last night, my two littles and i were discussing the idea of breath. i was marveling, first, at the fact that i'd asked them to take some deep breaths with me. and they did.
they didn't sigh or refuse. they just did it. they've done it before but lately it's not been without conflict or outright refusal. oftentimes we're simply too distracted to get still.
as we took several good, long inhalations we fell into such a peaceful state that my youngest let out a toot which i subsequently inhaled. fully. before i could even think to stop myself. oh the giggles that caused! even from me. for once, i didn't say anything or wonder whether or not i'd just fart-shamed my kid. i laughed about it. i mean, i did just read that sniffing farts can prevent disease but i'm pretty sure it was the actual breath work that helped me not freak the fuck out because omg i've been smelling smelly things that are smelly ever since my little brother was born and i'm over it.
after the laughter subsided, i started to think about how we take breath for granted. expecting it to be automatic, we often hold our breath without even realizing it. an awareness of our breath can reduce the impact of stress, but only if we really breathe. i know. obvious, but also epiphany. i took the opportunity to ask the boys how often they took such deep, cleansing breaths on their own.
my eight year old said, "when i'm reminded to."
"and how often are you reminded?"
"about once a week."
i remind myself to breathe several times a day and i remind them more than once a week, though, as i mentioned, we're not always receptive. if i had to guess, i'd say i only take deep, cleansing breaths about 1 time for every 6 reminders.
"what kinds of things could we do to remind ourselves more often?" i asked.
a circular argument ensued wherein my eight year old suggested that you just remember and then do it until it becomes habit, problem solved.
maybe it is that easy for some folks and i just muddied up his story by explaining that sometimes we forget the things we need to remember, especially when there's quite a few of them, so it helps if we have other ways to remind ourselves.
"we could write it down!" he said.
"good. we could write it down. i write stuff down all the time, in notebooks. then i close them and don't open them again until i have something else to write...how could we make our reminders more visible?"
"let's write it on our arm"
"okay," i said, "actually, i'll write it on my hand like a gangsta: breathe, muthafucka."
at which point, my suddenly very moral five year old says, "i don't want you to be a whatever you just said. you're not a gangsta."
"the words can have bad feelings associated with them, but they're not bad, in and of themselves. one day you may appreciate that mama thinks batman, for instance, is a badass motherfucker and that's not a bad thing...but for now, i will be more mindful of my language."
i didn't explain to him how i no longer define things as good or bad because i embrace the way light and dark can and must co-exist. i know that buddha says we must be impeccable with our word, but i will probably always swear. some part of me, no matter how softened, will always be a little hardcore, however, mindful daily practice helps me act less out of guilt, and more out of a desire to best model what i want for myself and for my children. he is only five and all that matters to him is that i am his kind mama. right. now.
"mama? don't really put that word on your hand."
i assure him that i won't and then smile at my own beginner's mind. though i feel always-mindful of his sensitivity, i'd taken for granted his sweet innocence. it hadn't occurred to me that he would think i'd actually put a swear word on my body.
yeah. i'm not gangsta.
even though both boys are playing at the neighbor's, and it is mildly tempting to at least add "mofo" after "breathe," i won't even do that. i will keep my word.
i have been called to clear massive amounts of old energy (dare, i say ALL the old energy?) and today, especially, i am looking around my beautiful, cozy home with new eyes and carefully listening to myself, learning where i am still stuck.
"i might want that big craft table in my studio but it's so heavy and would be such a pain in the ass to move" or "i could move my desk and put yoga stuff in that corner, but then i'd have to rearrange all that stuff on the wall."
my vision and my motivation are not currently in sync, in all areas. and that's okay.
the opportunity to change arises in each moment. thereafter, it becomes a conscious choice. much like my eight year old described, you can just decide to do something and then go do it, however, in my experience, not without frequent reminders and baby steps, and not all at once.
...when i should have gone to bed.
...when i wonder why, when i feel morose, it feels like i'm always morose but when i'm happy, it doesn't ever concern me that i'm always happy.
...when i question the meaning of everything.
...when i am debating whether or not to make a pot of coffee. and once i type that out, the answer is always yes, yes i should.
can you say stress ball? that's what i am. a big, giganto ball of stress. on fire, even. i can't even begin to talk about the house situation because we're supposed to close in two weeks and have yet to find a renter. we're close but it's not done until we have a signed lease and deposit in hand. can you say stress? i could be doing something more productive and possibly even more healthy right now, like meditating. or sleeping. but sleep isn't all that refreshing since my attempt to night wean was a big failure. huge.
since my thoughts were racing a mile a minute as i lay in bed after a long, drawn out bedtime session complete with one kid climbing all over me and kicking me repeatedly, while the other kid tried to strike up multiple conversations and wouldn't be quiet until my husband came in the room and told him to take me seriously, i decided to share what basically boils down to this: no matter what, the very core of my being is and always has been and probably always will be lonely.
i debated whether or not to go to sleep after i put the kids to bed and while i could be putting this time to better use (since i decided not to sleep, obviously) i'm here, instead. since i'm not working on an article submission, i've decided that this entry may be good book fodder so i don't feel like it's a complete waste of time to come and vent in my blog. but color it what it is, because that's what i'm here to do.
i could say it all started when 6:00 p.m. rolled around and we hadn't heard back from the broker about the only house we've put an offer in thus far. we had gone back and forth with counter-offers since our first offer was countered earlier this week. today was pretty much it; we agreed to nearly all of the sellers' terms and stopped the negotiating at their last asking price. i thought it was a done deal and maybe it is - i completely understand that it is a weekend, afterall, and just because i don't have a life and checked my phone every five minutes to see if my husband texted me with word from the broker i do know that the broker, the sellers, and the sellers' agent all probably do have lives. it's possible my husband will hear something tomorrow or early next week but since losing hope is my favorite past time, this was definitely a dinner-time catalyst for all hell to break loose in my head.
it also happens to be that one day a month when my womanly hormones are all like, "hey, you suck and so does everything" so even though i maintained calm peaceful serenity all day, after 6:00 all bets were off and i was a bad midol commerical waiting to happen. it, of course, doesn't help that i KNOW my craptacular diet and lack of exercise are totally to blame for this, but whatever. can't change that now, and oh...here it comes, i'm like carla in one of my favorite episodes of scrubs...
i snap at my husband during dinner and then quickly excuse myself, explaining that it's so me and not him but it's also this list of things, which i present to him, after which he just rolls his eyes like he's still taking it all personally and wishes i would have just apologized rather than elaborated for the sake of some compassion.
i go have a good cry in the bathroom. i know the house thing is completely out of our control and even though i'm getting mighty sick of telling this to myself, i truly believe that everything happens for a reason. if, at least on some cosmic level because i must admit, i don't often know the reasons things turn out the way they do for at least a decade.
i also get over, rather quickly, all the other things bothering me and head back out to the table just in time for pea to spill a glass of water.
things were relatively okay until i decided to brush my teeth before getting the kids ready for bed and sure enough, sprout started crying hysterically for me. i love that my kids love me (at least the two little ones do) and most of the time i love that they are super attached but on days like today, i resent it. pea is nearly five but bean is nearly fifteen and for nearly half of my life i haven't had the luxury of going to the bathroom in peace. bean was not nearly as attached as the younger two, so while i could usually shower or pee without him in the bathroom, banging on the door, or crying on the other side of it, i did have to worry what he was doing or getting into; one time it was the nail polish all over the carpet and in his eyeball; another time it was his two-year old self running naked across my apartment complex; and yet another time he'd stuck a penny in a tupperware cup and then decided to microwave them both. quite frankly, i'm spent. i opened the door to let the little squirt in and started crying myself. again. then pea walked in and said, "next you're brushing my teeth," and i didn't know what else to do but continue crying.
i'm not looking forward to bedtime. i have to wrangle both little ones to bed and lay with them until they fall asleep. i had visions of what a peaceful time of reconnection this would be after the end of our days. we'd read, like we always did before sprout was born, i'd nurse, and we'd all calm down blissfully.
but reality is a bitch.
if we're all in the same bed, this is a chore i despise. it's not peaceful and it's not enjoyable. pea is getting much better about having to fall asleep on his own, but only after i try to lay with them both and make big threats because neither of them will settle or stop squirming. i used to be such a hard-core proponent of co-sleeping, too. i used to justify it (or hide it) to (or from) so many people when my oldest was a wee one and i believe i still really enjoyed it when pea was younger. i even dealt with it despite major back pain but now, i don't know, maybe i'm selfish but i want my bed back and i am definitely night-weaning sprout earlier than pea. but this is where more of my piss-poor attitude rears its ugly head...i haven't been able to night-wean because awesome papa works a lot. like more than would be legal if he were someone's paid employee. being his own boss and having to run two businesses means he doesn't have a choice but to work twice as many hours than most people, without the added benefit of extra pay. he is always early to bed (or tries to be) and always super early to rise and the protests of a little one being weaned (or put in a crib) would interfere with his much needed, and deserved, rest.
i need rest, too, though. can't say what it is but this go-round, i don't easily go back to sleep when sprout wakes to nurse. i don't feel rested or renewed in the morning, even if my back doesn't hurt like it used to. i think i'll be a better mama if i get some sleep, so i must night-wean. awesome papa leaves on a business trip tomorrow and i've told myself for months that i'd use this time to get down to business, myself. tonight, though, i wonder if i'm up to the task. i have comforted sprout to sleep, without nursing, many times before - but never consistently, because, as much as i'd like to think that i have to prevent his cries from waking my husband, the truth is that my threshold is very low. i cannot much tolerate the sound of my children crying.
i don't know if that makes me a wonderfully attached parent or just a largely conflicted freak.
so as i lay between two squirmy, but super sweet little boys, imagining my impending doom, the ball continues to roll as it may and only one thing comes to mind.
i am unfulfilled.
as much as i always wanted to be a devoted, stay-at-home mom i didn't grow up with one and i don't know how to be one. my mom might completely disagree (and just in case she's reading, "hi, mom" *waves excitedly*) but for part of my life, she was a working mom, and for the other part of my life she was self-absorbed or otherwise occupied and/or on mind-numbing antidepressants.
in the case of my older son, i was most of those things, too.
then i got older and had two more kids after people would have safely assumed that i'd "grown up" and all was supposed to fall into place. i really wanted to be one of those moms that i knew. like my friend's moms - the ones that stayed at home, listened to all their kids problems without judgment and gave them a hug afterward, baked cookies and fresh bread, didn't hit them over the head with the hairbrush...but not many of my friends were all that happy with their parents (some were, it's true, but not many) so, reflecting on this, it is entirely possible that i painted a rosier, more "leave it to beaver" picture than that bitch of reality.
it is also entirely possible that i'm too hard on myself - and it all comes down to that last entry i wrote on a similar topic. i still haven't found a way to nourish myself. haven't recharged. haven't reconnected with myself or my husband, though i did take one mildly relaxing bath since then.
since i started this, the baby woke up and i went to bed. as much as i want to night-wean, i also want to cherish forever the way he holds my hand as he nurses and the way he scoots his body as close to mine as possible, when he's done, and practically sleeps on top of me. i am a conflicted freak. no doubt!
it is now the next morning. i am much, much better. i keep experiencing little waves of saddness over the possibility that the sellers changed their minds and that house won't become ours. i also keep experiencing little bits of peace as i tell myself that maybe their agent (and our broker) just don't see the urgency and will get back to my husband tomorrow. i hate waiting for nothing, though, and even more than that, i hate getting my hopes up for nothing. it's such a personal thing, but it makes me feel foolish to the very core and it's part of my hard exterior that i have yet to unravel.
i plan on really sitting down with my husband, upon his return, and revisiting the idea of nourishment. it occurred to me last night that if i feel unfulfilled, he might, as well. i have no idea what he might need but i intend to find out. i do know what i need to regain some sense of balance - i need to reconnect with my art. i had just started to when we got serious about buying another home and selling ours, so packing and purging took priority. i need to recharge, somehow, and i'm not exactly sure that night-weaning is the answer, but it's a start. i have decided to ease up on the pressure i've created for myself and take the gradual dr. gordon approach until it's complete. i did a modified version of this with pea, right before he turned two years old. in about four weeks, he was sleeping through the night. sprout is a different baby and more easily comforted, and also more likely to unlatch before falling asleep - he is a frequent, but not a comfort, nurser. i'm going to re-read dr. gordon's advice and not lengthen the steps in the process but stick with the ten-day program. by the time my husband returns, we'll be halfway done :)
i need to really let go of the house because all things happen as they should, and knowing this, i really need to stop feeling that things are always so close, but yet so far away. so many things are within reach right now but instead of dwelling on the challenges in the way, i need to dwell in the possibilities!
