Tag Archives: parenting

Mother’s Day.

12 Sunday May 2013

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elevator

[ Most recent pic of me & The Whuff. Yep. Blurry elevator self portrait with iPhone. Keeping it real. ]

I’m writing this from my couch this morning, where I am trying valiantly not too cough too loud. Paulo and I both have chest colds this week and my seal bark of a cough (which Nuno says actually sounds like “the cough of a dying homeless dog” which, thanks) frightens him. He’s not here right now – he’s in his crib due to some tantrum issues and we’re all having a moment of quiet time before going back for round two. In any case, it’s a small apartment and the sound carries and I’m trying really, really hard to keep the barking to a minimum.

It’s really the most maternal way to spend Mother’s Day. Up at 6AM with a crying, coughing tot to try and distract him with Pingu so that his father can sleep in a little longer (Oh yes, Nuno is still sleeping. This is actually in my own self-interest as the later I let him sleep, the longer I get to take a nap when he does get up for the Whuffle Hand Off.) – sitting together on the couch, having his Stinkiest Bear pressed in my face, and trying not to cough because I don’t want him to get scared.

[ COUGH. ]

When people talk about motherhood being “hard,” often what’s understood is the day in day out general tedium and drudgery of constant small human maintenance. And yes, that’s tough, but it’s not the end of the world. The 24/7 relentlessness is certainly a very different dynamic from having a difficult job from which you can then go home at the end of the day, but really – this is not the hardest part of motherhood, to me.

What’s hard about motherhood is that it puts you in touch of every. single. aspect. of being a human – whether you like it or not, there you are. Plunged into the deep end of the human experience and you’d best start swimming as there’s nothing here to cling to. In motherhood, I’ve felt the most anger and seething rage – wrapped up in loving a person more than I do the air I breathe. It’s every emotion all at once. It’s the adrenaline rush of picking up your sick child even though you yourself were lying on the bathroom floor not half an hour ago, and not even caring that you now have vomit in your ear, or even realizing how bad you yourself feel until the child is soothed and you are once again released from the hormone rush back into your normal human form.

It’s holding a sick kiddo to your chest when you yourself have been up hacking and sputtering for hours and trying not to cough. You still feel your own sickness just as acutely, but the empathy you feel for that little person who can’t comprehend that mama has lungs that are all clogged up too, rises above it. Trying to balance finding your own cough syrup with finding the sippy cups and leaving the couch long enough to make some tea while being available enough to maintain constant contact at all times. The balance is always there, even when it’s not as amplified as it is when managing illnesses, but that balance between maintaining your own self as a person and inhabiting motherhood – that’s hard.

It’s hard to find out that there are parts of yourself you don’t really like. That there are emotions swirling inside of you that you’re not proud of, that you didn’t know you were capable of. It’s also hard to be so engulfed with love for another human being that you feel slightly guilty that they were ever born because being born means you’ll die someday. It’s hard to care so much about someone that you wish that you could have their stomach flus for them.

And this is where, in the great formula of blog posts, I wrap it all up by saying “it’s so worth it.” And it is. And it’s great. And yes, the greatness is directly correlated to the difficulty level. I wanted a child for so many years before I had one that I tried to temper my enthusiasm a bit – so that I wouldn’t be disappointed if motherhood wasn’t “all that.” (AM I SCANDINAVIAN OR WHAT.) I still look at Paulo and can’t believe that he’s real, that he’s here, that I had a hand in creating a whole person. He babbles or signs “mama” and I can’t believe it’s really me.

Someone else will have to take over and provide you with some sort of cunning conclusion because now, our quiet time is over and I have to go and snuggle and soothe and play trucks and not cough.

Baby Sign Resources.

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Before the Recent Unpleasantness, I wrote a quick FAQ about our experience with Baby Sign. As I mentioned, I learned most of the sign I know from speech therapists while on the job with speech delayed toddlers. I have also used a number of resources with Paulo, which may come in handy for other parents/childcare providers who are interested in adding sign to their communication techniques.

Apps

babysignandlearn

Baby Sign and Learn: I didn’t really like this one. The animations are cute and if Paulo had liked playing with it, it might have been more useful. However it wasn’t interesting enough to hold his attention. The chubby baby hands on the animation weren’t really clear enough for me – I could get an idea of the sign and some are certainly simple enough to pick up, but I much prefer seeing actual hands.

babysignasl

Baby Sign (ASL): I refer to this one all the time. Constantly. If I need a new word (such as being on a farm and suddenly needing to know the sign for “sheep”), this is the app I turn to. The dictionary contains most vocabulary words that a toddler would use. I picked up the previously linked app first, didn’t like, downloaded this one and haven’t needed another since. Highly recommended.

Books

teach_baby_sign_fnl

Teach Your Baby to Sign: This is the only book I’ve read and I ditched it quickly as I prefer to see videos of signs rather than still illustrations. I thought it would be helpful, but I ended up looking up videos of signs that the book was describing and realized that no, not helpful for me at all. Didn’t bother with another book. If we were in an age where I couldn’t download apps to my phone, maybe I would find it more valuable but here in the FUTURE! not so much. (The introduction where Monica Beyer discusses the value of baby sign is indeed useful, but I wouldn’t recommend buying the book for the sign illustrations themselves.) ASL is a dynamic language – I’ve found books to be as useful as trying to learn any foreign language simply by reading a dictionary without ever experiencing the words being spoken.

Video

babysigningtime

Baby Signing Time: I can’t say enough good things about this program. If you are only going to use one resource, use this one. And even if you use sign everyday, if you’re ok with your toddler watching a half hour of TV, get this. We bought this for Paulo when he was at a point where he was getting so frustrated with his inability to communicate that he was throwing serious tantrums. I’d been using sign with him since he was six months old, but he wasn’t picking up new signs very quickly. I didn’t know if he’d like this or not, so I just started with volume one…

… And now he’s hooked. He asks for it specifically. Within a few weeks, he was coming up to me and signing “Signing Time.” His signing vocabulary has skyrocketed. He signs at least five times as many words independently as he did before watching the videos and will sign even more words when prompted. It seems like each day he picks up a new sign. His communication has improved drastically and with it, his tantrums have decreased both in frequency and severity. Just tonight, he specifically asked for a bath by signing “bath please!” There’s something about seeing other children signing that helps him pick it up where just seeing me do it wasn’t enough. Nuno was skeptical, but has found that if he uses signs from the videos that Paulo understands him and can sign back what he wants better than trying to follow spoken directions alone.

(And yes, his spoken vocabulary is improving as well by leaps and bounds. The signs help build vocabulary and increase his confidence and communication abilities while his spoken language skills develop.)

The only, ONLY drawback to this is that the songs – to adults – are awful. The worst kind of earworms. I go around with one or another of the songs stuck in my head at all times. It’s bad. Really, really bad. But Paulo loves it, so it’s worth the (literal) headache for me.

No one is paying me to say this, I really and truly can’t recommend this enough. Bad songs and all.

Nerding: I Read/He Reads.

31 Thursday Jan 2013

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238850I Read: Momma Zen 

Are you a parent? Are you (or your partner) pregnant, or otherwise on the impending path to parenthood? GO AND OBTAIN THIS BOOK NOW OK. I may thrust it at every parent I know the next time I have a gift giving occasion. Or not. I may just shower the parents in my life with this and they may roll their eyes at me and never read it and that’s really ok because I’m just so glad that this book exists.

Note: while I got a lot out of this book because I’m a Buddhist*, you absolutely do not need to be a Buddhist to read this and identify with the experiences Karen Maezen Miller talks about. Turns out motherhood is the same if you’re a Zen priest as it is for the rest of us. Which, is really the take away here. We’re sharing a universal experience – this is the path we’re on and so very much of this journey is the same as it’s ever been for every other parent in history.

Motherhood forces you to live in the moment in a way that even without being a Buddhist, it becomes a spiritual practice. And if you are a Buddhist, well, it just emphasizes the fleeting nature of the moment and the importance of non-attachment. We have to give up attachment to our ideas, to our expectations, to our egos. Anyhow. If I yammer on, I’ll be practically re-writing the book and Ms. Maezen Miller has said it all better than I could.

Go. Read it. Even if you’re not a Buddhist. Maybe even if you’re not a parent. It’s that good.

* I should clarify for those to whom such distinctions matter, I am not a Zen Buddhist. (My own beliefs/practice fall into the Mahayana school of thought.) Zen has never really appealed to me and this book didn’t convert me, but the ideas of Buddhism are universal even if specific practices differ.

He Reads: The Foot Book

hishers._SL298_V158465818_Yes, he’s actually asked me to read this one aloud several times. Probably because “feet” is a really funny word. And it becomes funnier the more you repeat it. It’s one of those words like “puddle” that becomes a non-word really fast. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. See, what is that? It’s not even a word. FEET.

If My Religion Needed Cleanliness, It Would Be Lost.

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

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In general, being a mom is a lot easier than being a nanny… but there are certain aspects of day to day life where I look back fondly on my days of going to a child-free location at five o’clock. Nothing to do with wanting to be away from Paulo, but more wishing that I could have a second kid-free apartment.

I’m currently writing this in my bedroom, where each and every item of clothing owned by the Alves family is strewn about the floor. In his room, every book and toy Paulo owns has been thrown on the floor. Every pot in the kitchen has been liberated from the cupboard. I’m grateful that we don’t own more things as we’re running out of floor space to display them all.

As a nanny, my own clothes were safe from becoming artistic installations. Also when nannying, I worked for families with large homes and dedicated playrooms. As my only duties were child care related, I could keep messes confined to *areas* of the home and not the entirety of all available space. No need to go into mom and dad’s room ever at all. Here, if I close the door to my bedroom I’ve decreased the available play space by 25%. We spend a lot of time outside the house, but especially as winter descends…. so does the chaos.

If I ever want to fold a shirt ever again, we need to install latches on the drawers this weekend. Looking on the bright side, seeing all of my clothes at once is emphasizing how badly most of them need to be replaced and making it very clear exactly what I need. Looks like Operation Maybe I Should Own A Few Skirts That Don’t Have Holes will be a worthy project for some of my Christmas money.

I am having pre-emptive regret that we bought Duplos for the Whuff that he will undoubtedly toss across the house. Individually. So as best to get lost and then stepped on. Yes, one of the glories of nannying that I didn’t realize at the time – not having to worry about stepping on Legos in the middle of the night. See also: not having to get up in the middle of the night to provide beverages to pint sized terrorists.

But as a mom, I get perks like all the sartorial decision making power for at least a few years, meaning I get to buy dinosaur pajamas and dragon rain boots and sometimes my kid will want to wear them at the same time. Being a mom totally wins.

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Whuffs-Mas.

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

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We finally put up our tree last night. For those of you who live in a reality wherein the Christmas season starts sometime in December, let me introduce you to my husband who starts pestering me about putting up the tree as soon as Halloween costumes go on sale. Nuno loves Christmas with the fire of a hundred thousand sparkly lights.

Last year for The Whuff’s first Christmas, he was sort of… a lump. A charming lump, but a lump nonetheless. He couldn’t help us decorate. We put the tree behind his bouncy safari and much like a plant, we would turn him toward it on occasion to watch him jump at the SPARKLES! This may be his second Christmas, but it’s his first Christmas wherein he’s an active participant rather than a mere prop for antlers.

Last night as he helped me quite literally place ornaments ON the tree it occurred to me (in the way that the obvious seems so momentous when it knocks you on the head) that our Christmas Present is creating for Paulo his own Crap of Christmas Past. (That being how we refer to the giant trunk of every piece of Christmas paraphernalia that has built up in my parents’ home. That long ago spilled beyond the boundaries of one mere gigantic steamer sized trunk to contain “most of the attic” and “several smaller solar systems.”) What we do over the next few years will be what he remembers as “Christmas.” I realized this as Nuno went through and lined up the animal ornaments we’ve collected – we have bought one each year we’ve been together, this being our fifth – and it dawned on me that “Wow. Paulo is going to think of this as  Thing You Do – buying one new animal ornament every year.”

I didn’t pick a new ornament when I was a kid, but sometimes my grandmother would send me one. I had a mental list of the Special Ornaments that *I* wanted to put on the tree and had a special fondness for the kitschiest pieces of swag. I’ll even confess that for a few misguided years, I had a preference for colored lights. I know.

Paulo will never have the magic of a Vermont Christmas with sleigh rides and snow angels (though often as not, we had a brown and rainy Christmas that was a serious buzzkill in the Winter Wonderland department), but a city Christmas has a certain beauty of its own. We’ll always have small trees in the apartment – not the 8 footers at my parents’ house. There won’t be any huddling around the fireplace (but then again… there won’t be the need to huddle around the fireplace living in a house heated only by wood in which the other rooms are all a balmy 55 degrees. Fahrenheit.). Instead of lights on the porch, he’ll have to settle for a string of lights around the living room window.

But… instead of Christmas Eve church services, he’ll have the tradition of going to see The Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker. (Not this year though. We got a babysitter. We’re not insane.) He’ll have tree lightings a plenty. The tree at home… and the tree in Copley Place… and the tree at the Commons… While Vermont truly is the White Christmas of dreams, the city is twinkly magic. And since we’ll be spending Christmas Day up in Vermont, he’ll get the best of both worlds. The fireplace will be exotic and cozy and we’ll go home just in time to appreciate central heating. Once the city lights get too bright, we can dash through the snow to Oma’s house and have a beautiful Silent Night.

One thing we won’t be able to do in any location is a nice cup of cocoa. Someone has turned out to be lactose intolerant. Santa’s gonna have to have a nice cup of kefir with his cookies. And so traditions begin.

Mom: It’s Latin For Buzzkill.

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

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[ Not pictured: The HORRIFYING STENCH ZOMG. ]

There are a lot of cutesy inspirational quotes on Pinterest about mothers being their sons’ first love and that’s all well and good and schmoopy and great… but then there are the times when mama’s gotta go over to the dark side.

This weekend, I will be the perpetrator of my son’s first broken heart. And I hate it and it sucks and it’s honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

For the honest to Dog health of our family, I absolutely must get rid of Paulo’s stinky bear before the CDC comes a knockin’ on our door. It’s gone past ridiculous into horrifying. I just washed it (with hot water and vinegar and, yes, I’ve washed it as many ways as one bear can be washed) this Saturday and it already smells like shit. Literally. It smells of shit. Which is quite remarkable since it was only ever in contact with actual shit that once and never again. It’s clearly gone past “bacterial colony” into “bacteria vacation destination and all inclusive resort.” Cold and flu season is upon us and the last thing I need is a germ factory taking up residence in my son’s crib.

Also, did I mention it smells of poo and now I have to change his linens twice a week because then everything else smells of poo? And sometimes I go to kiss P’s sweet head and IT smells of poo because gross stinky awful bear?

It’s lasted this long simply because he loves it. He loves it so much. He looks for it any time he’s at home and not holding it. He drags it around in a way that would be adorable were it not so disgusting. This foul, awful bear is his best friend and I just haven’t had the heart to take it away.

This week though has brought the straw that broke mom’s back. For a while he’s been super keen on chewing on the bear after he eats (EEEWWWW) presumably to impart as much foody drool as possible into the ever growing flora. Now, he’s started actively hoarding the last bite of food in his mouth to go and then chews the bear and I’m so grossed out just writing that, I can’t even describe how gross it is to witness. (Or the alternative which involves my swiping food out of P’s mouth with my finger, when I can catch him in the act, and man does that ever piss him off and is great for me as well, let me tell you.)

And so, it’s come to this. I’ve got to break my poor baby’s heart. There’s just no way around it. And of course, OF COURSE, this is a limited edition bear from last Christmas so there’s no way I can pull a bait and switch (not that he would buy it, he totally gets pissed if I so much as *wash* the bear – he would never accept a new bear as a replacement). All I can hope is that he recovers quickly. Even if he starts the same cycle on a new bear, it’ll be an improvement as it’ll at least be a (literally) clean start.

My plan is to do the horrible deed this weekend when Nuno is home so that P can be as distracted as possible. It’s still going to be awful – especially nap/bedtime – but this is the best I can do. Say your prayers that we all live through it and that we don’t have to have *too many* therapy sessions later in life on how I destroyed his soul starting at such a tender age.

On Not Cherishing The Present Moment.

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

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[ The two of us at the moment of writing this post - playing with the front camera on my iPhone. Also: GOOD GOURD could this child look any more like me? The Y chromosome is the only hint I didn't just spontaneously clone myself. ]

As a Buddhist, I do my best to stay in the here and now. The present moment is the only moment and all of that. And I think that it serves me well as a mother to be fully present with Paulo, both for my own sake to really truly be experiencing each moment, and for his that I’m not off somewhere else when he needs me HERE. However, I absolutely draw the line at *cherishing* the present moment. Won’t do it.

I see a lot of the same sentiment from moms around the interwebs – “I’m going to savor this moment because when I’m old, I’ll miss my babies being young.” And that… that’s not what I’m after. Trying to cling to this moment and bottle it up for future use makes me just as absent as if I was in the future living my life looking back at the past. (It’s like that scene in the last episode of Six Feet Under: “You can’t take a picture of it, it’s already gone.”) I know where this sentiment comes from – I’ve definitely felt it before in P’s life, this feeling of being pre-emptively nostalgic. Your baby is growing up so fast and you already miss it and yet, he’s right there.

I think a lot of this has to do with a certain, for lack of a better word, fetishization of childhood that’s occurred in our culture. We’re told to believe – and we do, for good reason – that our children’s young years are the best. That the purpose of having kids is well, to have kids. We believe that when they’ve grown, the best of it is all over and we’re washed up as parents, doomed to spend the rest of our lives longing for the days of Sesame Street and diapers.

And I’m not going to buy into that. I want to believe that whatever present moment I’m in is valuable and joyful, not that there are certain present moments that need to be saved in a memory-bank for future use because when they run out, the fun of parenthood is over. For me, when I decided to have a child it was to experience another person’s life as their parent – not simply to have a kid. I hope to enjoy being Paulo’s mom just as much when he’s 19 years old as I do when he’s 19 mos. And when he’s grown up, I hope to enjoy having a grown son. Sure, there are always fond memories of the past and yes, childhood is absolutely a magical thing that you don’t get the chance to re-do later on, but I don’t want to think of myself as being 60 with a 30yr old son and  pining for his younger days. What an insult that would be to grown-up Paulo if I thought that the best part of his life was already over!

So, I’ll be here in the present moment whether that present moment be playing the hug game or listening to the latest in his repertoire of tantrums, but I won’t be cherishing it. The present moment is, by nature, fleeting and when you try to store it up, you miss it. The mind-game of trying to live in the present as if you were in the future looking back on now is just as damaging to being truly in the moment as if you were, well, spending your time now looking back on the past. You put so much expectation on the moment that you aren’t fully experiencing it – you’re too busy filming the moment for your mind scrap-book.

I hope that when P’s childhood is over, my mind scrap-book has plenty of fond memories, for sure. But mostly I hope that whatever moment we’re in, I can enjoy being his mom – for he’ll always be my baby, even when he’s no longer my baby.

Drunken Puppy Tsunamis, or, Toddlers.

20 Thursday Sep 2012

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[ Much like puppies, these creatures require extensive periods of being let outdoors to run around or the house will be completely destroyed. ]

New motherhood is exhausting and the first year is a very draining, very sleepless time. We all know this. But there’s a certain kind of introspection to the exhaustion. Women write memoirs about the first year of their child’s life and the experience of adjusting to motherhood. You never sleep or get enough time with both hands to cook a meal, but there are moments where you’re feeding your babe that are some approximation of peaceful.

There are fewer (if any – I certainly can’t think of any off the top of my head) memoirs of mothers experiencing their children’s toddlerhood. Because they’d all be the same. Just one sentence:

Somehow, at the end of the day, we were all still alive.

I’ve often compared having a toddler to having a puppy. This was brought up by other moms at our playgroup who also have dogs, so I’m not alone in this assessment. (My ex-husband also used this comparison, though he meant it disparagingly when he said babies were dogs in diapers to which I replied “What’s wrong with that? I LIKE DOGS.”) Here’s a basic run down:

- You spend a lot of time uttering the phrases “Come here. Come here. COME HERE. Come here. COME. HERE.” and “Do you want a cookie? Cookie. OVER HERE. Cookie.” and “Sit down. Sit down in your spot. SIT DOWN. Sit down. Sit down here. RIGHT HERE. SIT. DOWN.” And, if you’re having a good day, “Good boy. What a good boy you are. Such a good boy.”

- You call out the name of a mammal who will only occasionally dignify you with a response, in public, over and over again. (Tip for naming your child and/or puppy: Thinking about shouting this name at the park. A lot. I found that it really helps to have named my son an uncommon name as it at least prevents the phenomenon of the wrong kid turning around, even if my own child is ignoring me.)

- Poop. And how it’s not yours, but you’re cleaning it up anyway.

- With my own child, much like a dog, he carries his favorite toy around in his mouth. Also, like a dog, he objects strenuously if you ever dare to wash it.

- Table scraps, both the sharing of them and the begging for them. P can have his own bowl of EXACTLY what I am eating and still he begs for whatever is on my plate.

- There is quite a lot of ball throwing and chasing that goes on. “Go get it! Get the ball! Ball! The ball, get the ball!”

- Knowing that if you turn your back, there just might be a mountain of overturned trash or shredded toilet paper and a very jubilant creature proud of himself for creating such a masterpiece.

- The constant taking things that are distinctly NOT FOOD out of mouths that have no qualms about biting your fingers.

- Let’s face it, biting.

A good friend of mine who has a son a little younger than Paulo has compared having a toddler to “ having a drunk friend you cannot sober up live with you. You laugh a lot of the time, you’re constantly worried they’re going to break your stuff or hurt themselves, and when they go to bed you’re just relieved.”

Which is to say, I haven’t really had all that much to write about now that we’re back from vacation and our lives have settled into their normal chaos. I’ve noticed this with all mama/family blogs – infancy has so many entries about milestones and accomplishments and toddlerhood hits and BAM. The entries dwindle. The stories become fewer and more dramatic because it takes a hell of a lot to beat the daily “STOP THAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING I DON’T EVEN.”

And somehow, at the end of the day, everyone is still alive.

[ I hope it's clear that I write this as someone who is not only a huge fan of my own toddler, but of toddlers in general. And of dogs. I love these people. And dogs. ]

Materialism, Motherhood, and Minimalism.

17 Tuesday Jul 2012

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One of the most incredible things about becoming a parent is just how much stuff is involved. Some of it is unavoidable. Bottles, diapers, clothes – can’t get around that. But truly, most of the stuff of parenting is stuff that the Baby Industrial Complex tells you that you need. (Related: I’ve written before on how I think attachment parenting gets a bad rap partly because it doesn’t require you to buy as much crap.) Even with the best intentions, you have a baby and pretty soon you end up in a house that’s just covered in childhood detritus.

I’m no saint when it comes to household cleanliness. I’m no slob either. I’m firmly mediocre at housekeeping and how much stuff I generally have around. As an artist, I tend to have a surplus of art supplies that I don’t dare ever get rid of because the second that I toss something is the second I’m gonna need it. I’m getting better at that and really paring down to things that I’ve used at least in the last two years… but still. I also keep a fair amount of books because y’know. BOOKS. Beyond that, I don’t have a lot of knick knacks that I can’t bear to be without – just a few things here and there that are truly important to me.

And what I do keep that I don’t need is relentlessly weeded out by my husband, the King of Minimalism. Nuno is borderline maniacal about getting rid of things – to the point where when I announced my pregnancy with Paulo, one of my relatives asked which cat  was Nuno going to get rid of. (Neither, though it’s been touch and go with Wensleydale at times. Cat fails to come up with convincing arguments as to “Why do I keep you?” and yet, we do. I think it’s Stockholm Syndrome.) When I moved in with Nuno, I referred to his apartment as “Minimalist Paradise” and were he on his own, his house would fit the “ascetic monk” aesthetic.

All these influences combined put us firmly on the middle path w/r/t childhood clutter. Nuno can’t deny that Paulo should have toys, but at the same time, we don’t fill our house with stuff. He truly has the bare minimum of toys and yet I found myself able to fill this box with toys that are in perfect condition that he hasn’t played with in months. It’s crazy.

It’s very timely that I was thinking about writing this and I came across this MetaFilter post on household clutter and while it’s not part of our own lives – I can totally, totally understand how this happens. Especially as parents we’re surrounded – CONSTANTLY – by cultural cues telling us to buy stuff! More stuff! And as our kids get old enough to absorb what’s going on around them, they naturally start wanting more things. And, of course, when you buy into this it means that you end up with a lot of stuff in your house that isn’t necessarily making you any happier.

It can be hard to get rid of things, but living with Nuno has taught me that if you’re not using it – you won’t miss it. Likewise he’s more accepting of the things I choose to keep around because he knows that things can have value to me even if it’s not a *practical* value. Truly the middle ground has worked for us as a couple and it’s how we’re trying to make it work as parents.

The one thing I’ve truly learned about consumerism as a parent is that they’re always making more stuff. There’s always more of it. If it’s broken, you can throw it away and get a new one. Likewise, if you’re not using it and it’s something that’s replaceable… there’s no harm in passing it on to someone who *will* use it because you can always replace it later if you need it. Thinking about things this way has really helped narrow down what I keep around – not just for us, but for Paulo too.

That box in the photo? Is going to the thrift store this afternoon. Paulo might not be playing with his toys, but this is another lesson I hope to pass on to him – that what he’s not using might be valuable to someone else. It feels good to open up some more space in our home and our lives for new things to come along.

I Got This.

12 Thursday Jul 2012

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[ P circa two months ago has way less hair and those pants totally are high-waters now, but what remains true is that he's not reading any books on proper crawling technique because he's totally got this. ]

I wrote before on how I read a book on mindful parenting because… I don’t know? Someone? Recommended it to me? Seemed a good idea at the time? And really, I still have no clue.

Prior to that, I tried to read The Happiest Toddler on the Block – which I won’t even link to because you shouldn’t read it. I LOVED Happiest Baby. Loved it. Would recommend it to every pregnant lady. Hell, I’d buy it for every pregnant friend if it didn’t seem like a weird/preachy thing to do. Amazing book and while it was not the panacea that it claimed to be – it did offer a lot of helpful information for a stage in life that I was totally clueless about. So, with that in mind I thought “Dr. Karp must have good insight into toddlerhood.”

I gave the book a chance, really I did. His whole outline seemed like it was a list of Really Bad Ideas, but I thought, he’s a doctor! He wrote a book that was really helpful! Surely, I just don’t understand! So, I kept reading. And about a third of the way through, I realized something very important…

This is bullshit.

I’ve worked with kids my entire adult life. I was a coach’s assistant for the younger kids on swim team from the time I was fourteen. I had my first summertime babysitting gig at 16. First full time nanny job at 18. Taught preschool for two years for kids between the ages of 18mos and 5yrs. Nannied full time for nearly three years after that. The newborn phase was new to me – the youngest kid I’ve worked with was 9mos old – but the toddler phase? I’ve been knee-deep in toddlers for the better part of a decade. I know from toddlers.

Why didn’t I trust my own instincts? Why, when the book initially rang false to me, did I think “well – this guy MUST know better, he’s an EXPERT.” Why didn’t I realize that this is something about which I am sort of an expert?

Same goes for the book on Mindful Parenting. I was raised as a Buddhist kid. I’m following a lot of the same practices that my own mother followed. Why did I think that I wasn’t doing enough – that I needed more guidance? Why did I think that this book must have some secret I wasn’t in on? Why didn’t I realize that I’ve got this.

As parents – and especially first time parents – we’re told by the media at large to second guess ourselves. Blogs (my own included) are constantly heralding the first-timer mistakes. Oh, how naive we all are! Oh, how many ways to do it wrong! We’re told over and over again – it’s ok, no one really knows what they’re doing by blogs and OH HEY YOU’RE TOTALLY DOING IT WRONG AND YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED by the media. It leads to a crisis of confidence that I see all the time among parent-friends: How should I do this? Is it ok to do that? What do I do about this other thing? And I want to just sometimes say “It’s ok. It’s your kid. Just do SOMETHING. You have permission.”

And so, at the risk of being totally cocky, I’m gonna put it right out there that for right now – this phase, this moment – I’ve got this. I’ve seen this. I know what toddlerhood looks like. I know my son. I know our rhythms. We have ups and downs and I’m figuring it out and I’m figuring it out just fine. I love feedback and I love other people’s ideas and I love having resources to check in with when I have questions. But I am not adrift. I am grounded and I am competent and if an “expert” sounds wrong to me… it’s not because I don’t understand what they’re talking about, it’s because I’ve spent years “in the shit” and I’ve developed my own body of knowledge.

I’m putting this out there because I think that it’s toxic to be constantly second guessing yourself and the culture of parenthood that is going on right now is encouraging just that. I don’t know everything about kids or childhood or parenting, but I know enough to know that I can figure this out as we go and if not? I know where to go for help and it’s all of the brilliant and wonderful mamas that I know, not the latest thing to fear from HuffPo or the latest book on what tone of voice toddlers like best.

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