Monthly Archives: May 2011

Posted inEmotional Intelligence • Parenting • Parents

Resource Utilization: Maximizing Mom Time

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I work; I’ve got two small children and I’m writing a book. I don’t get a lot of down time. My husband works all the time, so I don’t ask him to babysit much. My moments of “Mommy Time” are precious, but until now, my resource utilization was sub-par.

I live for nap time. Rose naps every afternoon, and, lucky for me, Christian’s afternoon nap usually overlaps hers by an hour. Right after I had Christian, I would use that time for my own nap. I must admit, between recovering from the pregnancy, midnight feedings and early a.m. wakeups, it was months before I could go without that mid-day nap. Even now I still nap if I’m tired enough. Sleeping is one of my favorite things, and I always feel better when I’m rested; so I never feel I’ve wasted my time. But I still had that nagging feeling that I was missing something.

So on the days when I was awake, I’d spend my time watching “All in the Family” on TV. I love the show, but I still had a niggling feeling that my mom time could be better spent. Then I discovered reading an actual grownup book. Before that, reading books was my treat at the gym. But a quiet naptime was the perfect time to read a book. And sometimes I’d just close the book and revel in the quiet.

But I didn’t discover the best use of my time until now. Last week, while both kids were asleep, I realized I still needed a shower, but I wanted to lie in bed and meditate, watching the trees dance in the wind out the window. It was the only chance I’d have for a shower, so I opted for a long, hot, luxurious shower, then I put on my soft terry robe and laid down on the bed to watch the woods. Ahhh, now this is what it’s all about, I thought. I feel like I’m at a spa.

A couple of days later, I’d already showered by naptime and didn’t want to get wet again, so I thought, What would be luxurious enough to feel like spa time? I decided to crawl into bed, read my book and eat Lindt chocolates. And it was good.

Over the weekend, my husband and I had one naptime free, and we went down to the man cave so the kids couldn’t hear us. We cuddled on the couch a while, then we played darts. We had so much fun that it felt like a real date. We almost cracked open a beer, but Christian woke up and it was over. But in the absence of a babysitter, we discovered a new way to use our alone time.

I have a close friend who’s been caring for ailing parents for almost a year, and dealing with a lot of stress. Before she started to crack, I tried to convince her to take time for herself. She was spending all of her time working or running errands for her parents or taking them to doctors, so she argued that she didn’t have time. Once she did crack, she listened to me. She used the spa gift card I’d sent her; she made plans with her friends and now she’s planning a vacation. But even when she “didn’t have time” for herself, we discussed things she could do. All she needed was 20 minutes for a bath, 40 minutes to make cookies, or 45 to sit outside and read a book. Even 10 minutes spent with a coloring book would have relieved a lot of stress.

One thing I discovered from all of this is that everyone has time to take care of themselves. The other thing I learned is that with some creativity, I can make better use of my down time. I will continue to “play spa.” My friend will keep taking time for herself and my husband and I will think of mini-dates when we’ve got a few minutes. No excuses. And I hope that sharing our discoveries will inspire more people to take better care of themselves. If you get creative with your down time, please share your experience. I, and everyone else, I bet, would love to hear all about it and steal a few ideas.

Posted inEmotional Growth • Parenting • relationships

Who Needs Sleep?

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Two weeks ago, my husband, Matt, and I were two smug parents. Why not? After suffering five months of midnight feedings and one month of 6 a.m. wakeups, our boy started to sleep later, until 6:30 or 7, sometimes even 7:15. Yes, we thought, we conquered the night. Christian was finally a good sleeper. We could rest easily and enough.

Until now. For no apparent reason, the kid started waking at 4 a.m. again. By stuffing him with rice cereal, we were able to coax him back to 5:30 a.m., but that was it. We came, we saw, but this time the night kicked our collective ass.

At the beginning of the ordeal, Matt’s shift lasted until 6:30 a.m., when mine started. Although he’s the one who works outside the home, he’s much better at losing sleep than I am. He can function on five hours sleep – badly, but still. I can’t function unless I get at least eight hours. I know what you’re saying and you’re right. I’m a sleep wimp. And it took a long time and a lot of 5:30 a.m. wakeups for Matt to believe in my need for sleep. But now he does. And he loves me so much that he volunteers for the midnight baby shift. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Although I like to attribute his sacrifice to love, affection may not be his prime motivator. On the days that started at dawn or earlier, I’d grab the baby and plod to the living room, where I would feed him and place him on the floor to play. Then I would crawl under a blanket on the couch and doze until my daughter, Rose, or Matt would wake up. If Rose awoke first, I’d get her breakfast and crawl back under the blanket to doze until Matt’s alarm at 7. Then I’d go back to the bedroom to hand the baby off to Matt and sleep for an hour until Matt absolutely had to get ready for work.

When Rose was an infant, I’d wake up early with her and fight sleep like a teamster on the night shift. Sometimes, I was ashamed to say, sleep would win. Christian is my second child and I definitely treat him as such. I don’t even pretend to be awake this time around. The living room is childproofed, so I tell myself it’s a safe environment and of course, if he gets somewhere uncomfortable, he’ll let me know. I know it’s bad parenting but I can only give what I’ve got, and I have not got 5:30 a.m. wakeups in me. I think that Matt took the early morning shift to shield the children from my neglect. And again, I’m grateful.

But all this losing sleep is taking its toll. Matt woke at 5:30 with Christian today and I got up at 6:45 so he could go back to sleep. He had until 8 to sleep, and I thought an hour and 15 minutes would give him some much-needed rest, but he awoke in a horrible mood, bemoaning the whole morning process. Apparently he’s not as good at losing sleep as we thought.

Exhaustion has taken its toll on our relationship, too. We no longer have the energy to meet each other’s emotional needs. We both know we’re just tired, but nevertheless, we get touchy when we miss our hugs and kisses or private grownup conversations.

We need to find a solution that works for both of us. I spent the morning reading up on infant sleep. If we could just go back to that sweet spot of 7 a.m. wakeups, everything would be fine.

We know what we must do, sooner or later. We’ll have to let him “Cry it out.” Every effective sleep solution I’ve seen is some version of “cry it out” –where the baby must cry itself to sleep. Every parent I’ve known who had sleep issues had to endure “cry it out” eventually. We did it with Rose when she was nine months old and it worked. She cried herself to sleep and learned to go back to sleep if she awoke. Although I didn’t think so at the time, “cry it out” was easy with one child. I had a high tolerance for crying, and at the time, we, and the neighbors in our building, were the only ones losing sleep. But when we have Christian “cry it out” he’s going to wake Rose in the next room. And she’s a monster when she’s cranky.

So here’s my solution: Rose needs to lose her pacifier, so if we banish the binky and “cry it out” at the same time, they’ll both cry and we can condense all of our misery into a few days or, at worst, a week. And once Christian sleeps and Rose quits the binky, maybe Matt and I can get some sleep again.

Posted inEmotional Intelligence

Besting My Brooding

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I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~ Mark Twain

Last week I had a shot at an amazing opportunity. To take it, I had to get some work together and make it the best it could be. Writing is an art. As such, it’s subjective. The artist can believe it’s a fantastic work, when in fact it’s really garbage, and she can hate something that’s pure gold. So whenever we writers seek to send a piece of work out, we first send it to other writers to get their opinion on it. So I did. And I waited. Anxiously.

I’m usually quite confident in my work, but this opportunity was so important to me, I began to second-guess myself. My friend sent me back a critique – a really good one. She told me what she liked and what she’d like to see more of, and she told me about my — let’s take a page from my old job and call them “opportunities for improvement.”

I read the critique on Friday night. I had purposely left my work alone when I finished editing that morning, and planned to pick it back up on Monday, just to get some distance from it, so I could read it more objectively. Reading the critique on Friday was my first mistake. I kept my vow to stay away from the manuscript but now I had a whole host of things to think about. It was a really good critique, and I agreed with her points. She identified my weak spots and appreciated my strong spots, but all I could envision was failing. I wasn’t sure I could deliver what she suggested.

All weekend, I worried. I worried that my best wouldn’t be good enough. I worried that I couldn’t develop the parts she suggested. I worried that if I didn’t, my opportunity would go “poof” and be gone.

For one night and two days, fear blossomed in my mind. And Monday, I sat down to fix the manuscript. I marked it up with my red pen and started a rewrite. As I added pieces and developed my narrative, something happened. I realized that it wasn’t so hard. I realized that I’d had this ability all along. And I realized that I had made the work exponentially better.

I’m not typically a worrier (see “Different Colored Glasses”), but when I do indulge, worrying is an attempt to gain control where I feel I have none. So worrying about something I have complete control over was new to me. I don’t think that my best efforts have ever been tested like this. What I know now that I needed to know then is that my best is all I can do, and whether or not I’m successful, it’s always good enough.

Posted inEmotional Growth

Mom’s Day Off

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Since I was proactive with the Mother’s Day post, and it’s still up, I’m taking the week off. It’s a great time to catch up on old posts, and for those of you who are mothers, happy Mothers’ Day!!

Posted inParenting • relationships

Maria Had Two Moms

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Mother’s day means so many different things to me. When my mother was present, it was her day. As a kid, I’d make a gift out of painted pasta and she’d fawn over it like it was Michelangelo’s David. As I grew, I bought cards, perfumes and piano-themed gifts. I’d always ask how her piano students liked the new wall art or knickknacks and she’d always tell me they loved them.

In my teens, I filled cards with heartfelt words and bought her flowers or Russell Stover chocolates with nuts. I tried to go practical as I got older, but she shopped nearly every day, so she was hard to buy for. As her Alzheimer’s started to kick in, I saw her awareness window closing fast, so I sent practical gifts and more heartfelt cards. I knew there would soon be a time that she couldn’t read or understand them. When those inevitable days came, I tried musical cards. I figured she’d notice the noise. I stopped sending gifts. She didn’t need anything. She sat at the dining room table all day, ripping up paper, shrieking or sleeping.

She was gone for eight years before she died, a year and a half ago. Last May was the first Mother’s Day I didn’t need to send a card.

During the 13 years of my mother’s illness, I remarried and had my first child. Rose never met her Yaya. By the time she was born, Yaya was so far gone she wouldn’t have acknowledged Rose’s presence, much less understood that she was her granddaughter. Rose was almost two when she visited my parents’ house the first time, for my mother’s funeral.

My mom had her parental shortcomings, but I got as close to her as she’d allow, and she was my go-to parent. And it was so hard to see her go the way she did. By the time she died, all of my grieving was over and I thanked God that she could now reunite with the soul she’d lost long ago.

I thought I’d done my grieving, but last Mother’s Day made me realize how much I missed her.

But a funny thing happened after that.

I got a letter from the adoption agency that had placed me with my parents. My birth mother wanted to meet me. Three weeks after that sad Mother’s Day, we talked for the first time. I had wanted that experience my whole life. I always wondered if she thought about me. I always felt the grief of abandonment.

It turned out that my birth mother had wanted to keep me, but her parents forbade it. She’d wanted to marry my birth father and make a family, but they wouldn’t allow it. She told me the real story of how I came to be. And last year, on my birthday, she called me, and told me the story of the day I was born. Most kids take that story for granted, but I’d never had it, and hearing it was the second best birthday gift ever. The year before, Rose took her first steps right before my birthday and beat her to the punch.

When I got pregnant the first time, I wished someone could walk me through the morning sickness, the emotionality, the fatigue – someone who’d been through it. Even if my mother was lucid at the time, she’d never been pregnant, so she couldn’t have helped me there. So it was a lucky coincidence that I was pregnant with my son the first time I spoke to my birth mother. She offered me was a camaraderie that child-bearers have shared for millennia. I was grateful for that. And I was able to offer her a first and second grandchild.

When Rose started preschool, the other moms would talk about how they were coping with motherhood, and I remember one lamenting a lack of emotional support from her mother. At least you’ve got a mother to ask, I’d thought, I don’t even have that. I would never have imagined that a couple of years later, I’d have a brand-new mother.

I’m really grateful for my relationship with my birth mother. Adoptee reunions don’t always turn out like mine. I’m one of the lucky ones. Not only did I have a mom to raise me, now I have a mom to guide me through parenthood. I had given up on finding my birth mom years ago. I never imagined anything like this. I met my birth father too, — don’t want to leave him out — but I’m saving his story for Father’s day.

So this year, when I send my Mother’s Day card, I’m back to writing heartfelt messages. But most importantly, I have a place to send it.