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Birthdays! (and lots of other stuff)

May20

My birthday was at the beginning of this month. I uploaded some pictures and was going to just post a quick post, but then some days passed and then some more days. I added some more pictures and thought of more things to write and it has just been languishing in my drafts folder. Things keep happening and so I think I’ll add a couple more pictures before I post, blah, blah, blah. I almost deleted the whole thing since now May is practically over and my bday was weeks ago, but since I bothering uploading the pix, I’m just going to post it!

May is a busy month for us. It is my birthday and then Mother’s Day and then my mom’s birthday and my dad’s birthday and Zander’s birthday. We also have a whole group of our work party friends who have May birthdays (and playgroup friends too!). May 12th was the 18th anniversary of my first date with my husband. May 16th was the fifteenth anniversary of my college graduation. I feel like I’m getting old! And, it is weird to think about how close that college student girl feels and also how very far away she feels. My parents both turned 60—I had a surprise party/healing ritual for my mom as part of our spring women’s retreat as well as a ceremony for our 12-year-old work party friend whose birthday was the same day. On Mother’s Day, we had a family memorial ceremony for my grandma. In the middle of all these celebrations, I’ve been wrapping up the school session (including grading almost 100 papers…split up in two batches of almost 50), preparing for the summer school session, plotting with Mark about him quitting his job, trying to help motherbabies breastfeed happily, trying to stick with some kind of homeschool “schedule” for my kids (using the term extremely loosely). Oh yeah, and my tiny little sweet daughter also had major dental work under general anesthesia last Tuesday. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that no wonder I’ve been feeling taxed. Yeah, duh. I don’t know why I can’t extend myself that grace. Instead, I’ve been berating myself at various intervals about my “inability” to handle it all. I’ve also been planning our big trip to California. $2300 later and WAY too many hours thinking, checking, and strategizing, I ended up with five plane tickets and we’re going. We decided to to go ahead and make a full vacation out of it—Disneyland, tourmaline mining, Legoland, and Pismo Beach! My grandma’s committal service (which I am planning and facilitating) and her celebration of life luncheon is in Fresno in the middle of our trip.

This week as I tried to finish those last bleeping papers, I found out that I’d made a mistake with our plane tickets—having a p.m. flight from San Diego to Fresno rather than the a.m. flight I thought we had. I almost lost it. Flipped out. I’m serious. I felt like I had officially exceeded my actual ability to cope and that I may possibly break down in some way. More. Than. Humanly. Possible. To. Handle. As it was, we made the semi-bizarre choice to just buy some new tickets that restored the “rightful” a.m. flight schedule. These middle-of-the-journey tickets were only $68 each and we decided it was really a fairly trivial amount and we should just do it. We’re taking our family of five to CA with carry-on luggage only and we’re packing like a boss! Seriously, we’re rocking this thing.

Oh, and just this afternoon I also finished my twelfth class for my D.Min degree. I’ve got about 14 left, plus my dissertation. I have three in progress and signed up for two more to start during the summer session. How do I do it?!?!? Heck if I know. ;-) Maybe it is time to feel impressed at my own capacities again rather than mad at myself for not getting more done, for being “behind,” for staying up too late, for taking too long to return phone calls, for leaving some emails unanswered and books unreviewed, for being sometimes short-tempered, for screwing up a.m. and p.m., for not getting around to the blog posts I’d hoped to write, for not keeping up with requests for new sculptures, for not having a birthday surprise of some kind for my dad too, and for never feeling “finished” enough to rest.

Here is what I originally swiped from my Facebook to share about my birthday:

Uh oh. I spent the first 8 minutes of my 35th year still working on these dang bibliographies. This has been my worst/least productive grading stint yet (the CA trip planning/purchasing ate up my usual “free” day). I’m determined to have a FREE day tomorrow (okay, technically, today, but it doesn’t count until I go to bed!)–I’m going to wallow around in books and listen to guided meditations (you know, with the three kids climbing on me!) and plan rituals and celebrations and not do anything I don’t feel like doing :)

It is SO flipping hard to focus on grading these bibliographies when my brain is turning over Disneyland plans, hotel reservations, car rental, and also finding just the *right* stuff for my grandma’s memorial service. The good news is that I have some really rocking students this session and they make some of the grading easy!

–

Later update:

Thirty-four years ago I was born! As my birthday present to myself, I DID manage to finish grading the last bibliographies and I’m taking the day off to hang around and wallow in books. I think I might do a tech-off day (or, at least, a class-off day!) Oh, and I bought two tiny little Japanese dolls for myself at Goodwill too. I do birthdays right!

When I wake up and hear rainfall on my birthday I always feel like the planet is wishing me a happy birthday too (there was a heavy rainstorm the day I was born). Alaina told me I should have a cake with “nonnie babies” on it. On my actual birthday, my mom took me to a tea room in a neighboring town for a birthday lunch and then I came home with three kinds of tea and the kids and I had a tea party! (in many ways an excuse to eat sugar cubes and this involves sort of obsessive negotiation over them rather than just enjoying ourselves!) I asked the boys if they would play with Alaina so I could have an easier time getting ready to go. After about ten minutes, Lann said, “whew, she’s pretty much like an energy tick.” I rolled! I love having a nine-year-old and a toddler. So much different and easier than having a toddler and a preschooler was.

Okay, so here is a gallery of the pictures I meant to post on several occasions, plus some more I just added in today:

Birth Stories by Two Year Olds…

May9

With each of my kids when they are somewhere between two and three years old, I feel inspired to ask them if they remember when they were born. They always say, “yes,” and I say, “tell me about it” and they do. Lann’s story was a succinct and accurate version of what happened. He said:

Toddlers can do birth art too! Love the placenta in a bowl and the baby attached to the mama with cord (yes, I know the two are mutually exclusive, but I love it anyway!)

Toddlers can do birth art too! Lann drew this after Zander was born. Love the placenta in a bowl and the baby attached to the mama with cord (yes, I know the two are mutually exclusive, but I love it anyway!)

Swimming
Swimming down out of mama.
Crying!
Nursies.
Happy now.

As I’ve written before, he did start crying loudly with only his head sticking out. Almost immediately after he was born, I put him to my breast offering him what I spontaneously called “nursies” and he was, in fact, then happy.

I asked Zander on his third birthday and his version of his birth was as follows:

First you saw a little head poking out.
Then a little arm.
Then another little arm.
And another and another.
And me was little alien.

He was, in fact, born slowly like this with head emerging and then arms and then upper body and then the rest of him. I asked him what happened to his extra arms and he said:

They actually melted.

He was nursing at the time and paused, popped off and said:

and, my extra eye melted too…

That’s my little Zander for you!

I love how the baby looks like it is "floating" in this one.

I love how the baby looks like it is “floating” in this one.

Yesterday morning, I spontaneously asked Alaina if she remembered being born and like the others she said yes. I asked her what happened and she said:

My baby! My baby!

I asked, “did you hear mama saying that?”

She said yes and then said,

Now, nonnies.  Then she just gazed off into the distance like she was remembering.

I asked her if she remembered anything else and she repeated the above. Shortest of the children’s birth stories, but also distilled to its essence ;)

I’m curious to know if other people ask their children this question and what kind of responses to you get? I love each of my children’s birth stories as told by them!

Both boys made me a birth art sculpture for my birthday this year and each is about a baby being born:

May 2013 021

Zander’s sculpture: The Goddess of Birth

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Lann’s sculpture.

 

Goodbye

Apr24

My grandma, Lyla, was a beautifully active, vibrant woman and her quick devolution due to advanced and very aggressive pancreatic cancer was a 537883_10200265639095993_78320575_ntremendous shock to our family. I’ve always admired and respected her and been proud of her for all of her accomplishments and activities. She was not a particularly emotionally demonstrative woman, but it amazing to think about all the ways her presence is woven through my days even though she lives 2000 miles away–the sweater I put on every morning is one she knit for me, her quilts are on my kids’ bedroom walls and on all our beds, magazine subscriptions she gifts us with are in the car and bathroom…we’re connected in many ways and I don’t know what life will look like without her in it. She died early this morning and I can’t quite believe it. I remember when my great-grandmother died (at 88) my grandma told my mom: “now, I’m an orphan.” It is a moment that always stuck with me because I realized that no matter how old you get, you still feel like someone’s daughter. When I started packing for our craft camp this afternoon, I packed quilts to take for our beds that she made for us, I looked at Christmas pillowcases she made for my kids, and I was so impressed with how she managed to be such a part of our lives from such a distance.

I’ve cried so much in the last week. I honestly didn’t know I would feel this loss so keenly–it is in the “right” order, she lived a full and beautiful life, and etc., etc. One of the things that will totally set me off is to look at my own little girl and think, “but Mamoo used to be someone’s little girl!” And, then I think, but isn’t this what I WANT for my own little children? To grow up and have grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Yes, duh. And, I got to be almost 34 still having her as a part of my life. The other thing that gets me going is the thought that my kids are the only kids in this side of the family who get to have a Mamoo, who get to have this amazing great-grandmother. When my brother and sister have kids, they won’t have a Mamoo. And, then I have to laugh a little at myself that one of the things that has made me cry the hardest during this whole experience is based on these imaginary future people who may never even exist. I told my dad about it this morning, laughing while crying and crying at the same time, and he said, “it is because you feel the break in the chain.” I do.

I’ve written more about this on my other blog, but on Sunday, we thought we’d reached my grandma’s final day on earth. I spent the day thinking about her, crying, talking to my husband, and fanatically checking my phone for texts from my mom (side note to those people who write critical blog posts about “distracted” people “glued” to their phones, you may do well to remember that some of those distracted-looking people might be looking for texts about dying grandmothers from their own distraught mothers and that this phone-based link in fact represents connection and not disconnection or distraction). I went to the woods and I sat on the rocks and sang Woman Am I. My mom told me she’d been singing it to my grandma as she listened to the erratic sounds of her breaths, thinking each was the last. My letter did make it in time to be read to my grandma while she was still conscious enough to indicate she heard it. And, on Friday I did a FaceTime call with my mom and she took it to my grandma’s bed so that I could talk to her. She didn’t open her eyes, but she murmured a greeting and she smiled when she heard little Alaina say, “hi, Mamoo!” So, we were able to say some final words and goodbye “in person,” which was really, really difficult, but also a gift. There is something I feel really poignantly in the mother to daughter to mother to daughter to mother to daughter connection in this life and loss experience. I know that little boys are part of the generations as well, but not in as direct a line as this particular chain of girls—I’m the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter of an oldest daughter (and my own daughter is an “only daughter,” so while she’s my youngest child she continues a line as the first daughter of a first daughter of a first daughter of a first daughter). So, I made a new sculpture trying to capture that feeling of the three generations of little girls who’ve sat on her lap:

April 2013 007

I also made one using a rock I found in the woods that day and another about grief:

April 2013 013April 2013 016I poked around on my computer and plucked out a semi-odd assortment of random pictures that capture my grandma’s spirit and relationships:

Ipad Pix 090

Four generations pic from my brother’s wedding in October.

478397_10200265613655357_366752492_oAnd on my other blog, I wrote a poem:

Go in peace
go in love
and go knowing that you have left behind
something beautiful
something marvelous
something that matters
The fabric of a life well-lived
the hearth of a family well-tended
the heart of a community strengthened
and a never-ending chain of women
unbroken.

You’re our Mamoo
You’re our grandmother
and we say goodbye
and thank you.

Sink deeply
and gently
into the arms and lap
of time
the great mother of us all

She holds you now.
We let go.

I have more things to say, more thoughts about connection, and more thoughts about having watched–from a distance–my mom so tenderly and compassionately holding the space for her mother. She worked so hard and went through a lot to be there for her mom and it was really heroic and loving. I also wish this post wasn’t so “me”-based and was more about my grandma herself, but it is what it is. I can write more later—I really, really want to get something posted before it hits midnight, so it is really published on the same day we lost her.

Kidbits

Apr22

“They look so small and frail but they are so great and magnificent. They are born of the same womb that birthed the cosmos and knitted together the galaxies. If you could see them as they truly are, you would be astounded. You would see not little children, but dancing clouds of light, energy in motion, swimming in an ocean of love. They are so much more than what you see. As are you.”

-William Martin
The Parent’s Tao Te Ching

Some things I saved recently to remember about my funny little children:

  • Adorable toddler nursling moment: I was carrying Alaina in the kitchen and she patted my chest and said, “love you, nonnies.” Then, she said, “sank you, mommy.” :) ♥
  • Another charming moment: Alaina standing before me and giving that cute toddler hands raised sort of shrug gesture and saying, “babies…grow…up!” She has also started doing a thing wherein she points at her own belly and says, “baby…belly…me…grow…up,” telling me that she will grow up to have a baby of her own and then points to herself and says “Mama…ME! Babies…grow UP! Mama…ME!”
  • Zander bought hair gel and spiked up his hair, put on a gold chain and sunglasses, took off his shirt and started doing some rocking dance moves and handstands in the living room. Lann said: “hey, we could start a band and call it the Wiggly Brothers.” Zander continued to groove with no response. Lann repeated himself about three times and then said kind of to himself, “I guess I’ll be the weird one…” ;-D
  • At the beginning of this month, Lann brought me an illustrated “breakfast menu” and said I could start ordering breakfast from him in the mornings. Each item is 50 cents or $1. SOLD! He has been making me a spinach and cheese omelet many mornings and I really appreciate it. The café is called Big Spoon. It is so fun to have a kid that is nine!
  • Alaina found some shiny tappy shoes at the thrift shop. The same day, we also bought the Gremlins movies (which I’d never seen) and she  energetically explained how she will use her new shoes to kick bad gremlins–she will “hug good Gizmo” and “kick bad Gizmos” (complete with demo-kick shiny shoe action). In case anyone cares, we didn’t let her keep watching it after they mutated and we muted the computer during the “Santa dad in the chimney” story, which Mark mercifully remembered (due to his own past childhood trauma) just in the nick of time.
  • Said tiny girl likes to push (literal) buttons and last week while still in bed in the morning I was surprised by the serenading CD from the living room where she must have programmed it to be on a timer (I don’t know how to do that myself!) She woke up and I said, “did you make the radio start playing?” And she said, “yes, mommy. Me do dat ting.”
  • Me last week: “Argh! I have SO much I want to do.” Lann: “Me too, Mom. It IS kind of the primary feature of our family.” ;-D

And, video special: Alaina dancing in the car while we waited to get Lann from gymnastics.

 

Book Bits: What Dying People Want

Apr19

I’ve mentioned before that sometimes I use my blog as a way to store stuff that I want to remember or have easy access to later. I also use it as a means of collecting information all in one place, so that it is easy for me to search and reference again in the future, rather than having to flip through stacks of books. This leads me to a tendency to leave huge stacks of books piled by computer waiting for me to have time to transcribe all of the important stuff out of them. Often, I get fed up and re-shelve them, thinking why bother re-typing someone else’s ideas anyway, shouldn’t I just be having my own ideas?! Or, I think, guess what Molly, there is a way for this information to be stored…it is called a book and the information will still be there if you want to go back to it. But, today I thought that maybe there is a happy medium—maybe as soon as I finish a book, I should do a quick wrap-it-up blog post in which I do simply transcribe the things I want to remember, no pressure to add a bunch of new insights of my own, and if at such time I want to transform any of those quotes into a longer post in the future they’ll be tidily saved and waiting for me. AND, the book can then be re-shelved, or even given away, promptly after being “processed” in this manner, rather than waiting by my computer with a sort of guilt-provoking air of expectancy and rebuke.

(Amazon affiliate link included in image)


Unfortunately, the subject of my most recent read isn’t really a cheerful one to kick off this little experiment! However, I’m doing it anyway. The book is What Dying People Want by David Kuhl, MD. Many people have observed that end-of-life care bears similarities to birth-care (beginning-of-life care) and in fact the content of most the sections I marked to share could very readily have the word “birth” or “pregnant woman” substituted. Of course, with end-of-life care, there is not the happy anticipation of the joyful hope and promise of a new baby, but then, with birth-care there is not actually always a guarantee of that either and many women experience grief and loss from a variety of sources/experiences mingled throughout their childbearing years.

With regard to doctors communicating with patients in a dismissive, brusque, or too no-nonsense of a manner:

“…he had no intention of hurting her and seemed not to realize that he could have spared her much suffering if only he had spoken with compassion.”

Seriously. How true is this. How basic. And, how often overlooked.

And then, when talking about the doctor-patient relationship:

It is my sense that people visit physicians expecting to be heard, taken seriously, and understood. Martin Buber speaking of the essence of relationship in his book I and Thou. He states that an I-Thou relationships is one in which both people meet and experience one another in the context of their wholeness, their personhood. Only then do the two become equals with regard to dignity, integrity, and power…

…When the doctor regards the patient only as a disease [or baby container]…the relationship is at risk of becoming the I-It variety. That is also true if the patient regards the doctor only as a body of knowledge, disregarding the impact the doctor-patient relationship might have on the doctor. Hence, the relationship may be reduced from I-Thou, to I-It, or perhaps even to It-It. The relationship is at risk of becoming ‘a disease speaking to a body of knowledge, a body of knowledge speaking to a disease…

I use this in my classes too, explaining that relationship is our medium and without it we can be technically correct, but therapeutically impotent. I caution against falling into a pattern of speaking of people as “cases” or even worse, “the food stamp case” or “the brain tumor in room three” (real-life example from my first MSW internship in an oncology clinic).

I also marked this Emily Dickinson poem, The Mystery of Pain:

Pain—has an Element of Blank—

It cannot recollect

When it began—or if there were

A time when it was not—

It has no Future—but itself—

Its Infinite realms contain

Its Past—enlightened to perceive

New Periods—of Pain.

Dr. Kuhl also writes about the important of touch, something that birthworkers also know well, explaining:

As Bill Moyers writes, “Touch is deeply reassuring and nurturing. It’s the first way a mother and child connect with each other…what a mother is saying to her child with that touch is ‘Live…your life matters to me.’” Remen also describes how people with cancer [or who are having babies] often feel when they’re touched by health care providers. They say they feel as though they are merely ‘a piece of meat.’ She reports that one woman said, ‘Sometimes when I go for my chemotherapy, they touch me as if they don’t know anybody’s inside the body.’

The first part of this made me think about what my mom is doing for my grandma right now, only in the reverse order. Once upon a time, her mother connected to her with that touch…Live…your life matters to me…and now my mom returns this original patient, loving, nurturing touch, only it is saying, I’m here…your life has mattered to me…go with peace.

I’d marked a couple of other things about family relationships and sharing stories, etc., but the last quote I actually want to type out does actually touch on birth:

There are two important things to remember with regard to your childhood and your family of origin. First, each pregnancy changes the family in that it will either result in a miscarriage, which is a death, or a birth, which marks the addition of a new family member…Second, your memory is your story and your truth. Your family members will have experienced the same events differently and will likely have different memories. Your experience and understanding of events is legitimate; the same holds true for other family members.

I wrote my grandma a letter and mailed it at the beginning of this week, but I don’t know that it is going to make it to her in time. So, a couple of days ago, I took this picture of the kids and texted it to my mom to give to her:

April 2013 005

You can do hard things, I’ve told my mom. And, she is. Really hard, sad things. You feel like you can’t do it, but you’re doing it.

It applies to my grandma too.

hardthings

Blog Circle: Tender Mercies, Unexpected Gifts

Apr18

The Amethyst Network blog circle for April is on the subject of Tender Mercies:

Blessings, Magic, Tender Mercies, Grace, whatever you call it, there are these moments, times and experience of light in the darkness. Sometimes they are very small. Just a moment where you see a little bit of magic, or a blessing wrapped in the grief. Sometimes it is significant, like close friendships made with people you may never have had the chance to meet otherwise.

For our Blog Circle this month (April) please share your own experiences of grace, tender mercies, magic, blessings, or gifts that your miscarriage has given you. If you have not experienced a miscarriage, please feel free to participate. We all know someone who has miscarried and therefore have been touched by miscarriage in some way.

via April Blog Circle ~ Blessings, Magic, Tender Mercies, Grace… » The Amethyst Network.

As soon as this theme was picked, I knew what I wanted to write about. It was the experience of an unexpected gift from my little baby Noah. It was one of the only moments of “communication” I ever felt from him after his death-birth. I sort of expected or hoped to have some dreams or some other sorts of “metaphysical” sorts of experiences with him, but I didn’t have that, he was simply gone. I did, however, have this one little gift (originally posted about on August 11, 2010)…

This past weekend [August, 2010]…We went to visit my friend M whose baby recently died and was born at a similar gestation point to Noah. While we were there, she showed us the memory box she’d put together for her baby and then she brought out the folder she’d received from Angel Whispers (source of the birth certificate that I got for Noah and that I like so much). She held it out to me silently, and printed on the front was, “this folder was made possible by a donation in memory of sweet baby Noah Remer, November 7, 2009.” Oh. My. Goodness. How could it be that I made a donation to Angel Whispers back in May ([2010] for my due date), the check traveling all the way to Canada, and yet, this folder somehow finding its way back into my life and into the hands of my dear, grieving friend? It was an amazing feeling.

I sent a donation to cover three folders. I wonder who has received the other two? We came up with all kinds of possible reasons for this “coincidence,” but none of them were very logical (she lives in IL, I live in MO-–it isn’t like they saw our addresses and though, “ah ha! We’ll send this one!”) and we were left with the only option to be just to marvel at this simple little gift. :)

In more current tender mercies, Noah’s memorial tulip tree is about to bloom!

20130412-141712.jpgIt is in a shaded area behind the house and thus is a little off-schedule from the rest of the trees like this in the area. My parents have a matching tree and theirs is fully blooming now:

20130410-155034.jpgSeeing these flowers each year is really meaningful to me and that’s why I used a photo of the flowers as the cover image on my miscarriage memoir. new_coverThinking about this post made me dig around in my archived photos where I found some not-often-before-shared photos of the ritual my mom and friends had for me near my birthday (Noah’s due date), during which we planted said tulip tree. Under the tree I buried the embryo from my second miscarriage and also the hospital bracelet from my ER trip following Noah’s birth. At the time of these photos I was tentatively hoping I might possibly be pregnant again and, in fact, I was justatinybitpregnant with the future Alaina!

mizuko4

Placing the tree in a barely scratched out dip in the rocky soil!

mizuko5

My mom adds a scoop of dirt.

mizuko6

My doula!

mizuko12

I feel lucky to have a supportive mom who does things like this for me! :)

And, after I prepped and scheduled this post, I took this photo of the almost opening bloom…

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And then, the day before it was scheduled to post…YAY! A full flower!

April 2013 031

Not picked, just stabilized for photo op.

April 2013 034 April 2013 016

Healing Presence

Apr11

My extended family is in the middle of a stressful medical situation with my grandmother that is absorbing a lot of collective family energy lately. Such experiences always lend “perspective” to a variety of areas and I’ve felt a little blocked in the writing of blog posts because they feel frivolous or unnecessary or like they’re distracting me from where I could be spending my attention. I bought a short book for my Kindle yesterday called The Art of Being a Healing Presence, and finished reading it last night. I bought it specifically to help my mom who is going to visit my grandma and also hopefully to help me be there better for her (both my mom and grandma). It dovetails nicely with my current lesson at OSC, which is about speech and how we talk to others. So, for today’s post, I picked out some quotes from a book that I feel like fit well into any type of relationship requiring compassionate listening and attention, not solely end-of-life care, because these ideas could relate to listening to women talk about birth and motherhood as well.

Healing presence is everything life itself is: messy and mysterious, exasperating and exhilarating, wearying and wonderful. That’s what makes it so sacred.

(Kindle Locations 793-794)…

Yep. Sounds like giving birth and like birth listening too.

Healing presence is a spiritual practice or discipline as well…

(Amazon affiliate link included)

…Healing presence is essentially a spiritual discipline in itself. As you begin, you may think of healing presence primarily as something you do for someone else. Eventually, however, you’ll realize that healing presence has become an integral and significant part of your own spiritual development. As you choose to keep opening yourself to this discipline, even when it’s difficult, even when you feel yourself rebelling, you necessarily mature spiritually. As you repeatedly ask yourself, “How can I be a healing presence in this particular situation?”, you expand your horizons and you make new and fruitful connections with all dimensions of life, especially life’s sacred foundation. The more you are a healing presence in the midst of everyday events, the more you come to appreciate that the common ground on which you stand with another is pulsing with all that is divine. You realize that holiness is at work as you consciously and compassionately accompany others. Then sometimes when you least expect it, a sense of awe overwhelms you—awe, perhaps strong assurance, or waves of gratitude, or an immense sense of peace. You cannot make any of this happen. You can only welcome it as it unfolds, revealing itself and making its presence known. It is The Sacred. (Kindle Locations 821-830)

Also, from the very beginning of the book, I saved this little quote:

“In every person there is royalty. Address the royalty and royalty will respond.” –Scandinavian Proverb

The relates to the idea of seeing one another that I explored in a prior post:

I often remind students in my human services classes that all people have a basic need to be both seen and heard. This doesn’t mean agreeing with everything someone else says and does, it means being present and witnessing them as they follow their own paths.

In a newsletter recently, I read an article called “I See You” by Sue Scott, a communication skills instructor. She explains that in South Africa, native peoples greet each other with an expression that literally means, “I see you.” The response is then, “I am here.” She observes, “what a powerful and beautiful gift it is to recognize another individuals in this way: ‘I see you.’ Acknowledgement, recognition, and respect all require focus on the other person…the word respect comes from the Latin word ‘respecere’ meaning ‘to look at again and again…’I see you’…seems to me to be the ultimate in respect.” Sue goes on to explain that when we truly SEE another mother—”when we truly hear her concerns—then we affirm her ability to mother her baby in her own best way.”

A little more than two years ago, I received the precious gift of being seen when a mother that I had previously helped with many breastfeeding questions called to ask me another question. We had become friends over the course of time since she’d had her first baby and I was in the process of my second miscarriage when she called with a question about her own pregnancy. I told her about the miscarriage, but said I felt like I could still talk with her about her question. We ended up then talking for a time about miscarriage and about cesarean birth, because we discover numerous surprising connections between the feelings and experiences of an unexpected outcome to our dreams for our pregnancies. She then said, “You know in that movie Avatar how they say, ‘I see you’?” I said yes, and she said, “I just wanted to let you know that I see you, Molly.” These words were such a gift to me. It was beautiful to hear them and I cried. I felt so seen. It was just what I needed and I hadn’t even known it. I will never forget that simple and yet extremely potent gift of acknowledgement from another woman.

via I See You

In my classes, I always try to explain that not only do you see someone, but they see you seeing them, and if what you see is valuable and worthy, that is what they rise to. So, that is why I liked this “royalty” proverb from the book.

And, later in the book, this concept is addressed as well:

As people experience healing presence, they change. This shift may be subtle or dramatic. They’re likely to open more—to themselves, to others, to the world, to the amazing mystery of life itself. Sensing another’s belief in them, and seeing that belief reflect-ed in life around them, they can begin to develop in completely unexpected ways, and to move in directions they have not gone before. Or perhaps they will return to their original path, but with new spirit, new vision, new hope. As they encounter the inevitable pains and diminishments that life will present, they can begin to understand that such adversities can be experienced as more than adversities—they can be known as opportunities for growth, as avenues for moving toward wholeness. Your authenticity and the compassion in your presence will fan out generously around you, always returning to envelop you again and again. As you become less driven by your own concerns and less given to your own needs, and as you forsake your need to help, you’ll become a more mature and helpful companion. (Kindle Locations 841-849).

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Driveway Revelations (on Family Size)

Apr1

Family size has been on my mind since Alaina was born two years ago. Before we got married we talked about having four or even six kids, but as March 2013 022we got a little older we settled on “probably three.” There was a time, post-miscarriages, in which I wondered if two was “enough” and whether we should be happy with our family of two boys. Then, after Alaina was born, even though we’d said she was the last, I found myself spending many moments during her first year thinking, but maybe one more! I fantasize about having a little sister for her. I look at the tight brother-bond of my sons and I want that for her too—for her to have someone on her own little team, rather than being the little tagalong at the end of the family. I have a nagging question of whether three feels like an “unbalanced” number. Then as we moved past one year, I started to have more moments of feeling “done.” Those moments usually came from frustration—i.e. after a long, whiny day, I’d think, “yes, family size is complete. NO MORE! AHHHHHHH.” I also kept having the thought that it makes sense to end our childbearing years on this high, sweet, clear, beautiful, joyful, triumphant note following her birth—why wait until we are fully “burned out” with parenting, why not retain some sweet, delicate wistfulness about infancy and childhood, instead of maxing our personal resources to our fullest extent? (Though, logically I know it isn’t necessarily an either-or proposition, that is how it often feels to me anyway.)

We decided we’d make the final, ultimate decision after she turned two, because too much longer after that point would make more of an age gap than we’d want. I posted on Facebook asking how do people know they’re “done.” I had an expectation of having some kind of blinding epiphany and a deep knowing that our family is complete, as I’ve had so many other people describe: “I just knew, our family was complete.” I didn’t have that knowing though—I vacillated day to day. What if I never know for sure, I fretted. Perhaps this sense of wistfulness and possibility with continue forever—maybe it is simply normal. One more. No, finished. But…ONE more?! And, I have a space in my heart that knows with great confidence that four (living) children would be the ultimate maximum for us. I definitely do not want more than four…so, does that mean there still is one more “out there” for us? And, back I go. I started out postpartum getting rid of maternity clothes and outgrown baby clothes, except for some special pieces and then at some point, I started putting them in a box in the closet instead. I smell her sweet head and think that she’s so wonderful how could I possibly never do this again. I look back at my pregnancies and births and think, WAIT, was that ALL? Is it over? Are my childbearing years behind me now? But, but…they were SO REAL! There is something about keeping the door open still. Not yet saying for sure. And then…some other moments have come recently. Rather than only having exhausted moments of “doneness,” I’ve had some sweet, beautiful moments of doneness too. Two weeks ago, we were all walking in the driveway. Alaina was in the middle with a brother holding each hand and me holding Lann’s hand and Mark holding Zander’s. I looked across at our line of our a family and suddenly there it was…a moment I’d not yet experienced…the sense that our family is complete. And, I thought, it IS a “balanced” family after all, even number or not. Yes, we’ve got the pair of brothers, but we also have “two girls,” so to speak, and that feels more balanced than I expected.

Then, last weekend, we were reorganizing our computer room and I was taking some things down off the walls as well as talking about having let one of my childbirth educator certifications lapse. I looked across at my birth art wall and I had this profound sense of distance from it, like, “oh yeah, I remember that life. It was a long time ago.” It no longer felt current or possible to me, like a part of my future reality, but felt firmly located in the past, in happy memory, rather than linked to possible future. I felt a sense of having “moved on,” past that stage after all, not waiting for the cycle to begin anew.

After my little brother got married last year, I’ve also started to have feelings of readiness to “pass the baton,” so to speak. It can be someone else’s turn to have the newborn, the baby, the toddler, the little kids. When I put away baby things and cloth diapers now, it is with an eye towards being able to give them to my sister-in-law or my sister, rather than saving them for myself. One of the things that has been challenging about the child spacing of my own family of origin is the age gap between my youngest sister, my brother and me. I am almost 11 years older than my sister and 9 years older than my brother (I do have another sister who is 22 months younger than I am too). This has created a “generation gap” of sorts in our lives and sometimes it feels difficult to reach across. A benefit however, that I’ve noticed for a long time, is that it offers the opportunity for each generation to be the “cool people,” to the current little kids of the extended family. Mark and I were the cool people when March 2013 021my little brother and sister were pre-teens and early teenagers—they would come stay at our apartment and we’d take them to the mall and things like that. Then, as they grew and we had kids, they became the cool, fun people to my own kids. I can look forward into a future slightly and see how my kids will now have the opportunity to be a cool, big people to my (as yet unconceived) future nieces and nephews. They won’t have the close-in-age cousin experience, but they will have the opportunity to take their turn as the fun, exciting role models. And, if my sister or sister-in-law hurries up and has a baby, it won’t be too much younger than Alaina and so at least one of my kids still has a shot at having a close in age cousin (and hey, maybe that baby can be her “sister” and teammate like my boys are for each other?! I’m liking this plan!).

Another benefit I can see to this generation-gap style extended family spacing is that each set of grandbabies can have their turn in the sun. If we were all having babies at the same time, how would my parents equally divide up their doting grandparent powers? How would my mom zoom around the state offering her postpartum nurturing skills to multiple new baby households? How would my dad patiently carry around a pile of curious babies? Would I still get my two hours during the day, or would the grandparents be too overwhelmed by having to have 50 grandchildren come over every day? How would I get to be a good, helpful aunt if I was busy taking care of my own newborn at the same time? Now each baby will have the chance to be the center of all the baby-attention and baby-love my whole family has to offer. We’ll all see and celebrate the first crawlings and first steps and first words of each new extended family member in their own turn, rather than having them lost in a shuffle of multiple babies all at the same time. And, I’ll have a chance to be the aunt who smells a tiny newborn head, and cradles soft hair, and marvels at delicate toes, and gummy smiles instead of thinking, “same old, same old.” ;-D

On Sunday afternoon, we took another stroll down the driveway. Mark and I were holding hands and chatting about various topics and when we turned around to head back the opposite direction, this is what we saw…

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And, again, I felt that moment of bright, clear, certain awareness. THIS. This is our family size. These are our babies. We’re done.

(Or, are we?! :-D )

For some gorgeous thoughts on family size, do check out Leonie’s lyrical post On Choosing To Only Have One Kid.

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And, on an unrelated note, I also took two pictures of the greenhouse. One during the delightful spring day…
March 2013 013And another during a delightful sunset…

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Oh, and back to the original topic of family planning, don’t get me started on a conversation about birth control or how we truly plan to make that “ultimate” decision. I don’t freaking know what to do about that. All I know is that while I’m still willing to entertain the possibility of a “surprise” baby at this point in our family life, I am simply NOT willing to push the “reset” button at age 45 and accidentally have another baby then instead of menopause.

And, I realized as I set this to post on April Fool’s Day that someone might think I’m posting this as an April Fool’s joke—surprise, I’m not really “done” after all, in fact I’m pregnant again!!!! Not. ;-D

The Revolving Wheel (Gift from the Sea)

Mar25

“With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls–woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Lindbergh’s notion of mother as the axis of the household wheel really resonated with me, as did her descriptions of being pulled off center and distracted by a million aspects of the “wheel” of life. Her comment that saints were rarely married women made me smile, because it makes me think of Wayne’s Dyer’s comments that gurus rarely have eight kids, because there is nothing like the experience of parenting to shake your sense of yourself as someone who has it all together, spiritually or otherwise. And, it makes me think about how after some reading about Zen philosophy, I decided that Buddhism and Zen were not for me, because attachment is at the core of a mothering life. I got super irritated with old Buddha and his remarks about being “non-attached” and I thought, “easy for you to say, Mr. Go Sit Under a Tree and Wait for Enlightenment while your wife stays home and takes care of your kid—I guess she was too unenlightened and ‘attached’ to let go.” Being a mother has taught me a lot about relationship as the ground of being and relatedness, not non-attachment, as the core of a rich human experience. As I described in a prior post:

I have learned a lot about the fundamental truth of relatedness through my own experiences as a mother. Relationship is our first and deepest urge. The infant’s first instinct is to connect with others. Before an infant can verbalize or mobilize, she reaches out a hand to her mother. I have seen this with my own babies. Mothering is a profoundly physical experience. The mother’s body is the baby’s “habitat” in pregnancy and for many months following birth. Through the mother’s body the baby learns to interpret and to relate to the rest of the world and it is to mother’s body that she returns for safety, nurturance, and peace. Birth and breastfeeding exist on a continuum as well, with mother’s chest becoming baby’s new “home” after having lived in her womb for nine months. These thoroughly embodied experiences of the act of giving life and in creating someone else’s life and relationship to the world are profoundly meaningful.

via Breastfeeding as a Spiritual Practice | Talk Birth.

Anyway, Lindbergh says:

…to be a woman is to have interests and duties raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The pattern of our lives is essential circular. We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive like a spider’s web to each breeze that blows, to each call that comes…
How difficult for us, then, to achieve a balance in the midst of these contradictory tensions, and yet how necessary for the proper functioning of our lives. How much we need and how arduous of attainment is that steadiness preached in all rules for holy living…

She also acknowledges the essential, and yet often difficult to find, need for solitude to find stillness as the axis of the revolving wheel of life:

…Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves; that firm strand which will be the indispensible center of the whole web of human relationships. She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as ‘the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still…
This beautiful image is to my mind the one that women could hold before their eyes. This is an end toward which we could strive–to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations and activities…
… she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself…
…It need not be an enormous project or great work. But it should be something of one’s own. Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day—like writing a poem, or saying a prayer. What matters most is that one be for a time inwardly attentive…
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Gift from the Sea

I recall feeling this way about my own mother—that she was the center of our family, the anchoring space, the core to return to.

Other thoughts from Lindbergh that I related to after finding them online when reading reviews of her book and stories about her life include:

“I cannot see what I have gone through until I write it down. I am blind without a pencil…I am convinced that you must write as if no one were ever going to see it. Write it all, as personally and specifically as you can, as deeply and honestly as you can. … In fact, I think it is the only true way to reach the universal, through the knot-hole of the personal. So do, do go ahead and write it as it boils up: the hot lava from the unconscious. Don’t stop to observe, criticize, or be ‘ironic.’ Just write it, like a letter, without rereading. Later, one can decide what to do.”

And that made me think about story and being a story woman and I also saved this quote (not from Lindbergh):

We constantly weave life events into narrative and interpret everything that happens through the veil of story. From our smallest, most personal challenges to global issues that affect nations and generations, we make the world fit into the story we are already carrying. This unceasing interplay between experience and narrative is a uniquely human attribute. We are the storytellers, the ones who put life into words. – Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher (via The Circle)

Here’s what’s been happening in my wheel lately and the stories I’ve been weaving (Zander featured heavily the last time I wrote a primarily personal update post. This one has more moments from Lann):

How funny that we had to wait for spring before being able to actually make a snowman this year! (*note bat posed for imminent destruction too!)

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Last week, Lann had his first test (yellow stripe) in taekwondo. He did a good job!

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Future plans involve moving on from cardboard armor, to real movie stuff…

In the car on the way home from a different class, Lann was planning his birthday party (Sept). He wants to learn how to make silicone movie masks. He said: “I’ll do the sculpting and art part, you do the reading and talking about it part, Dad can do the sitting around with his mouth open part, Zander can do the running around and squealing part, and Alaina can do the napping.” I said: “does Dad really only sit around with his mouth open?!” And Lann said, “Mom, in AWE!” He also said they’re going to go to the Drury Inn and dress up in Lord the Rings costumes, “and, we’ll have to hang up a sign that says Nerdfest.”

That same week we were briefly discussing the massive scale of the universe and the fact that the Earth is hanging around out there in space, spinning, and Lann said, “sometimes my brain hurts when thinking about a selection of topics.” ;) And, that reminded me of a long ago Lann story when he was about four. We were doing the whole, “I love you as big as the sky” type of thing, and I said, “I love you as much as the universe–and guess what, the universe has no end, it keeps getting bigger, and goes on forever!” And Lann said, “oh mom, that’s so beautiful I don’t know what to say.”

The week before, Lann hitched a ride to taekwondo with Baba and since I was on break from class, I was home with Zander and Alaina (usually they go grocery shopping with Mark while I’m in class). Zander came running in to get my iphone so he could take a movie of something and I heard him their room taking a movie and narrating to Lann as he does so, so that he can give him the movies when he gets home and catch him up on what Z’s been up to while they’re separated! Good buddies!

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Heartbreak of tooth decay sculpture from fall of last year–mama covers head, not wanting to know and yet holding both baby and the extracted teeth. At her heart is a jewel, because she acts with deep love.

We’re dealing with ongoing dental issues with Alaina. Despite our heroic efforts, she’s ended up with the most severe problems of any of our children. Last week I took her to the local pediatric dentist. He was really nice and informative and Alaina did really great with him. However, she needs a LOT of work, more than I thought, and it is going to be really expensive. She needs the crowns she already has replaced because they were not fitted correctly by the first dentist and there is decay around/behind them, plus she needs four other crowns and also two regular fillings. :*(

We’re definitely going to have to go through the general anesthesia route. The local pediatric dentist only does this work in the hospital and we got the estimate from the surgery center for the hospital portion only and it was $8900. Our insurance will cover part of it (we’ll still have to cover about $4500), but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that that is absurd. What a broken system. Taking your kid to the hospital for two hours to get their teeth worked on just should NOT cost $9000, no matter who pays for it, that is patently ridiculous. So, I’m going ahead with the consultation I made for her in Springfield on Wednesday. I called in advance to double-check and they do their oral surgery work in an outpatient surgery center rather than in a hospital and their estimate for the clinic part is $2000, total. That is more like it and is worth the two-hour drive (one way). I wish I hadn’t bothered taking her locally, because now we just have to do the exact same thing on Wednesday and then still go back. She has to have a physical first, before she can have anesthesia, so I also made an appointment for her first-ever visit to the doctor. What I really, really wish is that I’d just taken her to Springfield in the first place, last year, when we first started to get her teeth taken care of. I am so angry with the dentist we took her to in St. Louis. I was happy with the same office for Lann (different dentist, 8 years ago), but I have HATED everything that happened there with Alaina and I wish I’d never taken her there. I feel like they actually caused the problems she has now by not acting to treat the teeth I first brought her in about and then doing an absolutely CRAPPY job on everything they did after that. I don’t actually feel like I really have energy to really be angry though, my primary feeling is sadness and anxiety about what is to come.

In a cuter Alaina story, I made myself a little sculpture to use as a pendant, but Alaina appropriated it. When I finally put it on her, she said…”dooool.” I said, “did you just say ‘cool’!?” And she said, yes!

She also “knits” and likes tiny dogs…

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We get a lot of use out of the Ergo still too!

And, I guess our kids should be in a band:

Alaina sings!

Zander drums!

Lann drums too!

We went to my sister’s house a couple of weeks ago and the kids immediately took to my brother-in-law’s drums. Neither had ever drummed before and Zander really rocked it! Alaina singing was a moment I captured last week when I was printing invoices and she was sitting behind me putting on a show.

In my own news, I finally renewed my ICEA childbirth educator certification after dawdling on it for a long time, but I let my CAPPA certification lapse. It was a hard decision, but made the most sense. I’ve been moving on from birth education for quite some time, and continuing to shell out money for something I’m not using often doesn’t make a lot of sense.

My new classes begin today! After the hectic disequilibrium that comes with the final week of a school session, the following week feels a lot like coming home from being out-of-town—excited to see your familiar life, yet also slightly panicky about needing to “catch up.” Plus, there is so much to be unpacked…and then, BOOM, two weeks off is SHORT. My online class is full and my two in-seat classes have 12 students each. There was a lot of prep to do get ready for them–I always forget that these “breaks” aren’t about having a vacation, they are about preparing for next session.

I’m not sure how good I do about being the “axis,” but my wheel is a pretty fulfilling one :)

Kids: Hilariously Awesome & Awesomely Horrible

Mar7

Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh at Zander’s creativity and dramatic style or to take him to therapy! Today, he showed me this drawing titled, “Never Camp Outside.” It is both kind of genius and disturbing…

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Never Camp Outside

Other features in the series: Never Box a Bear, Never Dive into a Volcano, and Never Sleep in the Street…

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Never Dive into a Volcano

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Never Box a Bear
(yes, that would be a headless guy with blood spurts)

My kids are all pretty sensitive to violence in the media and we avoid exposing them to violent TV shows/games as much as possible, but their own brains come up with a lot of horrible stuff—if it comes from them, they’re okay with it and enjoying grossing people out. If it comes from outside of them, their tolerance is a lot lower (example: just today they watched a Good Luck Charlie episode and had to hide their eyes when Charlie was almost breaking a glass reindeer).

When we had a lot of snow days recently the boys got all into getting embellished (with washable markers) for a movie project! Pretty creepy!

A friend on Facebook commented that I was a “cool mom” for letting them draw all over themselves like this and my response was, cool or crazy or lazy or a combination of all three.

When it was Alaina’s turn to get embellished via washable markers (“beware a tiny girl with a blue marker,” Lann was heard to say), she then did some work on my cheeks too…
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Later, I was making pumpkin cookies in the kitchen and waxing eloquent to Mark about human trafficking and the roots in patriarchal religious structures and then looked in the bathroom mirror and saw my face was still decorated…sort of reduced the oomph behind my impassioned soapbox!

Speaking of Alaina, this month she learned how to say her own name. Instead of calling herself baby or “me,” when asked she’ll say, “Lainey” often accompanied by, “me tiny.” Last week, she described herself as strong and funny (true), and she petted my face and said, “Mama, pretty!” (Lest I become too conceited, I recall her also describing Daddy’s 1956 tractor as “pretty” recently). She also says both “thank you” AND “no thank you” and also “love ya! And, she loves squeezing into a box outside with her favorite kitty, Gizmo:

Zander’s drawings made me think I should do my own series. First up for me, based on some of today’s experiences, would be:

Never Read the Comments

(on any articles online about things that I care about and on YouTube videos whether I care about them or not)

Never Buy “Delicious” Fish Oil Capsules for Kids

(unless you like throwing away $17, five years later)

Never Trust “Tastes Exactly Like” Recipes from Pinterest

(banana ice cream…cauliflower pizza crust…garbanzo bean cookie dough…I’m always instantly intrigued, however, if you don’t have dietary restrictions that prohibit the “real” versions of these things, don’t bother experimenting with them. Your family will thank you.)