On Forgiveness and Parenting

Do you know what the answer is? What it always is?

Forgive

Forgive everything. Every second of every day. Forgive people who hurt you on purpose. Forgive people who hurt you on accident. Don't blame one more than the other. Blame is cancer and eats you from the inside out. It doesn't matter how it happened. Someone hurt you. Carrying resentment about it makes you brittle and fragile. Be like clay-that can be molded over and over and over again. Malleable. Forgiving. Accepting of whatever comes.

Forgive yourself when you are being small. Forgive yourself when you are being big. Remove judgment. Live like you mean it, in the comfort of compassion for yourself. This is our time. This. I know about internal warring and the stress it brings. Let it go. Breathe it right on out. And forgive yourself if you held on to it too tight or for too long or for selfish reasons. Forgive yourself for the things you have to do to survive your story, to survive your pain. Forgive people for judging that, but more importantly, forgive your own judging of how you survived. Focus more on the fact that you did. Life is hard. Life breaks you down over and over again. It's an opportunity to shine brighter, do it better, breathe deeper, be kinder. Every time. Do it better, but be compassionate with yourself in the interim. Love and openness start within you.   

Forgive your child(ren) when they lash out with the ugliest, most hurtful words they can think of. I. DON'T. LOVE. YOU. The are really saying "I am really mad at you". Help them learn to say what they mean by always saying what you mean (I think you are trying to tell me you are angry with me, am I right? It hurts my feelings when you say you don't love me, because I love you more than anything...). Remember the value of one on one time-regardless how brief.

Forgive children when they make mistakes, especially when they make mistakes. Watch the way you react to their mistakes-you have the power to steer them toward tolerant acceptance or blame and disdain for their shortcomings and how they view the shortcomings of others. "It's just milk, sweets..." vs. "Jesus, HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO KNOCK THINGS OVER TODAY!?!?!?".

Shame.

Don't shame your children. EVER. Shame eats at every good decision they will ever make in their lives. They will never be capable of great things and taking risks if they don't think they are good enough to get to where they want to go...if they don't trust their own judgement. Forgive their indiscretions instead. THEY ARE CHILDREN. As my Addie said when explaining a dream to me, "we are learning the baby game". I asked what that game is and she said "how to love people". Shaming a child for mistakes while they are playing the baby game is like kicking a puppy. It will still inexplicably love you. Except human children can simultaneously learn to loathe themselves while preserving their love for you. Talk about their choices instead, and don't attach their choices to their soul...choices do not a person make. The child is a light of God. Everyone is a light of God, but we have a bad habit of defining people by their choices. What if we addressed poor choices with loving kindness when the "monsters" of our society were children?

Acceptance

Acceptance starts with forgiveness and open heartedness. Accept where you are right now. Accept who you are right now. Don't try too hard to be different than you are unless that changing is from a place of love and understanding. Stop making excuses that cloud your own view of yourself. See yourself with clear eyes, forgive yourself, accept yourself. If you want to do some work, don't be afraid to work to be the person you aspire to be. Remember that we are all on a very solitary trajectory, dancing together for an instant. Accept others, exactly who they are. Love them in spite of themselves, warts and all, and they will love you back. It becomes easier to love others, accept others, if you sit with yourself first.

Do your work, then let go. Sit in the circle.

The looking glass

I am considering deactivating my social media account or really reducing my time on it. I feel like as a global population we are losing our people skills. I feel like maybe we can't remember how to be patient or give people grace, or how to make a phone call in order to hear people's voices. I feel like we intimate inflection and tone and are more likely than ever to misinterpret other people's intentions. I feel like people's insecurities are compounded by the parts of themselves other people choose to share, or in many case, not share...the things that would make them human sitting together don't exist on line. So, the perfect mom and homemaker you envy may be barely keeping it together, but you could never tell watching her life unfold on Facebook.

This struck home with me when, the other weekend, two women from school I know through room parenting agreed that I was "Supermom" at a party I was at. I was embarrassed to be lumped in the very false façade I was just discussing. I started thinking about it..and I was really resistant to the idea that my online persona could be causing self-doubt in others. I really try to mention the good and the ugly in our house-Addie's smart alec humor and Gillian's ups and downs (we even posted a sign she made for us to keep out because she was mad at us), as well as the things we are proud of them for. I starting thinking about it...I do post videos of their musical recitals, and photos of fun events and time spent with friends...I post pics of art projects I have done at school with the preschool class, and bits and pieces of other little things too. I mean, I don't post updates on my weight or my physical fitness achievements, but I also don't need validation on those things. I guess I started considering why it is that I post what I post. I like posting crafts because I think that if they turn out cute other people might want to try them with their kids. I post pics of trips and fun stuff and friends to share the photos I took with other FB friends who were there. I started considering why I am always feeling like it is my job to document our lives.

Maybe it's because I have exactly 46 pictures of my entire life growing up until I could develop my own photos. No one cared to archive my life at all (I was kid#3, and by all accounts a 7-year-later afterthought/oops (thanks family-for making me feel special by letting me know that growing up)). So, my own curiosity has never been satisfied with the one living member of my nuclear family that I never talk to (maybe once every few years) or see (last time was when my brother died in 2008)...I guess I decided now that I'm in control we will never lack in the visual memory department. And we don't. But that isn't the way some people operate. To them my play by plays are all about my overachieving and for them are insecurity-inducing. Truly-I am just living my life here. I remember reading something about not dimming your own light to make other people happier and more secure. So, part of me thinks-"share what you want to share. You have family and friends who don't see your relationship as a competition and don't feel the need to compare themselves to you." I love to see posts of my friends' kids doing awesome things and achieving. It makes me want to cheer lead for their successes, and it makes me proud of them too (because I genuinely love those friends and their kids). I don't get petulant and think "look at that bragging jerk" and feel insecure about my kids' awesomeness (or my own). It doesn't make us less when our friends and their kids do great things. In fact, maybe I should weed people who say things that insinuate that out of my life. Love is, among other things, people who rejoice with you in your tribulations (and sit with you in your trials for that matter). Ain't nobody got time for less than that.

So, trumpet your joy from the rooftops if you feel inclined. I love every weird drawing my kids make, every concert they perform in their music program, every insightful comment, and every belligerent show of their independence and burgeoning self hood. I won't apologize for loving those things or sharing them with other people who love our family.

Addie's First Original Composition

Addie may just be the musical artist in the family. Gillian is a fine musician, and a wonderful artist with drawing, but she doesn't seem like the music-writing type. Addie informs me that she isn't done with this piece, FYI, but she has been chewing on this motif for a few weeks now. In other news, she informed me that she wanted to learn to read Saturday and Sunday she read 15 Bob Books. Addie doesn't mess around-if she says she's going to do something, then she does it. End of story. Since Sunday, she has had her nose stuck in a book every second she is not playing animals or practicing cello. She prefers reading over watching My Little Pony, which makes me teary with pride (and, to qualify, adequately shocked). Behold music plucked from her busy little brain:  

2013 in Review

I am in the habit of an annual reminiscence about the year that passed as another begins. There were many things to celebrate, a few things to mourn, and some challenges to overcome...things that continue to need to be overcome.

 

As always, I am struck by the incredible awesomeness that is life and strive to be worthy of it all. Not to say that everything is a cakewalk even most of the time, but the things that make life wonderful are the things that gratefulness makes more abundant. There are things I have done well, and things I want to work toward doing better. I think on some level, I have become a little kinder to myself on the parenting front. I use to think if I wasn't constantly engaged with the girls, I was neglecting them. I know now that I shouldn't constantly be engaged with them, because that does a terrible disservice to their independence and self-reliance. Striking the balance is the trick.

 

The girls are so hard and so amazing at the same time. Sometimes they bicker and whine so much I want to carve my eyes out, and other times they are so lovely I walk around with a lump of teary grateful in my throat all day. They are prolific artists, promising musicians, funny, silly, smart, and generally kind (except sometimes to each other).

 

I have a network of women-mostly mothers and some not-who lift me up and support me and listen to me when I need an ear. I like to think I do the same for them, but truly, there are challenges in my life that required some serious listening on their parts. Work....dear Lord, work. Work has been a constant sore spot for me in the past 5 or 6 years. Difficult interpersonal dynamics in the workplace is not my forte as far as what I have been able to successfully overcome in life. I am trying, I am. I need to surrender and let it be whatever it will be. I really only ever wanted to go to work, work hard while having a day of pleasant exchanges with colleagues, and go home (not thinking about any of it again until the next day). I don't need buddies and best friends at work. I just need to NOT have work populated by people annoyed by the fact that I breathe-I haven’t determined there to be a better reason for our issues than that. Is that a lot to ask?

 

In a related subject, I am currently working on making myself stop trying to save people who don't really care about being saved (they just want to complain and spew about their difficulties all.day.long, not to actually do anything to make life better) and boundaries (I am the quintessential Can Do person, so not having success here is tremendously difficult for me). How I struggle with boundaries with these people.... so, this appears to be one of my greatest challenges: to stop making myself accountable for the feelings, opinions, and self worth of other people. I need to find immunity to those things, and immunity can be gained through meditation/prayer, and meditation/prayer only. Followed by not engaging and not reliving my stress at home and with friends by talking about it, and just "dropping the rope" as one of my dear friends says. Folks, my 40th year is the year of rope dropping. And becoming immune to and rejecting drama-mine and that of other people. Not that I can’t have compassion for their needless suffering…just that I don’t want it to seep into my spiritual fabric and bring me down.

 

But it’s hard-this is something outside my realm of control. I don’t like things outside my realm of control. Intellectually, I know none of this life stuff is really within my control, but I digress. I can make myself feel better by thinking so. So, I am completely open to changes this year. Something needs to change-doesn't matter if it's tangible or intangible. I love my work, a LOT, so I have a choice-find the center, and let the rest spin and twirl around me and sit with it (whatever it is) or make some major change while I work on the center some more. I am craving a different twist on what I do-maybe somewhere else or by morphing my own work some. Whatever it is, I want to telecommute. That is a better balance for my family than what I am doing now with these loooooong days and never ever being able to skip commute time (even though the vast majority of my work is writing-which can be done anywhere). I figured I would have 9 extra days a year with my kids if I could telecommute 1 day a week. These are moments that will be gone in no time...I need to fight for them now.

 

We had a stellar year in 2013..Some firsts: Addie began playing cello on her 4th birthday. We went camping for the first time (late May), and then went once more as a family (Sept) and Gillian and Papa camped again at Gillian's first music festival (August). We went bowling and promptly got stomped by a 4 and 7 year old (we make ourselves feel better by silently acknowledging that they had bumper guards and we didn't, but they did a fine job consoling us in case we were depressed about it). Gillian had her first gig as a violinist performing with her string class at the Christmas Bazaar breakfast at church. I started taking cello lessons from Addie's teacher. Addie added three foods to her short list of things she will allow to touch her lips: pizza, burritos, and tortellini. Don't judge me-we are thrilled. Our blessings: We continue to be surrounded by love and light on a regular basis. We have the good fortune of many friends in our community, and loving family that is further away than we would like. We enjoyed a million lazy days at the beach with our friends, swimming and making castles, and loving the fact that this place is 2 blocks away.

 

Living in the city we are able to enjoy the benefits of a tremendous amount of culture..we saw shows at Lifeline, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Joffrey Ballet, the Music Institute, the Book of Mormon for Papa's bday, and the Nutcracker at the Athenaeum Theater. We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum. Collectively, the girls performed six times this year on their string instruments, and seven times in school musicals/holiday events. Needless to say, the end of stage fright as we know it will most assuredly be gone for these two at an early tender age.

 

This year we touched sting rays and rode horses, had tantrums and laughed until it hurt. We saw fairies and made them a house, and made angels in the snow. We wept from frustration and sadness and danced and kissed and snuggled endlessly...that's the good stuff. That is what I will daydream about when I'm old, sitting on a bench at the beach. Moments. Love. The rest of it will wash away until the vital stuff is all that remains. Why does it take so long for some of us to really internalize that? Everything that is the not the good stuff just clouds our vision and distracts us from loving. At the end of my life, will I care about the fact that someone at work gave me the silent treatment for 8 weeks straight for reasons unknown to me and unfriended me on Facebook, or will I remember that day at the park that I got the breath knocked out of me to look up at Addie's beautiful face against the azure sky? The suffering is needless. It's not up to us to ease the suffering for anyone but ourselves, and at the end of the day, to end our own suffering we simply have to let it go-drop the rope. All of it. Our soul's only job is to orbit around this circle of love-to give it and receive it...to eat it, drink it, and breathe it. To give it all of our time and attention. That's the big secret of the universe-which is God and the great mystery. Simple, but hard to wrap your overthinking head around. Namaste. 

  

Greatfulness is key

 

Signs are everywhere!

 

Gillian's first love note-from Ian, snuck into her backpack

 

Winter Fun in January 2013 with friends

 

Classroom awesomeness-We had a French themed Valentines Day and Gillian's teacher told her they had a special visiting author-turns out it was the students themselves-reading their journal book to the class.

 

Members of our wonderful parent group blessing our formally adopted, freshly painted playground!

 

First sampling trip in late May

Group recital in late May

Saying good bye for the summer to our beloved teachers

 

Endless beach days in the summer-we can walk here in 5 minutes...

The bench a friend and I painted at the park...

Gillian and Papa went to a music festival in West Virginia

 

Addie found a baby rat on the way home from the playground...

 

Celebrating birthdays...

Celebrating my early promotion

Visiting with our wonderful family

 

 

First day of school for 2013-2014, realizing our oldest daughter is seriously Type A, and Addie's very first recital

 

Strawberry picking and apple picking getaway to Michigan with some of our dearest friends...

 

 

 

Random Acts of Kindness (AoK), a subset of parents from our parent group, held our first event-baking 250 little cookie love packages for random strangers at the train station (Addie decided to start throing in a hug, too, for good measure).

First bowling game, and they whooped us!

 

The holidays were magical and amazing with our friends and family

 

 

Quiet

Tonight I have the luxury of silence, and have the rare solo night to breathe and think without feeling like I have ADD. I have a few minutes to reflect and write a little because there is no one here to interrupt me...but by the end of this night, I will grow bored with my luxury and miss my whirlwind distraction makers and get all achy-in-the-heart waiting for them to come home to me.

There is so much I could write about, but I'll start with mindfulness where I sit. I am getting over bronchitis. I just ate a piece of chocolate I bought for a stocking that no one will miss because I just can't bring myself to leave my cozy spot on the couch in front of the fire and the glorious Christmas tree to go buy my own chocolate. Every year I love our tree more, because every year we add another memory or two. There are ornaments as old as 1998 on our tree-Sean and I celebrated our second Christmas together that year, but it was our first tree. That was 15 years ago, and 8 years before we had Gillian. There are ornaments made of paper, and puzzle pieces, or glass, and plastic, and resin, and clay. There are ornaments Sean's mom made when he was a baby more than 40 years ago, and ones the kids made this year. The girls and I decorated it together, and it was fantastic and magical. I am making up for lost time-for all the years when there wasn't much to Christmas. Sometimes mom and I would do a tree, and it was sacred love magic to me. I want our advent season to feel like that...loving the mystery and the family time and giving thanks.

One thing we didn't have when I was growing up is the Elf on the Shelf. This guy is sheer magic. The idea is that the elf pretends he is a doll during the day, and has an active night life-flying to the north pole every night to report on how a kid is doing leading up to Christmas. Our elf is a cheeky guy.

In all honesty, we are trying to teach the girls about advent and why we are celebrating. They seem to enjoy reflecting over our wreath, and discussing what our blessings are and giving thanks. Then they fight over the candle snuffer, which I understand is a multi-generational sibling thing. The advent calendar has a little scroll with activities or treats behind each little door. Our nativity scene is set up, too, but Addie can't seem to leave the animals alone or improvising with her own (I will add that she gets the adoration of baby Jesus just fine).

Gillian wants a sewing machine for Christmas, and Addie wants....guess?? No? MORE ANIMALS. She clearly doesn't have enough, y'all. I want a spa weekend where I can sleep and get massages all day. But, as my dad use to say-if you held wishes in one hand and a pigeon in the other...

Addie says she wants to be a priest. No, a Boy. And when I asked if she wanted to be an angel in the Christmas mass choir, she decided if she couldn't fly around the church, then she wanted to be baby Jesus. Because she aims high, all the time.


So, in this moment, I am enjoying some ungifted chocolate and bathing in our memories in an uncharacteristically quiet house. Life is good.

Thanksgiving

Love the light, and the darkness..the music and the silence. I am grateful for the glorious blessings of this life, and all of its characters and nuances-my compassionate teachers. All that is not based in love is distraction from the light.

Fearless

Addie had her first recital in a recital hall today. Since Gillian was sick as a dog, she and Papa stayed home. This is only relevant here because I had two hands to videotape and photograph this blessed event, and I missed her swaggering onto the staged, coquettishly flirting with THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE because I had my camera in my hands and my video camera balanced on my knee. Good God this child has no fear. There were probably 300 people in the hall. Of no matter to Addie, who adored performing for the lot of us. This is her last pizzicato performance, ever. Upward and onward.

Hello Cello!

In July of this year (weeks after turning 4), Addie started cello lessons. She was nearly bursting with excitement when we went to get her her very own  cello. She would finally be a big girl like her sister, who plays the violin! We drove up to an instrument rental company in a neighboring little town to see if they could measure her and if they had a cello we could rent, and we were in luck!

 

Addie was so excited to have her new cello. In fact, in the case she casually slung her arm around the case and announced, "this is my boyfriend, and his name is Zig Zag Lightning", which elicited howling laughter from the staff of the music store. One thing Adelaide is not, is shy.

So, we've been doing lessons now for three months, and Addie is showing a lot of promise. At about the same time, she has really started showing some piano talent too. Both of the kids are super into practicing, and the only motivation necessary to provoke them past feeling lazy is to remind them that they want to be prepared for their teachers, who they both adore.

It's a lot of work to be a Suzuki parent x 2 kids, but I can see the benefit of this style of learning, even at this age. Train the ear, and the reading will follow. Addie's piano reading has gotten better because of her aural learning on cello. We practice 6 nights a week, typically, and it is just part of our evening routine. That's what we do between bath and a show/bedtime. Addie has learned to responsibly handle her "boyfriend" and likes to be in charge of opening the case, adjusting the end pin, and rosining her bow.

Two weeks ago, Addie had her first music recital (voila, see below!!)! She did the first ever thing she learned-a little song made up to help the children remember the names of each of their strings. She has another recital on November 10, where she will play another plucking piece, then a real studio recital on the stage at the end of November.
At her first recital she was so nervous! But she did just fine. I almost cried the whole time, I was so proud and she was so sweet.

A Verry Merry Birthday To YOU!

Dear Gillian,

Today you are SEVEN! SEVEN!!!!!! Yesterday you were learning to walk, and today you read and write and create. Do you know that I love you…really, really love you? With all of my heart and soul? You-the one who made me a parent, and changed my life in impossible ways? One day you will know how this feels...how it simultaneously makes you weep and laugh-this raising people business. I am reminded of the old book that I loved in second grade-the one about the little caterpillar who was desperate to grow up, to know what it feels like to be a butterfly and float on the quiet breeze. She asked all the butterflies floating by on gilded wings and they all whispered “someday you’ll know….someday you’ll know…”. When you tell me you want to be grown up, I hug you and tell you I want you to stop growing, right this instant. I tell you I won’t be able to hold you the same way for much longer…my gangly doe, climbing onto my lap with her currently-awkwardly long knobby limbs (that I know will transform into elegant, well formed ones one day-should you have ever fretted). But I’ll hold you as long as you want me to. I know those awful teenage years-the ones that hurt like the metamorphosis of that sweet little caterpillar-are coming. But I hope you still turn to me when you are hurting.

These days are about fun and learning and playing…carefree. You are nearly fanged, one top tooth missing, and the other on it’s way out any day. Your favorite color is green. Your favorite things are making art (you have an exceedingly long attention span), imaginary playing with your friends, and playing your instruments. You play piano (for almost 3 years) and violin (for almost 2 years). You show great promise and have a good ear, according to your teachers. You are reading very well, and writing very well, though your spelling will improve. Your teachers adore you, because you are helpful and kind and generally well-behaved. Mrs. G is your teacher-she is wonderful, young, and tattooed, which blows your mind. She runs your class like a sports team, which seems to be very effective. So, you are well adjusted, happy, and well-liked and we probably couldn't want much more for you.

For your birthday, we had a Mad Hatter Tea Party. You had the idea, having done the Alice in Wonderland play this summer at camp. It was a brilliant idea, and my creative side was happy to run with it. Even though we had to change the plan at the last minute because of weather, most people came, and it was a beautiful day. Note that the food got made because of your three fairy godmothers, and their willingness to come help get things ready a couple of nights before the party (let's also acknowledge for your ungrateful 13-year old self that mama got < 3 hours of sleep the night before, the night of we went to bed before 8 pm, and mama didn't take her robe off the following day). The day of, all of your best friends came out, and you said it was your favorite birthday EVER.

 

You even had your oldest friends there....France and Anni, who we were in a playgroup with starting at 3 months old.
 
At any rate, the love surrounding us was palpable. I kept marveling at the people who love us enough to give up Friday night to make tea sandwiches, and cut out gift tags, and make gift bags, and cut out cupcake toppers until 12:30 in the morning...(one of these ladies is no dummy and called it "sweat equity"). Every child came on your special day dressed to the nines in fancy Tea Party attire (they were all characters). It was beautiful on so many levels. Everyone tried hard and wanted to be there because they love you. Like we all do. You are really easy to love, monkey. So, on the eve of your birthday, I wish for you all the blessings in heaven and on earth, all the love you could ever want, and a wonderful year of joy. I love this journey with you. I love being your mama.

Love, Mama

 

Watermarked photos are compliments of Roxanne Engstrom of http://www.hawaimages.com/ ; others were taken by our lovely guests and shared with us.