Blog on Blog Action

Hey did you know where I was last week? I used to shy away from the blog on blog action but now I'm a real tire biter! That's me eating it up at the Mom Road Trip Vancouver meet up:

It ain't just that splendid, fat, Morton's Steakhouse Martini makin' me smile. It's the earnestgirl and Left Coast, 5and1, n' MandyGratton. It was our royal guests from the East motherbumper and Her Bad Mother. The legendary redneckmommy was there putting the real wild west into this Easterners' journey to our parts as was her hostliness Mr. Lady.

And you know like not too long ago it seemed the only place I went and stayed up past 11 was effing Safeway! Thank-you mother-people.

Use a tissue

I feel today that -- despite what I have thought for years -- my children are NOT as I see them. While I enjoy the people we are together I must stop immediately thinking about translating that to others. The world will never see my babies as I do.

I can see as I ready for kindergarten and this major phase in my kid's public life that I could be that parent. The one who feels teacher doesn't understand, as a better blogger put it, my "widdle pwecious pumpkin". The nattering dufus trying to input 'at home they always' say please/thank you, eat, read Kant, use a tissue et cetera et cetera.

My children are who they are in the world full stop. No measure of their cozy, kind or brilliance at home will really serve their way to stability of identity 'out there'. The raising of my babies and the formation of a public person are two separate and important things.

It makes the intimacy of their specialness to me of more value to make this shift today. To really free their spirits and our relationship and all those relationships the days ahead will offer them.

Come and knock on my door! The Crunchy Carpets online Baby Shower

Last week I had the privilege to drop in on our beloved Crunchy Carpets. I couldn't help myself. I just HAD to know exactly how itchy her belly button was. Seems it wasn't too itchy but she was interested in having her baby soon. So I figured perfect time for a mo-wo Online Baby shower! Nothing says have your baby right now like a Mo-Wo Online Baby shower!

It has been no mean feat for me to come up with the best shower theme for my spectacular friend CC. Did you know we have been friends for more than 20 years? Yep back in the late 80's we met thanks to our kind and radiant shared best friend, we'll call her Nerka for her brief blogging fame. And from there came the nub of our theme today, the olden days -- 80's -- and one of its principal artifacts... Three's Company! Who can ever turn down a great Three's Company reference?

Since this baby will make three chillun's for the Crunchy one to wrangle, no brainer, right? In prep for this I asked a mother-of-three friend about how it went for her. She explained that once she had that third she really had to de-stress and learned that the children were their own pack. That was similar to where CC was at last week, too; trying to find the ease and unworry. I can tell you she is not bothered one jot by what the need for a baby wipes warmer or other long expired details of extreme baby-care. My lovely girl is looking for the breezy loose-fitting bell-bottomy motherhood of child 3. Scanning existence for a yoga and macrame approach to letting it all hang out and living the motherhood to the max! Let's help her.

So our Three's Company challenge for the CC baby shower is to tell a story of sane-making easy-going parenting. What can you remind CC to let up about and be sure to hang ten the baby phase? Is there a baby gadget or piece of advice to have or to ignore? Is there a great trick to get through baby wailing? What 'easy does it' can we share?



My own advice? Never forget you can run a dishwasher as many as 4 times in a single day! I've done it!

Good luck honey. We love you and wish you a speedy delivery of your precious new baby. Stay calm, be brave, wait for the signs.Cross posted at Wet Coast Women.

Zzzzzz

The problem with caring for children is that it completely interferes with dealing with how they may be. I remember reading in some Tracy-what's-her-name? book about looking at your newborn months after I had missed the chance. Inspect their lovely minute forms she urged. I wish I had done so. Would mean a lot more than the scribblings I saved. 13 feeds, 3 poops, 6 diapers, total sleep 13.5 hours for that day.

Babies are very demanding and all that care takes over too often and blocks out the introduction of an astounding new person. I won't get on my normal soap box about how child-care is a industrial consumer complex conspiracy, not this time. But it is the care that's the rub.

My son has stayed up very late for the last few weeks. It is annoying. This week p-man suggested we might cut the N-A-P as a test to get better bedtimes. Now we of course would never do that because we respect and value the amount of sleep our kids are evidenced to need in a variety of parenting books we are nap addicts.

To lose the nap would cue the first time in nearly 5 years we were not spending part of our day punctuated by a child at rest. A child asleep. A child away. I realize the nuances and degrees of identity I put into nap. I register only today so fully what lay behind my inumerable nap/no-nap anxieties.

It is about the care. The beauty of the nap is that it signals to me the moment when I need do no more. The moment the infant is done feeding, the toddler turns over from storytime, the intermission between hours of carrying and encouragement, negotiation, displine.... etc etc. A penultimate coffee break. The windows I carry with me from the time before; the aloneness of pre-child self. Aloneness, in the day where for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes I need not care for them.

It frightens me to no longer have the naps. To have them awake ALL DAY. Mostly I think it frightens me to not have the buffer. For nothing to remind me of that degree of aloneness or my separation from the awesome responsibility of being their mother forever. Night and day, day and night year upon year. My motherhood stretching out to infinity, no 6 month checkups to assess, no milestones writ large.. know what I mean?

But when I put it that way I feel a full measure of liberation. A new phase into this being where my relationship with them, while still caring, is not defined by care. Something with much more room for them to be... and me too.

Together Forever

They play so happily together. Deep belly laughs happily. I know I wish for 'more nicely' but I will take happily. Would be a fool not to.

En Route

My parents help a lot with my kids; my in-laws too. This used to be torture for almost all parties concerned until I learned the magic. Off-site time for kids and grandparents is soooooo much better. Why did I avoid it so long? Why, indeed.

I had a very, very, very good reason. I wanted to be included. And, I wanted them to see the generations working in a seamless, inter-operable harmony. I wanted it to work well. And, I WANTED TO ENJOY TIME WITH MY KIDS AND MY PARENTS TOGETHER. I think of it as the fundamental tone of love, connection. That's the way I'm built.

I have let it go. I realize now how little a difference it is to anyone, even me. But despite the diminution I feel the difference. It is another trade off I make, especially as a working mom. My husband, my children and myself benefit greatly, for example, from the weekdays' sleepovers that offset childcare time and protect precious family time on the weekend.

But now it has come to the weekend. Today p-man and I split up our time with the kids and it made for a rather good, possibly better, Sunday. I took them to Granville Island and Kite Festival, p-man picked us up. We didn't have much time all together this weekend and I feel odd about it. Am I strange in this view? It seems to be screaming at me as only logical to split up the work on account of the success it affords. But I can't quite peel myself away from an idyllic view of togetherness. I burn somewhat, not inconsequentially, at the solitariness of the memory built today -- my 3yo being told the bus was express breaking into this at the top of his lungs:

I love repeats

I should post but I am a bit low on the energy. And LOOKIT! Thanks to this I found this. Reminds me so much of this.

Ah, memory lane.