Playmates

It seems like each week keeps getting past me before I am able to post. There are actually a number of things I would like to post about, but time is a major factor. Hopefully sometime soon I will get back to fully rolling in the blog world.

One of the major factors in my time lately is the kids. No big surprise, yet for some reason I still catch myself being surprised at how much time and energy it takes to raise small children. A friend stayed the night at our house earlier this week and he commented, "Is this normal? Is every evening this busy with the kids?" John and I laughed. The evening did not seem too chaotic to us. I guess in some ways we have become immune to the chaos. I realized recently that I have become the woman who carries on a phone conversation with a screaming child in the background. I used to be so distracted when I talked to women who talked over their toddlers, but now I know it is the only way to have a conversation. I am also the woman who consistently goes to work with baby poop on her clothes, but whatever.

In the midst of the chaos and redirecting, there have been many great moments. Grayson and Lu have started playing with each other more. They both share admiration for each other that warms my heart. I love seeing their bond grow. I love the moments when Grayson follows his big brother instinct to make sure Lu is treated fairly. I love watching Lu gaze at Grayson and smile at every little thing he does. I love listening to giggles turn into belly laughter in the back seat of the car as Grayson and Lu share an inside joke. So many days I look at Grayson and Lu and I sit in wonder about what is to come for them.

Learning in Process

Some days John and I have to verbally remind each other that our life will not always be as it is now. We will not always be held captive by early bedtimes, diaper changes, feedings, play dates, and toddler mood swings. It seems like at least a few times a week I hear from parents of school-aged children, "I don't envy you right now." John was told recently that we are living out the hardest years of our life right now. We were promised that we will never again be as tired and weary as we are during these early years with the kids. John and I have decided that we will hold the person who made this promise accountable.

Don't get me wrong, we love our children, and we love all the endearing moments, but we are also running tired. For a while I felt guilty that I was trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel. I felt guilty that I was not content in the moment, and I worried that I would miss the great, little moments with my kids as infants and toddlers. I had to give up reading blogs or looking at the Facebook because it can seem like every other mom but me absolutely thrives on the physical grind of child-rearing.

Last week I heard the voice of reason. A woman assured me that I was okay for not feeling energized and enthralled with my daily activities right now. I was encouraged to be told that as the dust settles and the children grown, each stage gets more enjoyable. I don't need to focus so much on making this survival time out to be the greatest years of my life. I have not talked to any honest parents who just rave about how great the early parenting years were for them. Most seem to shake their head and thank God they are not still living those years. Slowly I am taking the pressure off to be Super Mom, and I am not beating myself up when I think about some things I could or would be doing if I was not in the parenting cave. I'm learning that it is possible to love your children deeply, yet still need other things going on in life. It's okay that these may not be my glory days.

Maternal Judgement

Sometimes parenting makes me feel like I am 14 years old again. I can feel like I am under the microscope. Like I am being critiqued. Like I have to measure up to some parenting standard. Like there is some cool crowd style I am supposed to conform to. If I think too much about parenting I go batty. So many opinions. So many folks who are certain they have the right techniques for raising my children. There are times when I really connect with the motherhood community and I think to myself, "Gee, we are all just trying to make it through this stage together." Then there are the other times. There are the times when I have conversations with mothers who know everything and appear to have it all figured out. Those are the times I catch myself starting to fume and get into fighting position. In those moments I no longer care about the motherhood community. I take on the Hunger Games  mentality and think, "May the odds be in your favor." In those moments I am ready to battle the opinionated mother (or maybe non-mother... it's very possible). I have debated blogging about some of my encounters. I don't want to alienate folks, but the stories are rich. Sometimes I even agree with the practices of these super confident women who send me into a rage. Sometimes I actually practice the same parenting style as them. So it is not actually their opinions or style that wrecks me, it is the judgement that I can so easily feel. I love this piece in the Huffington Post about maternal judgement.

I definitely connected with the Huffington Post piece. When I was pregnant with Grayson we had grand plans of how we would parent. I saw so many blogs and Facebook posts of women who clearly have 40 hours a day to do crafts with their children, have a completely organic life, keep a perfectly decorated home, cook elaborate meals, throw creative parties, go on amazing vacations, have perfectly witty and enthusiastic family outings,  and still have time to talk about it all. The bar is set pretty high for what it looks like to be a parent. At the end of the day, none of that matters though. What matters is that I raise my children in the way that is best for them and what works best for our family. Now I don't care so much about living out a certain parent persona, but rather just doing what needs to get done for my family. I think that is the responsibility of every mother. Do what you need to do and brush off the rest. This morning I had to fish out a letter "M" alphabet graham (euphemism for cookie) from Lucy's mouth. Grayson is our little Socialist and likes to give everything to his sister. The incident highlighted two things: 1) I was preoccupied for longer than one second, so Grayson had time to get a cookie in Lu's mouth, and 2) We officially give Grayson cookies in the morning. I am sure the pre-parent Shannen would have something to say about this, but all the parent Shannen can say is, "It's just where I'm at right now."

Thought-Provoking Thursday: It's Okay to be an American Mom

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Parenting is a great mystery to me. It can be an overwhelming mystery. I think all the information women are bombarded with while they are pregnant is just the introduction into the sensory overload that comes as a parent. I find myself purposefully avoiding parenting conversations. I overhear women discussing parenting and I cringe. Just the thought of chatting it up about parenting practices wears me out enough to lock myself in the nearest bathroom stall. Don't even get me started on the blog posts about parenting... ironic, I know, being that this is one of those posts.

It's not the actual act of parenting that gets me so overwhelmed and wound up, but it's the chaos of opinions that tends to surround it. Grayson will be two years old next month. I have spent the past two years trying to get a sense of my son. What works for him, what does not. What is a standard developmental phase and attitude, and what is actually his personality. What are his strengths, what are his weaknesses. Getting to know a little human being, one who is completely raw and void of social masking, is a major task. For every observation we have made about Grayson,  John and I have given thought to our parenting style.

I wish parenting was simply figuring out your child and doing what is best for him or her. It's not that simple though. All the various thoughts and opinions on parenting make the job even tougher. Not only do you have to figure out your child, but you also have to sift through all the advice that circles around. One of the noises about parenting I have had to block out is the notion that American moms are lesser than other moms. There has been a surge in the media lately about the virtues of Asian and French mothers. At the risk of sounding like an obtuse American, I am perfectly pleased with being an American parent. I don't want to be a Tiger Mom and I don't need to be a French woman to raise my children well. Yes, our culture has some flat sides, and some of our children are not always up to par in certain situations, and there are absurd American parents out there, but I very much like being an American parent and I don't want to fix my parenting style to one that does not fit my children or our culture.

I was more than pleased, and I was extremely validated, when I read this article in the New York Times (and further discussed on Motherlode). Can you believe that the New York Times printed that it's okay to be an American mother? This is remarkable! Granted, it was an opinion column, but I'll take it. Not only did this article validate my ability to raise descent human beings, but it highlighted just how American I am. I am very American. I have known this about myself for a long time, but it is interesting to see that my nationality bleeds into my parenting as well. I have repeatedly joked that what I care about most for Grayson is that he exhibits social awareness. John and I turned down the opportunity for Lucy to go to a new state-of-the-art daycare facility because we felt like it focused too much on academia and not as much on independence and  socialization. It's not that I don't care about academia - our children are being raised by parents with a laundry list of degrees - but as a parent I feel like the academics will come in its own time. In effort to quickly excuse myself from conversations about education philosophies, I have made the statement that what I value most for my children is that enjoy what they are doing and have good social skills. In the past this statement has quickly ended the education conversation because it appears to be a completely different topic, but now I have come to find out it is just a method of American parenting.

Yes, our country has its faults and we are continually facing the facts of how we do not measure us to different parts of the world anymore, but at the end of the day I am very happy to be an American parent. My children may not be ever be world-ranked in anything, but hopefully they will be productive members of society and enjoy whatever it is that they do. If this is a weak form of parenting, oh well.

Oh Holiday

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I've learned something about myself. I am terrible with holidays. I have looked across the blogosphere and seen many adorable Valentine's gift ideas, crafts with children, celebration plans. It all looks great. Can I ever pull any of those things off? Doubtful. For some reason every holiday sneaks up on me, even the most publicized holidays. I can't seem to pull together Halloween costumes. Christmas is a wash. So it's not surprising that Valentine's Day gets swept away from me too. I can't remember the last time John and I actually exchanged gifts for any holiday. Thankfully, John has the same issue as me, so it's a mutual relationship at least. Our gift exchanges tend to go something like this:
"Happy [Birthday, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Anniversary]! I had this great plan to make you such-and-such, and I planned to do such-and-such, and I know you wanted this-and-that, but I ran out of time."
"Oh, that's fine. I love you."
"Love you, too."

Having children has put pressure on stepping up my holiday game. This year I had every intention of having Grayson make some cards and cookies for his grandparents. Lucy was going to somehow get in on the fun too. It was going to be adorable. I would take pictures of the magical moments we shared in the process of making things for others to love and cherish. I bought the sugar and sprinkles for sugar cookies. I had visions of Grayson pouring way too much sugar on the cookies, but that's the way sugar cookies made by toddlers should be, right? I had ideas for card-making. I planned to get something little for Grayson, in hopes of starting a fun Valentine's tradition. Nothing panned out. It would be one thing if we made the cookies but did not get around to sending them to the grandparents, but we did not even break out the sugar and sprinkles.

Late last night I remembered an email from Grayson's school about the Valentine's card exchange at school. Last year I did not do anything for Grayson's classmates. I figured infants were content enough with each other's company and did not need written affirmation or gifts to feel loved in their budding friendships. Grayson was the only infant who did not express his love through cards and gifts last year. I felt silly and a little disturbed. Who decided that we needed to play this game of infant Valentine's? How did everyone know to get on board? This year I decided give in and play the game. So the kids can't read yet. So they don't know what Valentine's Day is. Who cares! So late last night I scribbled each one of Grayson's classmates names on hologram Valentine's Day cards that read things like, "Be Peaceful!"(witty thing to give a toddler, huh?)

When we got to Grayson's school this morning I gave him the stack of Vaentine's Day cards to take in to class with him. I wanted to create the mirage that the cards were actually from Grayson. He carried the cards with hesitation and tried to pawn them off on anyone in sight. When we got inside Grayson quickly gave the stack of cards to his teacher, and that is when it hit me - I forgot the teachers! I looked around the room and there were multiple gifts - even some gift baskets spilling over with goodies! - for the teachers. The other parents did it again. Somehow they got the memo.

The gauntlet for being on top of holidays has officially be thrown.   

So Much Anticipation

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Am I the only one that gets anxiously excited as I wait to find out what my child's eye color will be? The anticipation slays me! When Grayson was one week old the pediatrician told me that he was almost certain Grayson's deep blue eyes would ultimately be brown. I secretly, or actually not-so-secretly, really wanted Grayson to have my light colored eyes. I knew genetics was not on my side, but I thought that maybe, somehow, Grayson could pull through with light eyes. Sure enough, as the months went on Grayson's eye color changed from the deep blue to a deep almond brown, John's eyes. I am pleased that Grayson has almost the exact shade of brown as John. Now it seems impossible for me to think of Grayson with light eyes. His round almond eyes are perfect.

When Lucy was born I mistakenly thought I matured enough to not be partial and impatient about her eye color. At this point finding out the eye color is as exciting to me as finding out the sex of the baby when I was pregnant. And truth be told, I would like for Lucy to have light eyes. The past few days I got my hopes up and  believed I saw flecks of light green in her deep blue eyes. Today, however, the shade is back to being murky, making me think she will have brown eyes. Each day I questioned Lucy's future eye color made me anticipate Lucy's upcoming pediatrician appointment. I figure that since pediatricians see so many babies they are the experts in the area of determining eye color. After all, it was a pediatrician who predicted Grayson's eye color. I realize that I view pediatricians as not only being medical doctors but also being fortunetellers of sorts. Lucy's pediatrician is a very astute and no-funny-business doctor. Not exactly the fortuneteller type. He has been known to call school teachers who have questioned his prescribed medical treatments. John and I know a woman who recently underwent thyroid surgery because Lucy's pediatrician happened to notice that this woman's neck looked irregular while he was examining her son. Very astute, indeed. So at today's appointment I focused more on the pediatrician's astuteness, and less on his seriousness, and took the risk of asking about Lucy's eye color. I figured I had nothing to lose, but I had a great deal to gain - the unfolded mystery of what will come to light in a few months. I was wrong. I did have something to lose. I am confident I lost a lot of credibility in the pediatrician's eyes. The one question I had during the exam was, "Well, do you know what her eye color will be? I'm so curious!" The pediatrician looked dead at me, rolled his eyes, pulled open Lucy's eyes, rolled his eyes again, and said, "There is no way of me knowing. Any other concerns?" I just shook my head. I tried to play it off like I was not that serious about wanting to know Lucy's eye color, and I had to hide my disappointment that Lucy's pediatrician refused to divulge what the future looks like for Lucy's eyes.

Does waiting for your baby's eyes to change color make you as anxious as me?

I always grew up hearing that people with light eyes can see in the dark better. Is this true? I consider it an advantage in playing sardines.