On Parenting

Lasts

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

We have long since graduated from the phase in our children’s lives where we celebrated firsts. First steps, first solid foods, first haircuts, first lost teeth, first cruise around the cul-de-sac without training wheels. There was no abrupt moment when I noticed, but with time, those firsts have become more spaced out, less prominent, faded into new routines. 

Last night, I lay curled up on my son’s beanbag chair. I racked my brain and could not recall the last time he had asked me to stay in his room as he was falling asleep.  He had been at a friend’s house and watched a horror movie that left him a bit more affected than he’d like to admit. There were no words spoken to ask me to stay, but when I offered, his body relaxed, and while he would never admit it, there was a slight nod before his head dropped onto his pillow.  I re-adjusted and found myself a little nest in his large foam ball of a chair and closed my eyes, letting my mind wander as I tried to recall the last time I had done just this exact same thing. And then I tried to remember other lasts. The last time I had drawn him a bath with bubbles. The last time I had laid out his clothes on his dresser for the next day. Lasts never celebrated or identified until they had faded unnoticed even faster than memories of firsts. 

This intersection of childhood and the first tastes of a new transition into becoming fully independent has been one that we have been trying to navigate by trial and error. Sometimes we do not realize until it is too late that we got it all wrong, and sometimes, we skate by and think we got it right. We are fully aware that some days we like our kids less than we love them, and that is part of the process. But we are trying to remind ourselves to savor every last minute of this clunky, unceremonious transition. As these lasts come and go without us even realizing, we want to remember how much we enjoy our relationship with them in its ever-evolving form at this moment in time.  

I do not remember the last time I brought my 12-year-old daughter to dance and stayed for the duration of all her classes. But I’ll remember how she used to light up when she tumbled out of one class and saw me sitting there, holding up her water and snack and helped her take off her ballet shoes and tied her tap shoes. 

I cannot recall the exact date when I last helped my son put on his baseball belt and tuck in his baseball uniform, but I’ll remember the absolute joy he exuded those first times his bat made contact with the ball on the field. 

At some point, that first contact of the bat to the ball turned into the memory of when he hit a walk-off run in a play-off game, flipped his bat with the most knowing confidence and advanced his team, with the memory of his baseball buddies meeting him out in the field and tackling him, ending in him making sand angels next to the first base plate.

While those firsts were exhilarating as new parents experiencing it all for the first time, the memories continue all the same with unequivocal emotions of adoration and absolute pride. 

So, as I lay with a growing cramp in my side, curled up on that foam beanbag chair, I’ll do what I can to remember this mundane evening of waiting for my son’s breaths to deepen until I know he is fully asleep. Maybe it won’t be the last time he will, in his own way, want me to stay until he falls asleep. But I suppose there is no way to be sure, so I’ll store away this memory just in case, knowing tomorrow will bring new turns as they continue to leave behind the firsts of childhood. Rather than mourn the sadness of lasts, I’ll sit present in this moment, eager for the joy in the To Be Continued yet to come.

Permission Granted

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

Today, I am giving myself permission to acknowledge yesterday. I am giving myself permission to say that I feel overwhelmed and sometimes it is too much.

Saying this out loud in itself feels overwhelming. Actively broadcasting feeling overwhelmed means that I don’t have it all together. It feels like an admission to weakness and feeling incapable of handling all the things with command and poise. It sweeps the I-don’t–know-how-she-does-it-all wonderment from right under my legs. This is not who I am–Overwhelmed. I scoff it off. Bury it deeper. Just keep powering forward.

I am juggling it all, with grace, with an eloquent efficiency, and without flinching–not one bit. I can take care of my family, manage my Joanne Gaines curated home, invest in my friendships, be career-driven, and give back to my community, and bear the unexpected without the blink of an eye. These are the delusions I crowd my mind with to push out any doubt.

Overwhelming shouldn’t have a seat at my table.

Last night was one of those nights. I had to stare Overwhelming in the eye. My day began unexpectedly–as I have come to timidly expect these days–with my son waking up with a fever. My husband swamped with work. My girls moving around slowly and forgetfully as if this “getting ready for school” thing was a new wonderment they have never ever, ever experienced. My day, derailed as I preoccupied myself with caring for my sick child, picking up meds, cough drops, disposable masks, soup, crackers and all other things to tend to my son’s cough, sore throat, fatigue, and body aches.

I can see now what I was doing. I was trying to stuff my feelings of having to leave for the night and not be there for my son by over preparing. By overcompensating.

By the time I thought about dinner, my girls were off the bus and barging through the door, wet snow splattering into our front entrance as they dropped their bookbags, kicked off their snow pants and boots and started rummaging the pantry for snacks. One daughter to get ready for dance, the other for hockey, and Mom can you register for the school fundraiser right now and what are we eating for dinner and should I bring a snack or are you packing me a dinner and where is my water bottle? I fought with myself whether I could insert a nap before my overnight shift. I felt as if all the pieces were all tipping on the edge of a wobbly waitress tray. The slightest trip and it would all come tumbling down.

I felt dramatic. I wanted to stop. I wanted to not leave for work. I wanted to be by my son’s side. I wanted to sit on my couch. I wanted to cry. I wanted my daughters to be able to find their water bottles by themselves and remember to have everything they needed for hockey and dance without me scrambling to find the odds and ends. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be calm and in control. I wanted to not raise my voice or sound exasperated. I wanted to handle all the things and not have these emotions. I just wanted to all together give up on tonight. Maybe tomorrow would be better. But there was still so much to push through. I hated how this was all making me feel. Overwhelming, please get up and leave.

Maybe it wasn’t even the events of today that was making me feel so taxed. Maybe it was the culmination of tiny stressors day in and day out. Absorbing each small event and inadvertantly depleting my reserve until there was barely anything to pull from. The reserve is empty. The Overwhelming is sidling loudly and disruptively into its place.


As the queen of compartmentalizing, feeling these emotions bubble over felt irritating and I judged myself for being so dramatic. Emotions are consuming, and there is not time for more consuming things.

So, I tell myself to breathe. One task at a time. One thing at a time. It is not the end of any world. It’s just Overwhelming here to sit alongside you. Shake its hand. Say hi. You can work through this. You will always get to the other side.

Mama Heart

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

A sticky blue flurry with tangled, blonde hair attack-hugs my leg as I open the garage door, home from work after an exhausting day. It’s my 6-year-old daughter. It’s as if she’s been waiting by the edge of the mudroom all day, ready to pounce at the first sound of our mudroom door alarm open.

The force of her weight on me is the human embrace I need to let me know I am home.

I am home.

I am home. 

It is the deep, long sigh I need to start to wash the heaviness away.

I gently peel her off my leg, promising real hugs and snuggles once I am clean. I obsessively wash my cracked, dry hands one more time. Shower. Put on clean clothes. I am so tired, but now I feel safe, and now I feel I can pick her up, smoosh her face against mine, and tickle her neck with my nose.

My mind starts to quiet, my adrenaline starts to still, and my heart transitions through its rollercoaster of emotions. My 6-year-old sits curled up in my lap. She holds my cheeks with her sticky, sweaty hands. Half holding my attention, half distracted by the fun of squishing my cheeks. “Mommy, when I’m a doctor, can I come to work with you?” she tilts her head and looks up at me.

My heart soars and sinks. I don’t know how this is possible, but the way a mom’s heart can stretch and bend, isn’t something science can explain. I am so proud of this little girl that has ambition, and knows she can do anything her mind and motivation set forth to do, but I cannot help but wonder what challenges she will face in adulthood that parallels that of a global pandemic. 

I think about my own mama’s heart. How her heart burst with the greatest pride to see me give a speech in front of my medical school class on graduation day. How her heart soared with me when I matched at the residency program of my dreams. How her heart felt full the first time she saw me in a white coat with stethoscope slung around my neck. How her heart felt joy seeing me walk down the aisle in a white dress. How her heart expanded to make room for more the first time she held her grandkids in her arms. 

Then I think about what this pandemic has meant for her heart. How her heart has pounded so fast on sleepless nights worrying about if I have the PPE I need to keep me safe. How her heart has brimmed with crippling anxiety waiting for my call on my way home from work, because that is the reassurance she needs to know that I am okay. How her heart has ached with hollowness over the last 10 months of missing me and not being able to see me in person and hug me. How her heart has sunk down low alongside mine when she has caught me in a drained, helpless, or defeated place, weighed down by the patients that have affected me that day.

It’s been over a year since I’ve seen my mom. It goes without saying, I have never gone over a year without seeing my parents. And it breaks my heart, but I love them too much to suggest putting them at risk. My mom is 76-years-old. I have seen 76-years-olds struggle in ways I will never forget. I’ve seen them struggle to breathe, struggle to keep food down, struggle to live. 

My mom, who is not on social media, sees my face only on Facetime, and I see half her forehead and one eyebrow as she tries to figure out where this mysterious hidden camera is in her phone. She inspects my face and tells me how I need to pat my face after each face wash so the skin around my mouth isn’t so dry and flaky. She dismisses my protests that I can’t help what my mask does to my face. She rapid fire gives me instructions for recipes of “quick easy meals” I can make so I can have something at the ready to eat at work, thinking quick easy recipes will combat the fact that I need to keep my N95 mask on and physically and logistically simply cannot eat for the duration of my work shifts regardless of what recipes I make. 

Every time I call her—she doesn’t dare call me, she is convinced I must always be working or sleeping, and both would be terrible to disturb—she asks me if I am still seeing “the COVID-19 patients” and if I ate yet today. “Yes Mom. From when you asked me yesterday, I am still seeing them today. And yes Mom. I eat everyday.” She tells me she knows, she knows, but she just has to ask. This is her way of telling me about her mama heart, that it loves me, misses me, worries about me, and is proud of me, with every single beat. 

I think about how my mom’s heart stretches and bends to hold all her emotions right now. I think about its immeasurable strength. I think back to my flushed-cheeked 6-year-old sitting in my lap with her baby teeth still all intact. I think how her ambition makes me so proud of who I will watch her become, and for the first time, with the rollercoaster of this pandemic, fill me with a new trepidation. 

There will come a time, when all of this will be part of our world history. Standing on this side, where ahead of us is a blindingly bright star, coming into focus in the silhouette of a vaccine, I am full of hope. I am comforted by this residual soreness in my left arm where the Band-Aid over where I got my first dose of vaccine still sticks. 

I am full of hope because it is true and because I need to be full of hope to keep moving forward. 

This will be a part of our history, our greatest teacher. I hope when my mama heart is alongside that of my own mom, I’ll be able to feel more pride than fear for my little girl, out to change the world. 

My Son’s Hair

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

Today was a day I don’t want to forget.

It’s been a summer of navigating a new way of living. What is our new social normal. What is within our comfort zone.

My son’s baseball practices and games being one of the things that has given us an excuse to be outside for long summer days and electric summer nights under the lights. I watch as my son plays this sport he loves so intensely, and my husband puts his heart into coaching our son’s team. I’m not sure who is having more fun. He is his dad’s son, and their passion for baseball falls into step like one heart beating.

As my son grows older, I notice how his passions pull him more in line with my husband. I notice how our common interests start to gain the slightest distance. He is still my sweet boy that asks me every morning how I slept or asks me how my work shift was. He is still my sweet boy who wants to help me at dinner time or play board games. But that deep childhood dependency—that need to be right within arms reach and a glance away from me—have fallen loosely to the margins. Long gone are the days when he needed constant holding, when he sat on my right hip, or when he cried when I put him in his play space behind a gate in direct view of the kitchen, frantically searching for a hot minute to make dinner. And yes, I am more relieved than not that those hard, hard days of raising toddlers are past us. And yes, this is as it should be. I am so proud of this confident boy that searches the neighborhood for a ball game of any sort to join or buries himself in the latest MLB baseball statistics or Cubs game. He is independent, he is self-assured, he is responsible, and I trust him.

But there are days when the bittersweet thoughts that tomorrow he will need me less than he needs me today creep shadows over my heart and weave my breaths with this tinge of sorrow. I don’t know if this is true, but I am fearful I am right.

But today. Today our family huddled up in a cabin up north. We watched a movie inside on a wind-whipping day as the lake side white caps crashed along the shore outside our windows.

The movie was full of suspense and sometimes scenes that made the kids shudder. And halfway through, I found my son squatting next to my seat. Then fully laying his head against my arm. I peeled off his baseball cap which is normally cemented to his head, and I ran my fingers through his hair. It felt gritty, dry, full and thick. Like the hair of a boy that has lived a summer on the baseball field, sliding and kicking up sand, sweaty, and free.

Today, my son needed me to be his security blanket through this movie. I remind myself that perhaps it’s not that he will need me less tomorrow, but he will lean on me differently as our mother-son relationship evolves.

What I’ll remember about today is what his hair felt like, because when the movie ended, his cap was back on, and he was back running outside in the brisk cold, swinging his bat at imaginary 96 mph pitches and daydreaming about that ball soaring past the fence.

In this ever changing climate we are currently living in, there is one constant that will always hold true. This is him now at this stage, and as this stage grows into the next, I simply could not be more thankful to be his mom.

The Rise

~ cindylw ~ 1 Comment

Dear Max, Sofia, and Claire,

There is a man name George Floyd. He is an African American man that law enforcement had been called to investigate. The details of this interaction are yet to be clear. But Mr. Floyd was a Black man, and he suffered extreme and unnecessary consequences, and ultimately died. He did not deserve what happened to him. This was not right of the police. This happened because Mr. Floyd was African American. His skin color was different than that of the police. Can you believe that someone can be killed because of their skin color? It is hard to talk about, it is hard to understand, but it is real life. It happens. And as much as I want you to live in your childhood, I also want you to grow up to be adults that see justice and fight for humane and respectful treatment of all people.

Because of the wrongful way Mr. Floyd was treated, our nation is currently undergoing great chaos. It has triggered in citizens of our country great unrest. Because, unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. This has happened time and time again to many African American people. Their lives are often in danger because of the color of their skin. Think about your friends at school that are African American. Do you know that many of them have to live with this fear that their life can be in danger if they interact with the police? Can you imagine if your life was in danger every time you encountered the police? What if someone went for an early morning run, like Daddy often does, but his skin was black, so he had to fear for his life because he was running before it was daylight outside and his skin was a different color? Can you imagine if someone pushed you to the ground, punched you in the face, kicked you because of the color of your skin or the color of your hair or the way you talked? Doesn’t that seem wild? But it happens all the time. And this is why people are angry and want our country to change the way people of color are treated.

I know this can be confusing. Police officers are people that are trained to protect others and keep us safe. But all police officers are people of varying beliefs, just like teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, mail carriers. Just like neighbors, friends, moms and dads. And among all these different people with different jobs, you will find people with great flaws that allow them to make bad decisions because of their clouded judgment. This does not mean all police officers are bad people. All people make mistakes. But when mistakes become a pattern and puts the lives of others in jeopardy, that needs to stop immediately.

We are living during a time of revolution in our country. As you grow older, you will become familiar with the phrase that sometimes, we have to hit rock bottom before we make progress forward. This feels like our country’s rock bottom in our lifetime. Right now, in our country, there is passion for change. There is anger. There is peaceful protest against the unjust way people of color have been treated for centuries. There is rage that has fueled violence and destruction. There is brokenness and heartache that has brought people together to restore and love through support of one another and our communities. There is fear that has channeled distrust and retaliation. There is persistence, resistance, and standing together.

All of this is happening right now. It is a reminder of our ingrained human imperfections and the need for change to ensure these dark human flaws do not do as they have done time and time again and lead to the unlawful punishment and death of people of color.

Racism is real. Racism is seeing people that look differently than you, act differently than you, have different cultural and religious beliefs as you, as less than you. Feeling as if you have the power to control them, degrade them, or shower hate on them for absolutely no valid reason.

You will, at some point, be the subject of racism. Mom is Asian and Dad is Caucasian. Some people look down upon people of different colors and races being married. They may look down on you, make fun of you, be mean to you because you are an Asian American. How you feel when this happens, is a fraction of how African Americans feel when people are racist towards them. You may feel anger, hurt, small, and sad. But African American people also fear for their lives and the violence that may be inflicted on them. Can you imagine being afraid right now that someone would hurt you because Mom is Asian and you are too? Think about what that feels like, and think about how you can use that to be strong and be strong with other people that feel that and more.

What I want you to do, is open your eyes. Listen with your ears. See how your friends are different than you. See how their hair is different, their skin color is different, their clothes are different, their lunches are different. And see how much you like to play with them because of who they are. These differences don’t make them less your friend. They make them who they are. Every person is someone’s friend. Every person is someone’s son or daughter. Every person has people that love them. That is because of everything that makes them them. Their black hair, their brown eyes, their brown skin, their red hair, their green eyes, their white skin. See the beauty in these differences.

Too often, people are quick to judge the things that they are not familiar with. Things that we are not familiar with often make us uncomfortable. It’s like before you, Claire, try a new food. You scrunch up your face and say “EW”! And Max and Sofia, you know that this food Claire has never tried is delicious and encourage her to try it. Sometimes she does, and then she loves it. Sometimes she never does, and she doesn’t get to enjoy this new thing that you guys love because she has rejected it before ever trying it. We urge her to try it, because it is usually healthy and will provide her body the nutrients it needs to grow, but also, what if it ends up being her favorite food? Sometimes, it is easy to not want things you are uncomfortable with in your life. But just like it is hard for Claire to try new foods, I want you to push yourself outside of your comfort, observe and ask questions about them. Get to know them. Think about the friends you have made. What if you didn’t push yourself to get to know them? What if they weren’t in your life right now? Wouldn’t you be less happy? Connecting and embracing how we are all different is what makes our country thrive. It is what makes our country healthy and allows it to grow. It is this tie-dye mixture that makes our country’s heartbeat colorful and strong.

If you notice someone being pushed aside or made fun of because of their differences, be the one to stand by their side. Be their friend. Be their second voice against someone that doesn’t value their differences. The more voices that stand together, the louder we are. Maybe they will start to make fun of you. Maybe they will push you aside too. People that put you down for that reason will need to face their own flaws. Remove that from your shoulders. It is not your burden to carry. Imagine if you were to stand alone and be made fun of and there was no one to stand by your side. Know that those that stand their ground and help others stand their ground are always the strongest.

Right now in our state and in our country, people are standing together. They are protesting what happened to Mr. Floyd. Mr. Floyd died because racism is real and because he is a Black man. In no place is this the right thing to have happened. Mr. Floyd is not the first man to die because he is Black. But this should never happen. This should never happen. And now, we have hit our rock bottom with Mr. Floyd’s death. So people are standing by their friend. They are saying this is wrong. They are demanding that no person like Mr. Floyd ever be subject to extreme punishment or death because of the color of their skin. Some people are doing this with peaceful protest. Some people have turned to violence and destruction.

Now, I want to be clear. I never want you to turn to violence and destruction. Violence and destruction, no matter how mad, how angry you are, is never the answer. It is never going to be the right thing to cause more pain, put more people in danger, destroy things that people depend on like food and medications and people’s property and business that provide them shelter and their livelihood. This will never, never be accepted by your mom. Ever.

But I do want you to know that this is the time to open our eyes and stand with those that are standing by Mr. Floyd, Ms. Taylor, Mr. Arbery, Mr. Castile, Mr. Sterling, Mr. Garner, Mr. Scott and all the other people that were treated with brutality because of their color.

Max, Sofia, and Claire. I love you more than anything I can imagine. All these people that have been harmed because of the color of their skin also have moms and dads that love them more than they could imagine. I want you to be part of the good in the world. The healing and the strength, because I need as many moms and dads hearts to be protected as possible.

Our country is at its rock bottom. Let’s be part of the rise. It starts now and it starts with us, my loves.

 

 

 

 

Revolving Worlds

~ cindylw ~ 1 Comment

My twins were two years old. My husband and I were leaving for the first time for an extended trip. I can’t remember the details of where we were going or why. What I do remember is the deep ache that ballooned in my chest as we rolled our luggage to the garage door. Their little faces with red-rimmed eyes and Rudolph the reindeer noses, tears smeared across flushed cheeks as they wiped them on our pant legs. Sticky hands grabbing at our hips begging to be clutched tight and not let go. My heart pounding and willing the rest of me to protect them from their heartbreak.

Since then, I’ve realized that those instincts to shield them from hurt and that unraveling that starts in my chest and billows through to my toes as I see them in pain will always be a part of how I mother, but even back then, I knew that leaving them to honor other commitments was part of parenting. A good part of parenting.

As parents, our greatest desire is to ensure our kids know we love them. That we are here for them. That we are present and we support them. In this world that goes a mile a minute, it is hard to feel as if we are giving them our undivided selves, because that is simply not reality. We are divided. We are divided with our professional careers, with upkeep of our homes, upkeep of our daily lives with groceries and meal-planning, with upkeep of our relationships with extended family and friends. Like an elastic toy, we are stretched to extremes, each corner pulling us hard in every direction. Our hearts tethered in the middle like the mid-section of a well-worn tug-a-war rope. 

But this is okay. This is truly okay. This is better than okay. This is what we should be showing our kids. I remind myself to let go of the guilt of being a mom with multiple shoes to fill. I’ve allowed myself to invite my kids into my world rather than living in their world.

I allow them to see how dedicated I am to the things that color my life and make it full. I show them that I am one hundred percent committed to my profession. I tell them about my patients, about what I did during the day. About what was hard, about what broke my heart, about what was exciting or astonishing, and what made me proud of what I did at work. I tell them when I am excited to take a trip with their dad or go on a date night. I tell them when I am having a girls night with friends and how girls nights with my friends are just as fun as when they have play dates with their friends. I bring them along when we drop off things for someone in need and tell them how important it is for us to not only show up for each other but also for our community. I let them know when I am going to exercise and remind them that this is time when I need my complete space to just help my body stay strong and healthy.

In each and every one of these moments, I am taking time away from my kids and giving it to another part of my life. What I want them to see is that I love them and despite them being my greatest priority, my life does not revolve solely around them. That this world does not revolve around them. There is a world outside of them, starting with the world their very own mom lives. And outside of that, there is a greater community thriving and breathing. I want them to see the importance of independence, self-sufficiency, and working hard. I want them to realize I will always be here for them. I will be their safety, their net. That I am their greatest support, but I am also so many other things to so much else in this world. They are the most enriching part of my life, but there is so much more that fills it up and makes it whole.

And this is okay. This is better than okay. 

Now, more than ever, the mom-guilt can be crippling. So many of us are working from home and having to divide ourselves without the help of physical space to have our kids in school and us in our work buildings. Now more than ever, we are aware that our kids are in need of our attention with home-schooling and being all ever present at home. We are having to tell them to wait their turn as we focus on other obligations. The glare of our inability to provide them with undivided attention is fierce. The shadow that this guilt casts on us inevitably grows taller and more pervasive. I definitely have found myself more irritable, brisk, and wild-eyed at my kids on a more frequent basis, but I try to remind myself that it’s okay to ask my kids to be patient and to let them see that there are other priorities that matter.

They will always be my number one, but that doesn’t mean I can drop everything to cater to them with their every desire. You are here. You will always be here for them. But let them see you in all your color and life. They are watching, and they will learn from this. They will see that you are strong, self-sufficient, and upholding your value as your own self, your value in your family, and your community. As their mom, they see you as one of the strongest presence in their life. What a beautiful thing for them to see you as the whole person you are.

I know there is guilt. I am right along you with the daily ugly mom-moments that we criticize ourselves harshly for. But your kids know you are the foundation of love that underlies all of this daily noise. They know you are theirs and them yours. Even on your lowest days and hardest moments. Give yourself grace to work through this day by day, and know that there is tremendous strength and beauty in letting them into your world and not just revolving around theirs.

Dance Moms

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

Dance Moms. Just that simple two-word title triggers guttural reactions in most.  It stirs up connotations of a middle-aged woman with frumpy hair and stretchy pants.  A coffee in one hand and an extra-large can of extreme-hold hairspray in the other.  It stirs up connotations of a once-was, or even worse, a never-was dancer way past her prime beaming on stage left, clapping emphatically and slightly maniacally for her daughter. It stirs up images of this shiny, bedazzled daughter of hers in a starch-stiff tutu adorned with silver sequins, hair in a high bun matted concretely to her head with an entire squeeze bottle of gel and bright pink lipstick outlining bright white teeth.

I know what you think. I know what you see.  It makes me laugh, because at times, when I’m not paying attention, I could mistakenly see what you see.  Those Dance Moms!  But fortunately, I’ve realized what Dance Moms really are.

My daughter was five when she announced she was ready to join her friends in their rhinestone leotards accessorized with large, bobbing, sparkling hair bow headpieces on that dance stage.  I shrugged my shoulders.  It wasn’t different than anything else we had tried.  A summer camp of basketball here.  A community T-ball season there.  A high school led soccer class there.  Dance?  Sure.  Let’s do it.  I went into it with no idea.  I imagined it would be a class once a week, and an adorable recital at the end of the year.  What’s the harm in that?

I imagine this is how most Dance Moms are created.  Eager moms and dads in this helicopter-parenting era, ready to encourage their sons and daughters in yet another endeavor.  Was I crazy to consider this?  No.  Ha.  I was just a sucker like the rest.

And so it began as I expected.  We signed up for a recreational dance class.  One class once a week.  A recital on the horizon.  My son joined too.  Why not?  But it wasn’t long before my daughter was invited to join the competition world, and my son, wise beyond his years, sniffed that there was something not for him about this place we had been bringing him every Thursday, and graciously bowed out.

Competition dance? Most definitely!  Why not?  My daughter smiled from ear to ear.  It sounded like a fantastic idea.  Slightly more rigorous classes with a couple competition weekends thrown in here or there?  Yes.  She was on board.  I was on board. This sounded like a great idea.

Ha.  Sucker.

I’m not quite sure where to start without diving right in.  Competition dance is not for the faint of heart.  It is for the diligent, the passionate, the committed. Because there isn’t anything that I have done on behalf of my children in these early years as a parent that has defined commitment as much as dance has.  It is a pure labor of love the things I have found myself doing that I never, in a million lives, would have imagined myself doing.

Putting 186 rhinestones on one dance outfit?  Been there.  Sewing appliqués onto sequined tiny tops?  Done that.  Wrangling my seven-year-old daughter’s long, straight hair into two perfectly tight buns on top of her head at 4 in the morning? Yep.  I’m raising my hand.

But here’s the truth. The real truth.  Underneath all those superfluous, flashy distractions you see on the surface is hard work.  So much hard work.  I’ve never seen girls this age work like this.  These girls that commit after school evenings to dance class then practice at home on their days off.  These girls that show up at 6:30 in the morning on a competition day and do not go home until 11:30 at night, only to get up at 6 am the next day, and do it all over again.

I remember one moment last year—my daughter was 7 years old.  She had literally been at a competition going on hour 14.  And there she was, doing cartwheel after cartwheel after cartwheel across the gymnasium practice floor.  Why?  Because she was loving every single minute of it. The early mornings, the late nights, the long days, the dance after dance with costume changes and intricate hair changes, she did it all because she was exactly where she wanted to be.

This past weekend, my daughter, now eight, had a full day of competition, snuck in a six-hour night of sleep, and at 6 am the next day, was up and ready for the next day of competition.  There was no complaint in any of her still-waking-up muscles.  She sat straight as I pulled her hair into a tight high bun.  She proceeded to go on to stretch, practice, and compete, giving it her all.  And every time I witness her in one of these moments, I just know.

This girl.  This girl of mine has grit.  All these dancers have grit.  They have passion. They have so much love for what they are doing. They are determined and strong and have so much bravery to go on that stage with those blinding stage lights and perform.  There is no doubt in my mind, that I am that mom standing on the sidelines, clapping emphatically, and yes, yelling slightly maniacally for my daughter.  For my friends’ daughters.  For my daughters’ friends.  I do this not because I was never a dancer and I am living vicariously through the powerful grace of this gorgeous girl of mine, but because I know what it took for her to get here.  The hours, the commitment, the practice, the right attitude.

I beam and can’t help bubbling over not because I see my life through her, but because I see the life this brings to her. I follow her around with extreme-hold hairspray, because that is the very small part of the competition that I contribute to in this bigger lesson I hope she is learning.  Work hard.  Work so hard.  Don’t forget the details.  Know that effort pays off.  Acknowledge that you are exhausted, but continue to carry yourself with grace and do what needs to get done.  And if your emotions get the best of you, let them come, and then let them go, and then pick yourself up and find your strength again.

This is what it means to be a Dance Mom.  To be the grit behind the grit.  Make no mistake—my daughter and her dance life do not define me, but part of who I am is most certainly Dance Mom. I am the support beam behind a very brave girl that feels empowered to live her passion and most importantly, is learning the importance of work ethic, a good attitude, and where it can get her on that stage and beyond.

To all my Dance Moms. I’ll happily and proudly be called a Dance Mom right alongside you.

And. Make no mistake. I am wearing stretchy pants.

 

 

Bring Your Daughter to Work

~ cindylw ~ 2 Comments

It was one of those slippery moments of working mom-hood, when childcare slipped through, back-up childcare slipped through, and I was left at a crossroads.  How do I get myself from point A to point B and what do I do with my four-year-old in need of supervision?  Thankfully, my day of commitments was a day of meetings.  A day of meetings was far more flexible for me than a shift at work seeing patients.  That would have been more of a figure-it-out, you-must-show-up-to-work no-nonsense scenario.  At least with these meetings, I could call-in, though it wasn’t as meaningful to just call-in.  But what other choice did I have?

I sat there, my morning coffee already heading towards its lukewarm destiny.  My four-year-old in her shimmery batman dress and cape, crawling in my lap, the crayon in her hand daring to leave marks on my sierra sand colored couch.  And as I sat there in a silent tantrum, not wanting to miss my department meetings, but feeling as if I had little choice, it dawned on me that there was an alternative.  I could just bring her with me.  I compiled a list of ways to approach this.  I could shoot my boss an email and apologize and let him know I was bringing my daughter.  I could show up with her and apologize and explain how childcare fell through.  Or, I could just show up with my sidekick.

I watched as my four-year-old mimicked my every move.  Sipping her milk and declaring how her coffee was hotter than mine. Drawing a panda version of me, picking my favorite blue color for the panda’s belly.  And at that moment, I decided there was truly no other way to show up than with her at my side.  Unapologetic and with assertion.  Because there was no denying that this is my life: I am a mom and a physician, and I care about both and I will show up for both the best way I can.  And more importantly, this is what I want my four-year-old to see with her little eyes.  I want her to know the unique privilege of being a woman. I want her to see that we can be parents and also contribute to the workforce. It may be a balance to strive for, but we do it the best we can.

The best way I can today means a purple backpack with daffodils stuffed with my iPAD with downloaded Disney movies, pink kid headphones, my daughter’s Leap Pad, a pencil bag of crayons, coloring books, snacks, a rainbow unicorn water bottle, and a stuffed animal.  And my hospital work badge.

So, that’s what I did.  It was a meeting I prioritized and if it meant bringing my daughter, then that is exactly what I would do.  No apologies.  This is how it is.

My little spunky four year-old, sat at my feet, because laying on the ground watching a movie was more fun than sitting at the rectangular shaped tables in stiff conference room chairs.  She watched episodes of Doc McStuffins, part of Sing, she played some preschool app games, she colored, she drew, she ate cereal, she only needed a potty break twice.  And all the time, she knew I was right there part of her world and part of my work world.

It felt like a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.  I chose to bring my daughter to the meeting because the alternative was missing out on important decisions, updates, and discussions.  I brought my daughter to the meeting because daycare is unpredictable.  But mostly I brought my daughter to the meeting because I wanted her to know that this is unapologetically who I am.  A working mom that certainly doesn’t have it all figured out, but is managing the best I know how.  I want my daughter—and all sons and daughters for that matter—to grow up tearing down the judgment and stigma that follows that of a working mom.  We can work, we can raise a family, and we can do it with no less confidence and competence than the next person.

 

Finding Margins

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

This weekend was like any other.  Kids’ activities, work, home improvement projects, social gatherings to allow ourselves the joy of connecting with other adult human beings.  It was a fluid mix of “I’ll drop off here and meet you there and so-and-so will pick up there.”  All the pieces like well worn, slightly beaten up and bent puzzle pieces. That subtle mix of knowing all the pieces should fit exactly as coordinated with that undercurrent of anxiety that we may get to the end and one piece will have gone missing from the tattered, but structurally sound box of collected pieces.

It seems astounding that every fifteen minutes, ten minutes, five minutes, three minutes counts in this interweaving of a family’s schedules.  There was the moment when I was getting ready for work; my husband was corralling our son and youngest daughter out the door to pick up our other daughter from a birthday party on the way to bring our son to baseball practice.  With thirteen minutes on the clock until the end of the birthday party and twenty-eight minutes until the start of baseball, he pulled out all the ingredients for beef stew to throw into the pressure cooker.  Beef, potatoes, carrots, soup mix.  I looked at him wild-eyed.  “What are you doing??”  “Making dinner” . . . with the kids climbing in the car and thirteen minutes until pick-up.

No. Just no. Go.

So. There are countless moments like that.  The wind tunnel that funnels us mercilessly in forward motion as time lapses quickly and impatiently.

These are not the moments that keep me fueled and running.  No, not these harried punctuated moments of start times and end times.  But instead, all the hidden, quiet in between moments.  The Margins.

It’s peeling myself out of bed twenty minutes before the slumbering haze of morning lifts to make coffee, shaking off the dizziness of sleep and orienting myself towards the day ahead, and maybe even catching a glimpse of the sunrise.  It’s the pain of getting my four-year-old to hockey early on a Saturday morning, only to find myself sitting solo, in silence, with nowhere I’d rather be than on those chilly bleachers, hugging my thermos of caffeine while watching with fireworks of pride as my daughter’s tiny four-year-old body glides across the ice with fierce determination.  It’s the forty-five minutes after lunch and before baseball on Sunday that I chose to sit and read and not scramble and trip over household chores while my two eight-year-olds built Legos.

It’s intentionally clearing space on these tightly organized, highly chaotic days with a myriad of demands.  It’s finding these margins and allowing myself this time to be present.  It was in that brief forty-five minute margin when my eight-year-old son asked me to help him find that one specific blue Lego piece in the sea of Legos.  I was startled by my own reaction.  My usual irritable, impatient, don’t-you-see-I’m-busy self was cast aside, and to my own shock and astonishment, I put down my book and helped him scour all the piles of tiny Legos.  With not even one iota of a mumbling nag of how he needs to keep track of his own things. We searched for a solid handful of minutes.  When we came up empty pile after pile, he finally conceded and said, “That’s okay.  I’ll just use something else.”  He paused pensively, and with sincerity added, “I love you mommy.”

That moment hit me. It confirmed to me that margins matter.  By choosing to create space to allow the impossible finding of a Lego to be my way of seeing my son—that moment mattered as much as, if not more than any other moment.

Margins—the clearing of space and time to allow and acknowledge your presence and the presence of others.  The time to be thankful that when we strip away all the orchestrated to-do’s, must-do’s, should-do’s, scheduled-do’s, that we see each other. That we see ourselves.  That we see our kids.  That we see our friends.  That we see our partners.  That we see those we love.  That we appreciate ourselves not for our busyness, our achievements, our productiveness, but for just being me.  Being you.  Being us.

I’ll keep finding margins because they matter.  They help preserve my stability, my sanity, my fuel for the rest of it all.

Lessons at the Stadium

~ cindylw ~ 2 Comments

Last night we took our son to the big football game between our beloved Minnesota Vikings and our most love-to-hate team, the Green Bay Packers. It was a big night for our son. He is a walking Vikings statistic generator obsessed fan. His love of football is around the clock. It starts in the morning with him putting on yet another Vikings jersey, throwing his football in our foyer, continues at school where he brings his football and football gloves to play a game with his friends at recess, and continues after school with more football playing, and ends at night reading statistics and talking about Sunday football, Monday night football, and Thursday night football with my husband.

He was on cloud nine when we stepped into that Vikings stadium last night. His wide-eyed stare, his toothy smile, his body tingling with excitement. I don’t think he stopped showing his left-sided dimple all night long. He loved every second of those over three hours of heated, edge-of-our-seats game play. He screamed loudly with complete elation with each touchdown. He SKOL-chanted in rhythm with his fellow Vikings fans. “This is the best night ever!” he screamed into my ear.

With every stadium game comes the adult jeerers and nasty comments about the rival team. Multiple times, the Vikings fan behind us made cracks about the opposing team’s quarterback, calling him a homosexual or gay. He yelled, “Why don’t you love your family! They will accept you for who you are!” While sometimes humorous, he crossed the line time and time again. He was so crass and loud, that it was unavoidable. My son turned and stared at him multiple times. There was no judgment in his eyes, only curiosity. As he had never heard those words strewn together and thrown aloud with such force. I heard the fan’s girlfriend lean over and quiet him trying to get him to show consideration for all the kids in the stands. “What?? Hey, don’t bring your kids to a Vikings game if you don’t want to hear the truth!” he drunkenly yelled. I did not see a productive conversation moving forward if we confronted him about this. So, I took note of his words so we could talk about it later. At one point, my always inquisitive and thoughtful son leaned over and asked me why the opposing team’s quarterback didn’t love his family. This was all news to him.

After the game on the drive home, as we came down from the high and exhilaration of a Vikings win; I turned to my son and asked him if he knew what it meant to be a homosexual or gay. He said he did not. We talked about kids that have two dads or two moms. We talked about how people can love whomever they would like, but that there are people that don’t agree with that. That though we know that you can love whomever it is you want, others who are close minded and close hearted will loudly make fun and judge people for decisions they don’t agree with. I told him that everyone is entitled to their opinions but there is a way to be kind and there is a way to open your heart to all kinds of people. I explained that that fan behind us was not one of those people that choose an open heart and kindness, and that there were many people just like him. I told him it was our job to support and show love for all kinds of people and stand up for people and their choices when they cannot themselves.

At the end of the day, I am thankful we were there to hear the truth. The truth is that we cannot shield our kids from other people’s close-minded, hateful rants. What we surely can do, is not brush these experiences under the rug. When the homophobia, racism, sexism, bigotry is loud around us, we need to be louder. I don’t mean yell back and be obnoxious in the stadium louder. I mean address these truths head on. Talk to them about these hard things and equip them with the right tools to process and react to this ever evolving, dynamic world.

We cannot just think that our kids are innocent and will find their way to the best conclusions. They are listening and learning every step of the way from everyone around them–for better or worse. Make this an active process, not a passive process.

The Vikings won. My son opened his eyes to another face of humankind, and because of it, he grew a little bit more into the man he is becoming.

The Audition

~ cindylw ~ 7 Comments

The hoops to being an “on-top-of-it” parent are endless. Remember to pack a lunch every day. Check their homework every night. Help them brush their teeth two times a day. Cook dinner for an entire family. Orchestrate on time after school pick-ups and drop-offs with accompanying sports equipment, water bottles and snacks. Remember to pay the monthly daycare bill. Sheepishly solicit uncles, aunts, grandparents and neighbors to donate to the current fundraiser. Check to make sure they remember their winter hat and gloves on the first cold day of the season. Check to see if they need new boots and coats. It is exhaustingly endless. But somehow we scramble and hustle and keep the barreling train moving forward. Sometimes, the wheels rattle and sometimes they screech and sometimes we wonder if they are falling off, but somehow, we keep things moving forward.

Last week was just like every other stretch of hurling myself over each hurdle of the 100-meter sprint to the end of the next 7-day stretch. It was Sunday night and I was bracing myself for a week of having an out-of-town husband-teammate. I was rallying to keep myself afloat by studying our family Google calendar as if prepping plays for the Saturday morning football game. My eyes flitted onto the upcoming Sunday. “Auditions” it said. My heart took a freefall down the cliff to my stomach. You see, I have a bad habit of burying anxiety-ridden thoughts to be searched for later, and I had done exactly that a few weeks ago.

My seven-year-old daughter had been asking since the start of the school year about auditioning for a “specialty dance” at her dance studio. My seven-year-old daughter—my quiet, thoughtful, unwavering-as-steel little girl wanted to audition for a small group dance. Who was I to deny her of her greatest ambition to date? You go girl, I enthusiastically fist-pumped, in my best she-is-fierce-hear-her-roar impersonation. That is, until I got the instructions for auditions. “Choreograph 6 – 8 8 counts of dance, any style, any music. We can’t wait to see your creativity!” it read. I was horrified.

First of all—for point of reference—you should know something about me. I have no sense of coordination. Here are a few facts about me:

1. I am the person who sprains her ankle walking on flat ground. Routinely.

2. I once fell from standing height while standing still at a wedding because I had put on heels for the first time after spending my entire intern year in residency working, eating, and practically sleeping in sneakers and scrubs.

Do you get what I am saying? To say that I have never been much of a dancer is to let me down gently. I certainly have never learned a piece of choreographed moves to a beat, let alone know the first thing about choreographing a number myself. My anxiety dug a hole in that mud pile in my brain where I hide unwanted terrifying thoughts and snuck this bit of palpitation-inducing information deep into its trenches.

I carried on week by week, just trying to be that scraping-by parent I was so seasoned at being. But now here I was, 7 days from The Audition. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT AN 8 COUNT IS. My panicked brain screamed at me. I frantically searched for a reputable life-line. I asked my daughter, “What is an 8 count?” “A what?” She looked at me blankly. “What is an 8 count in dance? Like, do you count to 8? What is it?” She looked back at me as if I was speaking in Klingon. “An 8 count. Do you know what I am talking about? What is it?” I quickly realized this was leading nowhere fast. I set it aside, and busied myself on the train. We pushed forward with the bedtime routine. Homework, baths, teeth brushing, pajamas, bedtime stories. Two more bedtime stories. And just one more bedtime story. And just one more bedtime story. And by that time, I was ready to put myself to bed. So, the kids went to bed, and I’d love to say I had a productive night of learning about 8 counts, but let’s be honest. I went to bed.

Monday morning. 6 days till game time. WHAT IS AN 8 COUNT??? Brush teeth, put on school clothes, breakfast, check backpacks for weekend homework, library books, get your coats, gloves, hats—don’t forget your coat. Your snacks are still on the counter. Put your snacks in your backpack! Where is your coat? Do you have your gloves? Shoes. Wait, why don’t you ever come downstairs with socks? Get socks!!! You need to go potty? Take your gloves off. Where did you put your gloves? You just had them! Here. Here are a different pair. You want your Frozen gloves? Well, I’m sorry. You just lost them. Seriously, though. You just had them! Never mind. Hurry! We are late! Get in the car!

9 hours later, I have finished a shift in the emergency department. I have emergently sent someone to cardiac catheterization lab for a heart attack. I have put a chest tube into a patient with a collapsed lung. I have diagnosed appendicitis in a patient with abdominal pain. I have put a broken arm in a splint. Guess what.  I still do not know what an 8 count of dance is.

My husband is out of town. My daycare provider is on her honeymoon. My nanny is in Kentucky. My friend, part of my life-line team, and second mom to my kids has picked them up from the bus stop, and is feeding them dinner before taking my daughter to dance. I get off work in time to meet her for dinner, and finally, finally—someone who knows what an 8 count is. She educates me and I feel like she has given me the map to finding something as profound as the fountain of youth. I KNOW WHAT AN 8 COUNT IS. Thank you friend. Thank you for picking up my kids. Thank you for feeding them. Thank you for not laughing at me when I asked you what an 8 count is. Thank you for offering to help your super dance-challenged friend choreograph a piece. Thank you a million times over.

Monday evening comes around. I am armed with my knowledge. I still have no beat and do not know the first thing about dance moves. I watch old clips of dance studio numbers. I get swept up in how good the dancers are and forget to pay attention to what will work for choreographing a dance for my daughter. I have no idea what I am doing. I am in a frenzy. My husband gets home from Philadelphia or Sarasota or wherever his out-of-town trip was this time—I seriously cannot keep track. I thrust my arms in the air and dramatically groan. “I give up! You need to do this! I can’t do this!” before he has a minute to put down his carry-on luggage and take off his shoes. I am passing the buck, because truly, my husband can stand without spraining his ankle and can pick up choreography and help our daughter with her dances in a much more effective way than I have ever been able to. He has officially and involuntarily been promoted to choreographer. He is startled or maybe frightened by this seemingly hasty but unwavering promotion I have bestowed upon him.

I go to bed that night irrationally assured and unequivocally certain that I will awaken in the morning to a choreographed, adorable number that my husband has masterfully slapped together. He is literally good at everything (except completing a full load of laundry from start to finish—blogpost for another day). But this. Oh, this he will excel at. I know. I just know. Because, well, we truly have no other option.

The morning alarm hurls its horrible short sirens through our peaceful slumber. We fall out of bed, time to get ready, time to get the kids ready, more than half-asleep, we are already late, I’m sure. My husband breaks the news. He spent a harrowing 60 minutes last night trying and came to the conclusion that it is in fact impossible to choreograph 6 – 8 8 counts of dance moves to create an audition piece. We can’t. He says. We just can’t.

Okay. Let’s take a minute. If there is one thing that makes me know I CAN is someone telling me I CANNOT. The fire has been lit and I am the woman for the job. I demote him from his title, and re-promote myself. The buck stops here.

So, I do it. I truly can’t even explain how it came to be. I just DID. I choreographed 8 8 counts of dance moves to a beautiful song called “Superman” picked by my strong-as-steel seven-year-old daughter. It is Tuesday, and she has an audition piece. She is beyond thrilled. I see the excitement shiver up from her toes to the sparkle in her eyes. She practices on repeat each day. She is in love with her audition piece.

Fast-forward 6 days and it is Sunday morning. It is the day of her audition. She picks her audition outfit. She performs for her brother, sister, mom and dad. My insides are weeping with pride. She is beautiful. She is brave, she is powerful, she is IT. She walks into her audition with not a nerve in her clean, long lines, and she let’s them know: She is strong-as-steel.

We have yet to know if she will do a specialty dance. That will be announced in the following weeks, but wow. I’m not sure that part of this story truly even matters.

This head-strong, quiet, seven-year-old of mine gave me my greatest challenge to date, and I gave it right back to her. If I didn’t realize it before, I realize it now. This is the building of a strong, fearless girl. I am up for the challenge. We beat down that audition. Regardless of the outcome, deep down, I wholeheartedly know we have already nailed it.

Broken Oven, Glory to You

~ cindylw ~ 2 Comments

Also published at:  http://www.scarymommy.com/being-busy-not-badge-honor/

Four weeks ago, in the midst of a baking/cooking frenzy, my oven took its final breath and puttered out. With zucchini bread batter mixed and poured, I stared at it, wild eyed with that blood vessel menacingly popping out of my right temple. With flour highlights in my hair and batter splatters on my shirt and yoga pants, I had a few words with my oven.

The next day, the repair guys were out, and let us know that it was the central circuit board that needed repair. As luck always has it, they no longer made the parts to repair it; however, they said they could certainly send it to the manufacturer for a “small” gob of money to have it repaired. Or, we could spend the large gobs of money to replace the entire oven. Yep, I’d love to send it in to the manufacturer, I replied, as if there was much of a decision to be made. So they removed it, and on their way out the door, explained it would take two weeks and I would be without an oven, oh, and without my stove as well. Huh? What the what??? The nice repair guy grinned sheepishly, “well, there have got to be a lot of great take out options around here, right?” He zipped up his jacket, grabbed the signed paperwork and scrambled to his van, keeping one eye on that crazed vein in my right temple that was slowly starting to declare itself.

No stove or oven for two weeks???? Oh boy. I checked the freezer. Emergency corn dogs and dinosaur nuggets and microwaveable-bagged veggies to save the day. I wish I had some inspirational MacGyver-meets-Martha-Stewart story of how I used chicken wire to make a stove top with flint and kindle or how I made adorable tea party finger foods or how I did the sensible thing and went out and bought a temporary, portable stove-top, but God no. That never happened. The repair guy was right. There has been a lot of take out, and a lot of microwaved, processed foods these last few weeks. And you know what? I liked it. No, no. I didn’t like it, I loved it. I love my microwave. I am one with my microwave. There. I said it.

Since having children, I have felt this great responsibility to feed them healthy, well-balanced meals. Foods that make me feel good about what I am putting in their little, rapidly growing and developing little bodies. They have been hearty-vegetable-eaters, fruit-devouring-monsters, home-cooked-meal-lovers. They have a sweet tooth for home-made healthy baked goods. All this feels so good to be able to provide this for my family, some weeks I am better than others, but in these last two weeks . . . turned three weeks without a stove, I have come to a realization that I was too busy to notice before.

In trying to keep up with my career-family balance, I have constantly felt over-stretched, over-tired, and overwhelmed. I remember leaving a late shift at work, and one of my beloved nurses telling me, as she realized that with my husband out of town, I still had to go home and pack lunches for my kids and had to get up early the next morning to take them to school, “You have to let it go.   Just let it go.” And I looked at her with that same bewildered“HOW DID MY OVEN JUST BREAK” look, but too tired to ask further, just nodded, smiled and kept on walking out the door.

But now. Now I get it. See, the breaking of my beloved, necessary stove and oven has shown me something I’m not quite sure I could have seen myself. That in taking this break from the often insurmountable task of meal preparation and everything that goes into it for my family, I have allowed something to go and it has allowed me to breathe. Those extra hours a day that have fallen into my lap are glorious. They are hours I can spend on something productive or spend on nothing at all but my couch, a cup of coffee and HGTV. They are hours I can call a friend and ask, “How are you?” Those extra hours have lifted a weight, a responsibility, a stress, that gifts me energy and leaves me less tired, less cranky, less irritable. I had no idea that something as simple or as tough as preparing meals was doing this to me. Because, if I think about it, I tell myself, “Come on, how hard is it to make meals?” I don’t have to explain it to you if you are this person in your family. It is hard.

So, now I am thinking what else do I feel this way about? Every task, every responsibility we pile onto our shoulders is just one more “simple” thing, and we say to ourselves, come on, how hard could this be to add this one tiny thing? Well, one thing adds time, time adds energy, energy adds stress, stress leads to irritability . . . ahh, it is all making sense!!! What a simple concept. Where have I been???

I think I’ve been where all of you have been. We have been feeling that we are working mothers and fathers taking care of our family, of our home, of our communities. Sometimes, we lose sight of the value of our own limits and really, our own self. Boundaries blur until there are no boundaries, and we keep on keeping on. We estimate our capabilities, and like the old saying, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, our undertakings underestimate what is needed from us to accomplish every minutiae of every day—and soon we are stretched too thin doing everything, but unable to do anything with the best version of ourselves.

So, let’s give ourselves a break. What we do is enough. What we don’t do is acceptable. Give what you have to the things that matter the most, and when there is not enough of you to go around, be okay with it. There is no glory in “I am so busy!” There is value to doing things with time, with your full attention and ability, choosing wisely what is important to you and having the energy to enjoy rest, relaxation, and time for calm. Let’s chisel away at this society of “busy”, and let the glory be with broken ovens and microwaves once in awhile.

No Matter What Love

~ cindylw ~ 4 Comments

We are raising our kids in a difficult time, aren’t we? I have no comparison. I haven’t raised kids in any other era; however, as each headline pops up, the latest terrorist bombing on Quetta Hospital in Pakistan 8 days ago killing 70 and injuring 130; the shooting and killing of a black man in Milwaukee, WI, and the riots and police protests that have ensued, following the innumerable hate crimes against humanity that have already played out. With each attack, my heart aches for those suffering, and my eyes dart towards my three fortunate kids, playing soundly in the living room. I look at each one of them, and I am thankful they are here and that they are healthy. With each injustice I hear about or read about, my responsibility mounts, and I wonder how I will discuss these tragedies, these inequalities with my three children. These three children that play with their hearts filled with love and their lives filled with boundless energy and childhood adventures.

In two weeks, my two eldest will start kindergarten. I’ve been thinking a lot about what tools I want to equip them with as they begin this new endeavor. We’ve been doing a lot of role-playing. Sometimes, I will play the role of being the bully, one of them will play the friend being bullied, and the other will play the role of either the bully or the bullied. We take turns with these roles. Then we talk about what was said, how it made us feel, and what we could have said or how we can all help each other in these difficult encounters. We talk about why we think a bully would say the things that were said, and how we can help the bully so maybe next time he or she will be nicer. We’ve talked about how sometimes people bully others because they are different. Maybe because they don’t understand someone else that is different. For example, we’ve talked about how sometimes, the food we eat, is different than a lot of foods other people eat. We chat about how if someone makes a negative comment about what we are eating, we can respond, “That’s okay, it’s probably just something you haven’t tried, but this is something that I grew up eating and I really like it.” Except, interpreted and translated through their minds, it comes out something like, “It’s okay, this food is something I was born with.” We’re working out the details, but what’s important to me, is that they start to process this information and react to things in ways that convey tolerance, acceptance, and kindness. We are starting with food (because my son is obsessed with food) but I’m hoping to branch out from here.

I recently read an article that the discussion about race should start with your children now. There is not a time you should be waiting for; by not talking about it, we are allowing them to form their own prejudices and allowing that to be okay. I read on about how kids are noticing these differences and making their own assumptions and categorizations. I had never thought about this, and this was alarming to me. But as I thought about it, I thought back to conversations between my son and daughter. How they would talk about kids in their pre-school classes, and one of the things my son would ask my daughter at 4 years-old when trying to figure out who in her class she was talking about, was, “Well, was she wearing pants or a dress or tights today? Did she have a bow in her hair? What color was it? Is she white or brown?” I never thought much of it. It was a descriptor to him like any other descriptor. But if he was noticing this, then yes. Maybe it was time to start talking more openly about race and inequalities.

Max and Sofia. I want you to know that I love you no matter what. I have loved you since the day you were born. There are times when I may be disappointed or mad about your actions, but even at those times, I love you. I would love you if you were tall or short, had long hair or short hair, had white skin or brown skin, had brown eyes or green eyes. I would love you if you wanted to play soccer or football or no sports at all. I would love you if you wanted to dance or do gymnastics or sing or none of the above. I would love you if you loved to read or do math or crafts or science projects. It just wouldn’t matter. I would love you. No matter what. It is mom’s no-matter-what-love promise to you. I think a parent’s love is the best kind of love, because all you have to do is be born, and mom and dad will love you no matter what. It is really that simple.

I think it is at the core of being human that makes someone want to love others and be loved by others. Love is the most powerful of things and is at the core of it all. Let’s extend the love between a mom and her child to the love between other people. Every person is someone’s child. Mommy is A-ma and A-gong’s daughter. Daddy is Grandma and Grandpa’s son. And A-ma and A-gong love mommy not because my hair is black, not because I have brown eyes, not because I like to run and read and write, but they loved me even before they knew all that about me. When I had no hair, and all I did was eat, cry, and sleep. And that has never changed. Grandma and Grandpa love daddy not because his hair is blonde, not because he wears glasses, not because he likes to run and root for the Cubs in baseball, but because they have always loved him.

The best kind of love is this love. The no-matter-what love. Why is mommy telling you so much about this? Because, this is what I want you to look for in every single person you meet at school. I want you to see that every friend in your class is worthy of being loved by someone no-matter-what, just like you. It may be their mom and dad. Or maybe they don’t have a mom, or don’t have a dad. Then maybe their no-matter-what-love comes from their grandma or grandpa. Or maybe from their aunt or uncle. Or their brother or sister. Or maybe they have two moms or two dads and that’s where their no-matter-what-love comes from. Or maybe they have a mom and no dad or a dad and no mom. Every story of your friends’ families will be different. I want you to notice all these differences. And I want you to know that no matter if their skin color is white or brown, hair is black or blonde, eyes are brown or green, no matter if they are tall or short, like math or recess, science or music, they are just like you where it matters. You can be mad or disappointed or happy about their actions, but they are people that deserve no-matter-what love.

Sometimes, you might see other kids that don’t see this about others in your class, or maybe they don’t see this about you. They may bully others or make fun of others because of what they eat, because of what they wear, because of their skin color, because they believe in God or they don’t believe in God. It happens to kids and to grown-ups too! I think that is because they forget that we are all the same in the middle. That we all deserve to have someone love us no-matter-what.

It makes me panic that I cannot be at school with you every day, telling everyone that I love you, and that everything that makes you different is what I love about you, but this is a part of growing up, and this is what everyone else in your class is going through. You are going to learn about everyone’s differences, and I want you to notice them, I want you to think about how they are different from you and how they are like you and know that everyone is worthy of love. If you get nothing else from this year of school, focus on this. Focus on opening your eyes to all the differences and know that everyone is worthy of no-matter-what love.

 

Dinner Prep

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

11:19 pm. I am stirring butter and marshmallows in a pan making my kids rice krispie treats. Since my kids had these little morsels of sugary bliss at their grandma’s house last weekend, they have been asking and asking about rice krispie treats. So, I thought, might as well give it a gander. My first attempt at this delicious treat. Um, why was this my first attempt at making this delicious treat??? Prior to this, I had been cutting onions and carrots and setting up the Crockpot to dump beef stew contents into in the morning. 11:19 pm may be an odd time to start making dinner and treats for the next day, but you find time when you find time, and it turned out to be a glorious hour of uninterrupted, quiet, peaceful, no 2-year-olds-to-trip-over therapeutic cooking session.

Now. Don’t start thinking I am some modern-day Betty Crocker type. HA. Many days look more like Jimmy John’s drive-through windows or frozen chicken strips and frozen green beans. By the way, it truly does freak me out how fast Jimmy John’s can make a sub. Ironically, it equally irritates me when I am at the JJ drive-through and I am not getting freaked out because they are taking an absurdly “normal” amount of sub-making time.

I digress.

My point is that, like most, I fiercely love my family. And even when I am not there, even when I am working evenings or days or at meetings or interviews or with friends or out with my husband, I want them to know that my heart is always with them. Last week my daughter had dance camp. Every night, no matter if it was 10 pm or 3 am, I would pack her lunch for the next day. I could only be there one of the five days to pick her up and drop her off. She asked me yesterday, “Mommy, on the days you weren’t there, who packed my lunch?” “I did.” I told her. Her heart erupted into a smile that peaked through her almond brown-eyed, button-nosed face. It wasn’t so much that she was blown away that the amazing chef behind her ham and cheese sandwiches was me, I think it was more that every day, no matter if I was physically present or not, I was thinking about her, I was the loving hands behind her (sometimes soggy) lunch. I’m going to hold onto that smile. I’m going to hold on to that smile so freakin’ tight as I launch into another epic stretch of shifts.

I don’t know which is tougher. Days I am home or days I am not. Because, man, both can be seriously tough. I do know that the days I am gone, my heart aches. To damper that ache, I make dinner at 11 pm at night. I love knowing that tomorrow night when I am at work and not there, they will eat yummy beef stew with carrots and onions and potatoes that I prepared. I imagine their faces lighting up when they see they get an after dinner dessert of rice krispies with sprinkles. Yes, sprinkles. What the heck. They are not usually sugared up kids. And let’s be honest. I won’t be the one herding them to bed tomorrow night. (Sorry Husband, Love of my Life) I’ll only be the hero that put their all-time favorite sprinkles on an already sickly sugary treat. Winning.

 

 

 

Today. Love is Greater than Hate

~ cindylw ~ 1 Comment

My heart is breaking today. It has been breaking with every news alert that flashed across my cell phone throughout the night. Every alert of another human life fallen made me feel anguish, desperation, bewildered, devastation. From the recent mass shooting in Florida to the bombings in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to the recent lives lost in Minnesota, and Louisiana, to the shooting and killing of police officers last evening in Texas . . . What has happened to our sense of humanity?

We mourn for the families of those who have lost lives. We weep for the joys and love these shootings have haphazardly and suddenly ripped from their families’ daily existence. We hope for peace during these tragic, senseless acts that leave their communities feeling hollow. We hope for unity in this fragmented nation and world of ours.

I find myself asking, is this rock bottom? Please let this be rock bottom. How much more can we escalate with hatred? With anger? With our inequalities? With our attacks against one another? How many more lives? Devastation is reverberating through our nation, and reactions span the spectrum from disbelief to anger to outrage to deep anguish.

As I plugged along the overnight shift, with news alerts flashing across my phone stacking on the heartbreak and terror occurring across the nation, I am reminded of my last patient of the morning. She was a kind woman who had gotten her hand slammed in her back door and came in with a bloodied finger. As I washed her finger off and started to stitch it back together, the background news she was watching was reporting about the events of the night, of the officers that had lost their lives. About the presumed shooter that was now dead. There was anger and hatred in the man’s voice that I could hear giving a speech. He was saying how police officers have been made targets, ultimately faulting our president. I listened while hunched over the bright light shining overhead, carefully pulling together wound edges with each stitch. The woman said, “I just worry about my grandbaby. She is 10 months old. She is my world.  Do you want to see her picture?” Of course I wanted to see her picture.

In the midst of all this hatred, we turn to our loved ones. We worry about their future. We feel heartbreak for those that can no longer worry about their loved ones’ futures. In the midst of all this, I remember the love. During this hateful, angry broadcast, I will remember this woman’s love for her granddaughter and the picture she eagerly presented of her granddaughter in that adorable ruffle-butt swimsuit, proudly standing while holding onto an oak cabinet.

None of us can predict where we go from here. We hope that we will start to unite. Start to heal together. Start to propagate love. And this starts with you and me. This starts with us and extends to those around us, especially to our children.

There are a few things I am absolutely intolerant about with my children.

  1. Acting unkindly towards others
  2. Disrespect
  3. Acting without compassion

I have zero tolerance for these things. There is absolutely no circumstance in which hateful, disrespectful, heartless behavior is valid and acceptable. My kids know that any such behavior will be met with their mother’s wrath. They know better.

And here we are. As a nation of Americans. Propagating hate. Propagating disrespect. Trying to find the right steps forward in the aftermath of heartless crimes.

The one thing I take solace in right now, is that there is love and it will shine through. I will continue to teach my kids that color is just a color. That sexual orientation is no different than being right-handed or left-handed–it is a part of who we are. That females and males alike are competent and strong. That religion of any spectrum is faith that helps each individual guide them through life. That love is greater than hate.

That love is greater than hate.

That love is greater than hate.

That love is greater than hate.

 

A Work Day That Ends in Sushi

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

Previously published on:  http://www.coffeeandcrumbs.net/blog/2016/4/8/a-work-day-that-ends-in-sushi

My husband and I waited seven years to get married; in those months after we became engaged, before I even picked my dress or wedding colors, I had already started planning for the family that occupied our daydreams. We’d have three kids; I was sure of it. We would have two boys and one girl. Of course, our baby girl would be the youngest so she would have two older, protective brothers. They would come on cue two years apart.

Instead, I picked my strapless A-line dress, we settled on red roses and ivory linens with gold trim, we got married, and we had six miscarriages.

I would get pregnant, and just as we would allow ourselves that hopeful glimpse of the first trimester final stretch, I would miscarry. It was crushing. Yet it became a cycle that I became all too familiar with. My emotions became a pattern of predictability: excitement, anxiety, devastation.

By my third miscarriage, the emotional strain of losing each baby I had lovingly carried  brought me to the point of buckle-at-the-knees desperation . . . followed by a sinking relief. I felt relief that I wouldn’t have to wake up another morning asking, is my baby’s heart still beating? I would let my anxiety wash away, replaced by a heaviness in my heart, and almost a strange sense of peace. It was a dark place to be, but a familiar dark place. A place that I could control.

In the midst of uncertainty, I even developed a miscarriage routine. Routine was something I could do. And something I could do well, on my terms. It was a way to say, “I got this.” Even if I didn’t.

 I would realize I was miscarrying, and continue through my day. Continue to care for other people, to smile and joke, when inside, I was hurting so much. I was thinking, “I know you are hurting, patient-in-my-emergency-department, and please be assured I will do my best to take care of you, but you see, what I can’t tell you is that my baby is dying and I am hurting too.”

My baby is dying right now as I stitch up this cut on your finger. My baby is dying while I try to figure out why you are having abdominal pain. My baby is dying while I tell your loved ones you are having a heart attack. My baby is dying and I can’t take care of her the way I can take care of you.  My baby is dying and no one knows it but me.

After work, I would call my husband, then stop to get the sushi I had craved since learning I was pregnant. I would go home and focus on the pain of my cramps, because that was exponentially easier than acknowledging my broken heart. When everything passed, I would mentally brush my hands off and ready myself for the next time. That was my routine. My miscarriage routine.

I was riddled with guilt over everything about it.

During this two-year period, I felt like a failure. I felt like a weak woman. I felt I was doing something wrong. I felt it was my fault. I felt guilty. I felt inadequate. I felt out of control. I felt ashamed. I had never felt so vulnerable and nothing had ever felt so personal.

A year into the process, I went to an infertility specialist and received the million-dollar work-up. Nothing was wrong. How could nothing be wrong? But test after test confirmed that, “Congratulations! Nothing is wrong!” Translation: there is nothing we can fix. I was started on this medication and that medication, because “It’s worth trying.” I was hopeful, but hopeless. I was exhausted from this constant testing of my emotional strength.

And then it was our seventh pregnancy, and this time–twins!!!! Twins!!! My excitement was quickly followed by a flood of anxiety. My husband and I kept our news to ourselves. We held our breaths.   We had been through this. We tiptoed around our fears, whispering to one another, stifling the excitement we held in our glances towards one another, and we waited. And waited. And my belly grew. And I had no cramps. And I had no bleeding. And I saw their heartbeats. Time and time again.

The infertility specialist said we didn’t need him anymore. I sat still in his clean, slightly-dated office, in the same blue upholstered chair with its thin wooden arm rests, the same chair I had sat in for two years, staring at the same framed picture of him and some big fish he had caught with his nephew, and I weighed the heaviness of his words. Then I broke down in wave after wave of tears. We didn’t need our infertility specialist anymore.

We passed three months. And four months. And five, and six, and seven, and eight!!!!! And two healthy beautiful babies were born.  They are beautiful to this day. I stare at them sometimes, and marvel at how they came to be.

Sometimes when I am tucking in my five-year-old daughter at night, I tell her, “Do you know that you are more beautiful than I could have ever imagined?” What I mean to say is, everything about her existence is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

When we decided to have a third, I was ready for the journey. I was nervous of going through the process again, but having had our twins, I knew it was more than worth it. The day we decided we wanted to try again, I put up my defenses against my own emotions.

Five weeks later, just like that, we found out we were pregnant. I braced myself. I was fearful this would become another pregnancy that would fall victim to my routine. I went in for ultrasounds every week. Week after week, there was a heartbeat—I couldn’t believe my ears. And then our beautiful baby girl came into our lives seemingly seamlessly. It was too good to be true, but it is true.

These three beautiful babies of ours.

I realize now after eight pregnancies and three babies and innumerable dreams for our family, there is nothing to be ashamed of. There never was. There was nothing I failed at.

 These days, when I see the chief complaint of “possible miscarriage” show up in my emergency department, I want to see that patient. Not because I can provide better care than my colleagues, but because I want to share my story. Mother to mother. I want to give them hope and I want them to know they are not alone. I am unashamed of the tears that fall from my face when I share in their grief and acknowledge my own. I want them to know it is okay to grieve and natural to feel defeated, and then it is okay to hope again when you are ready.

Sushi has once again become my favorite food. When I eat it now, it doesn’t taste the way it once did. I don’t feel like I am swallowing heartache, loss, and failure. These days, when I stop for sushi at the end of a long day, I bring it home to share with my three children and husband. We talk about what was good about our days, what could have been better about our days, what we look forward to tomorrow. It has become our family favorite meal.  No words can express what these days that end with sushi mean to me now.

I am thankful for everything I have been through. It has given me what I have, it has given me who I am, and it has given me what I have to share. And most of all, it has given me and my husband our beautiful, healthy children.

Sweet Claire is Two!

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

Oh, Sweet Clarabelle! Today you are two! My heart can barely take it! I never imagined having a girl like you, and everything I could never imagine makes me so proud of the little girl that you are. You are Sass. You are independent. You are daring. You are brave. You will do it your way. You walk with confidence and the cutest diaper waddle strut. You are on a mission, and nothing will stop you. You will climb up the biggest ladder to go down the biggest slide, and if Dad tries to hover over you, you will be sure to speak your mind, and tell him, you got this. It makes your dad sweat, but it makes us so proud that this is who you are.

Even better than this fierce independence, is this crazy innate compassion you have for people. Since you learned to walk, you have learned to walk up and comfort your family when they are sad, not feeling well, or just plain tired. You will run and grab blankets for your grandparents and siblings when you think they don’t feel well or when they are sleeping. You try desperately to cover them in the blanket you found, and pat them ever so gently. I think about this weekend, and how your brother awoke from his nap a groggy, still sleepy guy, snuggled in my lap. You grabbed a blanket, put it over him, and patted him on his hair. You subsequently stopped mid-play, three times, to check on him. “Ok Dax?” you would say, as you offered him a stuffed animal, a toy, his water bottle in your effort to cheer him up. Whenever your dad sneezes, whether it be right next to you or from a room down the hall, you always turn his way and say, “Ok Daddy?” When you see your big sister crying, you squat down and put your face in hers, and babble soothing words and kiss her on the cheek. When you bounced a little too hard on my legs, and I let out a grunt, you stopped to ask, “Ok Mommy?” When you saw two dogs fighting at the park, you murmured, “It’s ok.” Oh, sweet, Claire, where does this huge heart and sense of compassion come from? It is truly amazing, and there is nothing I love to watch more than you watch over our family, with those little grunts of effort as you try to lift a huge blanket up onto the couch to cover your grandma when she is napping.

I love to try and guess what kind of girl you will be. Will you be a tutu-twirling, dancing, singing, pink princess like your sister? Or will you gravitate towards sports and getting dirty outside? I think what you have proven to us thus far, is that you cannot be categorized as any one type of girl. You love your bracelets and necklaces and headbands (or, your sister’s bracelets, necklaces and headbands.) You love being chased, tickled and swung upside down. You laugh with pure joy when you slide down the slide and fall in the mud, yelling “OW!” as you pick yourself up and giggle and climb back up to the top. You try to climb on your brother’s bike to take it for a spin, leaving your tricycle as if it is too baby for you. You are your own girl, and no one is going to define that for you but you. And all we can do is follow along—nothing could make us prouder.

You have already grasped the concept of sarcasm. I suppose there is no way you couldn’t, being part of our family. Your favorite thing to do is offer us your favorite foods, “here go, Mama”, and when I reach for your sticky, wet handful of raisins, you pull away and smile that devious smile promptly stick the handful in your mouth, erupting in fits of giggles at your trickery.

I have to bite my lip when I witness how you handle adversity. When you get in trouble, and you are sent to time out, you protest, you cry, then you settle down. And when it is time to come out of time out, you have the biggest grin on your face, trying to disarm your disciplinarian. Or sometimes, you waltz right into time out, defiantly, as if this was the plan all along, and come out, head held high, smiling as if there is nothing that you are not in charge of about this situation. Sometimes, when we are warning you that your time to listen will be over in “1, 2, . . . “ you chime in with us at “threeeee” before you decide to listen, as if we are prepping together for the next big step to finish the squash on your plate.

How can one girl be so fierce, and yet so full of fun-loving energy and compassion? We don’t know how you do it, sweet girl. But I can see it in your father’s eyes. You have your parents by the heart strings. Your brother and sister adore you, want to take care of you, and love you. We cannot imagine our lives without you.

Happy birthday, Sweet Clarabelle. Keep braving forward, and we will keep chasing after you, proudly trying to keep up with your every, independent step.

We love you always.

When The Village Is Not Available

~ cindylw ~ 2 Comments

As Previously Published:  http://www.scarymommy.com/parenting-without-village-worst-days/

Last night was parenting misery at its finest. My husband was out of town, our part-time nanny and our back-up part-time nanny have both recently had changes in their schedules and are no longer available, my in-laws wouldn’t have been able to make it to our house in time, my close friend emergency contact was at an event and unavailable. So there I was. My village unavailable. Three kids. Hit with the worst migraine I can recall having in the last four years. The last time I had a migraine this awful, our previous full-time nanny had changed her dinner plans, come over for the last hour of the kids’ day, to just tuck them in because I was too debilitated to make it another hour. I awoke from that haze of a migraine to see the dishes in the sink washed, the house picked up, the kids in bed, and blissfully clean quietness. If I wasn’t already in love with our nanny before, I certainly fell hard for her at that minute, right then and there.

Well. Now the love of my life has moved to North Dakota (my former nanny—not to be confused with my husband), and there I was. Sharp, stabbing pain coursing through my left eye to the back of my neck, the nausea warning me as to what was to come, the dimmest light making me feel as if I was staring into the core of the freaking sun, barely able to keep my eyes open. I profusely thanked my type A self for pre-prepping dinner for the kids. I plated their food and poured them their drinks, then curled my throbbing, pounding, close-to-vomiting self up on the couch. I called out orders from the couch to my newly promoted baby-sitting five-year-olds. “Is your baby sister done with her food? Is she eating? Can you get her some fruit? Can you make sure she doesn’t stand up in her high chair? Can you make sure she doesn’t stick her fork up her nose?  Can you get her milk?” I had been so proud of my aspiring Martha Stewart self for making the most adorable fruit skewers with peaches, blackberries, grapes, and strawberries. Now I was cursing myself for making those damn fruit skewers, imagining my 21-month-old stabbing her unsupervised eye with a skewer. Thank goodness for my doting son that plucked each piece of fruit off the skewer for her and put them on her high chair tabletop.

It was five o’clock and I was on the verge of breaking down wondering how I was going to shuffle my kids to take a bath, brush their teeth, get in pajamas, and make it to the end of the night. I could barely move. The voices of my boisterous five-year-olds had never sounded so LOUD; they were like splitting daggers hitting me in my left eye. If I moved, I might throw up. If I spoke, this intolerable pain was going to become worse. I could feel her adorable, piercing brown eyes staring quizzically in my direction, wondering why her mama was curled up in the dark on the couch and not eating with her. She just kept saying, “Mama. Mama. Mama.” To which I answered sparingly. My five-year-old baby-sitters finally told me my 21-month-old was done eating. I took a deep breath (mostly to pep talk my stomach contents to stay within the confines of my stomach), mustered up the last drop of energy and cleaned her off. She kept saying, “Nose. Nose, Mama. Nose.” I looked at her nose. Sure enough, she had stuck a corn kernel up her nose. Had she ever done that before? No. Did I have any energy to react? No. I took some tweezers and pulled it out. “Nose. Nose, Mama. Nose.” I looked up further. Ah yes. Another corn kernel jammed up the crevices deep into her left nostril. I thanked myself for choosing to go through the years of schooling and the years of training that made me a master of foreign object removal from toddler noses. If this was the pinnacle of my MD degree, it had made it all worth it. I removed it. Checked one more time. No more corn kernels. I reminded myself that next time I asked my five-year-olds to babysit, to add to the list of sub-standard expectations, “Can you  make sure she doesn’t stick food up her nose?”  I gave her a meek talking to, using half my energy to speak to her and half my energy to keep my nausea at bay. It was 6 o’clock, and she usually goes to bed at 7. But hey, what’s an hour. So she went to bed at 6:15 because I had no more left in me to make it another hour. I was lucky to be able to put her into pajamas, a night-time diaper, and to remove one of her pigtails.

I called down to my five-year-olds to come upstairs, get their pajamas on, and we would reconvene in my bedroom. I announced it was a bath and tooth-brushing national holiday and no one was getting proper hygiene that night. They lounged in bed with me, and watched indulgent amounts of cartoons—My teacher says TV is really bad for your brain. Duly noted, my dear daughter. Thank you for the public service announcement—while I curled up under the covers, and made a cameo appearance only to expel my stomach contents in the bathroom. In never before recorded history, I asked them to please tuck themselves into bed. They rolled with the punches. My son hugged me, kissed me, “tucked me in”, and turned off all the lights, and hushed his sister, “Be quiet. Mommy is sleeping. Stop talking to her.” And without much more fanfare, I heard their doors click closed and silence. I felt so, so thankful that the day was over, even more thankful for the best kids I could ask for, and laid in the dark willing this fierce pain in my head to subside.

The pain did subside, and today, I am back to myself. I remember a colleague saying that a sick child was no excuse for not coming to work. That everyone should have a back-up to their back-up to their back-up. Well, some people are not so blessed with a village to take care of their kids. And while I am that fortunate, sometimes, the stars just do not align. I am so lucky that for me, these moments are fairly rare. I don’t know how you do it, parents out there without a village. But I am in absolute awe of how you make your family work, whatever your family looks like. Keep it up, all you parent warriors. It isn’t easy, but man, if your children are fed, their teeth are brushed most of the time, they take a bath some of the time, then hey, from where I stand, you are killing it.

A Plea From My Fifth Grade Self

~ cindylw ~ Leave a comment

I sat there, heartbroken.  My first fight with my fifth grade best friend.  I can’t exactly remember what it was about.  Her choosing another partner for a project?  Me sitting by someone else during a student assembly?  All I remember is coming home from school, head held low, heart heavy, feeling conflicted and unsure.  My fifth grade self experiencing the growing pains of friendship.

I remember sitting on the couch after school, feeling listless.  My mom was busy in the kitchen making dinner.  I remember her haphazardly wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, her hands still damp, when she asked me, “What’s wrong?”

My eyes welled and a building army of tears threatened to charge forward, as one single drop went rogue and rolled down my left cheek.  Between dramatically sucked in breaths of air, I told her about my fifth grade heart broken day.

My mom, half-heartedly listened.  Then she smiled and said, “Oh Cindya” (she called me ‘Cindya’), “This is just a little fight with your little friend.  Friends come and go.  It is not something to be so upset about.”

I realize now she was right.  A trivial tiff between elementary kids.  Definitely nothing to be devastated over.  Yes.  There is a litany of worldly issues more worthy of our time.  However, in that moment, to that fifth grade version of me, there was no “seeing the bigger picture.”  Her comments only added to my insecurities and rejection on that day.  I vowed to remember that.  I vowed to remember that while my emotions may be a childish reaction to an inconsequential event, they were my emotions nonetheless, not to be dismissed.  I vowed to remember how I felt in that moment and to remember its importance when I was a parent myself.

So that is what I remember.  I sure don’t remember the fight.  And ultimately, my mom was right.  My fifth grade best friend is now a Facebook friend whose adorable pictures of her sons I like when I see them.  I wish her a happy birthday once a year when FB reminds me.  So yes.  It was not something to be upset about.  And yes, some childhood friends come and go.  And yes, there are innumerable experiences and issues that have since come to light that have much more significance than that day’s events.  But, as I dive into parenthood, I remember the voice of my fifth grade self.

The issues of your children may seem trivial to you.  You, as an adult who has gone through so many more life experiences.  You, as an adult that realizes how incredibly lucky your children are to grow up with what they have.  You, who are aware of so much more that is going on in the world that needs our efforts and attention. You may think that it is important to have those discussions of everything that we are fortunate to have and about the more worldly issues to provide your child a more global awareness outside of her trivial fifth grade world.  You may even think, it would be the perfect opportunity to discuss how confrontation and adversity is a part of life and this may be a moment to build on your fifth grader’s strength and character.  Well, my fifth grade self is telling you, this is not the time for that discussion.  At this very moment, what your child needs is your attention.  Your empathy.  Your validation that these emotions they are feeling are real.  That reactions and processing new experiences, good or bad, is worthwhile.

In not minimizing their emotions, you are in turn not minimizing them.  You are supporting them and reinforcing their confidence in how they navigate this moment’s challenge and conflict.   Let them know it matters, because to them, it truly does.  It matters as part of their growth regardless of whether this issue is fleeting or ultimately forgotten.

Help your child build the confidence to acknowledge these experiences that will help them mature and start to solidify their own sense of self so they can join you in tackling the bigger issues. And every other day, please do talk to them about the things that we are facing as a nation and beyond.  Teach them that they are part of a global picture.  But right now, go ahead and let them feel.  Let them be a fifth grader.

Until Our Boats Meet

~ cindylw ~ 2 Comments

When you are in school, from the minute you step off that big yellow bus in kindergarten to when you roam those high school halls a seasoned senior to those undergraduate days traversing your college campus, there were always your people. There was your best friend in third grade there to trade you her Hostess cupcake for your three Oreo cookies at lunchtime. There was your friend in sophomore geometry class kicking your chair to pass you that emergent note that couldn’t wait until after class: Meet outside the cafeteria after 5th period? There was your physics lab partner who you hysterically laughed with after she snapped yet another rubber band while trying to create that impossible suspension bridge in Thursday afternoon lab. There was even your roommate in your early 20’s, who never judged you when you ate yet another can of Spaghetti-O’s for dinner, because, well, she was eating the last bowl of Cup O’ Noodle soup.

And then you finish school, you find a job, you find yourself in the midst of adulthood, not yet feeling adult, and maybe you get married, and maybe you have kids. And then, all of a sudden, when you were least anticipating it, your people have changed. Your people are now crying, irrational, small little beings that need your constant attention, your constant assistance. You thought you knew mood swings, but wow, your two-year-old’s sudden change of attitude when he realizes the cup you gave him was purple, purple. The world-caving-in tantrum that ensues . . . You’ve never had this happen with any of your people in the twenty to thirty years of having people. The other of your people decides she will no longer sleep through the night. Because, after trying it out for the last 6 months of her life, she would prefer to regress to how life was in that first year of life, because, why not? And so now, you and your people are a hot mess. You and your daughter are sleep-deprived, and your son, well. HE GOT A PURPLE CUP for lunch. There is no coming back from here. You quickly do a sweep of the room. Is there anyone else here? Will anyone be casually walking through between classes or to catch up with you after lunch? No. It’s just you. In your house. With your people. Not until dinner time will another familiar, reasoning face walk in the door. So there you are. Hiding in the pantry, sneaking those Oreos with no one to trade them with, just to get a minute alone without your people.

And we wonder why we feel lonely.

Our days are packed. Packed with commitments, whether it be work outside the home, work inside the home, taking care of our families, embracing all the responsibilities of adulthood. But one thing that we need so very much is now missing. And that is the presence of friends and your people that related to your life on a daily basis. Wasn’t that calculus test ridiculous?  I’m pretty sure I made up the answer to every question!  Were you as bored as I was through that guest speaker’s presentation?  Can you believe what that guy said in class?

All of a sudden, you are not spending most of your days with people that are in your same boat. Instead, you are spending your days with little people trying to sink the boat you are emphatically paddling to keep afloat. This boat you are desperately trying to keep moving forward, and tidy, and with regulated screen-time. It is a tough boat to be on, and without all the people that used to row alongside you, its not only tough, but also lonely.

I have always valued my friendships, but I was never aware of the value of mom friends at this season in my life. This season when you can feel so alone in your struggles to just make life run in a semi-smooth fashion. So many days, I feel like I am tackling these battles myself. Facebook and parenthood memes tell me I am not, but it is hard to remember when you are in the midst of an emergency bath time evacuation of your three children after realizing your youngest has proudly demonstrated her ability to be potty trained and produced her #2 while sitting in a haven of bubble gum scented bubbles.   “Mama, poo poo bath!” She exclaims. Wow. What I would have given to have someone with me at that moment to tackle the logistics of how to . . . or at least to laugh with at in that moment of hysterics . . .

Do you ever catch yourself screening people you meet, wondering if they could be your friend? Your person? Wow, you have three kids? Ages 6 and under? Hmmm . . . where do you live? Not to be too forward, but could you be my best mom friend, please?? I want to blurt. Instead, I nod, and smile, and finish our small talk in the bread aisle at the grocery, and move on, because I have exactly 20 minutes until I have to leave and pick up the kids. But I do wish . . . I wish you could be my friend, and maybe make me feel less lonely, be my buddy to commiserate in the hilarity, the exhaustion, the constant juggling of this season of adulthood.

I guess what I have to say, is that friends are hard to come by in this season of our lives. For those of you who have found your mom friends, your people that aren’t walking runny-nosed, spirited beings with sticky fingers, I know you are thankful and I am happy for you. And so envious.  For those of you like me, that still chat a little bit longer than is comfortable with that person you meet in the store, you are not alone. We are not alone in feeling lonely. It’s okay, and we will keep our separate boats afloat until we find each other.