Before we can look forward to our New Years resolutions, it’s useful to reflect back, examining what worked and what didn’t this year. In the best case scenario, you know what to continue; at worst, you know what to stop doing. For us, we had such big changes this year that we had to learn a lot just to keep up.
Here’s what worked for us and totally failed this year in parenting. Hopefully, some our lessons learned will help you too!
Sitting around the Thanksgiving table, letting the food settle before dessert, was prime storytelling time in my family. At my aunt’s house in New Jersey, we’d cram as many chairs as we could around the table. Instead of focusing on the vastly different places family members ended up, we looked to the past. Even outside of holidays, my family often shared stories, of struggles and triumphs, of funny incidents and serious ones.
As an adult, I now see that these stories influenced my values so much more than any amount of lecturing would have. In fact, children who hear family stories about both good and bad times have more resilience in the face of difficult circumstances than those who don’t. Here are a few of my family’s stories and the values they passed on to me.
To my children,
I’m sorry. That’s really the core of what I have to say right now. I’m so, so sorry.
I’m sorry that I was crying as we snuggled in bed this morning. Sprout, when you asked me what was wrong, I said, “The really mean person was elected leader of the country.” I almost choked saying the words. They just seemed so wrong. I’m sorry that I may be crying when I put you to bed tonight.
I’m sorry that our country elected a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic bully to lead it. That this is the sort of leadership the people of the United States of America actually want to have. That someone who stands for everything that I’m trying to teach you to stand against is going to be the most powerful person in the world. That we can’t hold our future president to higher standards than I hold you.
Some moms worry what the other parents will think of them showing up at the preschool drop-off in leggings or even pajamas. But this day, ripped yellow leggings were the most normal part of my outfit. More eye-catchingly, I had a furry brown dress and giant red-tinged wig. Sure, it was Halloween. But that didn’t mean I felt self-assured at all dressed as a real-life Wild Thing, from the book Where the Wild Things Are.
We were at my older son’s preschool to march in the Halloween parade with him. As my husband, I, my kids, and my parents walked across the parking lot, I tried to hold my head high.
“You know, Shannon, you may be the only parents in costume,” my mom said.
I swallowed. “Then they just don’t have enough Halloween spirit,” I declared, my voice trembling. What if we were the only ones? What would they think of us? I figured our costumes would be the most elaborate, but what if no one else was in costume at all?
The pattern books spread across the long, white, slanted table. Spotting the orange and black tab, I grabbed it and flipped to the back. My eyes ran over the photos on each page, imagining what I would look like in each costume. My mind danced with images of spiderwebs and princesses, Renaissance ladies and mermaids. Near Halloween, I always loved going to the fabric store with my mom, where we would pick out the patterns and the fabrics for the costume she made me each year.
No matter how absurd or complicated, my mom took on my requests with aplomb. She cultivated both my imagination and love of elaborate dress-up. Now that I’m making costumes for my own children, I realize how much a labor of love all of it was.
“Stop poking your brother in the head. He’s eating,” I said through gritted teeth. It was the third time in a row I had said it. Clearly, my three-year-old was trying to get my attention. But I simply didn’t have it to give. I was in the middle of nursing his younger brother. The most I could provide him was my ears to listen and voice to speak, not the mama lap or arms he so desired.
Needless to say, that wasn’t enough.
That was only one of many, many times I’ve felt terribly split between my children.
Despite his nickname, Little Bird has always strived to be big. When he was inside me, he wouldn’t just kick, he’d stretch, his feet jamming into my organs. He arrived 3 1/2 weeks early, scrambling out into the world unexpectedly. Now he’s been with us for more than six months, a half-year full of so many changes.
When Little Bird arrived, he was a peanut, just over five pounds. As Sprout said, “He’s so teeny tiny!” Because he hadn’t gained most of the fat babies do in their last weeks in utero, his wrinkly face looked especially old-mannish.
Two years ago, I made a controversial parenting decision. On the night before my son’s first day of preschool, I chose not to make him a “first day of school” sign. For that matter, I’m not making one for his first day of kindergarten next week either.
As I said on my personal Facebook page: “I was going to make a sign for [my son] to hold on his first day of preschool tomorrow. But I fell asleep in his room while trying to get him to sleep and woke up at 10:40. And now it’s 12:30 and it’s still not done. Maybe next year!”
My friends cleverly suggested a few work-arounds. “You can do it this week and say you forgot!” or “You can use Photoshop!”
But I didn’t take a single one of them.
The artist at work.
Yesterday, we completed the Day 4 activity but I didn’t get to write about it because my children hate sleep. When I got home from work, we had a lovely time poking, smashing, smudging, and squishing leaves, weeds, and clover into finger paint. Sprout also used his fingers to create a lovely swirl of red and blue.
Day 3 of the Outdoors Family Challenge in my house almost ended as soon as it started. When I came in the door, Sprout was playing with his Duplos. I asked him, “Do you want to go outside?” To which he promptly answered, “No.” Fortunately, I wasn’t deterred and he wasn’t being terribly stubborn, so we headed outside five minutes later. The scavenger hunt (PDF) didn’t exactly go as planned, but plans never quite do with three-year-olds.