The line between respect and indulgence...

Effing picture day. 

If you recall, last year at picture day, they almost had to call me to come and help at school because Lucy was having a picture day breakdown.  The photographer said, "Smile!" And Lucy felt that she did smile.  But she was urged, cajoled and asked again and again to smile.  Resulting in her breaking down into tears and her teacher jumping to her aide.  At the end of the whole thing, it resulted in the above photo once they got to the group shot.  Which I will treasure forever.

So, leading up to this year's picture day, Lucy has been pretty high anxiety, asking, "What if they tell me to smile and then they don't think my smile is big enough."  I told Lucy that it was her picture and that her daddy and I are paying for it and we're fine with whatever face she wants to make.

This turned into her making a lot of pretty crazy practice faces, leading into the picture day.  I started to worry--will she roll her eyes?  Will she stick out her tongue?  I mean, I really am fine with whatever face she makes, but I don't want her to seem disrespectful either...   I told her that I talked to her teacher, wrote on the picture order envelope that she can smile however she likes...  She talked about picture day all day yesterday and into the night.  Obviously her anxiety around this is real.

But I wondered, am I indulging too much. I mean, when it comes down to it, it does seem a little ridiculous. Who cares?! Just smile for the picture for crying outside!  But my girl has boundaries and while she is a loving, smart, funny kid, she does NOT do things that don't feel right to her. 

This morning, she chose a red velvet Christmas dress to wear in her picture.  Then she asked me to cut the white fleece Santa Clause cuffs off the arms.  Fine with me.  She even brought a brush downstairs and asked me to help her comb her hair.  Then off we went to school.  As soon as we got to her coat hook, her friend came up and said, "Lucy! I don't understand why you don't just smile pretty in the picture like I'm going to!"  Tears immediately sprang to her eyes.

Obviously this is a big deal to her.  I kind of wanted to just agree with her friend, but I also was just beside myself that we had finally made it to picture day, she was feeling fine...and now we were in tears again.

Anyway, I got her situated in her room, and she clung to me and didn't want me to leave.  I knelt down by her and held her hands and looked into her eyes and told her that everything was fine and that picture day would be fine and that I'd come back and get her at the end of the day and she could tell me all about it.  In the end, her teacher had to come and hold her arm so she would stop clinging to me and I could leave.

Man, it's hard to be a mom sometimes.

And I had to wonder....where is the line between indulging her and respecting her very real and very powerful feelings of anxiety?

I know that people would have opinions about this from one end to the other.

But the truth is, I'm Lucy's mom. And I'm doing my best.  And I can only hope I'm doing right by her, respecting her fears, feelings and wishes...and pushing her to do her own thing.

Communication, force fields and marriage.

I wrote a blog post last month called working on my introvert care skills and I really have been.  Working hard on them.  That is.

Since my introvert partner is a teacher, I know that he has to spend his energy on at least thirty other people all day long. And then come home to be a parent to two more people and a partner to one.  Since I'm one of the only adults in this scenario, I try to make sure that when his energy reads of inwardness to me, that means he wants to listen to music or watch sports or read without me and my rays of loud energy that want constant reverb, playback, trampoline return...call it what you will....So, I've been going into our room to read when he's on the couch clearly relaxing.  I've been trying not to take it personally when he just wants a little quiet and peace in the house. Event though I might want some togetherness and noise.   It's been going well...leading us to more understanding I think.

However.

The other night, Tad sat on the couch, turned on music and seemed like he wanted to talk.  So I came in to join him. 
"SO!" I said. 
"I'm just turning some music on here." He said, smiling. 
So I joined him and started talking about my day.
Like this...

 

 

And he was listening as he drank his tea, relaxing, and the music played but I just got mad.  I didn't want him to listen to me with his eyes closed. I wanted him to lean forward in rapt attention! I wanted him to ask me really interesting and probing questions.  I wanted him to not look tired.  Or even be tired. I wanted him to find me so fascinating and enthralling, that it was like he wasn't even teaching all day long without any breaks! 

 

And frankly, I was very impatient. I didn't even wait more than thirty seconds into telling about my day before I sort of stormed off..  I was imagining the scene more like this:

 



Me.
Exploding onto Tad's force field of calm and tranquility. 

So when I went into the porch area to get some sewing supplies together and then knocked fifty drumsticks on to the ground with a lot of loud clattering and then walked back through the living room without looking at him, he said, "Hey. What are you doing?"

Turns out, he did want to sit and talk.  He did miss me.  He was just tired and happy to sink into the couch and relax while we reconnected.  Perhaps he could have opened his eyes and looked at me. But he didn't know how important that was to me.  Perhaps I could have waited thirty seconds longer and he would have reacted more how I wanted him to. But I didn't know that he actually did want to hang out. 

So funny how with just a little more communication...
Like if Tad had said, "Hey! I want to hang out with you tonight"
Or if I had said, "Do you want to hang out, or should I give you some space?"

We would have had a situation much more like this:

 

Like, I think, we both wanted in the first place.

 

Ah, what a lovely bunch of life lessons marriage can give us.

 

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft. 

That's the sound of me making a loud, obnoxious noise.  

 

Weird

Tonight at dinner Lucy was expressing concern about what one of her classmates said.
"She said I'm weird." Lucy said. "And she said I'm gross."

Tad and I immediately jumped to her aid and defense.
"You're not gross!" 
Tad got up and hugged her.
"But you are weird."

Lucy started to protest.

"That just means you're not like everybody else." Tad said. "You're weird.  I'm weird.  Your brother's weird!"

"Yeah!" Coen chimed in.  "Me and my friends are like some of the weirdest kids in the school!  At least that's what we're trying to be."

"Tell me about it." Tad said.

Lucy still looked a little unsure.

"Your mommy's the weirdest woman I ever met!" Tad went on. "Kids in high school used to tell me that I was weird when I was just walking around the halls, doing nothing!"

"Lucy" I said, taking her little hand, "It's wonderful to be weird.  You're wonderful and weird. And we love you."

Tad picked her up and tipped her upside-down. "You're a wonderful, weird girl!"

Lucy started to laugh.  

"We're all weird."

And this is where we belong.

Terrified...or how I just want everyone to feel good all the time.

We had four boys overnight this weekend for Coen's birthday.  This brought me a lot of anxiety.  First of all, Coen chose four boys for this endeavor.  I kept suggesting other boys to invite because, I worried, their feelings would be hurt were they not invited.  Coen wanted only four.  He's an introvert, like his Daddy, and he knows the number that will work for him.

"But it's an uneven number!" I said to Tad, still rallying for an extra kid.  "Uneven numbers are trouble."
"Maybe for girls." Tad said, "But for boys, you're fine as long as you have three or more. Three is the magic number."
"Man." I said. "Three girls at a sleepover spells DISASTER!"

But Saturday came and Coen's four friends arrived.  I could barely contain my buzzing nerves.  I was endlessly thankful that Tad is my partner. Tad, who is a teacher and handles 28 kids (more than half of them boys) every day.  Tad who is really really good at talking to kids reasonably, taking into account that they are human beings, but still getting them to do what he wants them to do.  Tad who is entirely even tempered and can laugh thirty seconds after reprimanding someone for saying "Shut up." to someone else...by suggesting, that a person could--if shutting up were their aim--just ask the other person nicely to stop talking...

The other thing that stressed me out was that our neighbors were over when the party started and I was just so incredibly freaked out about hurting the feelings of the kid who was not invited to sleep over, though he joined us for dinner and left after.  I wanted to go knock on the door of his house and talk with his parents for thirty minutes about how much we like him and how much I am worried that his feelings were hurt...  Tad suggested that might be unnecessary. 

Tad and I stood in the kitchen talking while the boys ran up and down the stairs, laughed with each other, talking and playing...
"I'm like...terrified of them."  I admitted.  "What's wrong with me? I feel so incapable!"
"You're not incapable." Tad laughed. "It's a bunch of boys.  It's just boys.  Anyway. I'm just doing my part. I mean, you almost fainted when I mailed a letter the other day.  You do plenty around here.  I can handle this."
I thought about that.  That was true.  I spent the day prior cleaning out the basement, taking stuff to goodwill, trimming all the weeds and errant saplings around our yard.  I manage our household.  And for heaven's sake, I teach teenagers about sex for my job. 

Is it really that I'm afraid of these kids? No, I know each one of these boys, have known most of them since they were three years old.  They are sweet kids.  They are goofy kids.  They're not much different from my kid.  

So what am I afraid of?  What is it that gives me such anxiety, that keeps me from volunteering to take a group of kids in my son's class on an outing? That makes me so glad Tad's there to help during a sleepover? 

I think...it all comes down to this. I don't want anyone to have hurt feelings.  That's why I wish we could have invited everyone in the world overnight so no one was left out.  That's why I felt nervous at the group of them. I mean...what if someone is mean to someone else? What if someone gets bullied?  What if I have to tell someone to stop being mean to someone else and that makes them feel bad? Oh my gosh, it's ridiculous! 

I mean, in my very smart brain I know that sometimes people just have to feel bad. It's a part of life.  To learn how to get through feeling bad and then feel good again.  But I just don't like having to tell someone to stop something or that they can't have something or just saying no to anything at all.  I know. It's completely silly.

I've been working on my practice for YEARS of being really nice to people--without being a doormat.  I totally can do it.  Anyway...that's just the truth about me.  I get nervous about having to do anything that might make someone feel bad in any way..  That's just me! Don't look at me like that!

Oh, I'm sorry! Did I hurt your feelings?  Oh my gosh, I didn't mean to. Here. Have a box of cookies.

Thanks Louis C.K.

Tad and I watched Conan the other night and Louis C.K. gave this wonderful speech about cell phones.  If you don't want to click on it, I'll tell you.  Basically he said that he's not letting his kids (who are 8 and 12) get cell phones.  Because they don't need them yet.  Because why rush the inevitable time when they'll live, not in the moment but in the constant checking and texting and facebooking moments so many of us live in now.  Because his job is not to make them happy, or do things he doesn't believe in for them just so they don't feel weird.  His job is to nurture the adults they are going to become...

I loved his rant.

I'll tell you why.

What he said rang very true to me.  Life is sad.  Life is so incredibly sad. And sometimes you just get hit with the realization or the thought or the feeling that you are just so very alone.  And that is terrifying.  So we text someone or call someone or go on Facebook to see other people so that we don't allow ourselves to feel that sadness. Or feel that loneliness.

Yesterday I had to go to a breakfast event and as I pulled away from my house I realized I had forgotten my phone.  And at first, I was like...should I go back and get it? But I kept driving.  And I parked at work and walked to the breakfast event (about a mile away).  And on my way there, I just looked at the city, coming alive in the sunrise and sort of just felt it breathing.  It made me want to yell "GOOD MORNING!"  And I was wearing my tennies, my fancy shoes tucked inside my purse to put on when I got there.  That made me feel like a real business lady!  I smiled most of the way there.

And had I remembered my phone, I would not have felt anywhere near that alive.  Because I would have called someone...or texted someone...or just looked at it to remind myself that I could connect with someone...anyone else.  But instead I connected with me.

And then, after the breakfast event ended, because it was supposed to rain, my coworker offered me a ride home.  I looked out the window as we left and said, "No. It looks like it's not raining yet. Thanks! I'll walk back."  And then I got outside and it was raining.  I guess looking out the window into an enclosed courtyard is not a good indication of whether or not it is indeed precipitating.  At any rate, I walked.  And I kind of grinned at people around me and not once but TWICE different business men offered space under their umbrellas at the corners.  And finally it was just me, walking in the drizzling rain and feeling wide awake and happy. I smiled at everyone I passed (and people either smiled back or avoided eye contact with me--really a pretty sane response either way!) 

I stopped and took a picture of my city, glistening wet in the rain and waking up.

And you know, I've done that before,  walked like that, only when I was feeling sad and let that feeling wash over me too. And I have cried like a big buffoon, just cried my eyes out for no good reason at all except that I just felt so tremendously overwhelmingly sad.  It it felt lovely.  How good it feels to feel!  So thanks Louis C.K. for the sentiment.  I want to crash through all the joy and grief and pain and love in my life and really let it in.

And I want to teach my kids to do that too. And I would change one thing about what you said.  I would say that I am nurturing not just the adults that my kids will become but simply the human beings that they are now, from whom they have grown and that they will be.  And do my best to teach them how to be alive.

The earth went around the sun ten times: Coen

 I went in for pre-op testing in January of 2003, the day before my ear surgery. 

"Any chance you're pregnant?" The nurse asked me.

"Absolutely not." I said. I was using birth control. I had returned from the Peace Corps only eight months prior.  Tad had just moved back to Milwaukee.  We were in love and just finally in the same country again.  Both of us making roughly $12 an hour.  Things were in flux.

That night, Tad and I watched a movie, trying to calm my nerves before my operation.  Then the phone rang.  I picked up. It was my ear surgeon.

"Alie." He said. "I am sorry but I can't do surgery on you tomorrow."

"What?!! Why?" I said in alarm.

"You're pregnant."

I fell to my knees.

After I got of the phone, Tad joined me on the floor, next to the phone.  I looked up at him.

"I'm pregnant."

The rest, as they say, is history.

Well, we called my parents for council and they came over and talked us through our panic, our alarm, our shock.  And they left telling us they would support whatever we chose to do.  I am not ready for this. I kept saying in my head.  But I looked at Tad who was remarkably calm and assured.
 

"We would have done this eventually." he said with a wry smile.

I called my parents back.

"Congratulations." I said. "You're going to be grandparents." 

And ten years later, I have this boy.  He is sensitive and wise and hilarious.  He can sing perfectly on pitch and hit a home run in one swing and draw the most amazing pictures that come from his own mind. 

He spontaneously grabs my arm and kisses it, looking up at me with his warm, hazel eyes, saying "love."  He changed my whole life around in the one, tiny, unexpected spark of his existence and I am so glad he did.

Coen.  Happy birthday.  This kid was meant to be, and I believe he'll make his mark on this world.

Joan Baez, music, and longing...

Three years ago I wrote this blog post about Joan Baez. 

Last night Tad and I were looking for a documentary to watch and he suggested the Joan Baez documentary that inspired the above blog post.  I told him no.  "I feel a terrible longing when I watch that one and I don't feel like feeling like that." I said.
Tad looked at me.  And wisely said, "Well if it's that strong, then you should do something about it."

Damn it.   I know he's right.

So here's the thing.  If you don't feel like reading the above link... I thought I'd be a singer and an activist in much larger fashion than I am currently.  But what I am, larger than life, is a mom.  And I have absolutely no regrets about that.  And my career has taken me down a path that is amazing and exciting and suddenly I'm a sexuality educator for young (and not so young) people with disabilities.  And I am honored and thrilled to be doing that.  But I'm still not making music.  Since I wrote that blog post and declared I needed to go to an open mic night, I have performed exactly once.  At a farmer's market.  So what gives?

If playing music makes me happier than almost anything, why am I not doing it? 

What is it that makes YOU feel wildly alive and full of joy?  Do you do it as often as you would like?

What keeps us from doing things that make us blissful?

I have an incredible job out in the world at IndependenceFirst.   I have an incredible job at home raising Coen and Lucy.  I'm very happy...it's just that something's missing.   
Music.  
I still get out my guitar twice a month or so and play by myself or for my family.
But I feel like a I lack a community of people who want to gather and make music together...though I know I could create it if I tried or find it if I looked....

So how to find those people and get them together....

I know I need to do this. Tad's right.  If I can't watch Joan Baez without aching for a regular experience making music with others...then I need to do something about it.

Now, I just have to do it so I don't re-read this in three years and realize I didn't.