The Art of Parenting

I've always felt like parenting was much more of an art than a science. Despite all the "What to Expects" and T Berry Brazeltons, all the well-meaning grandparents, not-so-well-meaning playground moms, I've always felt that you had to trust your gut when it comes to raising the specific little individuals you are blessed with guiding through this world. After all who besides you knows that your kid will eat a ham sandwich with mustard only if it is on a baggette or that his hot dog must have the ketchup first and then the mustard. And, who but you knows that when your daughter has a meltdown over homework it is not a sign of her intelligence or lack there of but an indication that someone hurt her feeelings at school and if you just patiently help her solve the algebra problem then she'll open up about the friend and you can help her through that, too.

At the end of the day, you're the mom or the dad and really, it's your call about your kids. You really do know best so trusting yourself is always the best move. I've always made the choice, when possible to chose doctors and dentists, other health care providers that honor the concept that in the end, mom knows best - they might have the medical knowledge and can give you options, but in the end parenting is a game of instinct.

It's also why I think it's so crazy when we judge each other as moms, parents. How can we really know what is right for someone else's kid? Sure, we might know how we'd do it if we were confronted with the challenge but how another mom chooses to approach a challenge with her child well, that's just her call, not any one else's.

That is what I found so refreshing about Hope Edelman's memoir "The Possibility of Everything". This was a mom confronted with a daunting challenge, a daughter whose behavior had changed drastically in a short time. Her radar went up and she knew she needed to get to the bottom of it. And the way she chose to do it, travel to Belize and visit a shaman, even in light of her own skepticism, is the greatest demonstration of "trusting your mom gut". She just knew on some level that the traditional Western medical approach to solving her daughter's challenge was not the best route. I applaud that instinct. Instead of worrying about what other people thought, she, along with her husband, made the decision they thought best for their daughter. And it worked! (full disclosure: I am myself a big believer in alternative therapies having benefited miraculously from them in my own life) But in the end, Hope's story is a refreshingly honest story of "the mom gut" and knowing what's right.

I also applaud Hope's brutal honesty. As painful as it must have been, she shares her own frustrations with the situation in such stark, honest detail I felt I wanted to reach through the book and and give her a hug, thanking her for admitting to the mistakes we all make when parenting meets monumental frustration. I think it is this kind of honesty that makes for a truly connecting experience within a family, among friends, for readers and ultimately between us all.

MLK's Monday

When you boil about it, Martin Luther King, Jr. was about courage. The courage to stand up for what he believed in, the courage of his convictions that his approach was the approach that could turn the tide, the courage to know that he might not make it to the mountaintop but that that mountaintop could be reached. And he was right in all his courageous glory. We have an African-American president, have for a year now and we just call him Mr. President like every other white guy before him. Imagine the courage it took Barak Obama to declare he was worthy to be president and ride it on through to win.

All amazing feats begin with and idea but are carried through by courage. And like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz - we all have it in us - we just don't know it is there.

With a nod to the courage in all of us - may it see us through any challenge, any strife, any doubt in the dark hours of the night. And, most especially, courage to those in Haiti and around the world whose lives truly call for the deepest strength to survive.

Sunday and Haiti

I sat down this afternoon with the idea of posting about the Sunday blues I inevitably get every unplanned Sunday afternoon. I opened my browser, the NY Times home page came up and I was humbled out of my comfortable ennui by a photo of a man, his head buried in his arms praying inside a cracked but still standing church in Port-au-Prince. And I realized how fortunate I am to be able to feel something like the Sunday blues. How lucky to live in such comfort here in the US that I can feel down just for having a dull day on my hands. I sit here with laundry to do, my house just cleaned, a work project I am avoiding and well, just a rainy Sunday afternoon in the city. I don't really have anything I want to do but go for a run, I don't have anything that has to be done today and that seems like something to feel down about. While this poor man has suffered untold loss his family? his home? his entire life as he knew it?

I scroll through the rest of the photos and see people praying, they're hands raised to the sky pain on their faces. I am not a religious person but I pray sometimes, meditate, think a lot about the bigger picture and my role in it. If I were struck with such a tragedy I'd like to know I'd have the conviction to reach to heaven for some salvation. Another photo is of a young boy waiting, his eyes anxious for bags of water for his family. What if I had to send my son to "wait for bags of water" instead of just turning on the tap and letting it run over our hands, into our Brita for not only a fresh drink but filtered of all impurities, too. The next photo shows a young boy his hands raised to the sky not in prayer but as he and a man are confronted by police in the wake of looters. Later a body burns on the streets, a looter killed by a mob. Oh my word, it is a cushy life we live, I should be more grateful.

Still it does not stymie my discontent, I am horrified by the loss, the pain and I feel more down, more useless, more pointless than ever. I should volunteer, should help somehow make it better. We sent money, the kids' school is planning a dance-a-thon next week. Still . . .

Once I read something about how when people lose it all it makes life so much simpler. It becomes about survival and that in itself is simple. I could see that, I don't wish it for myself, my family or anyone else for that matter, but I get it. Watched a movie last night, "The Hurt Locker" and it points that up - a great movie - really intense - beautifully shot by a woman director - about an army bomb squad in Iraq. As the movie progresses a "cowboy" kind of guy joins the squad and we watch how he tempts fate unconcerned with the danger he faces. Then, he ends his tour and goes home and finds the array of cereal boxes in his local grocery store overwhelmingly mundane. He re-enlists because at least in harm's way what he is doing makes sense.

Life doesn't make sense a lot of the time: tragedy, depression, war, loss. And in those times I guess the only logical response is to reach for love. Maybe it is the only thing that does make sense. So tonight I held me kids a little tighter and worked a little harder to make dinner tasty - because that is some form of survival, too, right?

With thoughts, prayers, peace and strength and most of all love to all those affected by the Haitian earthquake.

Who Put the "HE" in Laundry?

Last week I was invited to an event "Bubbles & Bubbly" hosted by WiskHE laundry detergent. It was a fun and really informative event not only about high efficiency (HE) laundry detergent and why it is so important to use it in a high efficiency (HE) machine (I do not have said machine - but you can enter to win one here). But we also got to don the lab coats and the cutest rubber gloves and pretend to be scientists; we learned about the importance of bubbles in champagne - (what a chore to have to taste really amazing champagne for 20 minutes) - and then we listened in on the amazing bubble reader as she predicted fortunes for a few lucky women in the crowd.

But by far, the funniest moment of the night was when a fellow (male) blogger suggested that the whole idea of adding "HE" to detergent was to get men to do the laundry. Ha! In this house, that will be the day! Of course, I'm not too interested in taking out the garbage either - so I guess we are even. Now I have to get back to folding my oft-neglected clean towels.

PS - the WiskHE detergent really does work just as well as regular detergent - even in my low-efficiency, but perfectly acceptable, machine!

"Highlights of A Mom's Life"

A new web series we created for the Kellogg snack brands - and it is funny!! If I do say so myself. Check it out: Highlights of a Mom's Life . And it was a family affair for us this summer - I wrote it, dear hub directed and produced and the kids had featured roles. Yes, those adorable kids are ours! Aren't they cute and talented, too. It was soo much fun - hope you think so, too!

Thankful Thursday

Today, I am grateful for the resiliency of my body.  No matter how I eat, how much exercise I avoid, or how great my sleep debt grows, my body still works, functions like a well-oiled machine and even manages to bounce back when I do get to the gym and clean up my diet.  I've lost nine pounds in three weeks just from regular exercise and eating my fruits and veggies.  And, I'm pushing the mid-forty mark.  Thanks to my bod for keeping me going!  (Ah - no the photo - not me - but maybe . . . )

When Life Gives You Lemons . . .

Life, it's one of those things, you know, best laid plans and all that.  You make your plans when you are young choose a college, a major, meet a future spouse.  On it goes.  Mostly according to plan.  You travel, move to the city of your dreams, have babies.  It's working out great.  There are some bumps.  A family member takes sick and passes on despite the prayers, despite the love.  Another takes his own life, inexplicably.  You weather the storm, the questions never really answered but fond memories remain.  

Then one day a bump comes into your own life, a shift you hadn't anticipated, a change you are not welcoming.  And the roller coaster begins, all you can do is decide to hold tight, make sure your lap belt is snug and try to find the emergency brake.  Of course, the emergency brake is in the station and you are still careening around the track.  You call for help, help arrives but still you must make new choices, set a new course while racing along in and out of tunnels, over hills and through breath-taking curves.  

Finally, one day, your new choices made the roller coaster slows to a more manageable speed.  You are changed, different, never really to be the same again but this new self is humming along okay on this new track.  The new track turns out to be better than you could have guessed, closer to the person you really want to be now, twenty-five years after that young girl chose that now inexplicable major.  Life is better, now, for the topsy-turvy ride.  Who knew?

"Comfort Food" by Kate Jacobs is the story of just such a crazy ride in the lives of characters living what they think is their dream.  Things change, people change and while it is happening the characters cannot see the good that may come from the changes.  Still, good things come and life is richer for them.  As Oliver says late in the book, "Life isn't a straightforward climb up the ladder." . . .  "It can take a few slips to really gain perspective."

My life has been like that in the recent past.  My husband's business hit a rough patch, my mother-in-law passed unexpectedly all while I grappled with trying to find a meaningful life now that my kids were in school.  But in the last eight months things have come together for me in ways I could never have anticipated.  I'm a partner now in my husband's business.  I'm writing scripts and shooting pilots, I'm helping develop websites and diligently working on my own novel.  Only the novel has been a twenty-year dream.  All the rest is the bonus of life and it's lemons.  Who knew? 

Many thanks to the SVMoms group for such a comforting book club choice.