Children, motherhood, parenting

The Elf on the Shelf: Blessing or Curse?

Children all over the world have been scared into submission by Santa for centuries. Starting with December 1, if not sooner, parents have had a disciplinary lever in Kris Kringle to shove their little ones under their thumbs. And then came the Elf on the Shelf. Holy holly berries! Now there was tangible proof of Santa knowing each child’s every misdeed. Never mind the millions the mother/daughter team likely made exploiting their family tradition and the warped fun parents can have placing their elf in compromising positions each day, this was parenting gold.

Image from mommyofamonster.com

We could scare the shit out of our kids with that freaky little face and make them work for their gifts, putting the merry back into a season usually packed with mania.

Until the morning you wander downstairs, still in a fog of sleep, and are met by the faces of your little cherubs who want to know why Mikey is in the same spot. Because Mommy has more important things to do than move a felt-covered elf with his hands and feet sewn together, that’s why! But, no, that’s not what you say. You weave some elaborate story about how he must have been so tired from all his work that he had to rest last night instead of flying back to Santa. Or you just feign ignorance. Oh, I don’t know! Maybe he’s really cozy there. You don’t tell them that Mikey had too much eggnog and couldn’t find his way back to the North Pole.

Or until he shows up for the first time this season and uber-scares the shit out of your sensitive child. Perching him above the newly acquired bunk beds so he can check them out may not have been such a good idea as he appears to be giving her the hairy eyeball as she tries to sleep mere inches from him on the top bunk. Her younger sister alights the bunk to stare lovingly into his rosy-cheeked face, agog at this Christmas marvel. But as bedtime approaches, the sensitive one dissolves into tears and you want to rip the friggin’ thing off the ceiling fan and fling it. But then he’d lose his magic! Luckily, your husband has the brilliant idea of rotating the fan blades to avert his gaze.

About fifty times between dinnertime and your little ones’ bedtime, you look at Mikey and say, Must remember to move him before I go to bed, and wrack your brain for some creative spot for him (with the new added stress this year of one that won’t cause your sensitive child irreparable psychological damage). Once the children are in bed, like the magic that flies Mikey back to the North Pole and that allows the Weeping Angels to sneak up on us, some memory sweeping phenomenon takes place and Mikey doesn’t get a new home.

That is, until 1:41 AM when you bolt upright in bed and realize you didn’t move him. After the obligatory mid-night bladder deballast that occurs in all mothers, you drag a dining chair to the foyer and remove Mikey from the chandelier. You manage to complete this feat of physical prowess while still half-asleep and live to see your pillow again, but you wake with no recollection of it. When your child asks you where Mikey is this morning, you freak out all over again. You raise your eyes reluctantly to his perch from yesterday, dreading that your child has already seen that flash of flannel. But he’s not there. How can it be? Oh, you did move him. Imagine that.

Sometimes, the elf on the shelf hides so well, no one can find him. Not even the mommy who placed him in the Elf Protection Program so his ruse of returning to the North Pole upon hearing Santa’s bell wouldn’t be blown. Mommy rips apart the bins of Christmas shmagma in the basement while Daddy keeps the cherubs busy upstairs – after she forgot to locate and place the elf while they were out of the house – surprise, surprise.

All those elves perched on the shelves of holiday houses throughout the land aren’t really keeping mischievous kids in line; they’re slowly driving parents crazy. Instead of scaring the shit out of misbehavers, they’re scaring the shit out of memory-challenged mothers and fathers. The shock of coal in the stocking is nothing compared to that early morning shock of parents who forgot to move the elf! In a world where parents can’t even go to the bathroom by themselves, stealing a spare minute or two to feign a flying elf is a Christmas miracle in and of itself.

And that’s really why we do it, isn’t it?

Preserving the childlike wonder of Christmas is part of all these machinations. Seeing the awe in their eyes makes it all worthwhile. If we can get them to behave – while avoiding nightmares – it’s all good. Just don’t ask me how I feel about it at 3 o’clock tomorrow morning.

Children, Living, parenting

Bunkin’ Crazy

Two nights ago I stayed up until two in the morning searching for Ikea hacks.

Yes, that is correct. I deprived myself of precious sleep to troll the internet for the most perfectly imperfect set of bunk beds I could find.

I’m in that seasonal state of flux that rolls around every 3-4 months. This time the feelings are even more urgent because ‘winter is coming’ (at least I don’t have to deal with white walkers – thank goodness!) and everything – our minds, our activities – turns inward.

I’m starting to notice that maze of boxes I left in the basement after a summer scavenger hunt; the piles of clothes that need to be sorted into bins after leaving the drawers to be filled with sweaters and fleece that -just-won’t-fit (at least if I want the drawers closed!); the clothing, supplies, books, toys . . . that my children are starting to outgrow that don’t need to be junking up the joint.

In this sorting and stowing maelstrom, the need for bunk beds in the room my middle and youngest daughters share is making itself vehemently known. As if the insistent reminders of my middle daughter would let me forget. 😉

In my dreams – that’s right I said MY dreams – I would get a bunk with a rock wall to scale the top bunk, a slide to descend, and a secret nook below. If not for the problem of maintaining a marital bed, I think that would still be my ultimate dream bed – regardless that I’m supposed to be grown up. Alas, I don’t think my husband is looking to relive his days on a tight bunk on a Coast Guard ship. Besides, I can’t afford and/or justify the exorbitant price tag.

If you can afford or justify it, get one – they’re gorgeous!

Bunk beds in the midrange are still overpriced for the level of quality the consumer receives. Wood? MDF with a veneer that looks sickly plastic? Weirdly placed slats and drawers? So I figured, since I’m not going to get what I want, I may as well make the price a little more tolerable.

Enter Ikea.

But I’m stubborn and still trying for the extra storage and whimsical details of other bunks I’ve seen and so went searching for hacks to make my own. If my bedtime that night is any indication, I did not find one. Some of them looked like hacks. Some of them would work for a college student used to precarious positions, but not for my rowdy children (especially on the top bunk). Some of them included far too much carpentry for my tastes. So I guess that makes me lazy and cheap and incredibly hard to please.

I almost broke up the marital bed even without my dream bunk because my husband was none too happy with me when I finally crawled in. Call it my seasonal nesting, I could not rest until I’d found a solution (or given up in defeat that morning). It’s driving me nuts that the current system is not working and yet I can’t find a satisfactory replacement.

Then the neon postcard from a local charity came in saying they would be making the rounds soon to collect. That’s all I needed. I went into hyperdrive, stockpiling all I could to clear it out!

If I can talk my father into going to Ikea with me while you’re at work, I can get the bunk and we can break down the crib and donate that. And the mattress. And the crib sheets and the crib set . . .

Maybe it’s reverse nesting. But that’s another post.

If you’ve learned nothing else from this post: Know that bunk beds are ridiculously overpriced and one should not shop for one during a seasonal stir-up or under the effects of extreme sleep deprivation. Happy Purging and Dreaming!

Identity, Living, motherhood, parenting

Contemplative Meandering

It is 8:52 AM and I am alone in my house. I rush in with the usual sense of urgency, keys jangling, purse pulling on my arm, slouching the jacket off my shoulders and – what?

The light in the living room still has that early morning hush, shadows mixed with brilliant swathes of light. But it’s not just the light that’s hushed. The house is actually quiet. No talk radio emanating from the alarm clock radio my husband usually leaves on. No little voice accompanied by the thud of rubber-soled shoes in the middle of the floor.

The silence is deafening.

For the first time in, I don’t know, forever, I have two hours and 57 minutes to myself.

I could hand wash those clothes I’ve left languishing. I could peel the shower curtain liner from its moldy seal on the bathtub and scrub it. I could transfer summer to fall in my daughter’s clothes drawers without interruption.

Yes, those would all be worthy endeavors. Useful. Productive. Jobs easier done without little people becking and calling.

But for the first time I am alone in my house for longer than five minutes, is that what I should do with my time? It might be what I want to do, or feel I should do from some deep-seated guilt (Where does that come from anyway? Heloise’s shadow people?), but I know it’s not what I need to do. I need to decompress, to learn how to shut off these urgings when I actually do have time to myself. It’s such a foreign concept, my mind and soul freeze up at the suggestion.

And while I do write even on days my lovelies are around, it’s always with one ear to the ground. And one hand in the snack bin doling out goodies. And half my attention elsewhere. Either that, or I’m writing in such a small window that it is with a laser-like focus, barring out the kind of contemplative meanderings that we all need to do now and again.

So I’m contemplatively meandering.

That is a damn good goal in and of itself. That could sum up an entire bucket list in two succinct words.

But aside from writing, I do not know how to do that. I can feel the needle and thread pulling my hands. I hear the chipmunk squeaking in the woodpile. Even the mold growing and multiplying.

I may not achieve the ultimate level of transcendence today, but there is the desire. That is worth something, right?

Children, Identity, motherhood, parenting

On Her Way

My daughter has reached the age at which I formed a consciousness.

We all have snippets of early childhood, maybe even earlier; bits and pieces of memory. Sitting on grandfather’s lap to create a painting. Banging on the ledge above the backseat because you couldn’t sit quietly in mass. How much is real memory, spotty because of time elapsed, and how much is fabricated from photographs and family story? And when does the real narrative begin?

I remember all of third grade.

I remember playing at friends’ houses, sleepovers, sitting under a desk goofing with a classmate. That is the year I think of as starting true friendships and forming my own separate identity (though I didn’t know it at the time). That is the year my eldest daughter has just begun.

Four days into school and she asked for her first ‘play date’, though I’m sure that term has fallen out of fashion with her set. She and her friend had already arranged it on their bus ride home one afternoon; it was just up to the adults to assent once they’d filled us in. She’d had her first sleepover at this girl’s house last year (her one and only thus far save relatives’ houses and no – I wasn’t ready for that), played there once this summer, and gone to the beach with her once. This was the friend’s first time at our home.

I later realized that I adopted the always-appreciated (on my part) mode of parental supervision my mother employed whenever I had friends over growing up. There, but not. Seen, but not noticed. Moving through, not hovering. Accessible, but not in your face. My mom always joined the conversation when drawn in – and usually made some fun comment – but never horned in. She always made sure we were safe and having fun, but in such a way that made us still feel like we were on our own. Similar to my mode of relating to young children, which I think I also adopted from my mother: let them come to you when they’re comfortable; don’t force yourself on them.

As my daughter and her friend’s conversation floated in from the adjacent room and later the porch window, I heard the exchanges and tenor of my own third grade days; the way kids talk when there are no adults around, the free and easy language and grown-up cadences because they are the big kahunas with no one else around. My daughter introduced her friend to her way of life on her own turf; her likes and dislikes, her favorite activities and special belongings. Her friend got to see how she interacts with her sisters and me and my husband. She welcomed her into her home, her nest, a secret club of sorts – a level of friendship that can’t be reached at school.

A level of friendship that can’t be reached, I don’t think, until this age, this magic number where our little kids morph even more into distinct little beings.

My daughter and her friend played so nicely. They were polite. My daughter didn’t even goad her friend to join her in tormenting her little sisters. But I sense the shift. One more step in her leaving the home, one more layer of my baby shed.

I know – not because I’ve mothered a child this age before, but because I’ve been this age before. I remember it as formative, solid memories in my experience.

She’s on her way.

Children, Living, motherhood, parenting

Legendary

If you’ve ever watched a three year-old dance, you will quickly realize that rhythm is innate.

Is it the way the earth turns below us, the pull of the tides, the swish and wash of our mothers’ womb that makes our bodies able to move in time to the music?

And what is it about growing up that makes us lose this innate ability?

If you’ve ever seen a thirty year-old twitch on the dance floor, you realize that some of us indeed do.

When we knew we would spend our lives together and started forming dreams of family, my husband and I imagined bringing our barefoot babies to outdoor concerts where we could watch them twirl and bounce them on our knees and hips. When the time came, we were either too tired or it was the children’s bedtime or it was simply too much work to pack an army of little people and all their accoutrements for the park.

Three kids and several years later, we actually achieved some of that dream last night.

A local tribute band to Bob Marley and The Wailers was playing on the beach a town over from where we live. A beach concert with a picnic supper would probably be enough to lure my husband and the music of one of my favorite musicians – albeit covers – was more than enough for me. The kids were impressed with the novelty of sitting on the beach listening to live music, aided by the fact that they got to peer through their father’s binoculars to see the action on stage. My eight year-old made me burn with pride, when just by the opening chords of a song, she said, “Mom, isn’t this one on your CD?” She has a great ear for music. She skipped through the waves crashing on the shore as the music played, her sisters quickly following her lead and soaking the one pair of clothes they each had.

photo courtesy of Tunes on the Dunes

Just as the riveting bass line of “Could You Be Loved” surged through the speakers, not one, but two daughters expressed the urgent need to use the facilities. I heard what turned out to be the last song of the concert through the bathroom walls. I hadn’t exactly envisioned this in my dreams of family concerts. But it was a nice night with a good vibe and the girls were having fun by the water, so we decided to hang out and let the crowds disperse. Many others decided to do the same and the band apparently decided to do another set. I was psyched. ‘Redemption’ from my bathroom run!

But my youngest was soaked and sandy, my husband was getting cranky at running interference with the girls, and the tide was coming in. In resolute denial that I wasn’t watching a show in my peasant blouse cuddled with my fiancé on our Guatemalan blanket, I turned away from the shore in my mom capris, huddled with my toddler on our picnic blanket – determined to enjoy the show.

My husband finally sat down. My older two finally buried themselves in the sand at my feet. And I got to rock steady to the beat. I was rewarded by deep tracks only on my Bob vinyl. By the time the finale came, I rocked and bounced my youngest in my arms. We had our own extended “Soul Shakedown Party” as the sun faded. She laughed and anticipated my moves, bobbing her head one way as I bobbed mine the other.

Time seemed to stop. No, suspend. As the band played an extended version of that great song, the minutes spooled out with the sound, a treasured pocket of time where my daughter and I moved to the same driving rhythm. In synch. In tune.

I saw a mother a few blankets over rocking and bopping with her infant and I flashed back to the times I’d worn tracks in our living room rug doing the same thing. It occurred to me that rhythm may be innate, but we help transfer it to our children. Or make the tendency stick. And they in turn remind us of our primal instincts. The marrow of our being, what we came into this world knowing and needing to do.

Moving, grooving, and enjoying the rhythm of life.

Children, Literacy, parenting, Weekend Write-Off, Writing

The Scar

The title drew me in.

The way the red background swallowed the illustration of the small boy on the cover.

I was in tears by the time I was partway through the book.

The Scar, by Charlotte Moundlic, is the story of a young boy preparing for, experiencing, and ultimately surviving the death of his mother.

This leaves a metaphorical and literal scar on him. When he falls and scrapes his knee after his mother’s death, he remembers how she used to soothe him. When the scrape starts to heal before he does, the boy keeps scraping at it to keep the comfort of his mother alive.

It was around this point that I really started crying.

Death, loss, self-mutilation – what kind of children’s book was this?

For the child who’s lost a parent, exactly the kind that needs to be written.

There’s no shielding those children from the pain, the hurt, the ugly truth. They live the nightmare.

I was reminded of a man in a writer’s intensive that I took who told the story of student with special needs who found nearly every task throughout his day difficult. He wanted students like him to read a story about them. Even though it might be a difficult story to tell, a difficult story to read, there were children who needed a narrative to which they could relate, a way to know they weren’t the only ones to have experienced this. They were not alone in the universe. Maybe there were even people who overcame their difficult obstacle.

And while extremely poignant and slightly heartbreaking, The Scar does end on a positive note. The boy, though always sure to miss his mother, allows the scar to begin to heal.

So what on the surface once seemed revolting, is now something we can look at without cringing – and, for some children, is absolutely essential.

Children, motherhood, parenting

School Shopping

Ah, the joys of school shopping. I was exhausted by the time we got home and I hadn’t even tried anything on.

I remember marathon days of deciding an entire school year’s worth of wardrobe in one hot, sticky summer day, the feeling of peeling off shorts and pulling on long pants in a cramped dressing room so unnatural. And forget if you tried to find a winter jacket, the smooth silky lining of the sleeves so cold against your short-sleeved arms.

Yesterday wasn’t one of those marathon days. My mother had wanted to buy each of my girls a back-to-school outfit. I was merely the consultant and chauffeur who scoured the sale racks for basics while the girls tried on clothes. I would share with you the details of my extreme couponing, which I am so stoked about, but that is not relevant at this time.

Once I’d discovered there was nary an item to be had under $3.99, I would wander from rack to rack looking at the cute patterns and prints of fall ’13. There were a few revolting numbers with lace and sequins that gave me flashbacks of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ video. There were some shiny jeans that looked vaguely like hot pants. There were some open weave sweaters a little too sheer for my mother-of-grammar-school-aged-children liking. Maybe I’m just paranoid for the teenage years and want to set the no-sheer standard now. But there were a lot of fashion forward clothes that were modest and something I’d be comfortable letting my kids wear.

That said, there were a lot of clothes, that if they were in my size, I’d wear.

A disclaimer. I hate kids’ clothes that make them into mini-me’s. I find it creepy in a Toddlers and Tiaras sort of way. I feel that kids should be kids, allowed to be and/or kept innocent, modest, and cute for as long as possible.

But I was jealous as I roamed the racks. I wanted to buy some of those outfits in my size. I found myself taking cues from the fashion trends I was seeing in the kids’ section.

This depressed me in two ways.

One, it reiterated mass media/marketing’s pull on our children to grow up too quickly. Pop culture, fashion trends, merchandising drive our children’s ideas of what’s cool and how to be. A dwarf fashion plate at age eight stalking the cat walk.

Two, with limited funds and the fact that my children actually have a place to go each day, their wardrobe wins out over mine. They will be better dressed than I will this fall.

I do feel comfortable with everything we bought the girls on this back-to-school shopping excursion. They will be both fashion-forward and appropriate, cute and trendy.

The colorful birds on skinny jeans will continue to fly through my imagination, while combinations of coral and navy dance through my head. At least I seem to have kept my girls as girls for one more year.

Image from Tobi Fairley

Children, Humor, motherhood, parenting

Yoga with Kids

By adhering to the following prerequisites, you too can have a complete yogic experience with your children.

image from NPR

Start by choosing your mat. When your children see you roll out yours, they will immediately clamor for one of the remaining mats (tip: be sure to have only one of each color and one less than the number of children).
Place yours in an open area, free from obstacles and other people. Your children will fill in the void.
Set your yoga strap at your side, easily accessible during your practice. Your children will be able to grasp it easily as well to whip each other.
Don’t forget yoga blocks – in case you need extra support during a stretch. Or a teething ring or projectile.
Clear your mind. Your children will ping around like ping-pong balls no matter what venomous thoughts you entertain.
Lie in repose. Ignore that fact that a toddler’s thick skull could sucker punch you in the gut at any moment.
Oh, and be sure to slide your sandals off before lying down, but keep them close by. Your particularly feisty child may need a missile to launch at you for not arranging her not-right-color mat properly.
Range through the poses at your own pace – not that of your instructor. You need to adjust for puppies crawling through your downward dog, snakes wriggling under your bridge, monkeys hanging onto your tree.
Accept your body as it is. Don’t force the sore muscles of your shoulder or your tight hamstrings. Your children will do that when they knock into you, sending your warrior tumbling.
Move your yoga practice outside for inspiration and variety. Tell your children they may play nearby if they tire of yoga. They will tire of yoga, but will stay right by your side, taunting and pleading for snacks and your attention.
Scan your body for areas of tension. Notice the up-tick in your blood pressure as your children attempt acrobatics off the couch onto the yoga mats.
Do not abandon your practice before it is finished. You came here to find inner peace and relax, dammit.

Living, motherhood, parenting

Pieces of Me

Walking across the quad of the campus of my alma mater yesterday, where I’m taking a weeklong institute on writing, my feet felt tipped. No, not tipsy, but tipped, as in leaning outward. Now as someone who is a diagnosed overpronator, this is not a sensation I am used to. Must just be because I haven’t worn these sandals in awhile, I thought.

When I reached the classroom, I felt my foot roll and thought I’d stepped on something. I bent my leg a la checking for dog poo and saw that the rubber sole of my sandal had started to disintegrate. What I’d stepped on was a small wedge of the one that had made up the bottom of my shoe. As the day wore on, a pile of rolled-up rubber collected under my chair and a Hansel and Gretel crumb trail of what had worked itself off in the hallway led me to class this morning.

I was pissed. I had paid good money for these brand-name sensible shoes. My husband did point out that I most likely bought them when expecting my first child about nine years ago, but still. My father still has shoes he wore when I was a babe. What the heck!

Shoe travesty aside, it was disorienting to find pieces of me scattered all around the various paths I’d taken yesterday – and left behind unbeknownst to me.

But then, looking back over this entire week, that seems de rigueur.

The first time I sat down to write this, I shut the door. My now-six year old opened it and asked if she could rest while I wrote. Fine. But the door stayed open and I could hear the television, computer, and talk radio playing simultaneously downstairs. Then she started explaining, in great, glorious detail, some drawings she’d done. Beautiful. But I can’t form words and listen to them at the same time. Then my three year-old started a full-on high-pitched fit about the television being shut off for dinner. Downstairs. Behind the couch. Far removed from me and yet still ear shattering. Then my husband called up the stairs that dinner was ready.

And now this, my second time trying to write it, two daughters camped out in the room until I complained of noise and one went into her room, closing the door behind her in a huff.

I’ve attended class all day each day since Monday, leaving campus each day rife with ideas and inspiration, which I need to shove on the backburner of collecting my kids at various family members’ houses throughout the state, trekking home, figuring out dinner with food I didn’t have time to shop for, hugging and kissing for lost time, trying to relax and catch up on my sleep deficit and finish my homework at the same time. All three of the kids contracted a stomach bug, which not only made me worry about them, but the various family members who still lovingly offered to take them.

There are pieces of me scattered all over the place. My house, my car, our other car I had to take when I transported all three children at the same time, my purse, in the mosquito that bit me as I cleaned the puke off the bottom of the car and then flew into the woods by the side of the road, the carpeted hallway of Adams’ Library, the windowless classroom, the roads I’ve rushed down, the hearts of my children, the imagination of my husband, the dreams of my soul.

I’m not a crumbly mess, but it’s hard not to feel worn thin.

Children, Identity, parenting

Pierced by a Princess

I was so excited when I saw the commercial. It drew me in. I was enthralled. It turned the idea of a princess on its head. Girls were galloping on horses – in britches, not flowing gowns. They were shooting arrows. Swimming laps. They were real.

They weren’t prissy. They weren’t waiting for a handsome male to save them. They weren’t sitting in repose filing their nails or coifing their hair. They weren’t doing the stereotypical things that mainstream media deems as femininely appropriate.

In other words, they weren’t filling the mold cast by Disney and its multi-million dollar princess industry. The commercial flew in the face of all that Disney defines as princess. And I was tickled pink. Finally, another voice in the conversation of young female identity. I was psyched that my daughters were being bombarded with this media message, albeit a small bullet amidst the other bombs.

Then I realized the smooth transitions between live shots of the young female archer and clips of Merida plucking her bow; a snippet of the young woman’s dialogue stitched up with the princess’ Scottish brogue. A sharp arrow pierced my heart.

There was no way Disney would loan their highly lucrative Brave empire to a media campaign designed to encourage girls to courageous authenticity. To eschew animated perfection. To forgo licensed merchandise for practical attire and tools.

Wherever there’s a princess, Disney isn’t far behind.

They know there are people like me – women, mothers, fathers, grandfathers – who abhor the exploitation of young girls into this gateway of unrealistic expectations of beauty, behavior, being. They exploited that need in me for another option for girls.

And while this commercial is, in many ways, the antithesis of the whole royal empire they’ve created, if such a message comes from them, they’ll seem sympathetic. They understand. They aren’t the evil mongerers of petticoats and pink. They want girls to achieve their full potential even if that means they’ll muddy their knees on the soccer field and go to university for engineering. Oh, they support the young females of the world in whatever they may do. And if they happen to find inspiration in the snippets of computer-generated heroines seamlessly interspersed with real girls, there’s merchandise for that. There are DVDs these young ladies can watch for further inspiration. Movie premieres and theme parks they can visit dressed in appropriate thematic garb for research and encouragement.

Well done, Disney. You almost had me. Which means you most likely hooked every girl in America and beyond that you hadn’t yet.

It’s a brave new world indeed.

* Related article: Great read on Brave’s creator’s misgivings on Disney’s treatment

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Category Archives: parenting