Being Responsive

I've posted many times about divorce, and as much as I'd like to put all of it behind me and move on, I have two sweet boys who are and will always be impacted by the choices their father and I made. Divorce is cyclical; the three of us continually journey through varying phases, and I never find myself prepared for where their little hearts and minds will go.

The latest installment came the other night at the dinner table when out of the blue, Gage looked at me very seriously and said, "Mommy, I'm never going to get married."

I can never be sure where Gage will go next when he makes sudden announcements like this, so I asked why and waited for the rest. I never expected what came next; his mature thought process that lead to his profound statement left me breathless, heartbroken.

"Because I don't want to be like you and Daddy."

I might as well have been a puddle on the floor. My brain grasped for something to say, anything that could take away this knowing, this life experience that my little eight year old possessed. My feeble attempt to reassure him, to restore his faith in marriage fell pitifully short. He looked at me skeptically as I rambled about choosing the right person until thankfully, his attention was diverted by his brother.

I know it is clearly too early to predict doom for his future relationships due to commitment issues. But at the same time, I also realize that they will both be permanently impacted by our choices, even if they were only two and four. They are fortunate enough to see their father and I interact positively most of the time. They also see a loving and healthy marriage here at the Rock House.

Gage, at 2

Gage's comments have helped me to realize that in addition to modeling healthy relationships, I need to be talking with them about marriage and divorce more frequently and in a more complex way than I have been. I have to help them heal and understand the whys and hows of what happened, so they can learn and hopefully not repeat this experience later in their lives.

This has definitely had the potential to completely stress me out! Instead, with my momfulness practice and focus on presence, I'm learning to be less reactive and more responsive to their needs, to love all of the challenges and opportunities parenting them brings.

Strawberries, Old Times, and New Challenges

A good friend and I took the boyos strawberry picking today while brown baby hung out with her daddy. (I use the term 'hung out' loosely because the report is she cried a lot while we were gone.) Baby Diva strikes again!

It did me good to get out with just my boys. I haven't been able to do something with just them since before she was born, and lately I've felt like I can't really given enough of myself to anyone. Maybe that's not accurate. I have to give so much of myself to brown baby that I feel like there is nothing left to give to others. And after having nine years with the boys to myself, it feels off to have spent so little time with them other than doing homework, which is more akin to torture in my book. And probably theirs too.

It was nice to enjoy the boys through the lens of fun. Rather than constantly shushing them (because let's face it, they don't know how to be quiet), we spoke freely and laughed loudly. We pointed out mutant strawberries and oohed and aahed over the perfectly shaped ones. I had time to focus on just them instead of dealing with the noise they make or listening to their endless retellings of the latest cartoon they watched.

I realized that I have to make time like this with them even though it is hard right now. Because I know they are growing fast, and for a moment, they seemed a little smaller in the vast expanse of red berries. They forgot to fight with each other and forgot how to exercise their obnoxious elementary school senses of humor. I miss moments like these.

The challenges that come with a new baby are something you can anticipate, but never fully understand until immersed in dirty diapers and sleep deprivation. And despite having done this twice before, I still wasn't ready for how it would change this time. Being stretched very thin with brown baby is a normal thing. Feeling overwhelmed with the lack of structure is definitely taking its toll, but spending time and checking in with my boys and enjoying them, just them, is crucial to my happiness.

Falling Down

Pacey crashed on his bike for the first time today--

A rite of passage we all experience.

I helped him hobble home, doctored his scrapes, and gave him love.

Gage, the ever-thoughtful observer (and hesitant bike-rider), looked at me and said,

"Mommy, I knew two wheels were a bad idea."

Losing Teeth, Marking Time

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Gage lost one of his front, top teeth— his third lost tooth so far:

He’s so excited, but it leaves me feeling ambivalent— I remember how big that baby tooth looked when it first cut through his baby gums, and now compared to the gaping hole and the grown-up tooth that’s coming in, it looks so small.

It seemed such a short time ago, but he’s already seven and growing so fast. It makes me think about our little baby girl on the way, and I hope to savor every moment because I’m sure before we know it, she will be losing her baby teeth, too.

Picky Boy

What’s wrong with this shirt?

Nothing. It’s cute. It’s blue. It’s new. It has a pirate ship! So why won’t Gage wear it? Because it has two buttons. He hates button shirts. And what else? Striped shirts. “Hard” pants. Button pants. Tie shoes. And I’m sure I’ve forgotten something else that is on his list of particulars.

Seriously? He’s a boy. I thought they’d wear anything!

Baby Shoes

I was cleaning out the boys' closets the other day, and I found their stash of baby shoes.

Scuffed toes, shredded shoe laces, and worn out heels-- shoes that helped them learn to walk, to run, to play.

I carefully held each pair and was flooded with memories of chubby little baby boy legs and feet, and I looked over at the boys and wondered where all of that has gone. 

So quickly, they have grown into elementary school boys, with knobby knees and ankles and thin faces.

So quickly, they don't quite need me like they used to.  I think that is the hardest change to acknowledge.

I am glad to see them growing, thriving, but I feel the loss of their babyhood, their chubby cheeks, the garbled chatter, the need for just mommy.  I miss the wonder I had at them, a new parent, taking in all of their first moments.

For a while, I felt as if that wonder was gone, but each day I am learning to see the joy and wonder that comes with this age.

The way they learn to have friends or to not have friends, to get their feelings hurt, to see who really cares.

The way they learn to be a part of fads (silly bands, anyone?).  

The way they experiment with their sense of humor and sarcasm.

The way they pretend to be grown up but still fret over missing blankets until we find them.

The way they curl up at night with their stuffed animals.

The way they blow me kisses and hugs when I tell them goodbye.

The way they cuddle with me on the couch when we watch movies.

I sighed and packed their baby shoes away again, wistful for the past, thinking that sometimes these ages seem like a new way of life for us all.  

Then I saw Pacey's blanket that he left beside me when he was looking at his baby shoes.  

Maybe it really isn't that different after all.

How Kids Survive

I'm playing along with Supah Mommy today with my first Post It Note Tuesday post!



Somehow I'm curious how kids survive to adulthood when parents are involved.  And I'm simply talking about the regular, loving, but sometimes very stupid parents, like myself. One day, I will look back at all of this, get past the guilt, and laugh.  Wait.  I think I already am...  Anyways, to the boy-os--  Hopefully, when you talk about all this in therapy one day, you will remember these heartfelt apologies.

And yet Pacey seems to have a great appetite and enjoys food.  Except for carrots... I'm sure there's no connection.

Even so, Gage's hearing appears to be fine.  Except when he doesn't want to listen.

Oops. I think this is probably the most embarrassing mommy moment; however, Gage's manual dexterity doesn't seem to have suffered.  His DS playing is still up to par.

I blame the nurse who distracted me.  And it only required one band-aid, which made our location synchronistically fortunate.

Totally a result of too little sleep.  And most of the time they had a hat on anyways.  So it's all good.

I'm not sure why the empathy didn't kick in automatically here.  It was pretty funny.  And he has a hard head. (All of the carrier head-banging training apparently has paid off ...)

Gageyisms...

Another fun writing assignment from a great blog, Making Things Up!  This week's assignment is about how you are feeling, and you have to answer in six words or a series of six words. So much fun-- at least for an English major!

Make me laugh, make me smile.
He shouts, he asks, he laughs:
I don't want to grow up!
Can grown-up girls lay eighteen babies?
My elbow can touch my nose!
I want birthdays but stay "wittle."

I crave more of these moments.
Chances to laugh, chances to smile.
Asian husband says I baby them.
But what's a mom to do...
When time is fleeting and flying?

Pumpkin Patch Procrastination

Writer's Workshop time! From a great blog, Mama's Losin' It!: Photographs can turn a house into a home. Share a photograph that is not on your wall, but should be…if you weren’t so lazy about actually putting it there.

Procrastination. I had a meltdown last week in Denver with the husband about being lazy and procrastinating too much. "Where's my drive?!" I Cried  "Where's the initiative?!" I wailed and then hid under the covers. (Okay, maybe I wasn't quite so dramatic, but I'm sure most of us out there have had moments like this. Right? Or maybe I really am the crazy woman that Asian husband proclaims... But I digress.)

So this picture of little Gagey Goo Goo (I swear I will stop calling him this when he goes to first grade. When he goes to middle school. High school. College. At his wedding.  Maybe...) is Evidence A of my mastery of the art of procrastination. This perfect pumpkin patch picture (alliteration of the day) is about three years old. I remember thinking I was almost a professional with my little digital shot here. Let me pause for a moment to allow you to admire the composition, the lighting, the blending of subject and environment... (pretend for a moment I do know the first thing about photography.)

Since then I have often thought that I should print this out (on my printer that is about 10 feet away), frame it, and hang it up. What a great way to show off that cute little face immortalized, I mused. And yet the picture is still safe and sound on my computer's hard hard drive.

Which brings me back to my original rambling. Procrastination. I have often wondered what keeps me from taking the next steps with different goals I have, small and large. Is printing out a picture and putting it in a frame really so taxing? Is blogging more than once a month unconquerable?  Neither of these are at all, and what I have realized is it comes down to is fear. Fear of putting myself out there. To be judged. Observed. I have spent most of my life trying to be fairly invisible, and these kinds of things go against my grain.  I have a text reminder sent to myself each day that simply states 'Confidence and Independence,' but despite the reminder, I am only doing minor things to boost that part of myself that would much rather hide, so in addition to actually printing out this picture and finding the absolute perfect spot for it (baby steps), I am working on confidence in my writing, my thinking, and my blogging (big steps), which I hope contributes to confidence in my being (even bigger steps).

Real Tears

Seeing pain in your child's eyes and being helpless to fix it is one of the hardest moments parents face.  As we grow with our children, we quickly learn to look past the pouting, temper tantrums, and upsets over missing toys.  Hopefully we teach them to understand and deal with disappointment that comes with growing up-- from losing games to losing friends, it is our job to help our children understand how to grow from those experiences.  As with every other task that comes with parenting, we continually become more adept at these moments until moving our children through them becomes close to second nature.

What we aren't prepared for are those first, real tears.  The tears that speak to the realization of the sadness that can come with being human.  The gradual loss of innocence that begins from birth is sped up in these experiences and the child's heartache that accompanies this painful part of growing up is even more heart-wrenching for the mom watching it unfold.

While I was cooking dinner tonight, Gage was quietly playing alone upstairs.  I was hearing the Leap Frog learning pad and the Lincoln Logs, but eventually he was quietly reading a book we checked out from the library earlier this week.  This book was an afterthought, a book that Gage crammed into the stack as I was diligently looking for level 1 readers for him.  The cover must have caught his eye-- brilliantly illustrated in deep blues and greens with a lone hippo floating in the ocean.  As I added it to our books, I didn't know how much it would impact us.

It is mostly a picture book, with the only word being "mama," but in those pictures, a poignant story is told.  One of love and loss, one that changes perspectives and brings understanding as a hippo family is separated in the Indonesian tsumani of 2004 and the baby hippo finds a new "mama" in a 130 year old turtle.
 
I was finishing dinner when Pacey told me that Gage was crying upstairs, and I frustratedly thought, "what now?!"  Lately, they have been in a phase of arguing and hurt feelings, so I was sure that I didn't want to hear whatever it was that had brought about the tears this time.  When Gage wouldn't reply to my calls, I went up the stairs to see what had happened.  I found him curled on the couch in the loft, the book by his side, tears silently leaving tracks on his cheeks.

As I held him and let him cry for over an hour, I realized what he had come to understand.  The loss that is inherent in life, the fear of being without a loved one, the mortality we constantly evade.  My tears chased his as he looked pleadingly at me, his eyes questioning mine, imploring me to take back what he had discovered.  I knew I could do nothing but let him cry in my arms, for that moment a safe haven.  As I held him, I saw the baby he once was.  The little line of peach fuzz on his nose, adjacent to the red mark on his nostril.  His legs curled into his stomach.  His lips soft and round.  His eyelashes long and thick.  The only difference was a fear in his eyes that I haven't seen before, a fear that I have known well.  I was 6 when I started worrying about my grandma dying and would cry in her bed at night as she stroked my forehead like I was stroking his.  With each motion, his eyes started to drift off.  I felt his body relax and twitch as he gave into the fatigue that an hour of crying can bring.  I held him there, still running my fingers through his silky hair until bedtime when I carried him upstairs to tuck him in.  He choked out a few sleepy sobs and as I covered him up with his favorite blanket, he seemed to take comfort in an old, familiar friend.

I came back downstairs and cried at the harsh reality of love and loss.  If we let it, life will pass us by in a flurry of activity and forgotten tasks. If we are lucky, we find occasional reminders for gratitude and awareness. When we are open to it, the chance to live in the moment with our loved ones presents itself. 

Image embedded from: http://www.amazon.com/MAMA-story-which-during-TSUNAMI/dp/0152054952

Simplicity

Fabulous find #49291-- the local aquarium has a 35 minute Creek Cruise for $7 a person departing hourly starting at noon. I stumbled upon this hidden treasure while sitting at the doctor's office, and snapped a picture of the smallish ad in the free parenting magazine with my iPhone. I was certain with a ridiculous level of giddiness and pride that no one else was privy to such a great find. I failed to realize:

1. It's tourist season, and
   
2. It's a free parenting magazine in a doctor's office. Label this post "Duh."
   

Feeling like I held a sacred revelation, I waited the perfect amount of time to disclose my find to the boy-os-- enough to allow them to anticipate the adventure, but not so much that they nagged me about it unendingly. We eagerly approached the ticket counter at 1:30, only to find they only had tickets left for the 5:00 cruise. This would have been nice to know when I called at noon and asked if the cruises typically sold out and if we got there 30 minutes before would that be good and was assured it was all good. Luckily, we were there with a friend who has a membership, so we quickly changed plans to spend some time exploring the museum, and I was proud of the boy-os, who had gotten pretty excited about a 35 minute cruise around the marsh, when they were just as excited to be around all of the fish on the other side of the glass.

In an attempt to completely tire them out, we decided to do the nature walk to the other building, which takes 10 minutes, one way. We found a room on the way to the nature walk, where there were stuffed animals, a chalkboard wall, a magnetic fishing game, hopscotch, books, and a mini-aquarium. It was pretty basic by design, not grandly decorated or overly emphatic in an attempt to be a cool room at the aquarium. In short, it was simple. Understated.

Simply perfect for a 5 year old, so Gage, of course, was fascinated by this room. Those of us who know Gage are not surprised. He is often in what we call "parallel world," a space he enters that has him playing happily on his own alongside, not with, other kids or adults. Don't mistake this for the idea that he isn't social. Oh no. He will talk to anyone, even the guy in the car next to us when we both had our windows down. "Yes, he's friendly," I often find myself saying. And let's not forget about the time he attached himself to another soccer mom's leg during a game when he was two. I felt the need to profusely proclaim, "Really, we love him and show him affection, I swear!" He is just so comfortable in his own skin, and totally into the really simple things-- like this room.

I sat back and watched him find puppets and stuffed animals to engage in a great battle, tote his favorite "squib" (see Gagey-isms post for translation) to the book area, complete several games of "ho-scosh," and wrangle several buckets of magnetic fish. I felt like I was looking at one of those Family Circus cartoons that show the tracks little Billy takes all over the yard. He came over to me every so often to show me a puppet or talk about what he saw, but mostly he was completely absorbed in this free play-- even on our second visit after the nature walk and otters and snakes, which he was also excited about.

Watching this moment of pure abandon on the part of my 5 year old, struck me quite powerfully. I often feel like we inundate them-- with TV, with toys, with activities, with stuff. It took a simple room with simple toys to completely enthrall and engage a young mind that is already full of wonder. I know these were new items and new is always better than the same old toys you play with every day, but it did not take new and flashy toys to catch his eye. It took new and simple-- basic playthings that allowed him to make the rules and create his own "new parallel world."

Before we go getting way too serious (this post is not meant to invoke tears), let me just say I don't want this to end for him. I want to jump into his parallel world-- invited, of course, and live like he does... Minus running into the glass window like he did at the gym today. That would probably be something I could live without.

Countdown to Kindergarten

Here is Gage with his countdown calendar. When preschool was over at the end of May, he thought kindergarten would immediately follow, and he also didn't understand the concept of 3 months. I tried to tell him about 90 days, but that was just too abstract for him to grasp. So I printed out monthly calendars for the summer, so we could cross of each day and keep a countdown to the first day of school. So far, it has been a big hit.

Each night, he loves crossing off the day, and then every few nights, we count how many days are left and write it on the day we just crossed out. He's learning a little about the concept of time passing, but we are also practicing counting past twenty and writing our numbers, which as you can see (maybe), he sometimes writes backwards. I think writing on the wall is messing with his head!

Gagey-isms

Gage is a master at saying words the wrong way, and I am always saying I need to write them down in his baby book. I'm sure there are a few in there, but I figure this is a good place to record his own renditions of words. I have probably let him say them the wrong way for way too long, and Jon is making me correct him since he is going to kindergarten (the picture is of him at registration) in the fall. He should probably learn the right way. I think it is me holding on to one of the last threads of his "babyhood." He is growing up! And some of these are already fixed-- no need to worry.

Okay, so here's the list. I will remember what I can now, and then update as he "mis-speaks." :)

fra-ssert=dessert
fra-mote=remote
wabanna=banana and has recently morphed into bee-anna
squib=squid
My heart is beeping.=My heart is beating.
hook=hood
gwub=glove
plugger=the electrical plug on an item or the actual outlet
boice=voice
ca-no-ca-nut=coconut
ba-na-hind=behind

Just writing these down made me laugh out loud!

Gage and His iPod

I couldn't resist getting a clip of the sweetly singing Gage this morning. My goal this summer is to update this blog more frequently and make it more of a habit. Enjoy!