Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan 30 2012

Finding My Village

It takes a village.

I used to wonder what those words really meant. I mean, I live in the suburbs and I don’t even know my neighbors. What kind of village am I supposed to be a part of and how do I join?

When I first became a mother, I lived in a town in which I knew no one, my friends were not married, and my family lived in other parts of the state, country, even other parts of the world. There were times that I dreamt of having others to rely on—someone to watch the baby when I needed to go to the doctor, or to baby-sit so my husband and I could have an evening “off,” or to just share my worries with over a cup of coffee—but I was alone. Well, alone with my beautiful daughter and my loving husband, and we were enough.

By the time our daughter started school, we had moved to a new town—a town very near, and very much like, the one I grew up in—but little had changed in my life. I worked in the same office, I had the same friends—some were married, but none had children—, and my mother and siblings still didn’t live anywhere near me. It was while dropping my daughter off at school that I first caught a glimpse into this village that I wasn’t a part of—the mothers chatting at drop off about PTO meetings and play-dates, the town sports teams that I didn’t know I was supposed to sign my daughter up for. I felt on the outside—juggling two children, a job, my husband’s business, and our home. I told myself that I didn’t need to be part of this “suburban village”—we would be fine on our own.

Then I met the mother of one my daughter’s classmates. She found out that I had been running home from work each day during lunch so that I could take my daughter to school, often eating my lunch as I drove. In order to give me a break one or two days a week, she offered to pick her up and take her to school for me. With that offer of her time, a few extra minutes out of her day twice a week, she suddenly made me feel—for the very first time—a little less alone.

Although I have never truly become friends with the mothers of my daughter’s friends, I have been able to form a kind of relationship with many of them—I know their names and occupations, the number of children each have and their corresponding ages, and for some, I even have their cell phone numbers. It’s been enough.

It wasn’t until my son entered kindergarten, however, that my relationship with mothers in my town started to change. A month before school started, I was swimming with my son at the town pool when I heard someone say my name—it was a friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years. As it turned out, she had recently moved to my town and she had a son who would also be starting kindergarten that September—she was also expecting her second child. Over the next few weeks, whenever we saw each other at the pool we would sit down and chat about the last two decades of our lives, often while our boys played together in the background—it was bliss.

Soon after our boys started school—it was afternoon kindergarten once again—she went out on maternity leave. I thought back on that year when my daughter was in kindergarten, and how much it meant to me to have someone to rely on. So, I offered to take her son to and from school each day, or whenever she needed me to. I wanted to do for her what had been done for me—I wanted to “pay it forward” in my own way.

I realized something this week that has taken me by surprise—I am part of a village and I wasn’t even trying to be. It happened slowly, almost without effort. It started with a small conversation during drop off, a quick chat about school policies (I am somehow an expert after six years at the school), and the occasional commiseration over the “joys” of parenthood. These parents that I met at school have become more than just the parents of my son’s classmates—they have become my friends. They are there for me when I need them, like when I forgot to pick my kids up from school (it happened only once), or when they knew I was going to be stuck in meetings all afternoon so they invited my son over after school. These women are my village, and I am thankful each day that they are in my life.

My advice for my daughter is to know that if she ever feels isolated or alone—whether it be in high school, college, or as an adult—she should always know that there are people around her that she can lean on, even if she hasn’t met them yet. She just needs to put herself out there—maybe strike up a conversation—for there is no reason to go through life alone.

Jan 21 2012

Confronting a Bully

Something happened this week that completely shook me. I received a call from the school’s psychologist telling me that there had been a bullying incident involving my son and three other boys. My heart skipped a beat upon hearing those words. So many questions immediately flew into my mind:

“Is he hurt?”

“Did he do something to another child?”

“Was my son the bully?”

“Is he in trouble?”

“Was he ganged-up on?”

My son at five.

I waited with bated-breath for her next words: your son is fine. I exhaled. She went on to explain that normally the principal would be calling me—as is done when anything bullying-related occurs—but she wanted to talk to me herself. She was very impressed with my son. She told me that he handled himself wonderfully, and that he expressed his emotions in such detail and with such clarity for a seven year-old that she wanted to tell me herself how impressed she was with him.

My eyes welled with tears.

For the duration of the call, my emotions remained on a roller-coaster—I was elated that a she was complimenting my son, and yet I was still on edge as to what had actually happened. In the end, I was struck speechless, unable to formulate a single question. We hung up after just a few minutes, and I returned to my work. My nerves felt raw, and all I could do was repeatedly glance up at the clock to see if it was time to go pick him up—the minutes ticked by so slowly.

For the next two hours, my mind drifted to images of an older version of my son. I saw him as a teenager, and yet the picture became hazy when I tried to imagine him being confronted by bullies. Even at the young age of seven, I had already spent many hours talking with him about bullies: how they might act, what they might say, and what he should do in various scenarios. During this brief time—as I wondered what had happened—I realized that it’s possible that I have had a false sense of security when it comes to my son.

He was born in November and is therefore older than most of the kids in his grade. He is also bigger than children his own age—and many children who are older than him—not just in height but in his overall physical strength. Because of this, I have always felt it was important to talk to him about being kind, especially to those who are smaller than him. He has also been learning taekwondo for almost two years, and has his high-red belt. This sport has taught him self-defense, fighting techniques, and—most importantly—discipline. In the back of my mind, I have always thought these things would protect him as no one would be crazy enough to try to hurt him.

But there is more than one way to be hurt by someone. I started playing the conversation with the psychologist over again in my mind. She told me what my son had told her about the incident: he explained that when his heart feels broken by what someone does, he reacts with anger. He went on to explain that once he is able to express his feelings, then he just feels sad and will sometimes cry. My son is incredibly sensitive, and not just in reaction to what people might do or say to him. When he recognizes that someone around him might be sad, stressed, angry, happy, hurt, or worried, he feels it and wants to do something to make it all better. He feels what others feel, and it affects him deeply.

More than anything, I wanted to go to the school to see for myself that he was okay.

I was finally able to hear what happened when I picked him up a little while later: he and two of his friends were fooling around while walking back to their classroom after recess. Another boy wanted to join in, so he decided to kick my son’s friend in the butt, thinking that it was in jest. The boy was taken off-guard, and was understandably angry at being kicked. My son and his friends began yelling at the boy, which led to shoving and a lot of heated emotions.

When I knew he was fine—not permanently scarred by the incident—I cried in relief. My son’s main concern was that I would be angry with him—which I assured him, I was not. He told me that everything was fine with his friends, and he “just wants everyone to get along.”

It’s possible that I may have overreacted—it’s been known to happen. That being said, I am thankful for the reminder that I need to talk to my son more about the emotional fall-out of bullying, not just the physical. If I were to give advice to my son at this moment, I would say that people—especially children—often say things they don’t mean when they are angry. He should never take these words to heart, no matter how much they might sting. I believe that cruel words come from a place of insecurity, and that he should feel sorry for the person saying them rather than ever let them affect how he thinks about himself.

Jan 11 2012

Chore Wars: How I Got My Kids to Clean the House

This is a true story.

Yesterday, my children were arguing about doing chores. Their argument went something like this:

Daughter: I’m going to unload the dishwasher.

Son: I get to clean the bathroom.

Daughter: If you get to clean the bathroom, then I get to make mom’s bed and vacuum the living room.

Son: That’s not fair. I want to make her bed! Mom, what other things can I do?

Me: You can fold the laundry, then put it away.

Son: Great! [to his sister] Ha, I get to do more than you!

Are you wondering whether I may have used the wrong words—should it have been “have to” instead of “going to,” “get to,” or—can you imagine—“WANT TO”? It’s not a typo. My children want to do chores! (I can’t stop smiling, and every once-in-a-while, I actually do a little dance). I have to say it again—in capital letters as if I am yelling from the rooftops—MY CHILDREN WANT TO DO CHORES!

The daughter I have raised for the last eleven years does not clean the house, she rarely helps out, and she always has an excuse as to why she is too busy to do the simplest thing. Even when I tell her to put her own clean clothes away, she grunts at me, rolls her eyes, and then drags herself down the hall only to throw them on her chair. Up until last week, I was completely alone in taking care of our house.

Then, I made a change.

In my last post, I wrote about the three things that I was going to focus on so that I could attain a sense of balance in my life. One of them was about providing structure and follow-through to my children. So, I came up with a plan, a system of reward and punishment that actually makes my children feel empowered—makes them feel that they are the ones in control.

This is how it works:

First I needed each of them to help me create a list of rules—basically a list of bad habits that drive me crazy. My son’s list included things like saying the words sucks, idiot, and dumb, as well as threatening his sister with physical violence. My daughter’s list included many things related to her interaction with her brother, such as invading his physical space—even hugging him without asking—, teasing him, and correcting or telling him what to do.

Once each list was complete, I grabbed some sticky-notes and began writing down times in 15-minute intervals: 9:00, 8:45, 8:30, 8:15, 8:00, and so on, until I reached 7:00. For my daughter, it started at 10:00. The first time listed is their actual bed time, every time after that is the time that they will go to bed if they break any of their rules. 1 broken rule = 15 minutes off their bedtime.

This is the punishment.

Here is the reward.

When my daughter started 6th grade earlier this year, she came home and explained to me about a system of reward that her teacher had developed. The teacher outlined a number of ways that students could earn “cash” that would be good toward things like extra credit, homework passes, and even lunch. My daughter loved it, and being the competitive girl that she is, she works hard to be the student with the most cash. This inspired my daughter to come up with the idea to do the same at home—she named it “Mommy Moolah.” Although she had this idea earlier in the school year, it took me until last week to finally pull it together.

This is how it works:

Each chore is worth a certain amount of “Mommy Moolah”—vacuuming (1); loading the dishwasher (4); cleaning the bathroom (3); folding the laundry (2). After either of them completes a chore, I sign off on it on a tracker. Then, when they have enough, they can turn it in for a reward—staying up an extra half hour (10); getting a movie from Redbox (20); picking my son/my daughter up from school and taking them to lunch (35); going to the movies (50).

I knew that losing their bedtime would ultimately deter them from breaking rules—and I hoped that over time they might actually get in the habit of behaving better—but I honestly didn’t know if getting them to clean the house would actually work. Maybe it wouldn’t have if it weren’t for making the decision to introduce both the punishment and the reward at the same time. Within one day, the kids had each lost at least thirty minutes of their bedtime, and when they realized that they would have to go to bed early, they immediately wanted to earn some “Mommy Moolah” to buy it back.

This has been going on all week. Each evening, I sit on the couch, lazily watching television, while both kids frantically look for more and more chores to do. It is a shocking—and beautiful—site.

This week, I’m linking up with Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writing Prompts—Create an “instructional” post where you show readers how to do something cool!

Jan 5 2012

Neglect

I am sad to confess that my blog has become like a neglected child. Until recently, I would check on it numerous times a day—lovingly responding to comments, feeling proud of it as its readership grew, spending hour after hour nurturing it with my words. Now weeks have gone by without taking a single peek just to be sure it hadn’t been attacked by Spam or to see if anyone had visited.

The rush that I used to get after clicking publish on a painstakingly-created post, has now been replaced by a feeling of complete and utter guilt. I did not intend to stop writing, but each day as I wracked my brain for what to write next, I realized that I felt barren—I had lost my creativity. So, when life suddenly became more demanding—as it has a tendency to do around the holidays—I willingly allowed it to take over the time when I used to write, always telling myself that I would begin again tomorrow . . .

The reality—the difficult-to-admit-reality—is that I am really an all or nothing kind of person. I am not saying that I am a quitter . . . but I do have a tendency to let things fade. People who know me best would probably describe me as someone who throws herself into new things wholeheartedly. I love a challenge. So, when an opportunity arises, I jump in with both feet. I become consumed with its planning and execution, spending endless hours focusing on how to get this “new thing” done. Looking back on the last two years, I see a trail of starts and stops—each one leaving me feeling just a little bit more disappointed with myself.

The one that consumes me every other year or so is my health, specifically my weight. I drive myself crazy being such a yo-yo dieter. Each time I get close to my goal, the intensity begins to ebb. It’s usually at that time that something else takes over my focus. About two years ago, the shift in my focus came when my husband asked me to transform his smaller store (he has two next door to one another) from a place to keep his rugs to one that sells home accessories and gift items. I became obsessed with researching new products, spending endless hours in the evening looking for the perfect things to sell. Six months later, our new store was born, I had regained about twenty pounds, and I was completely burnt out. Later that year, I was so disgusted with myself that I turned my focus back to eating well, and I even began exercising.

Enter my new obsession.

I soon found myself getting on the elliptical twice a day—once during my lunch break and once in the evening. The time I used to spend surfing the Internet looking for vendors was now spent reading health articles and looking for new fitness equipment.

Inevitably things in my life always begin to suffer.

I wish I could say that my children weren’t one of those things, but in small ways, every time I turn my attention to something new, they become affected. During these times, I slowly stop being the ever-vigilant mother I strive to be: my children’s bedtimes slowly begin to creep later and later; the brushing of their teeth is lost in the chaos of bedtime; and their arguing only gets more and more intense.

During this “health phase,” before I knew it, I did feel better physically, but the world around me was slowly falling into disarray. I then found the outlet that would give me the perspective I felt I was lacking with my children, and the place to focus my creative energy: my blog.

It was perfect.

Then I went overboard.

Again.

The time I once spent focusing on exercise and eating well was now spent writing or reading fellow bloggers’ posts. I don’t think I could have anticipated how much I would love writing. It’s all I could think about—I even carried a notebook in my purse so I could write even when I was without a computer. It wasn’t my children that suffered because of my writing—although I may have spent a little too much time on the computer here and there—it was my weight, once again. As I started to gain back the weight I had so painstakingly lost, I slowly found myself feeling unhappy and out of control, and ultimately that is what contributed to my loss of inspiration when it came to my blog.

So, that is where I am now, or should I say, that is where I was last week. I don’t want to call it a “resolution” that word is tinged with failure. Instead, I am calling it “having a new awareness about myself and doing something about it” (okay, not as succinct, but I’m having trouble coming up with the perfect word). I’ve decided to once-and-for-all find balance in my life, but I now think I have the key.

  1. To do anything well, I have to first feel good about myself—both physically and mentally—therefore, I need to eat well, and exercise at least a couple of times a week in order to lose/maintain my weight.
  2. I need to be a mom that provides my children with love, structure, and follow-through.
  3. I need to write, to create, to have this one thing that is only mine.

I believe that if I make these three things a priority in my life,  I will be able to attain the balance that I so desperately seek. My advice to my daughter is simple, I want her to take care of herself—both physically and mentally—so that she will be able to go out into the world and achieve all that she sets her mind to. Just as I hope to do now.