“Hold it! Hold it!” my prenatal yoga teacher encouraged the class as we all struggled to keep our backs to the wall and our knees bent. Those three minute wall sits felt like an hour. But they weren’t meant to be easy. They were meant to teach us how to okay with being uncomfortable.
13
“I saved your life! I should be able to choose for just one day,” my seven year old declared.
He had a point.
“Just let me take care of you!” I yelled at my four year old as I chased him around our beanbag chairs. I was trying to get him to let me put a cold-pack on his forehead, which was rapidly developing quite the goose egg.
The end of summer sun filters through the needles of the big pine tree, throwing shadows on the green weeds in front of me. The cicadas trill out, calling to each other in their waning days. The clear sky spreads overhead, stretching out to the autumn season so close that you can taste it in the cooling air.
“Did you ask if you could splash him? You need to ask first,” I insisted.
“It doesn’t really matter whose fault it actually is, we need to clean it up together,” I said to my kids, talking about some mess or another. I heard those words come out of my mouth as if I actually believed them. But I did really want to believe them.
I am a blame monster. If there’s blame to put on someone – even myself – I am on the case. I used to think that if you could blame someone for a problem, they would learn their lesson and not do it again.
Problem solved, right? Uh, no.
Writing a book is a lot like birthing a baby. Both require huge amounts of work to bring into the world. Both have unending unpredictabilities and surprises. Both are deep works of love.
And today, I’m celebrating both. It’s my book release day for Growing Sustainable Together: Practical Resources for Raising Kind, Engaged Resilient Children and the anniversary of my older son’s birth.
“I’m laughing cause I read that book. She’s 14 now and she’s okay,” a woman commented to me. She gestured at the book in my hand, an advice book about parenting challenging kids. Absorbed in my own thoughts, it took a second to realize she was even talking to me.