CUPCAKES, THORNS, AND STAY AT HOME MOM GUILT.

“Okay, now stir in one cup of flour”... We’re sitting on the floor, in front of the play kitchen, making pretend chocolate cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles. “Add a teaspoon of vanilla and whisk the batter.” My two oldest children are in school until 3:30. These days, it’s just me and Indigo at home together. “Pop ‘em in the oven and set the timer.” Last year, I was a working mom. After my first child, I was putting in 50 hours per week. By the third, I’d whittled it down to 30. But, they were still 10 hour days with no lunch or break time, and me running out to nurse a baby or make my toddler a meal every time I put a client under the dryer. I’d set up shop at home right before my third was born, thinking it might ease the workload; invariably, it had the opposite effect,  making me available to do more.

It's no secret that being a working mom doesn’t remove any domestic responsibilities. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, and trying to take care of yourself just get added to the list. On the weekends we squeezed in as much family time as we could and on my weekdays off, it was a nonstop parade of errands and chores.

I was patient and loving with my children, but there wasn’t a lot of interaction happening in the form of play. I taught them all the basics. We spent a lot of time reading, baking, snuggling, and performing the requisite holiday crafting, but I couldn’t turn it off enough to relax on the floor and just BE with them. There were too many tasks looming in preparation for a workweek with long days and nights spent nursing a restless infant. I'd race from five minutes of reading to cleaning a toilet and then back to singing a quick nursery rhyme out of obligation, then off to to do dishes or fold some laundry. That, coupled with both boys living through nine months of pregnancy-induced illness, consistent pre-term labor, and basic being-with-child lethargy, robbed them of a solid year of quality parenting. I did the best I could, but it never felt like enough. I knew I wasn’t the mom I wanted to be even when not pregnant, but I justified it by telling myself I didn’t enjoy play or lacked imagination. When we moved, I left behind my clientele and embarked upon stay-at-home mommyhood.

“Alright, time to take the cupcakes out so we can put the pink frosting on.” She reaches for a hot pad and delicately removes the tray from the oven. I’ve never felt this much joy, this kind of ease. Never have I been able to relax to the point of being able to sit and immerse myself in the creativity of childhood. It took me a solid six months of not working to even allow myself this. I operated like the sky was falling and preparations need be in place at all times. That sensation slowly took leave as I realized that if the laundry didn’t get done on Tuesday, there was always every single other day. Playing with my children no longer feels like a chore, as it did when I worked. There are no tasks resting upon my shoulders to rob me of the gift of presence.

Yet, all of this leaves me with a lingering sense of guilt… on many levels.

When she lays down for her nap today, I’ll go for a run and then sit in the bathtub and read or do some writing. My husband works from home. Sure, I do all the house stuff and cooking, but he’s bringing the money in while I’m upstairs soaking in Epsom salt water infused with lavender. Guilt.

It’s too easy. I’ve never had days like this. The last eight years were spent in survival mode. Now, it's just me and a two year old. It doesn’t feel fair because I’m not toiling. Aside from minor toddler drama, it's all pleasantries. I have decent time management, so my house is clean, my laundry is done, my meals are planned. Her nap times belong solely to me. They exist for my indulgence. Deep down, I don't feel deserving. Relaxation doesn’t come naturally. I’m a better human, a better wife, a better mother for having it, but still… guilt.

Those two big boys at school all day who never got to experience their mother like this…. God, the guilt.

That one hurts so much. I can get past the fruitless guilt born from exercising and taking baths, but I can’t ever make the time lost right for them. They’ll never be home with me in that capacity again. Gone are the days of make-believe. They want to be outside adventuring with friends, not building LEGO houses with their Mommy.

I can’t help but lose my emotional shit when I think about what they’ve potentially lost from those missed interactions, from having a mommy who’s mind was always wandering from one chore to the next.

Alas, what can I do?

Nothing.

Thus is life. We have to grin and bare the casualties of our mistakes. This isn’t said to lay judgment upon working mothers. We come with different desires, thresholds, standards, support systems, and life contexts that dictate our choices if we’re so blessed to even have choices.

I write this with the intention of allaying guilt, cathartically putting pen to paper for the sole purpose of healing because it’s not something I’ve worked through or have the answer to.

The only thing I know to be true is that guilt takes up space and emotional energy. My family needs all of me. I need all of me. It changes nothing and is a senseless thief of joy and content, not worthy of creeping into priceless moments with my daughter. I’ll make that my mantra from here forward, reminding myself that I did the best I could with what I had and what I knew. In the words of Maya Angelou, “When you know better, you do better.” I hold that saying close to my heart always, especially as a mother, because grace is so important as we journey through parenthood- a thorny, winding path rife with mistakes and wishes for do-overs.

-Angi

One 'Tis the Season' Weekend in a Mom's Life.

The quarter cup of coffee John left in the Keurig this morning is a sign; if you want it, drink it. It’s not nearly enough to fill a cup, and cold for that matter, but if you don’t want to put in the effort, suck it up, literally, because that's all that's in there, a suck of coffee. I opt to prepare a giant portion of steaming, black liquid for myself. Afterwards, I finish assisting my 10-year-old son in preparing breakfast and then retreat to the far end of the bar with my coffee, where I pop open my laptop and delight in my comfort zone.

As I bring the warm liquid to my lips, and swallow, and breathe, I begin to write the first sentence of this paragraph. Suddenly, my tweenager barrels into the kitchen, pulled into the realm of wakefulness by the smell of breakfast. She slides in next to me at the bar with her plate and wolfs down the first bite while simultaneously launching into a self-indulgent recollection of a dream that she’s just had. I only have the patience to say, “I’m not really able to give you my attention right now, so maybe you can tell your siblings instead” (thank you other children) as I pull the plug from its outlet with too much zest and head for the living room. I hear her sulkily deny all eager requests to hear her dream as I resituate myself.

No sense in pretending that I am entitled to be that rude. “Haven, I’m sorry. I just made too many commitments, they are catching up with me, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.” She acknowledges me with a tip of her head while silently chewing. Now Olive, seeing that I am once again amiable, saddles up beside me to show me her latest drawing. It’s a picture of the gingerbread house, much like the one she covered in candy last night, riddled with details to be covered. And also she would like me to know that people in “magic-land” have moles on their faces that are much larger than mine. “You are lucky Mom, in magic-land people have to drag their moles on the ground when they walk because they’re so big!”

She’s right. I am lucky.

This beautiful morning, that I am now struggling to keep up with, is being thwarted by the repercussions of all those wonderful things that I filled my weekend with. I didn’t lesson plan. I didn’t make time to address my upcoming schedule. I didn’t communicate to myself, or anyone else, that I needed to make productive space for the future so I could hit the ground running instead of being a snarky, bossy grown up. I didn’t open my eyes and welcome the vast opportunities this day has to offer because I was too dang busy blowing off adulting and enjoying myself. Like filled to the brim Keurig kind of enjoyment.

The elation I felt after leaving my college campus this weekend (with a mutha-you-know-what-ing A!!!!), led to me peacefully pushing a shopping cart full of organic chicken through the pre-apocalyptic aisles of Costco and sharing a smile with every disgruntled holiday shopper I passed. Things started to lull as I got sucked into the time warp of Target, where I spent a luxurious half of an hour touching and comparing the 53 different textiles that consumers can choose from to keep the water in their shower. As fate would have it, John called at the moment I was leaving the aisle with a gold arrow embossed curtain and reminded me that we don’t need one. (Angi! The struggle is real!!)

Once home, I clung to the last strands of getting things accomplished and managed to bang out a clean kitchen. My saving grace was that dinner was being served at my mom-in-laws and all I had to do was show up. Huzzah! We ate dinner as a family and I genuinely relished Grandma Patsy’s spot-on, 83-year-old recollections of her past. To say that I felt gratitude for all of this is an understatement. The family that surrounds me and my children is a humbling experience that reminds me of any prior time in history when I took it for granted.

When I bowed out at bedtime to meet up with some friends, I traded all that responsible, mindful, and ‘determined to conquer all the things’ attitude for adult beverages, good friends that I rarely see, and copious amounts of laughter. It was a worthy endeavor, to say the least.

Don’t tell my buddies, but the next morning, after 5 hours of sleep, I regretted it. Regardless, dressing my little darlings and brushing hair at 8 am, in preparation for sitting on Santa’s lap, was an equally worthy endeavor, and clearly, if I want to have it all, I’m going to have to pay for it. Breakfast afterwards was a hit, thanks once again to my amazing MIL, who I can only imagine was just holding it all together after spending 48 hours with her own mother (Grandma Patsy) because we love the women that raise us but that raising part comes with a host of kinks; case in point, me shutting down my daughter’s dreams this morning…

I surrender myself to the couch as soon as I walk in the door after breakfast. Video games watch my kids while I throw the better part of a Sunday away. I successfully rally to stuff the kids with an early dinner before we depart for a second festivity. Loaded with $25 in candy, we join a troop of children at our neighbor Sonya’s house to deck individual homemade gingerbread houses out with every form of sugar imaginable. The amount of work that goes into this holiday endeavor is beyond the capabilities of my mind. Just know that Sonya is a freaking angel.

A friend and I take our children back to my house; two of mine have already experienced explosive, sugar-laden diarrhea, and the others are ramped to annoying as F' heights, on all forms of corn syrup. Thankfully,  there is a video game to fix this; it's an outdated Wii that makes them move while demanding their focus. So, Courtney and I retire to the kitchen, where our husbands hide during holiday festivities and drink the remainder of their beers. We let the kids stay up too late and just flat out enjoy one another’s company.

That brings us back to today, when I chastise myself for not staying on track and half-assedly coerce the kids to home school themselves while I write an overly indulgent blog post (oh gawd, she learned it all from me!) Perhaps the reality is that allowing productivity to slide and living in the moment (even if it requires a round of Ibuprofen and a midday nap), is the only way to acknowledge this decked-out-in-lights season. I am too indebted to all the wonderful people that share their time with me and my family to begrudgingly require a flawless state of efficiency. We have to give ourselves permission to play catch up, and say sorry, and be less than our 110% selves. Otherwise, we might not get a chance to eat, drink, and be merry.

-Emily

CART FULL OF ZEN- I Stopped Shopping and Here's What Happened.

I’m on my fourteenth beanie. Things are starting to look obsessive. I’m certain that the Target employees and my fellow shoppers are concerned for me. Anything that isn’t embellished with sequins has made its way to the top of my head and been paraded in front of the tiny mirror. We’ve taken up residence of the accessory section long enough for Indigo to litter the aisle with fuzzy gloves and purses so small that grown women really shouldn't own them... and I’m not showing signs of stopping.

I’ve never been on a budget before, always having worked and been fortunate enough to make decent money. We’ve never Dave Ramsey’d it. No envelopes. Yet. There's never been a need to run a personal purchase by my husband. I do have some restraint. There are certainly tons of things I want that don’t come home with me. Being cheap is a beneficial roadblock to accumulation- my dad’s voice echoing in my head, “If it’s not on sale, then it’s not for sale.”

But, I don’t work anymore. It's been a really fun, rather indulgent year, and now it’s time to reel it in. I thought I’d been doing that, but as it turns out, my subdued version of shopping isn’t cutting it. The unexpected expenses now seem to be given monthly occurrences. This is an “absolutely no extras” situation until we get our shit together.

I’ve done this once before in years past, for a very short spell. Walking the aisles proved to be a losing battle. Just get the stuff on the list, don't veer from the periperhal, and hightail it outta there before catching a glimpse of anything Nate Berkus. It’s the home stuff and the little girl clothes, they make me weak in the knees every time.

But something else happened when I refrained for that month- a surprising and behemoth sense of relief. I didn’t have to search for things online to “make my life better” or my person “cuter.” There was no wrestling with myself about “should I or shouldn’t I," and no pressure to improve my situation, as defined in a completely material way. 

So, when the budget crisis 2017 hit our house, I felt that same wave of relief take residence. I’d effectively removed the pressure to strive for more, but this time around I noticed a nagging feeling that I hadn't given the space for introspection before. I realized that when I become adrift from purpose and self-care, l try to recreate feelings of abundance and importance through shopping. Except, it's completely extrinsic in nature, and any good feelings it elicits are short-lived, which means more stuff needs to be bought on the regular. Controlling my environment is the obvious but ultimately inadequate stand-in for the lack of control, intention, and purpose I’m feeling internally.

Today I had pie and espresso for lunch. I skipped my workout. After six days of the stomach flu and house guests thereafter, the whole week had fallen into that vein, and then I went to Target and lost whatever morsel of self-control I had left. It’s an avalanche of mindless choices.

I craved it, the shopping, the spending, the hunt, the incongruity even. I dressed it up first- “Indigo needs a snow hat, and we need a bin to organize her toys.” But, since I’m outing myself, her old hat just requires mending and no one “needs” an organizational bin. Ever. Fucking Martha Stewart, planting her evil seeds in my head.

We walked around Target for two hours. Yes, two hours. I threw in a snow hat with kitty cat ears, I bought the damn gold polka dotted bin. And now here I am, in a mustard yellow beanie, batting my eyelashes at the mirror, feeling like I won’t be able to find it again in this weird hipster color if I don’t just do the damn thing. It’s $5. I’m justifying. I buy it. And a cream one too. Uffff, failure.

I get home and immediately announce to my husband that I’ve fallen off the wagon and just needed a fix. I try to validate my purchases to him, but I can’t even reason them to myself.

When we stop taking care of ourselves, when we don’t listen to our internal compasses, the slippery slope starts to form and it’s so easy to slowly slide down, sinking further into the deluge. The stuff and the poor choices all serve as distractions from the neglect of my inner voice.

Eating pie for lunch tasted good, but it didn’t feel good. Carrying the polka dotted bin full of stuff into the house didn’t bring purpose or mindfulness to my life. I know what self love looks like for me, which things bring me intrinsic abundance- building lego houses and making pretend cupcakes with my daughter, reading self-help books, meditating, getting outside, exercising, eating well, connecting with my husband… Shopping isn’t on that list. Often, making just one grand gesture on my own behalf is enough to careen me back towards my path of mindfulness and self-care.

So, I’m gonna pack the Target crap up, mend the beanie, go put in a workout DVD, eat sautéed kale salad for dinner, hope that the world goes on without ever having seen me in a mustard-colored beanie, and freeze the rest of the cherry pie.

-Angi

#METOO- Using Your Voice to Conquer Shame.

**This post contains potential triggers.

I am that semi-obnoxious (maybe all the way obnoxious but I just can’t own that label completely) person who almost always sits in the first or second row. Most of the time, when I listen to a speaker, attend a class, sit in a workshop, I intentionally choose to sit in the first or second row. Despite what has often been assumed of me, it (usually) isn’t because I need attention or because I want to be the teacher’s pet. The truth of it is I have such a hard time ignoring distractions of any sort. A baby cries, a parent shushes, the heater kicks on, the guy two rows behind me relentlessly taps his pen against his notepad. All of the things. So, I sit in the front so there is less to distract me from whatever it is I am trying to learn from whoever it is that is speaking.  I have done this for as long as I can remember.

Unfortunately for me, that is precisely where I was sitting in a room full of 14-18 year-old girls the moment I quite suddenly “remembered” the account of my experience as a victim of sexual abuse.  In the second row.

“You are all valuable. Precious,” she said.  

“You don’t have to give any more of yourself to the world than you want to. Anyone who tells you otherwise…” Fade to black.

Well first, grey, then black, then full technicolor panic.

My lungs seemed to have collapsed under what felt like the weight of a boulder suddenly pressing down on my chest. I was dying. I was certain I would never breathe again. And my stomach. Was it trying to crawl out of my body through my mouth? Or had it just dropped into my toes? There was this sensation in my head; like someone had taken a sheet of metal and sliced through my forehead and then left it there. That feeling you get if you bite on a piece of aluminum foil, or miss the food on your fork and clamp down on the metal instead of the food. But in my temples.

I hadn’t ever had a panic attack or an anxiety attack so I couldn’t make sense of all of these sensations. I just knew I had to get out of the room. I couldn’t ever make sense of the image that had just flashed in my mind while I was sitting in that room. I stumbled out into the foyer of the building and was soon met by one of the adult chaperones of our group whose name I don’t remember but the sensation of her hand stroking my back and the comfort of her presence I will never ever ever forget.

I was 16.

When I was seven, I was a victim of sexual abuse. While staying with family, my cousin and his girlfriend invited themselves into my bed and molested me; forced me to perform sexual acts with each of them. The strongest evidence I’ve ever experienced of the ferocious power of the mind, it’s ability to protect us from things we dare not face-for whatever reason, is this: I was so afraid that the words and my voice would fail me so that I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. I was so deeply convinced that I could not ever speak about what had happened that I managed to even persuade myself to believe that this never happened. I repressed this memory for nine years.

It is important for me to tell this story. To speak it out. To use my voice. For myself and possibly for someone else. Also, it is most imperative that I tell you this: I can only share this story because I am now free from the grip of shame.

I am free from it and now I know...I know that every damn dollar spent on therapy and exercise and learning how to breathe again- These were the beginning of loving myself. Knowing myself and loving me, and loving the little girl whose youthful innocence and bright shiny goodness were spoiled with the taste of narcissism and the stench of strength misused. These were the beginning of learning how to listen to her. To me. Now I know… I recognize what it sounds like and how to use it freely to shout to myself, to the world, to anyone who cares to listen that I am worth knowing and loving. Without feeling small or ashamed or unworthy, I get to take up space in the world that has been gifted to me.

And you too. Just in case you need a gentle reminder, can I say this? Encourage you with this hard-won truth…?

You get to take up space in the world.

No one has the right to enter that space without your permission.

You get to use your voice to say, “No” or “Yes” or “Me too” or if you want, to say nothing at all until you are ready.

I hope this is not your story.

But, there is a one in four chance that it is.

This reality breaks my heart. That so many of us have been violated in a way that strips the soul’s soil of nutrients; uproots the potential of life, of self-love, of hope and worth. This thought brings me to the deepest sadness and the hottest of rages I think I am capable of feeling.

And yet…

There is HOPE.

Can you hear it? It's a growing army-choir of truth-telling hope angels. Amongst the clamor of the worst the world has to offer, there is a crescendo of voices being found and raised. In every shouting, whispering, squeaking out through fear and tears, “ME TOO.”

There is HOPE.

Because my story is still being written. Your story. Our collective story. We are writing them now. The middles, the ends, the beginnings, we are the authors. The thieves, the violators, they stole a page, a chapter even. But WE write the next page. We decide when it is written and where and with whom.

Have you ever noticed that the moment we say the thing out loud, call it what it is, that it loses power? The thing we could never say because “How could I even?”  But then we do. In the moment it's strange to even hear ourselves saying the words, but then it's done and we get to move on to the next part. The healing of the wound. The moving through to moving passed to moving on. All because we SAY THE THING.

So, yes. #METOO

-Tawni

HOMESCHOOLING AND THE HUNGER GAMES

On a whim, I checked out The Hunger Games audiobook at my local library. It was a last-second decision. I plucked it from the “teen” shelf and plopped it down onto my pile of books already being processed. I recently had success with engaging the bulk of my kids' attention with a free audio version of Les Miserables (my favorite book) on YouTube. Before you guffaw over the age appropriateness of this decision, I will regress; parental guidance starts waaaaay before the age of 13.

Think about it; rated “G” means the material presented is suitable for a general audience. But as long as that general audience is exposed to half naked women plastered on magazines at the grocery store checkout line, as long as violence is marketed as heroism in the form of little boy’s toys, as long as our leadership is disproportionately represented by privileged white males (some who still have their jobs regardless of the recent ‘sexual-harassment’ shake-down) … I will be openly discussing things with my kids aged (5-11) that are considered outside acceptable guidelines.

Just to be clear, I didn’t pop the Hunger Games in and check out: firstly because it's dang entertaining, and secondly, because it's a brutal story. I will say that the brutality is on par with a popular history curriculum that is used at my charter school, The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. The descriptions in the Hunger Games of people killing one another was even mild in comparison, given that this particular history curriculum geared toward ages 8-12, gives coloring pages for the plagues of Egypt, along with full details about heads being thrust onto spikes.

Honestly, violence is the least of my concerns in the Hunger Game series. What I pause and reflect on most is the heroine’s “responsibility” to placate The Capital with her feigned desire and sexuality. These are some of the best conversations with my growing daughters, who view Katniss Everdeen as a bad-ass female, quick and accurate with a bow, who single-handedly bread wins for her entire family, and has enough energy at the end of the day to selflessly exchange her own life for that of her little sister’s. Suzanne Collins’ character is an idol by those definitions. But Katniss also comes packaged as an average sexually conceptualized woman; her worth and power are marred by how well she displays her physical sensuality.

These abstract ideas that our children pick up from movies and TV shows, conversations, clothing, characters from books, and real-life people moving around in their world, these salvaged pieces of life fabricate the world that our kids sew together. It’s like Maya Angelou said:

"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive."

This admirable quote may seem to smack my ideals in the face. I would just like to add to it that we are influenced by so many unaccountable things, and try as you might to present to your children only those influences that are positive, you still won’t be able to shield them from the “everything” else. The other option is to open up those ideas; unpack what they mean, explore what makes a human susceptible to negative thoughts or behaviors. What other option is there?

In defense of the Hunger Games, I will also add that this dystopian series has invoked feelings and conversations about many other things: our current climate, the effects of food waste, the plundering of the earth’s resources, and the counter effects of taking advantage of a comfortable 21st century life, just to name a few.

Reading aloud, or sharing an audiobook can become a bonafide, cross-curricular lesson. By following an interesting character like Katniss through an exciting plot, we have yielded discussions about our own government, what we know about United States geography, and even questioned what choices a person has when told to be obedient to an authority that doesn’t hold true to their individual morals.  

If Hunger Games still sounds a bit too edgy for your 5-year-old, (I kid! Her attention span doesn’t sit for audiobooks just yet) there are so many other options for gleaning the benefits I’ve mentioned here. Reading aloud (and independently where content is held to stricter guidelines) is the cement that holds our homeschooling together. It is time-consuming, of course, but so valuable, I don’t see that we could spend our time as wisely doing anything else.

Here are some excellent read alouds that we have currently shared, and have sparked an emphasis on some of those “influential everythings” that are hard to find a segue into on a normal day to day basis:

The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

The Breadwinner series by Deborah Ellis Pam Munoz Ryan

Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

Les Miserable Victor Hugo

-Emily