New Post, Finally!

I didn't want to close out the New Year without a post. This has been a splendid holiday season, the best ever. One thing that having children has taught me is that you can learn to be happy without going anywhere or spending any money. That wasn't entirely the case with this family this year, but I feel I have learned a lot about being happy without moving around, both physically and psychically, so much. When I think back on the past four years, I realize and celebrate just how far we have come as a family.

Four years ago, David and I packed up our car and drove to Tucson, Arizona, land of my past and of many mistakes. To put it in a nutshell, Tucson is where I went after I received my undergraduate degree. I had a difficult time in Tucson in my early 20's, all of which was a manifestation of poor decisions made on my part. From disappointing relationships to lack of direction, it was there where I experienced a real dark night of the soul. So returning to the seat of my angst was difficult. The fact that it is where my parents chose to retire makes it a place where the universe wants me to return over and over again. Which is probably a very healthy thing.

On that trip four years ago, I was lying in what used to be my grandfather's bedroom when what must have been the voice of God struck me and said, if not out loud than booming to my soul, "You must have a baby." This was very confusing, considering that David and I had long said we would not have children. We were truly looking forward to being retired young with lots of extra money and freedom to travel with and have a great time. When I announced to David what the angel of the Lord announced to me, he was very puzzled. A bit angry. A lot scared.

Several conversations later--you can pack a lot into a trip across Texas--David was on board, albeit he still thought I was pretty crazy. And then, two weeks later, we were pregnant with Ryan. Our life has bloomed ever since. And, based on our experience, I'll bet if you asked a flower if it was easy to get from bud to rose, it would tell you it was painful. But also joyous. And oh so worth it.

Now I look at Ryan and Charlotte, too, who came to us like laughter from the universe, and I am so profoundly humbled. They are truly good people. I can see it already. I think God has a lot to do with that, but I think the community we have built in the walls of our 1500-square foot home here in Baton Rouge has also played a significant role.

As I look forward to 2009, my intention is to be nice to David, Ryan, Charlotte, and myself, too. It sounds like such a trite, silly wish. But I mean to be genuinely kind to them, not just in terms of having nice manners but also of thinking gently when I am considering what I would like them to do, or be, or not do or not be. And remembering to speak to them with love and reverence for the unique, cool loving people they are. To see, when I look at them, the very best Ryan, Charlotte, and David; the people they are on the healthiest, most balanced day of their lives. And to always be grateful to each of them for showing me who I can be, even when I think I can't be or do anything.

Blessings to all of you this New Year's Eve. Namaste.

"You Are Not Your Daily Grind"

I read this on Steve Ross's Web site. In case you don't know who Steve Ross is, he's a man who teaches yoga on the Oxygen network at 6 o'clock every morning. Back when I was a working girl (yeah, right), I woke up every morning and did Steve Ross's yoga class live. In the bedroom. David still has dreams in which he hears a tenor voice saying, "Step or jump back, come down, up dog, down dog," to funky music. Yeah, that's one think I like about Steve Ross. He does yoga to songs like "Do You Want a Revolution (Whoop, Whoop)," and "Tomorrow People." It's a tough workout. But what I really like about it is the mediation sequence he does at the end.

Luckily, now I Tivo Steve and occasionally get a chance to practice with him during nap time. Today, it was absolutely essential, as Ryan pulled an incredibly rare "I'm gonna be bad and don't you dare try to talk me out of it" kind of days. Let's just say it started with torturing the dog, ended with perhaps intentionally knocking Daddy's chock-full glass bottle of Red Stripe on the tile floor thereby shattering the glass and dousing everyone within a 15-foot perimeter in stinky beer. In between, he took a carrot peeler (how he found it, I have no idea) and proceeded to scratch the television set with it. His dad had the fortune of being home for lunch when that happened, and I thought he was going to choke on his soup.

Since Ryan was a baby, we have always said we would never spank him. I stand by that, but I wonder just how much a child can stand being told to "Stop that behavior right now," or "Go to your room," Or "TIME OUT!" At a certain point, it seems like maybe a physical experience might work better. But I am afraid of what hitting--that's what spanking is, let's face it--might introduce an element of violence into our relationship that would not be good. Plus, Dr. Phil says it's easy to get worked up and go too far. If Dr. Phil says not to do it after having on all of those drill sargeants who scream at 13-year-old problem children, then I say maybe it's not a good idea.

Anyway, after all of that, that simple line from Steve Ross sticks with me. "You are not your daily grind." I certainly hope so. I find myself some days thinking, "I used to be cool. I used to be funny. What has happened to me?"

As my sister-in-law, who is raising three great kids, says to me "Don't worry. It doesn't last forever, it just feels like it does."

Items found while cleaning the yard today

We had a rare snow last week, which was beautiful, but also made me realize how much clutter there is in our backyard. So today I went out, armed with a 75-degree day and a few trashbags. Here is a short list of what I found:
Ryan's Baby's First Christmas 2005 ornament with a silver rudolph. Gasp! I had no idea it had wandered out there, and there it was, cradled in the rosemary. It is fine.
A washcloth
Several balls. Plastic, sports, you name it.
A beater. Probably used as Captain Hook's hook once or twice.
Cereal bowls
Pitchers
Pink Crocs, size 3 toddler
A faded plastic pirate ship
A deflated Spiderman jumper
Racquet that I use to play "wall ball..." Don't ask.
Cooler filled with water and tiles from our roof that blew down after Gustav

One Thing at a Time

The wood floor pressed into my spine to make up the first time in several days I was still while awake. I have a lot of trouble sitting still. Just ask my husband. It drives him crazy. We get settled to watch a movie, and then I am up to get a drink, and then I am up to get another cushion, and then I am up to get a snack...You get the picture. This, perhaps, is why yoga appeals to me so much. You move and move and move and then, your bones and ligaments all stretched and aligned, you stop moving. And you stop thinking and you exist.

Kim, my teacher at yoga bliss, reminded us at the end of class on Saturday to only try to do one thing at a time.

As you can imagine, I have trouble with this. I like to dabble here, then there, then over here. Even when I write, I am tempted to jump ahead and write the ending, and I am thinking about what I will write next. When I am talking in a group, I have to work really hard not to eavesdrop on two conversations at once while I am enjoying talking to a third. As a mother, I feel this often backfires, for the constant interruptions on top of my natural inclination to try to do a bunch of things at once means I don't get anything accomplished very quickly at all. Wouldn't I be better off to just do one thing and get it finished, then move to the next?

So this week I made an early New Year's resolution. One thing at a time. One thing. Even if I hear my e-mail in box ding, even if the kids are saying "Mommy, where's my noonie?" Unless someone is bleeding or on fire, I will focus on the task at hand and then, when I am finished, I will move to the next thing.

It is hard. I so want to run across the room for a second to button a shirt and then get back to doing the dishes. But, just for now, I am going to rinse the suds off of this particular dish, I am going to fold this particular sock, and then, then, I will get to the demand. The thing I have observed is that if I stay focused and finish my task, the kids figure out for themselves where the lost toy is. They decide for themselves what kind of shirt they want to put on. They work out their arguments. There are exceptions, of course. Like when there's an explosive diaper or someone is about to put the dog's eye out. But I have learned the number of times I drop what I am doing to serve another isn't always necessary.

Another nice side effect is I involve the kids in what I am doing. Yesterday, Ryan and Charlotte scrubbed pots and pans in the sink while I loaded the dishwasher. They had a great time and contributed to the effort. I had the satisfaction of actually entering the lunch hour without any dishes in the sink. These might sound like mundane concerns for one with a master's degree, but all you doctoral moms out there can relate, I am sure. An ordered house is an ordered mind. Mine is too often in chaos, on more than one level.

So the experiment continues, and we'll see where it leads. Namaste.

Obama Smoking in a World of One-Breasted Women

Two stories that fetched headlines in today's newspaper--which I actually was able to read because David took the kids to go visit his grandmother--has me thinking about the way we in modern life relate to the body. First, a story about a new breast cancer test that can more accurately predict who will be stricken with the disease. Second, a story about President-elect Barack Obama's smoking habit, and how his plight to kick the butt will be followed closely by anti-smoking groups.

Back in graduate school, I studied a particular vein of folklore known as bodylore. In a nutshell, it encompasses how people experience the meaning of their bodies in public and private life. Watch the news or read the paper, and you'll discover many statements about how today's Americans interact with their bodies. There is contradiction, of course. We love and hate our carcasses in balanced measure most of the time. We long to yield to ecstasy, at the same time mistrusting our limbs and organs, sure they will betray us at any time.

Take the story on breast cancer testing. Are we really prepared for a test that will tell us if, sometime down the road, our breasts will turn on us? I can imagine legions of women lobbing off their breasts, breasts that, in many cases, have never been used to nurse a baby because of the shift toward sexualization and shame surrounding this precious part of a woman's anatomy. I can definitely envision--frightening as it might sound--a time when breasts are considered unessential and take off the moment they begin to bud so that the woman can be safe. We'll reconstruct them, of course, so that they can still be pleasure pillows. But they'll be tamed, ineffective, and not the ticking time bombs the tests will tell us they are. The same kind of thing happens with childbirth. For most women, childbirth is a safe, completely wonderful experience. But now we have moved it to the hospital because we all know that it is really a crisis just waiting to happen. In the end, modern thinking often says, no matter how much we love them, our bodies will bring us down.

Now to the story about Obama and his smoking. I had no idea Barack Obama was or is a smoker. But now that he is about to become president, nothing, not even his body, is his own. He belongs to us now. I had the same reaction when John McCain released his 400-page medical record tome. In truth, we prefer our leaders to be more machine than man. If we could, we'd have a Web cam zoomed in on Obama's lungs, stomach lining, and carpuscles. Because, the thinking goes, his vulnerability is our vulnerability. We'll still shower our children with images of movie and TV characters lighting up because those aren't real bodies. Tobacco lobbiests in Washington will still have a helluva lot of power. But that man in the White House had better not light up.

Questions that Make You Think

I never dreamed I'd have to think so hard to answer the questions of a 3-year-old. Here is a sampling of things Ryan has asked over the past few days:

What is Hollywood?
Do we live in Hollywood?
What is to wound?
Why is it afternoon?
What is "during"?
What is rotten?
How does something get rotten?
Why is it dark at night?
How does the wheel on a ship get attached?
What is food?
Are we a family?

It's a Wonderful Life Actually a Dark, Melancholy Tale...Who Knew??

We get a video podcast on the Tivo from a film critic at the New York Times whose name now escapes me but, since I'm a journalist, I can just refer to him from here on out as "the critic," since we all know that no one reads by-lines anyway. Anyhow, this film critic in a recent video podcast lays out a pretty convincing case that "It's a Wonderful Life" is actually a dark and depressing look at modern American life. I mean, you've got George Bailey who is abused as a child despite any heroic actions he might have taken as an even younger youngster. Then he falls in love and gets married to the woman of his dreams. However, he gives away all of his honeymoon money to put a drop in the depression bucket. He has too many kids, a delapidated house and the general angst that follows the average married American father who, some times, would much rather be off in Europe living some other life. Then there's a snafu and he's sure his already doomed life is about to get worse. So he stands on a bridge in the cold at night and thinks about ending his life. Who does God send? A bumbling angel named Clarence who has to resort to some mighty creative storytelling in order to convince George Bailey that life isn't worthless after all. In the end, George Bailey realizes that his life really doesn't suck. He's got cute kids and neighbors who will bail him out. And who could ask for more than that?

Twilight Review: Skip It; See True Blood Instead

She dished up our popcorn, then asked us what we were going to see. "Twilight," we answered. And the 18-year-old movie theater worker replied giddy; breathless. "I've seen it seven times."
"Really?" My husband says.
"Oh, it's awesome."
It's date night. We are so thrilled to be out of the house that we banter with anyone who will take the time.
"I've read all the books. I love that movie. It's my favorite movie," she said, popping plastic lids on our Cokes.
We were hopeful.
I spent the entire summer reading the four "Twilight" books, inviting Charlotte to nurse more frequently so that I could sit and read. The town of Forks is emblazoned in my imagination, as are Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, and the rest. I waited to see the movie until the initial rush died down. Then David, my generous husband, agreed to go see it. Even if his cousins said it was a "chick flick."
So what's my verdict? I suppose, if pressed, I'd give the film about 2 stars. It's definitely a renter. Sad to say, since I was so excited to see it.
First off, the camera is constantly in the character's faces. As I read the books, I always envisioned their whole bodies. And I wonder what's the motivation in pressing us so far up their noses, unless it's to give prepubescent girls a really good look at Edward Cullen. All that did for me, though, was highlight the horrible makeup jobs. When the character of paste-white Dr. Carlisle Cullen, played by David Facinelli, was introduced, we laughed out loud. It looked like he'd been in a fight with the Pillsbury dough boy and lost. Even Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, the best performer of the ensemble, looks drab and dishwatery in the film.
Then there's the acting. Robert Pattinson plays Edward Cullen. He makes Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker seem Shakespearean. During the scenes in which Edward is wrestling with his inner bloodthirsty demons, Pattinson just looked constipated. Really, really constipated. It didn't help matters that David kept leaning over during those scenes and singing the Saturday Night Live digital short "Jizz in my Pants." Jasper Cullen, played by Jackson Rathbone, reminded me of a bad Cure video. Taylor Lautner's Jacob Black will no doubt have me at least renting the sequel. His chemistry with Stewart is palpable. I always wanted Bella to end up with Jacob anyway.
The movie's main action sequence in the dance studio was well done. Stephenie Meyer is a mediocre writer, in my opinion, and this is revealed when she inks action. The film did a better job of moving the suspensful parts forward. On the other hand, where in the world were the fangs? Aren't all vamp movies supposed to reveal killer fangs at some point?
When we got home, we put in an episode of True Blood. Now there's a vampire show you can really sink your teeth into.

A few things I have learned

Three-year-old boys and white shirts are not a good combination.
Always stop at the bathroom before you pick up a crying baby early in the morning.
You can use baby shampoo to wash nearly everything.
Neat piles are actually very attractive in a home.
You can jog with a newborn in a regular stroller. You don't need a jogging stroller.
Sit on the floor and play.
You will neglect your pets when you have a baby.
Your car will develop some kind of funk, no matter how anal you were before you had children. If you had a messy car that was dubbed "Kitty Box" before you had children, your car will be condemnable. How condemnable? Take the number of empty cups you had in your car regularly before you gave birth, multiply that times the number of kids you now have, and divide that by how many showers you take each day. That is how many unidentifiable gook-covered sippy cups you will locate in your car each month.
Your children will find the one breakable part of any object. Accept that and move on.
Don't try to sort toys. The moms in the playgroups will tell you to. Ignore them.
Play with your kids in the swimming pool. Don't sit in a lounge chair and watch them. Bonus points if you get your hair wet.
It's okay for kids to go barefoot on the beach.
Those shopping cart cozies are just weird.
Quit watching the birthing shows on Discovery Health when you are postpartum. Watch your baby instead.
Also, if you happen to be postpartum when PBS is airing "The War," keep changing channels.
Your kids will drop things in your bottled water which you will find like a worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila.
Invest in a Lazy Boy before you reach your third trimester of pregnancy.
Do not read baby books cover to cover. Keep them around for mere reference. You will know what to do most of the time.
Babywearing is not easy in Louisiana in August.
Speaking of babywearing, if you do choose to wear your baby, get at least 10 different kinds of baby carriers.
You don't have to put the batteries in.
Don't try to cut your baby's hair yourself.
Wait until your baby is choking on hair to cut it. Otherwise, you'll end up with a 'do that the priest dubs "Tres Moderne" at your child's baptism.
Kids love backyard swimming parties. Skip the house-sized inflatables until they are old enough to ask for one.
And lastly, whatever you think you can accomplish while carting a baby is probably possible, but could cost you your sanity.

Where does the time go?

Think of the things a parent is asked for. The wipe of a nose, say, or the fetching of a top or a pair of shoes. The interventions between siblings. The lifting of a little set of eyes. The tidying of plastic parts. The rescuing from certain death due to Christmas lights and little fingers. The fixing of meals. The changing of diapers. The tucking in. The reading of stories. Think how often a simple request must be fulfilled. A small request that requires no longer than a few minutes. But over. And over. And over again. How much time can possibly pass between requests? Five minutes? If a miracle, fifteen? So if a request takes five minutes--or more--and happens every ten minutes, then you know where a parent's time goes.