Top 3 Things I Loved About Today

#3 Thing I Loved:  I got to pull garlic mustard for an hour at Crosby Farm Park, uninterrupted, by myself.  You know you're hard up for uninterrupted time to do something when weed-pulling becomes bliss simply because you get to do it straight through for a whole hour without having to stop.  Confession:  In some ways I actually love being hard up for time in this way.  It fosters much more joy and appreciation than having too much time all to myself.

#2 Thing I Loved:  I actually think I've finished revising Part 1 of my book, at least for now (I expect ripple effect changes in all the book's sections as I move forward with revision), and I'm actually ready to move in to working on Part 2.  My goal was to finish work on Part 1 by May 20, so yahoo for coming pretty darn close to that deadline.  Today I also realized definitively that I want to use a non-chronological narrative because I noticed how much the energy in the book picked up as I started to describe Bridger as a verbal toddler and young child rather than just as a baby making my life miserable with his sleeplessness and incessant nursing.  I want to make sure to weave in scenes of my kids as older children alongside the baby stuff.  I hadn't known that I wanted to do that until today, and the discovery was exciting.

And number 1:  

I was lecturing Cass a bit about something this morning, I can't remember what.  She started to put her hands over her ears, but then she looked up at me instead, dropped her hands, and said, "Mama, I don't like you talking, but I love you."

Ah, my fabulous little girl.  Thank you for that.

What, Me Worry?

I have so much stored up I wanted to talk about from our trip, and Brian's outside with the kids, so I thought I'd grab a moment to write a second post today about visiting my mom.

While I was getting ready for the trip and worrying so much about how the kids would behave around my mom and what she would think of my parenting, it struck me that if I could sum up my one main problem with my mom, it would be, "She worries too much."  As a kid, I felt that somehow she thought I was never going to turn out right, that I wasn't going to be able to "function in the real world," to quote one of her oft-used phrases, in part because she worried about me so damn much. Once I had children, she worried about them and how I was raising them:  I was going to smoosh Bridger when we slept with him as a baby; I was making him too dependent on me because I carried him so much; I was going to tire myself out by giving so much to my kids (well, she was right on that last one, but all her worrying didn't actually prevent it from happening).  

I think my mother genuinely believes that worry is a measure of love; that of course a mother worries about her children.  But I have a worry of my own:  I believe when we mothers worry so much about our kids, we are sending them all sorts of messages, nonverbal and verbal, that don't help our kids to see themselves as capable and that don't help them learn to trust that things will usually work out all right in the end--or that they have what it takes to cope when things don't work out.  We also end up inadvertently insinuating ourselves in their heads as an undermining, fretful voice of doubt rather than an uplifting vote of confidence. 

I've been thinking about the idea of worry a lot in part because of a post about worry from one of my favorite bloggers, Tammy Takahashi.  She was writing about homeschooling, but I think what she has to say applies to anyone.  

"Worried you aren't doing enough?" she writes.  "You're giving up your power.  By worrying whether you are doing enough, you are saying, 'I'm powerless to control this thing.'. . . If you want back your power, don't worry about things, think about them."

There are all sorts of things I worry about in our homeschooling.  I worry that we don't get enough exercise and time outdoors, for instance.  I worry when Bridger is so hard on himself when he makes a mistake.  I worry that I'm not getting Cassidy together for one-on-one playdates with other little girls her age as much as she might like, and that I'm not giving her enough chances to do the crafty, artsy things I think she enjoys.  But when I shift to thinking instead of worrying, I stop going into defeatist mode and start looking for small steps I can take to help my children.  I stop fretting about failing and measuring up and tune in instead to what might actually work for us, right now, as we are.

 

Trip Report, Part 1

On the way down to my mom's place in Southern Illinois, we stopped at Lincoln's tomb in Springfield.  The monument is just right--not too showy or ornate, as suits a humble fellow such as Lincoln, but dignified, as befits his accomplishments. I was talking to a tour guide about reading "Team of Rivals" and how much more love and respect I felt for Lincoln now. He asked where I was from, and when I told him Minnesota, he pointed out that there was marble from Mankato, MN in the monument. I was touched--he really wanted to find a way to let me feel connected. In front of the monument there's a bronze bust of Lincoln based on his Mt. Rushmore head, and my mom told me afterwards that it's customary to rub his nose for good luck. Wish I would have known. He would have loved that custom, I think.

At my mom's place, I'd say the big highlight for the kids was going to the Bonifest, the annual beginning of summer carnival at my old church, St. Boniface. There were lots of inflatable bouncy things to play on, Grandma generously kept buying tickets, and Bridger and Cass totally wore themselves out--that night was the first time they both slept through the night since, oh, I don't know, Cass's birth three-and-a-half years ago. We also got to see my sister's ex-boyfriend's cover band play at the fest, and Cassidy busted some seriously funky moves to "867-5309" and that old Steve Miller song about being a joker, a smoker, and a midnight toker. It was fun to be at the Bonifest as a mother, watching the teenagers roam around looking for their crush objects, remembering being in their shoes.

I'd said in my last post that I was hoping to connect more with my son Bridger while we were traveling, and some really nice things did happen with him while we were at my mom's house.

One day he got frustrated because my mom had brought out a wooden 3-D airplane puzzle for Bridger to put together and it turned out to be very confusing and hard to do, especially because it was late afternoon, not the best time concentration-wise for Bridger.

Bridger declared the puzzle impossible and stomped off in a huff to find me--I was hiding in my mom's study looking something up on her computer.

"We should just throw that dumb thing in the trash!" he declared.

I paused. I think he expected me to say something along the lines of "We can't throw the puzzle in the trash." But instead I said, "Wouldn't you rather have a flamethrower? It's wood, isn't it? So you could really get rid of it if you burned it."

I treasure the look he got on his face--of wonder-filled surprise and relief.

"Or an incinerator," he said. "Or a laser gun."

In the end, we decided to just put the puzzle away in case another grandchild wanted to do it, and Bridger was able to let go of his frustration pretty easily.

Another day, Bridger bumped his head on a table trying to get away from my mom kissing him on the neck. He got very upset and was crying and yelling up a storm. I took him in the spare room and held him. He started yelling, "Let's leave Grandma's house and never come back!"

I could imagine how hurt my mom might feel about those words. But I could also sympathize with Bridger.  So I didn't silence him with talk about how Grandma might feel about him yelling that (albeit in another room). I tried to do active listening--to say "You really don't want to be here. It's hard to be away from home" and so on. Eventually he got up and went outside to sit in the van, still insisting calmly but firmly that we were going home now and never coming back. I asked him if he'd take a bike ride with me instead, and he said, "Why not?", his new phrase for "Yes." I walked beside him while he pedalled. I didn't talk much--unusual for me--or try to draw him out more. I tried to let the silence, the time outside, the exercise and just being together, be enough. And it was. He stopped talking about wanting to leave. He seemed to feel better, and he ended up having a very good visit with his grandma and my stepdad Steve.

In the past, I have gotten really rattled and self-conscious when Bridger gets frustrated or emotional around my mom.  This time, I just didn't feel as self-conscious.  I felt more trust that Bridger is finding his way, and that it's good that he still expresses strong emotion when he feels it. He hasn't learned the self-destructive habit of silencing his strong reactions to please other people, but at the same time he is learning to modulate his responses so that he doesn't hurt others with his anger.  What more could I ask for from a six-year-old boy?  From this particular six-year-old boy?

I also viewed my mom's responses in a different light.  Before, when she frowned and wouldn't look me in the eye when the kids got upset, I assumed her response was disapproval and judgment.  More and more, I suspect she's just distressed to see me and the kids having a hard time and afraid of saying the wrong thing.  I can be very prickly with her when she responds to the kids or me in what I think is the "wrong" way.  So I found myself trying not to assume so much about what she was thinking, realizing that deep down I really didn't know.  That helped me feel calmer around her.

As I mentioned in my last post, right before we left on our trip, I talked to Scott Noelle, a parenting coach that many of you might know about. We talked about my trouble with knowing what I genuinely feel and believe, without it being all mixed up with what I think I'm supposed to feel and believe. This last week, I really worked on checking in with myself more to ask "What do I actually feel right now?" instead of going down the road of "What do I think my mom is feeling about this, and how do I feel about myself as a result?" 

It's probably going to take me a lifetime to unlearn the habit of stifling my own intuition to suit other people. I am hoping that if I can learn to listen to my own children without so much judgment, without jumping so often to impose my point-of-view, that they will have an easier time than I do answering the question, "What do I truly believe?"  And if that isn't possible, given their own particular combinations of upbringing, temperament, genetics, and experience, well, I hope that if nothing else I can be a positive, encouraging voice in their heads as they sort things out.

Tomorrow We Hit the Road

I have been such a mess getting ready for this road trip to visit my mom.  I think I really started to spin out on Mother's Day.  That was the day Bridger had a complete hissy fit after I told him he needed to wash his black, grimy feet before he went to bed.  He screamed at me and slapped my upper thigh--while I was on the phone with my mother.  I was mortified.  I started seeing my children's and my every move through the worst possible hypothetical judgments I could plant in my mother's head--and she hadn't even said a word.  It was all in my imagination, and it was driving me nuts.

Things finally got so bad that I did something sort of cheesy and embarrassing but ultimately helpful.  I called a parenting coach!  (Yes, Scott Noelle, in case you're wondering.  Who else would a gal like me call?) I needed to talk to someone completely outside the situation, and it did the trick--I feel ready to roll.  I am excited to drive down the river road, a landscape that always inspires me.  I'm excited to visit the Maple City Candy Company in Monmouth, IL and try another slice of their banana cream pie with meringue a good two inches high.  I'm looking forward to seeing my mother and practicing some of the deep listening I've been talking about in some of my recent posts.  I'm looking forward to spending more time with my dear son, who I think is struggling lately, though I'm not sure exactly with what.

And I'm excited to ride bikes with my kids through my hometown, Edwardsville, IL, to check out the farmer's market there, to have a coffee at the artsy local coffee shop on Main Street.  I used to think Edwardsville was such a boring place.  Now I go back and think, "What a nice place this would be to raise kids."  Funny how that works.

"Traveling mercies," a neighbor of mine signed off on the phone tonight after she heard about our road trip.  She's a political activist and minister, prone to ending conversations with phrases like "Peace to you," but somehow she never makes it sound sanctimonious.  It always feels to me the way it feels when a good massage therapist lays her hands on you, firmly and thoughtfully and with great attentiveness, at the end of a massage.

"Traveling mercies" to me and my family, indeed.  I'll try to post and let you know how it's all going.

The Canary Sings

A few days ago, my daughter asked me, "Mama, why are you so mean lately?" I crouched down to look her in the eyes and asked what I'd been doing that felt mean.  "You don't play with us very much," she told me. 

You know the old saying about the canary in the coal mine?  That, I thought, was a canary singing if I ever heard one.  A canary breathing in too many toxic fumes of busyness and anxiety.

What's been happening?  Well, we're getting ready to travel to my mom's house for one thing, and road trips always throw me into a state of anxiety, even though I love them once I'm on the road.  I get very nervous about the disruption in our routine and distracted by all the preparations and last-minute things to take care of.  

I also think I've been feeling more doubtful than usual about our unschooly, playful approach to learning--probably in part because I often feel self-conscious about how the kids and I are learning when I'm around my mom, and I've started to anticipate that clutched-up, nervous feeling.  When the kids seem especially demanding and needy, I tend to get stuck in a rut of self-doubt.  If only I'd taken a more Waldorfy approach early on and encouraged them not to rely on me so much as a playmate! I agonize.  If only we took a more structured, scheduled approach, I wouldn't get so distracted by my own to-dos that I forget to spend intentional, thoughtful time with my kids!

As you can imagine, none of this mental hand-wringing does much good for my kids or me.

To stop feeling quite so distracted and consequently, "mean," as Cassidy put it, I decided to cut way back on my email and Internet use this last week so I could focus more on the kids and on the flow of our life.  Instead of running to the computer every time I thought of someone else I needed to contact or something I wanted to look up, I wrote down a reminder note, and then I sat down--just once, right after lunch, and did all the to-dos in one batch while the kids had their quiet time.  

It made an amazing difference.  Throughout the day, I did feel pulled, like an alcoholic thinking of a stash of booze, toward that computer.  But I tried to just notice the thought and move on.  

I also tried the same technique of noting things down on paper when I had a negative, critical thought about one or both of the kids or my own parenting.  Then, at the end of the day, I examined those thoughts using Byron Katie's "The Work" method of inquiry, asking if the thoughts were really true, looking at how I felt when I believed those thoughts, and so on.  Very helpful, and the kids were spared my unnecessary and unkind critical rants that way.

Yesterday we went in the back yard to read some books, and Bridger decided he wanted to build a cozy reading shelter within our wooden play structure.  He got some tape, fun noodles and a tablecloth to make a canopy underneath the roof of the play structure.  I contributed some rubber bands and bungee cords when the tape didn't hold.  We got underneath and it felt very sheltered and cozy.  But it was missing something. I went inside and got some soft sleeping bags, pillows, and some snacks and water.  

I spread the bags out and Bridger climbed in, snuggled down, and declared, "This is too nice to be true!  It must be a dream!"  And then we read in our little shelter and munched crackers and raisins.  We cuddled.  We lay down and felt the breeze and smelled the new pink blossoms on the trees.

My aim?  More afternoons like that.  Fewer afternoons so consumed by emails and to-dos that I forget what I really want my life to be about.

Garlic Mustard Pledge to Pull Kick-Off=Big Fun

Tonight I attended a volunteer event to kick off the Friends of the Mississippi River's Pledge to Pull effort for the month of May.  The group is working to empower regular folks to pull garlic mustard at Crosby Farm Park, a wooded river park and major migratory bird stopover in St. Paul. 

Garlic mustard, for those of you not in the know (and I was one of you up until last year), is an invasive, non-native species of leafy green flowering plant originally brought over by European settlers for food.  In its normal range, garlic mustard plays a valuable role.  But here in St. Paul, deer won't eat it, our local butterfly caterpillars won't eat it, and it doesn't play nicely with the native plants.

The nice thing about garlic mustard, though, is that it's easy to identify and pick, and it's edible.  Karen Solas, the river stewardship coordinator who ran tonight's event, even brought recipes--garlic mustard salsa anyone?  Tossed salad with smoked salmon, French sorrel, and garlic mustard?  I'm hoping to try some of these recipes.  Next time I pull garlic mustard (I'm committed to 6 more hours this month), I'll take a small container to bring some home.  I just knew Brian would roll his eyes if I brought home a trash bag of weeds and tried to pass it off as a viable gustatory option.

Tonight's event was so lovely.  Two families from our homeschooling/unschooling group were there, including Monique, a super-volunteer for the river who's only three weeks or so away from giving birth to her second child, and Jenni, who took breaks to nurse her five-month-old on the river bank while her husband watched their older two kids.  It was wonderful to work while the kids climbed on logs, threw rocks in the Mississippi, explored a cave, and even did a little weed-pulling, too, all the while noisily, happily chatting and laughing away.  Our homeschooling group has been meeting regularly at Crosby Farm Park this spring, so it felt good to take care of the park a bit in return. 

While I pulled, I got in a little friendly conversation, both with the folks I knew and the ones I didn't, but I found that much of the time I just wanted to work quietly, focusing on one plant at a time, one small patch of woods, noticing the variation in size of the plants, length of roots, stage of flowering.  All around me was the contented hum of nature-loving Minnesotans, finally getting their hands in the dirt and seeing green leaves again after the long winter.  

As the event ended, the sky was turning gorgeous shades of pink, and the setting sun lit the trees across the river gold.  We carried away many bags of garlic mustard and left much more still waiting to be pulled.

I once heard a Jewish saying that has really stuck with me over the years:  "You can't do everything.  But that doesn't mean you can do nothing."  There are many times when I feel overwhelmed by the impossibility of the world turning out to be a good place for my children.  Other times, like tonight, I feel that no matter what happens, it is always worthwhile to get down in the dirt with other people and help make room for good things to grow.

For more about the Friends of the Mississippi River and its activities, you can go to

http://www.fmr.org/

Cool Things My Kids and I Have Learned From the Brothers Grimm

As I've written about previously, we have a nightly ritual of telling a story from Grimms or another source of old tales in bed after the lights are out.  Lately I've really been appreciating the stories that Walt Disney never made into paeans to female passivity.  Stories like "The Prince and the Princess," in which a kind-hearted, magical princess saves her beloved from death and capture six different times and wins his hand in marriage only after making her way in the world as a miller's assistant.  Or Hans Christian Andersen's "Wild Swans," in which a young woman endures hardship with courage and perseverance in order to free her eleven brothers from a curse. 

And there are also wonderful male heroes, too, like the basket-maker's apprentice in the story "The Three Wishes" who gives up his three fairy-granted wishes to make other people happy and healthy--and then he ends up getting the three things he would have wished for anyway, just not in the way he expected.  

I've noticed a few common lessons and themes in many of the stories:

1.  If a character is introduced who is derided by his family and the other townsfolk as a blockhead, he will be the one to perform heroic deeds, marry the princess, and some day rule the kingdom wisely and well.  

2.  A wish made with other people's welfare in mind usually turns out much, much better than a wish made thinking only of one's self.

3.  What looks like bad luck often turns to good luck.

4.  What looks like good luck often turns to bad luck.

5.  Happiness requires venturing into the unknown, enduring crushing setbacks and obstacles, and taking enormous risks.

The other day at the kitchen table, Cassidy stated that she wanted to be a princess when she grew up.  She, Bridger, and I started brainstorming the best ways for her to become a fairy-tale princess.  She could fall into a magical coma; she could disguise herself as a humble servant but be on the look-out for a fairy godmother. 

"But the main way to become a princess," Bridger pointed out, "is to be enchanting at a ball."

I spent so many years of my life thinking if only a guy loved me, my life would begin.  Then, later, I thought my life hadn't really begun, or at least wasn't a real "adult" life, because I hadn't accomplished the things I thought I should have accomplished. 

My hope for Cassidy?  That she recognizes her own sovereignty from the very beginning, without waiting for anyone to hand power to her, without waiting for some outside marker to tell her "Now you've arrived."