of Moosh In Indy to tell her that she was so F-ing brave. And then, it happened. The last morning, at breakfast, Pundit Mom happened to sit down at my table. We introduced ourselves. She gave me a pin with her logo on it. Oh. My hero. That conference had officially been made.

Since then I have come to realize the power of the internet and the many super amazing smart women who live there. Pundit Mom and the Momocrats and various writers at BlogHer gave moms like me at home with their babies access to real politics happening in the moment. Before heading onto CNN to debate some topic or another, Joanne would tweet and ask what questions we had for the panel. The Momocrats would ask their readers what questions we had for Hillary Clinton before heading into a press conference. Moms, just like me with no way to be where they were, had access. And a voice.

And, since that morning over a bagel, my friendship with Joanne has grown. More conferences came. More conversations over meals. More shared ideas and ideals. More smart women, both online and off. She had a book she was writing, she said. I was thrilled for her. Could she use one of my blog posts? Oh my goodness, of course.

Honored is not even enough of a word to describe how I felt.

Joanne’s book has recently been published and in it she describes the extraordinarily influential political space women are carving out for themselves through social media, preconceived notions of women and mothering be damned. And she does it with the help of an incredible network of women she calls “Mothers of Intention”. Mothers, like me, who are not official political experts but actually, whoda thunk it, HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

This morning I opened up a PDF file from Joanne. It was the final draft of the book. My hard copy was in the mail. And there I was, amoungst these unbelievable women whom I have looked to as my conduit for change and voice and action for years. I am only one voice amongst so so many. But, once again, SHE MADE MY VOICE COUNT.

Do you see what this must mean to me? She changed my perception of motherhood. I, like a crazy woman, thought parenting meant my ideas and ability should be back-burnered. I thought you can’t parent AND think. She switched that all around and made me realize that, as a parent, I had a unique and important perspective. I had the same concerns as many mothers and we should pick them up and put them out there and get them heard, dammit. We are raising this country and that actually matters. She spelled it out quite clearly to me that mothers are kind of a big deal, even way over on Capitol Hill.

So. The book is in the mail. And I’ll be back here, of course, to freak out about it some more when I have resting here next to my laptop. Until then, check it out on Amazon. And, of course, you know… buy it. And maybe find your inner Mother of Intention. She’s in there. I swear she is.

You know what? I should not sit down to my computer, still in my work clothes, with kids yelling all around me, and throw down a post like a lump of potting clay needing to be molded into a frenziest sweat right after work.

Well. Ok, sometimes I guess I should. Because this here blog is WAY cheaper than therapy.

But really? Later on in the night, once the kids are in bed and I’ve stopped caring about the laundry… I know it’s fine. And THAT’S when I should write my post.

Or maybe after I’ve made a dozen cupcakes for my soon-to-be five year old and I feel like parenting seems a wee more under control than it did the day before. Maybe that’s a better time to write. With a nice batch of perspective sitting warmly on my plate.

Whatever.

The bottom line is that cupcakes simply make everything better.

So there.

Once you have children, going back to work is not simply just a choice. It requires a pinwheeling, interconnected number of mechanisms to all turn and spin in exactly the right direction before any parent can simply just step away from their children and go back to work.

These gears, large and small, each slotted into the other, turning in one impossible synchronized motion, have somehow come to life, and churned into motion for me. And left me impossibly grateful.

It takes so many people, at various times of the day, to make sure this entire process just somehow… goes.

It takes my children to agree to these changes, to gladly step into line and try a new, much longer, much busier routine.

It takes my husband to slide in, where I’ve stepped out, and maintain the momentum of parenting before and after I come home.

It takes random friends who help without warning, for no apparent reason, for nothing really other than simply loving my kids. The friends who bring my son home and let him watch cartoons on their couch. And the friends who find my son at school and hug him out of the blue.

It also takes new office mates. Who patiently train me and confidently slip new responsibilities over the desk to me and laugh with me and somehow, without saying a word, convince me that I am ok without my children. These people make me want to come back to work – and not run out of there, scoop up my children, and hustle back home where we were so safely before.

All of these pieces are in motion, carefully clicking and spinning through each day. And each day I come home, kick off my new heels, wrap myself around my children and think: it’s working.

Because before I had children, the only motion I had to worry about was mine. But when I had them, I could not fathom how I could make it all work again. It required too many people, too many possibilities, too much time not being with my boys. They were part of my machine, I was responsible for making them go. No one else.

But you see, as time goes on, and lives grow, and my children become more complex beings – their lives are not my life. Theirs is their own motion. And while it might be up to me to keep all all these gears in play – they run on their own accord, thank you very much. They have their lives and, it seems, I have mine.

So there you have it. This is working. Slowly. The gears slip now and then. I have to kick the rust off certain spots. And make sure the speed of each runs just so. But it is running itself. As my children, and the people they affect, fuel their own motion without my help.

Ok then. Once again. I am being reminded that I am simply along for the ride in this parenting business. And maybe I was being rediculous about worrying in the first place when mothers everywhere do this without the luxury of waiting to jump back in. I probably should have known better.

Regardless. I am truly besides myself, gasping and grateful, that this impossible mechanism of daily life for four individuals is working. It’s working! Really working, afterall.

This is what happens when you forget to take dinner out of the freezer but don’t want to deal with hoards of people at the store but your kids are starving and you need to get all kinds of MacGyver on the meat defrosting process.

Yes. Those are frozen meatballs. In a black pot. On my other oven western facing front stoop, defrosting in the surface-of-the-sun-kind-of-hot Florida afternoon.

What was I to do? The kids were starving. It’s all I could think of. Hot water was doing jack. They were too frozen to separate. So. There they went.

And here I post while I wait.

I’m betting it works fanTAStically too.

…What?

Don’t judge! Don’t tell me I’ll attract alligators or the neighbors dogs. Don’t cringe about what kind of bugs might fly into it while it sits there. I NEED TO GET DINNER READY PEOPLE. So… shush.

And bask in my Mommy McGyver mastery while my meatballs bask in the Florida sun.

So. Anyone want to come over for dinner? Thinking it will be de-lish and ready in about an hour…

This past Saturday, we arrived at baseball at 7:50am. As in 7:50am in the morning. Color me not so chipper or chatty that time of day. But early hours don’t matter to a pack of boys. And while I settled my sleepy limbs onto the metal bleachers, I watched and wondered.

My seven year old had walked up to the dug out with his baseball bag slung over his shoulder. Two or three boys were there too. Gear was dropped and they all exchanged a quick glance. Now, I’m not sure if little boys are psychic, or have some electric charge when they meet – exploding into something far greater than their own singular power – because not one second had passed before they all took off. Running, screaming, streaking by, hollering who was it and where base is.  Boys from a cross-section of schools, from varying neighborhoods, all seem to know the unwritten rules of how to run, chase, and expel that thrumming charge trapped in their limbs.

First thing in morning, or late in the evening as the street lights come on, boys do this. They meet, connect, and explode. No discussion, no concerns, no awkward name exchanges. Why bother.

Let’s. Just. Run.

And boys who actually do know each other well seem to double, maybe triple, their charge together. Add their emotional joy into that connection and stand back. The wired circuit they make crackles and pops, hugs become room-wrecking wrestles and declarations of love bubble out with yelps about who has the biggest “stinky head”.

Is it any surprise that my own energy flickers and threatens to blink out? They drain power, expand and light up the world with their moment of unharnessed, stripped down, unrelenting  force.

Boys are daunting and dazzling. Overwhelming me with their output. Almost impossible to gather up and contain.

There is no walking. Jumping, skipping, leaping, spinning and so much running. But walking? No.

Curbs can’t be left unbalanced on. Railings must be hung from. Stairs jumped off. Trash cans hidden behind. Brothers tackled. And grass, rolled in.

Still, mothers must have some vague polar attraction. Because they do follow along in a jumbled, unorganized, frenzied pack. Maybe it’s fruit snacks in our purses or promises of snuggles when no one is looking, but they still come along and attempt a roughly translated version of minding.

So when their breaker trips and their limbs finally power down in the late hours, I breathe and hope they sleep enough in preparation of another flood of current the next day. But their quiet, sleeping bodies folded into knees and elbows beneath a cool sheet keep me there. These boys, with so much potential and power, maintain my own momentum. My attempts to insulate their charge are laughable. As I abate, they surge. My negative to their positive. So we connect and move through our days – pulling, pushing and moving the other along. Our circuits are complete.

This post should really be some sappy homage to new beginnings. Because both my brother’s wife and my husband’s sister are expecting babies right now. As in this moment. (One is partly dilated and the other is in surgery for a C-section.) So exciting. So much to hold on to and celebrate about BABIES and Spring and new things and… oh yeah, me going back to work next week.

But I need to stay grounded. My wits must be kept carefully in check. I have lots to do and just getting super weepy and going via my usual route of over-thought, over-wrought utterly “enough already” will get me no where right now.

Still. My sister in law, the one who is partly dilated but not in actual active labor, is sitting home right now. And bored. She is a working mom in a pretty “wow” executive position. She is used to going constantly, on weekends too, in heels and suits with blackberry abuzz. But, thanks to a child now wedged in her birth canal, she’s had to make the decision to stay home and wait for him. It’s a big change for her.

Meanwhile, I am scrambling to get my ducks in a row to go back to work. No, I can’t pick any time for a parent teacher conference. No, I can’t pick up my child on early release day. No, I can’t offer any more volunteer hours at my son’s school. But maybe my husband can once things slow down for him?

My sister in law and I are swapping lifestyles – we are staring wide-eyed at the other and asking “how do you do it?” (Please, please, please – share some of that executive know-how and calm confidence if you could.)

But again. Let’s be cool. Let’s not get all melancholy. That helps nothing. I have all kinds of odds and ends to tie up still and only a few days to do it.

There is absolutely NO point in obsessing over the fact that my four year old has gotten into some kind of crying fit skirmish on both days of his first full week at school so far.

And nothing will come over wringing my hands about how much more clingy my seven year has become since he was sick, launching himself into my arms whenever he sees me, sneaking into my bed at night.

Nope. Let’s just not go there.

Let’s stay organized, get those last articles in, make those last couple appointments, organize my black hole of a closet, and feverishly cheer two new babies into the world…

I need to be cool. I can’t be allowing myself to feel the kind of throat clutching, heart wrenching emotion I absolutely could feel. (Because, oh my goodness, it’s right THERE.) That does nothing.

So, really. Hooray for new beginnings. This spring has many. There is so much to be grateful for! Because don’t misunderstand me. I am extraordinarily grateful. When other moms look at me like I am NUTS for going back to work, I look at them like they are nuts for not thinking I am super lucky to have this chance to GO back to work.

Me = jackpot.

But, if you know me, you know I have all kinds of writer’s mushiness hovering just under the surface. HOWEVER. If you were expecting my usual, emotional, super-drama posts oozing with sentimentality about my boys and our days together and all that we’ve had… if you were expecting that today, right now? Well.

There’s nothing to see here.

Back to my check list.

(And really, truly, I am so SO frigging excited, HOORAY for babies!)

You know how when you’re in a certain frame of mind, you keep seeing the same thing everywhere? Like spotting pregnant women when you’re trying to get pregnant or cuddling couples when you miss your sweetie? Today I saw moms battling through their days on the front lines of parenting everywhere I turned. And I realized, quite suddenly, that I wasn’t one of them. Not in a permanent, never catch a break, Chinese water torture kind of way anyway. And it sort of blew my mind.

It all started while I was waiting in a crowded waiting room. I was watching the mom across me with her baby. Usually a mom like that would see me back. We would nod and smile and ask each other how old our babies were. I kept waiting for our eyes to meet. I kept smiling at her son. She talked to the lady with the baby next to her, but me? Nothing. And that’s when I realized the deal. I didn’t have a baby with me. I was just another person, a person who probably didn’t get it anyway.

Whoa.

When my appointment was over, I jumped into my car, turned up the radio, and headed over to Barnes and Noble. I sat there amongst the stacks paging through various books. It was quiet. No rushing. Nobody tugging at me, no one verging on a melt down. I paid for my purchases and left.

But as I pushed through the doors, I saw more mothers by the fountain outside the store. Meeting, chatting, rocking their strollers back and forth, sipping coffee, disheveled, ponytails, all in it together. I walked by. I wasn’t part of this.

In Target I circled the grown-up clothes, considering office appropriate options. I looked at my leisure. But all around me, it was on. Babies screaming, children tantruming, rolling and pleading on the carpet. I saw one toddler beam his sippy cup off the floor and, while his mom scurried after it, he upended the bag of goldfish he had been snacking on. Her face – tight, colorless – said it all. But my attempts to help her were rebuffed. I was an outsider. I wasn’t in it right then. I had no diapered, sticky-chinned, napless wee one in the seat of my cart. How could I possibly understand what she was going through? How dare I consider myself part of this?

At check out, a pregnant mother searched everywhere for a gift card she had counted on to buy her kids shoes. Through her purse, through her pockets, she was frantic. And while she searched, her toddler proceeded to untie the back of her shirt while her preschooler took her searching as a cue to entirely unpack her purse. Change clinked through the holes in the cart, a lip gloss rolled under the cash register.

But I was two people back. I was not part of this. I was only an observer.

Now. Before I get all solemn and reflective here, I actually returned to the front lines only a couple hours later. My four year old, with yogurt stains on this pants and glitter in his hair, found his place by my side on the way into the grocery store after school pick-up. And he, being exhausted by his day, decided he needed a snack, water AND one of those ginormous child-friendly shopping carts that I hate with a passion crash into everything. Unable to provide him with all three, he lost his mind right there and then.

Pinwheeling arms, spitty howls, dirty tear streaked cheeks, time outs, trips to the water fountain, hugs.

And there they were all around me. The observers. The people who didn’t get it. I don’t care how many children they had once upon a time, I wasn’t about to look up at them and meet any one’s sympathetic stares. They weren’t in it right then, right there. How could they possibly understand? How dare they try.

My trips to the front lines are certainly less frequent now – and that means a very unfamiliar shift for my identity. There will be more of me, just me, finding my way through the day. And there won’t be a child erupting besides me explaining, defining who I am or what I do either . So I guess it’s my job to make sure I know how to be just me now and maybe use my new perspective to be a better parent when I do revisit the front lines.

Well, enough of these deep thoughts for this Friday afternoon. I hear my kids calling me over for a round of “Just Dance”. Before I go dust off my “running man”, I will say just this. No matter how much of me is on my own these days, those boys of mine still define an enormous part of me. It’s just that, kind of all of the sudden, they aren’t all of me.

Huh.

Like I said, mind-blowing.

Have a good weekend.

I’m writing a post that thousands and thousands of women could probably write at some point in their lives. It’s nothing new and certainly nothing particularly unique. But I know that this very emotional, fairly overwhelming however extraordinarily exciting phase in my life is one I can share with so many mothers everywhere.

I am going back to work full time.

It all happened rather quickly. I wasn’t planning to go back to work until both kids were in school full time next fall. But when I saw the job posting I knew I had to give it a shot. While I won’t go into too many details (I have this thing about keeping work stuff separate from blog stuff), I will say that it involves writing, blogs and social media.

Yeah, exactly.

So while my son battled the flu in the hospital last week, I was dipping out to interview for this position. And then I got it.

*blink*

I got it!

OK then.

So back to work I go. And here’s the part that I think any working mother could write. We could all step into this roller coaster together, strap ourselves in, look at each other nervously and retell the same dips, highs and overwhelming loops our emotions take while making a decision such as this one.

Gratitude.

I have managed to stay home with my children for 8 years. EIGHT. YEARS. While we haven’t had any much of a financial reserve, I have felt like the richest woman in the world for having had this time with them. For the hours and days and weeks and years of constant and connected little boy time, I am grateful beyond words. And rather weepy.

Exhiliaration.

I get to use my brain all day without any interruption? I get to talk to grown-ups and feel like an active, productive, useful member of society? I get to find real success doing something I like to do? *Cheering!* And weepy.

Guilt.

Not counting weekends and evenings, my time off with my children will now be limited to a certain number of hours per year. I am going to have to rely on school, aftercare, summer camps, various babysitters and my husband to pick up where I am leaving off. After eight years of putting them first and foremost in my day every day, I will have to step back. This is hard. This is life-changing. This is an enormous battle in my heart, in every mother’s heart. And this, of course, makes me very very weepy.

Hope.

Parents everywhere struggle to make the balance happen. They hope they know when to put work first and then family first. I hope I can do it right. I hope I have a steady inner scale regulating my gut to push more one way or another. I hope I know when to say no and when to say it will be fine if I’m not there. Neither will be done perfectly. I hope I can come to terms with this. And do right by everyone involved. Less weepy, more resolute.

My Turn.

Eight years of making two little boys the be all and end all of everyday can, well, kind of wear you down. It can make you forget who you are. It can erode your own self-esteem and make you wonder if you can do anything else other than skillfully hide carrots in meat sauce and do fun voices when you read stories. It’s easy to forget that you should sometimes come first. It’s hard to fathom that if you feel good about yourself, you can actually be a better mother. So I am heeding the advice of so many working mothers I know. I am prioritizing “me time”, because allowing myself a place to put my interests first WILL make me a better person and mother. (…right? RIGHT??)

Not weepy. Not at all. In fact I’m kind of relieved. And, yep, happy about that. Plus my kids are far from weepy too. They actually cheered when they found out they are going to aftercare now – you know, with all the cool kids.

“Mommy is going to work just like Daddy! JUST like a grown-up!”

Exactly. It’s time to be a grown-up.

And many thanks to my children who, as I tried to compose my “I accept” email yesterday, decided to have an all out toy-throwing, kicking and screaming, “he started it!” brawl that took two paragraphs a half hour to write. It made my decision that much easier to make. Thanks for that, boys. What would I do without you? We’ll have to see I guess.

So here we go. In a little over a week I will change my title from “Stay At Home Mom” to “Working Mom”. It will be OK though, right? (Tell me I’m right, tell me I’m right, tell me I’m right…)

Because it’s my turn.

On Monday, my son began his Spring Break at the beach.

Today, Friday, he is spending his fourth night in the hospital.

While I now know what caused all of this, I know I’ve hardly processed any of it yet (hence this here blog post). Because the kind of trauma his lungs have experienced may as well have resulted from being hit by a car. It was almost as severe and just as unexpected.

But he wasn’t hit by a car. He got the flu.

In a matter of hours, my son went from coughing the kind of cough any common cold would bring on to lying on the couch, panting for breath. By the time we got to the Doctor’s office an hour later, he had a fever. After 24 hours, many anti-biotic shots, endless nebulizer treatments and finally one chest x-ray – he had to be admitted to the hospital.

These past few days have seemed far from real life. We were told he might not get through the first night without being transferred to the ICU. There were conversations about a severe collapsed lung, tubes being shoved into his chest cavity and pneumonia. He fought his mask but, without full coverage, his oxygen levels plummeted. He whimpered constantly. He hardly moved. His color was wrong. His eyes were blood shot. His fever spiked to 103. Respiratory therapists, nurses and doctors hovered, watched, switched IV lines, upped oxygen, answered alarms, updated his charts and waited.

I took pictures but I can’t bring myself to post more than what I have here.

Yesterday, the doctor walked in with the CT scan and blood results. Yes, he had a pneumothorax which had caused his lung to collapse slightly. But he also had pneumonia and the flu.

“The flu caused all of this.” he told me.

The flu. I knew it could be serious but I never knew it would be this serious for MY children.

No, I didn’t get my boys their flu shots either. I have good reason too. And the doctors agreed with my decision.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of the world shouldn’t go ahead and get one, especially if you’ve never had an allergic reaction to it. Because a needle prick is a whole lot less horrible than all of these days and nights fighting to breathe - which is just the flu.

Mind-blowing.

The good news is that he has been fighting hard and impressing everyone with his marked improvement. While I refused to accept Dr. Google’s “life-threatening” warnings from day one, I know – I KNOW – it could have been much worse.

And you can bet I’ve been drawing parallels with this stay and my fear of the pulsox machine to his first 11 days of life in the NICU. Both times I spent my time staring at his oxygen levels. Both times I was jarred back to reality by the oximeter’s alarm. Both times I wondered how this could have happened.

But just like his first 11 days of life, my sweet boy is battling back. We WILL be released eventually, maybe even soon. This isn’t forever. This is a story I will tell someday, this is only a memory in his future about that time he was in the hospital.

And then I watch mothers follow their bald babies toddling up the hallway in balloon printed dressing gowns with IV lines in tow. I see families who know this place and greet their nurses arriving to their shifts like family members coming home. I know we could have been dealt a much harder hand.

He’s asleep now. His oxygen cannula has been turned off, his IV is only on for meds, and his pulsox is blessedly quiet. I am grateful for his improvement. I am grateful for the care he’s received. I am grateful for the fight within this very quiet, careful boy. And I am breathlessly, forever grateful that I have my son. I have him. I can unplug him and take him home and make him eat his carrots and love love love him. Life will go on and (so many silent prayers of gratitude) so will my son.

The most exciting part of my day should have been news of my early morning job interview. But it may surprise you as much as it has me that this news is not what has me utterly bowled over right now at 1am on a Tuesday night Wednesday morning. Unfortunately it was admitting my 7yo for a pneumothorax, otherwise explained to me as a slightly collapsed lung and now possible pneumonia.

For real. I know.

I’m writing this from a far too slippery fold out couch bed while my son whimpers asleep in the bed next to me. I don’t know what caused it but within 24 hours he went from a kid playing on the beach to one too weak to keep his oxygen levels up.

So somehow here we are. In the dead of night. With tubes and cords and hissing and the threat of desatting.

He has been fighting his mask.

Did you know that steroid treatments can make a kid get ragey too? In and out of sleep, mine is pissed this annoying rhino faced contraption keeps blowing hot 02 into his lungs.

Steroids or not, I don’t blame him.

He’s also feverish. And very sore from panting and panting and panting and coughing all day.

And just so sick.

I know he’s sick but the looks on all the doctors and nurses faces tell me that too.

Why am I up.

Well. He keeps knocking off his mask. That’s why.

Maybe it’s time for another trip to the nurses station for Chips Ahoy and a carton of milk. The dinner of champions.

Or to adjust his mask again before he desats.

Hissing, beeping, whispering, waiting.

How did this happen.