Fruit in my dessert

Kindergarten sucks

I'm not ready. I said I was, but I'm not and I'm mad that I don't get a choice in the matter.

Not ready for what, you ask?

Not ready for Kindergarten, duh! I answer.

You smile, you may even laugh a little. I think it's [sort of] funny too, when I'm not busy trying not to cry.

Today is day three. B dropped him off - at the door - this was the last transition in the process.

He got a little upset and said that he wouldn't be able to find his classroom. B talked him through it and the principal introduced him to the "big" kids (1st & 2nd graders) who would escort him upstairs. He recovered quickly on his own and walked in with confidence. Just like any parent would want, right? Except B and I are both trying not to cry and he's probably already coloring pictures in his class.

On the second day, I was late to drop him off. We were ready an hour before school started and live a block away from the building. We had two "issues" just before we were to walk out the door - one requiring a full outfit change of a toddler - and, well, we were late by 4 minutes. All the other kids were seated in their seats already [though on the way out, I saw another much more relaxed seeming mother walking her son in too...]. It was a rushed goodbye b/c I was afraid of breaking the rules and getting in trouble [yes, seriously]. He blushed for one of the first times in his life, which made me feel even sadder and guiltier. I'm a blusher and it's usually not any fun when anyone else notices. Again, he said goodbye and went with his teacher to hang up his stuff. It took me the whole day to shake it off and I made sure I was one of the first in line to pick him up.

On the first day, we mostly got it right. Though they asked us to leave the room when I was in the middle of reading a story to him and I really didn't want to leave in the middle of the story. I mean, didn't I owe it to him to finish the story? He wouldn't know what happened in the end if I left now. I started to leave, then I started to read the next page, then I left because, well, I felt silly trying to rush through the story as other parents were leaving the room.

Everyone said it'd be harder on me than it would be on him. And I did believe that, I did. I knew he was ready. Not a doubt in my mind. And I thought I was ready too. He needs more stimulation, more learning about "school" things. He's ready to be in big kid school. And selfishly, his moving on is one signal in my path to feeling okay about working more and continuing to re-expand my professional self. I've even joked with people about L being ready for more than her "silly" 2 mornings per week of preschool b/c I selfishly want the time for work without having conflicting feelings about it...or paying for additional childcare.

Because he was ready, I thought I was ready. I changed my mind. I want him back. Right now. And, I do not care at this moment that he is so clearly ready, and that somehow I can take some credit for that. I don't want the credit, I want my H here running around, drawing pictures, playing and fighting with his sister. Kindergarten sucks.

I'm even more upset now because I know that if this is my reaction to Kindergarten, I'm in big trouble for the next 30+ years. This nonsense is exhausting.

H drew this pic this morning before school. Overheard: "I'm going to draw a picture for mommy because she's so cranky." A few minutes later he came in to see me in the shower: "I need to look at you. Is your hair brown or...oh, it's orange." Ah, if only it were developmentally appropriate for ME to be that self-centered....

P.S. I'm pretty sure that's my heart ripped out of the middle of my chest.

Why this (not so) Angry Mother writes

So, way back in October, I posted on this blog asking for people to vote for me in an essay contest on Readers Digest Facebook page. Well, between that post and all the harrassing I did of friends and family on Facebook, Twitter, and via email, enough of you voted for me to put me in the top 100 (out of more than 5,000 entries, but who's counting?), which qualified my essay, Angry Mother, to be reviewed by the editors and a judging panel...and I won! Okay, I didn't win the GRAND prize, but I was one of the 10 runners up and won $2,500! And, they published the essay, along with a photo they took (via professional photo shoot in my house), in the March 2012 issue of the print version of Readers' Digest!

Thank you to EVERYONE who voted!

Click HERE to read my essay (and see the picture)!

Shortly after the essay ran in the magazine, I received this comment on my blog:

I just read your RD article today at our local library as I waited for my son to take his music and art classes. It meant a lot to me, and I wanted to track down Karen Dahl of NY, NY to say, "Thank You." I had tears in my eyes that I was really hoping the guy in the chair across from me didn't notice. I found no place here to send a message to you, and so I'm hoping you will see this attached to your post about that article. Thank you for the best 150 words I've read in a long, long time.

I then started an email exchange with the commenter to say thank you to her and to tell her that this is literally why I write - not for the kind words (though that's great) but to hopefully make an impact on someone else, even for just a moment. I've wanted to be a writer my whole life and this 150 word contest and one comment have inspired me to focus on this dream more often!

Thank you again to friends, family, and strangers for all of your support! It means the world to me.

Miss Representation, Shaping Youth, and Me

My latest guest post is up over at Shaping Youth. This one is about Miss Representation, young children (mostly mine), and The Paley Center screening I attended, along with Shaping Youth's commentary on Miss Representation's latest efforts in conjunction with the Superbowl. Here's a preview of my piece:

Gender is the latest hot topic around here.

For almost a year, my preschool aged son has said on occasion, “boys are girls and girls are boys.”

He has told this to friends in class, often girls, who have gone home and told their mothers, thinking he has told them a funny joke.

He also thinks that “kids” means “boys” but not “girls.” He has asked me to explain this to him but I’m not sure he quite gets it yet. Only very recently have questions about different pieces and parts on girls and boys come in to play. He also recently asked me if he could “milk a baby” when he grows up. I’ve hesitated to say too much because the innocence of not knowing the difference between genders is one I’d like him to hold on to for a while. While I don’t want him to be ignorant, I also don’t want his rapidly firing synapses to process anything through a gender lens before it absolutely must.

Please head over to Shaping Youth to read more and let me know what you think. And check out Miss Representation for information on the great work they are doing.

Please vote for me

I just submitted 150 words to the Reader's Digest Your Life writing contest on Facebook. The 100 entries that receive the most votes will be judged by an "expert" panel with the chance to be published in Reader's Digest and to win $25,000.

My piece is entitled Angry Mother. Please check it out, and if you love it, vote for it. You can vote once per day through November 1. Please note, you have to LIKE Reader's Digest on Facebook before you can vote.

You can click on "Angry Mother" above or HERE to read my entry.

Thank you!

SpongeBob and other thoughts on media for young children

I wrote a post last week for Shaping Youth in response to the recent study on the immediate effects of fast paced television on young children. I was angry at the study, the media coverage of it, and the programming aimed at young children and their parents. Please read my post and leave a comment at Shaping Youth to let me know what you think. If you want to hear more of my opinions on young children and media, let me know that too!

The kindness of strangers

Today was a good day. A rare day when I got up at 5am and had two and a half hours to shower and read and clean and make lists before the children got up at 7:30 (noon by our standards). Our wonderful babysitter came for four hours and played with the children, including one on one time with the older one while the younger one napped, while I got lots of work done promoting Brian's new book. The transitions flowed. We had a lovely trip to the post office to send books away. And then, as we were walking back toward home, actually toward the playground to play tennis, I engaged Henry in a conversation about making a choice, mostly because I couldn't decide and wanted him to make the choice for me (it had to do with him and an activity).

I noticed a woman walking alongside us and I was pretty sure she was listening to the conversation. She was about my mother's age I think. After Henry and I were done with our conversation (and he had made the choice, not the one I would have made on my own), the woman said, "I'm sorry for eavesdropping, but I just wanted to say what a lovely conversation that was. And what a wonderful example of parenting...you didn't interrupt him...respect...I wish you were MY mother...you're a F***ing rock star...here's that Mother of the Year Award you know you deserve...." Okay, so I'm paraphrasing, but she did gush and it was more than a few sentences. I laughed (uncomfortably) and said thank you several times, and yes, I might have teared up a bit, and I might be now.

Here's the thing: I don't know who that woman is. I don't know what, if any qualifications she has to say those glorious things to me (though I know she was right - dead on, actually). She doesn't know who I am. On a different day in a different moment, I am 100% sure that she could have just as easily seen a very different scene and heard a very different conversation between Henry and me. I remind myself of this not just with my own public parenting moments, but with those around me. I try hard not to (somewhat unsuccessfully) judge. I go out of my way to say when a parent gives me the slightest opening, "oh, we've been there," or "it's so hard sometimes," or something else to say, "no, no, I'm not judging you, I swear." I try hard (somewhat unsuccessfully) not to care if I think someone is silently judging me.

But the good stuff, LET IT FLOW. That woman made my day and it took a second. It was kind, it was generous. It was judgmental (of me, of experiences she might have been comparing me to). We need to do it more - to each other, to ourselves. All day long. And we need to hear it, be open to it. Thank you, stranger lady.

On second thought, you might not be in to that whole, "praise me and tell I'm awesome all day long and I'll be okay" thing like I am.

Today was a good day even without stranger lady. I didn't "need" her comment today, but I'm going to save it up for a day that I do.

PS - There was a second stranger lady a few minutes later who helped me locate Lucy's lost shoe on the sidewalk. She spotted us walking back covering our tracks with one shoe on the Luce Goose and pointed it out - it was one inch from falling off the sidewalk and into the bus path. Thank you, stranger lady #2.

PPS - yes, I am that ethnocentric that my though right now is, "only in New York." Don't burst my bubble by telling me that people are like that everywhere. They're not. At least to me ;)

PPSS - yes, I know that New York isn't an ethnicity. Is there a similar word that means the same thing for cities? I couldn't find it and I'm too tired to search anymore.

Third person

"I can't believe mommy didn't clean out this bag."

That was me to H this morning as I went through a bag that we took with us on a trip last weekend and I never went through and cleaned out. As it came out of my mouth, I thought to myself, "eww, why did you use the third person?" Okay, maybe I said, "ewww, why did I use the third person?" but I'm pretty sure I talk to myself in the 2nd person as well. Anyways, I do this sometimes, the third person thing, usually when talking to my kids (and, now, out of habit, and even more cringe worthy, sometimes when talking to my husband), and it drives me nuts for two reasons:

1. it just sounds icky to me
2. it's developmentally inappropriate (at least with my three year old, and certainly, my husband)

I just came up with a new reason for why I might do it. I notice that I often do I when I'm criticizing myself. Why didn't mommy do this? Why didn't mommy do that? Mommy forgot X thing, etc. So, here's what I'm thinking: I'm fairly good at criticizing other people, so it comes naturally for me to say, "Hey, why didn't X person do this?" "Why did X place do it that way?" AND why blame myself when I can blame this other, incompetent person I don't know that well, named, of all things, "Mommy."

Multi-tasking

While in a professional sense, and even a personal, non-mothering sense, I have spoken out against the true practice of attempting to do several things at one time, I have realized that many times during the ins and outs of a full day of mothering, I encounter two major issues repeatedly and in rapid succession:

1. I am unable to multi-task
2. I am forced to mutli-task

I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure this pair contributes to that frequent feeling I only half-joke with other mothers about: LOSING MY MIND! And, no, I don't find it the least bit ironic that as I type this with Sesame Street on the TV, that my toddler is literally picking on my preschooler and me and my preschooler is silently and without much movement driving both of us insane. There is food involved.

Back to multi-tasking. When I say that I am unable to multi-task, I mean that there are things that I would like to be accomplishing on occasion while the children are in my care. Not big and exciting things like blog posts, but maybe making a doctor appointment for someone, paying a bill, doing the laundry, researching water filters or family and children activities, all those chores that I'd rather not do when I'm paying someone else to be with the children, or worse, when I'd rather be sleeping or staring mindlessly into space (read: RHONYNJOC). I know it's a lot to ask and I don't know how many times I need to learn the lesson for it to stick, but I still try, and, on rare occasion, succeed. Most of the time it's a miserable failure of screaming while I'm talking to the doctor's office, or pinching my hands in the computer, or unfolding every last piece of laundry. There are also times when I'm successful because I manage to entranse them with "high quality early childhood programming" and then my prize is guilt and concern. Yes, I'm one of those. What is most frustrating for me is the inconsistency of it all. I do know it's temporary of course, but it's hard to hold on to that long view sometimes. Plus, then I'd be sitting here crying about how they're all grown up and want nothing to do with me anymore. It's never good enough. Can you imagine how my husband feels?

On the flip side of this, and this has become particularly true since having a second child, I am always multi-tasking and never accomplishing anything. Because, as you might have heard, children can't be "accomplished" in the same way a PowerPoint can be, and I definitely find that challenging sometimes [as I type this, toddler is sitting on my lap picking at mole on my arm]. Somebody always needs or wants something and in the rare instances that they don't, I'm preparing for the next wants and needs and/or cleaning up from the last ones. It's never ending.

I spend part of every day teaching my children how not to muti-task to prevent their own frustrations (e.g. socks and shoes can't go on at the SAME exact time, you can't climb on your rocking train while holding your milk with two hands - or at least in this house it's recommended against). Doing one thing at a time can feel peaceful and calm. It's the closest thing to meditation that I'm doing at the moment. So, I suck those moments in and move on to the next thing, forgetting all the lessons that I've learned along the way. That laundry* isn't going to re-fold itself.

Thank goodness I like them so much, or this would really suck.

PS - I successfully completed this post as Sesame Street ended. It's the little things.

*I cringe every time I type the word laundry because I can't believe what a disproportionate amont of time the topics of laundry (and groceries) spend in my head and coming out of my mouth.

Imprint

Lisa Tucker McElroy recently wrote a guest post for Lisa Belkin's NYT Motherlode blog pertaining to sleep, called, Bedtime Witches. It's beautifully written, and while we don't have monsters in this house (yet), she put into words how I often feel as a mother, and I wanted to share an excerpt with you here:

Someday, when Zoe has a daughter just like her, what nights will she remember? Will she look back on bedtime and think of it as a nurturing time, an hour of bonding, an occasion of love? Or, recalling our bedtime struggles, will she strive, in stark contrast to her own experience, to be the Good Witch of Bedtime? I long to know what imprint I’m leaving on my child, what fears I’m eliminating, what anxieties I’m creating*. I want a house to land on the Wicked Witch and stamp her out for good, both for my own sake and for that of my daughter, who deserves nothing less.

The house is quiet....And it is now, in the peace of the sleeping house, that I face head-on my motherhood fear, deeply buried, yet surfacing at bedtime: I’m no longer afraid of encountering the Wicked Witch; I’m afraid of becoming her.

*emphasis added by Fruit in my dessert

Spilt Milk

I have been working very hard over the last three and a half years, and about seventeen times harder than that in the last fifteen months, to outwardly process my anger, disappointment, and frustration with daily, mostly motherhood related occurrences that I find less than desirable without screaming, swearing, stomping, throwing or otherwise acting like a young child who does not yet have the words and tools and brain to do the same. I have been working so hard primarily because my children are usually present and oftentimes their actions or inactions or existence are the direct or indirect cause of said anger, disappointment, and frustration (we will save the guilt about this for another post). While there have definitely been momentary spikes in my inability to do this well since adding a second child to the mix, I would argue (but not loudly) that I have been quite successful in my attempts to show less frustration than I feel most of the time - or rather to show my frustration in more constructive or creative and less dramatic ways than I otherwise would. 

Just yesterday, at dinner, H spilled his milk all over me, the table, and the floor after a long weekend of traveling and family separation. We were ALL exhausted. It was an accident. As soon as it happened, he looked at me, perhaps B and L did too. I'm pretty sure they weren't sure how I would react (and yes, I know many of the reasons and ramifications; see paragraph one). I looked at myself. I took a breath. I laughed a little. I got a towel. It was bath time.

In our house, at least for me, life is what happens in the moment between when the milk spills and I open my mouth. I hope I can keep remembering that in the moment, and with different and bigger things than milk.