In the darkness of a child’s bedroom, I stretch my legs out, parallel to my child’s, two sets of limbs going opposite directions, complementary.
I close my eyes for a moment and remember another room, another pair of legs mirroring mine.
personal development
Why I Let My Kids See Me Cry
“You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one,” I read, sobbing by the end of the line.
Honestly, I didn’t expect to cry. I didn’t expect The Velveteen Rabbit to be one of Those Books, the ones that dissolve me into a puddle of tears.
Turning 38 at the (Seeming) End of the World
38. It’s a weird birthday, isn’t it? It says something about this birthday and year in general that I’m writing my birthday reflection post more than a week after it happened. In the past, I would have been on top of it, annoyed with myself if I didn’t have it ready the day of my birthday. But like so much this past year, my writing has been catch-is catch-can and that’s just how it’s going to be.
On Entering 2021 as a New Year
“Oh God, I can’t sing this,” I laughed, amazed at the off-key pitch I was attempting. But still, we continued. “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king,” I warbled badly, along with my husband and two kids with nothing resembling harmony.
Yet it was still beautiful. In the past, I would have done it but been embarrassed or ashamed. I would have frowned and grumped. But despite my laughing at myself, I was smiling and proud. Proud that my kids loved singing with me despite my voice. Proud that my kids hadn’t yet found that shame. Proud that I’ve so far managed to teach them to take deep pleasure in these moments together. Proud that we could be together and still enjoy each other’s company.
I can’t say that I’ve learned much from this year.
How Understanding My Brain’s Differences Helped Me Be a Better Parent
“We can listen to music or I can yell at you to stop. Which would you rather?” I said to my kids, exasperated. They were making a shit-ton of noise and I felt like my head was going to explode. Everything was just so damn loud. The music went on – we settled on Rusted Root – and everything settled down. Or at least settled down as much as my incredibly high-energy children will let it.
But this incident was a culmination of a lot of self-exploration.
Getting Comfortable with Discomfort
“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.
Embracing the Small Shifts Over Time
“Huh, I would have thought there would be fewer shadows this time of day,” I thought to myself as I ran through our neighborhood. I was running at noon, comparing it to when I often run at 2 or 3 PM. I dodged the hot sun by ducking under a tree overhanging the sidewalk.
I’ve been running this same route almost every other day since COVID-19 started. Before that, I’d been running it on Sunday afternoons, but never so often and not at different times of the day. Having it as my only chance to venture off of our property for a solid three months attuned me to the tiny changes from day to day.
I’m not usually this way. I crave novelty. I do different things every weekend, hardly ever read the same book twice, and am constantly on the move. Being stuck in the house all day feels more like a cage than coziness. The line in Hamilton about never being satisfied struck me like truth with a capital T. So at first, COVID shutting everything down was terrifying.
But I found sanity by finding novelty within small changes. The shifting of the shadows on my run, the growth of dandelions in the yard, the movement of the clouds in the sky before a storm. Each a slight shift was a new variation on a theme, beautiful in their own way.
And of course, I witnessed the small changes in my children. My older son’s penchant for coming up with his own original jokes that are getting gradually funnier and funnier. My younger son’s shift from pretending to be various baby animals to various Dungeons and Dragons monsters. (You’ve never heard of a baby Death Knight? Shame.) Both of their vocabularies getting bigger and more complex. Both of them being more able to resolve arguments with words – and when they don’t, my younger son at least being bigger and less likely to get hurt. As stressful as working from home is (and we are exceptionally lucky in that my husband is a full-time stay-at-home dad), it’s been amazing to have all of this time with them. No longer is my weekday free time with them squished into 45 minutes at best. It’s allowed me to take in these little spots of growth that build up so much over time.
I hope when all of this is over, I can maintain this newfound satisfaction. This ability to not just slow down, but embrace the new pace. To find fulfillment in the shifting of shadows and the small pleasures with my children. While I had some appreciation for those things before, the fact that it’s all we have now have given them a new weight. One I hope to find comfortable on my shoulders now and in the future.
Moving Past Blame for my Kids’ Sake
“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.
The Joys of Delayed Adulthood Milestones
A silver-gray hair flowed from the top of my head down past my ear, ending right at my shoulder. “Huh,” I said, looking in the mirror and shrugging. It’d be cool if it was eventually a skunk stripe like Rogue in X-Men or glittery like Luna Girl in PJ Masks.
Perhaps my ambivalence about gray hair seems strange, considering that women are supposed to hide any sign of aging. But there’s a sense of strange gratitude – I expected a hell of a lot more of them by now. Like many things on my 37th birthday.
Celebrating the Launch of a Book and the Birth of a Child
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.