Welcome to the May 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting With or Without Extended Family

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared how relatives help or hinder their parenting. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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This post would be awesome if I had family that lived nearby.

The topic of this month’s Carnival of Natural Parenting is exactly what I lamented over two years ago in a post I wrote for DC Metro Moms. It is hard to do this parenting gig without help, and when there is no family, and your friends are as busy as you are, well, for me that means that every slice of babysitting I need requires scheduling. And that means time, texts, and changed plans when the sitter’s kid gets sick.

As a stay-at-home mom with a few hours a week of tutoring and freelance work and multiple random hours of volunteer stuff, in addition to my current role as interior designer/realtor for our house renovation and sale, I rely on sitters who don’t always come through. I often feel like I can’t count on much. And that drives me batty. If my folks were in good health and lived in town, that would be a game-changer.

But they don’t want to leave Michigan, and I don’t want to go back. I like living near DC. And they’re not of the persuasion or stamina to take the kids for more than an hour or two anyway. My husband’s parents would not be options for extended or regular help either, though I can leave the kids for a few hours with their grandma when we visit her and when she visits us, each once or maybe twice a year.

Part of me wishes that the kids knew their grandparents more and that we could just drop in whenever and that they could come help out whenever. But since health and age and inclination don’t point in that direction, I’m okay with it being special to have visits with them.

What has been great has been help from my sisters and their kids, as I first wrote over two years ago. A community of youngsters is a place for my gregarious son to thrive. Now 6, he’d have felt so much more comfortable as a baby and toddler, I think, if he weren’t the oldest and if we had more familiar folks around all the time. I can see the difference in my similar temperament toddler daughter who has no problem with a new sitter or an unfamiliar situation if her brother is around.

We’re in the middle of a house renovation that has taken all my time and energy, and then some. The actual move, I’m sure, will take weeks, if not months to crawl out from under. When a friend moved a few years ago, she said she didn’t even unpack; her parents did it all. Then they painted her basement one weekend. That is not the kind of support I could ever expect. If I need help packing, I either need to ask a friend, which I’m generally not comfortable doing since she’s likely to be as maxed out as I am, or I have to pay someone to watch my kids and/or help me.

Last week, after the sitter got my daughter to sleep easier (and then longer) than I ever can, she helped me move around furniture in the house so that I could stage it for photos. This week the sitter has been sick, and man, it takes a lot longer. And if the baby won’t sleep, forget the bigger sorting and packing. She’ll undo whatever I did in a heartbeat. So I stay up late, and my health suffers.

So yes, it would be nice if I could send her and her brother to grandma’s. I even tend to cop a righteous attitude at times that people with family nearby simply do not understand what it means to parent in the same way that I do. Oh, woe is me, she who has to pay people to keep her sane! But seriously, it just ain’t the same as people who use their parents for childcare or as my friend who lives with her folks.

And yet, I know we are lucky to have this choice to make. A lot of the people in the recent NPR Family Matters series would opt not to live under one roof if they didn’t have to, and my friend, a mom of two who owes more on her home than it’s worth, would probably rather her family be on its own. But she also admits that it works well to live with her folks. She can go out whenever she needs to, go back to work without needing to bundle her baby to a daycare, or wake early without wondering if someone is going to have texted her a cancellation and change the entire look of her day.

With my health issues and especially with the current house project — doing renovations on the new one and prepping this one to sell — and with my husband’s schedule not putting him home before 6 p.m., I couldn’t get by without some help. I know other people who do it, people whose husbands travel out of town for days or even weeks at a time. If that were the case here, I’d need to get a full-time nanny. As much as I don’t love the stress of doing too many things, I also know I cannot take care of myself and my kids being a full-time mom without taking time to cook what will sustain me and eat it without interruption at least some days, and without pursuing things I’m passionate about. If I didn’t have a partner coming home each night, I’d set out to earn enough to pay someone to help enough that I could get all my needs met.

Do I wish that person were a family member? That the time my kids spend with another adult be with someone who shares their DNA and can tell them stories that have ancestral import? Sure. Am I jealous of people for whom this has worked out? Yes. Does my parents’ age and health today give me pause when I think about having children past 36, the age they were when I was born? Yep. Would I advise young folks considering parenthood to live close to family if that’s at all an option? Absolutely.

But I do appreciate the fact that my parents and my in-laws love us and our kids, that they respect our wishes, support our choices. There are plenty of ugly situations out there, and it means a lot my kids know that they have generous and loving grandparents. Even if they do live hours — and hours — away.

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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon May 8 with all the carnival links.)

• Dealing With Unsupportive Grandparents — In a guest post at Natural Parents Network, The Pistachio Project tells what to do when your child’s grandparents are less than thrilled about your parenting choices.
• Parenting With Extended Family — Jenny at I’m a full-time mummy shares the pros and cons of parenting with extended family…
• Parental Support for an AP Mama — Meegs at A New Day talks about the invaluable support of her parents in her journey to be an AP mama.
• Priceless Grandparents — That Mama Gretchen reflects on her relationship with her priceless Grammy while sharing ways to help children preserve memories of their own special grandparents.
• Routines Are Meant To Be Broken — Olga at Around The Birthing Ball urges us to see Extended Family as a crucial and necessary link between what children are used to at home and the world at large.
• It Helps To Have A Village – Even A Small One — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama discusses how she has flourished as a mother due to the support of her parents.
• The Orange Week — Erika at Cinco de Mommy lets go of some rules when her family finally visits extended family in San Diego.
• One Size Doesn’t Fit All — Kellie at Our Mindful Life realizes that when it comes to family, some like it bigger and some like it smaller.
• It Takes a Family — Alicia at What’s Next can’t imagine raising a child without the help of her family.
• A new foray into family — As someone who never experienced close extended family, Lauren at Hobo Mama wrestles with how to raise her kids — and herself — to restart that type of community.
• My Mama Rocks! — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment is one lucky Mama to have the support and presence of her own awesome Mama.
• Embracing Our Extended Family — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares 7 ideas for nurturing relationships with extended family members.
• Doing Things Differently — Valerie at Momma in Progress shares how parenting her children far away from extended family improved her confidence in her choices.
• Snapshots of love — Caroline at stoneageparent describes the joys of sharing her young son’s life with her own parents.
• Parenting with Relies – A mixed bag — Ursula Ciller shares some of her viewpoints on the pros and cons of parenting with relatives and extended family.
• Tante and Uncles — How a great adult sibling relationship begets a great relationship with aunt and uncles from Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy.
• Tips for Traveling With Twins — Megan at the Boho Mama shares some tips for traveling with infant twins (or two or more babies!).
• Parenting passed through the generations — Shannon at Pineapples & Artichokes talks about the incredible parenting resource that is her found family, and how she hopes to continue the trend.
• My Family and My Kids — Jorje of Momma Jorje ponders whether she distrusts her family or if she is simply a control freak.
• Parenting with a Hero — Rachel at Lautaret Bohemiet reminisces about the relationship she shared with her younger brother, and how he now shares that closeness in a relationship with her son.
• Text/ended Family — Kenna of A Million Tiny Things wishes her family was around for the Easter egg hunt… until she remembers what it’s actually like having her family around.
• Two Kinds of Families — Adrienne at Mommying My Way writes about how her extended family is just as valuable to her mommying as her church family.
• My ‘high-needs’ child and ’strangers’ — With a ‘high-needs’ daughter, aNonyMous at Radical Ramblings has had to manage without the help of family or friends, adapting to her daughter’s extreme shyness and allowing her to socialise on her own terms.
• Our Summer Tribe — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger shares a love of her family’s summer reunion, her secret to getting the wisdom of the “village” even as she lives 1,000 miles away.
• My Life Boat {Well, One of Them} — What good is a life boat if you don’t get it? Grandparents are a life boat MomeeeZen loves!
• Dear Children — In an open letter to her children, Laura at Pug in the Kitchen promises to support them as needed in her early days of parenting.
• Yearning for Tribal Times — Ever had one of those days where everything seems to keep going wrong? Amy at Anktangle recounts one such day and how it inspired her to think about what life must’ve been like when we lived together in large family units.
• I don’t have a village — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama wishes she had family nearby but appreciates their support and respect.
• Trouble With MILs– Ourselves? — Jaye Anne at Wide Awake Half Asleep explains how her arguments with her mother-in-law may have something to do with herself.
• A Family Apart — Melissa at Vibrant Wanderings writes about the challenges, and the benefits, of building a family apart from relatives.
• First Do No Harm — Zoie at TouchstoneZ asks: How do you write about making different parenting choices than your own family experience without criticizing your parents?
• Military Family Separation — Amy Willa shares her feelings about being separated from extended family during her military family journey.
• Forging A Village In The Absence Of One — Luschka from Diary of a First Child writes about the importance of creating a support network, a village, when family isn’t an option.
• Respecting My Sister’s Parenting Decisions — Dionna at Code Name: Mama’s sister is guest posting on the many roles she has as an aunt. The most important? She is the named guardian, and she takes that role seriously.
• Multi-Generational Living: An Exercise in Love, Patience, and Co-Parenting — Boomerang Mama at The Other Baby Book shares her experience of moving back in with Mom and Dad for 7 months, and the unexpected connection that followed.
• A Heartfelt Letter to Family: Yes, We’re Weird, but Please Respect Us Anyway — Sheila of A Living Family sincerely expresses ways she would appreciate her extended family’s support for her and her children, despite their “weird” parenting choices.
• The nuclear family is insane! — Terri at Child of the Nature Isle is grateful for family support, wishes her Mum lived closer, and feels an intentional community would be the ideal way to raise her children.

I met my future husband at a dorm room party on Friday, April 24, 1992. Twenty years ago today.

“You were babies!” people exclaim when I tell them this. Yes and no. I was 19, he almost 21. We did, in some ways, grow up together.  We’ve seen the world change together, from days of waiting for letters in the mailbox to texts moments before we walk in the door. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years. Sometimes I feel like we are exactly the same people, and other times, when I think about the details of our courtship, I have to admit that my life today is many moons removed from that one.

The night I met LJ, I’d earlier been out to dinner to Olive Garden to celebrate the birthday of a new male friend. B and I had met just a few weeks earlier, at the beginning of the spring quarter at Kalamazoo College where we were both first-year students. I wandered into my friend Hannah’s suite in the newly remodeled Severn dorm while B and a group containing some folks I knew and some I didn’t were going around saying nice things about one another. He said my lips looked “kissable.” As someone fresh out of a year-long relationship with a high school beau, the attention of college guys were something I’d just opened my eyes to.

A few weeks later, on April 24, I went along on a group outing to the mediocre meal spot and gasped at the prices of what appeared to me then as fancy entrees. I opted for the plain marinara pasta after I realized I could fill up on the table’s free bread and salad. Kissable comments aside, this was a group thing, not a date with B. The thing that made it special was my actually getting off campus and getting out with new people instead of pining in my dorm about my jealous (newly ex-) boyfriend back home, still in high school.

Still, it was spring, and though I was not looking for love, my newfound freedom was apparently attractive. Not only had B shown an interest, but I was also going to have a date the next night with a basketball player a year older than me. What a 6′7″ guy would want with a 5′0″ girl like me, I had no idea, but I was ready to branch out!

There was a new group of girlfriends I was trying to connect with now that I fully planted in college and had lifted my boots out of the mud of my previous relationship. It was through the Outward Bound-like program I’d done at the beginning of the year, Land/Sea, that I met one of these women, a gorgeous creative spirit named Ivana. I met up with her and her roommate, Denise, and some other friends of theirs who  looked beyond my frizzy hair and the nerdy rayon shirt I was sporting from The Limited — hunter green, with gold and green buttons down the front — and let me pre-party with them before we headed over to Severn for a suite party next door to where I’d met B.

Not a whole lot of details stick out about that night after that. I know people were selling beer behind a makeshift counter in the far back bedroom, and I went to get at least one. But the rest of the evening, my butt was pretty well glued to the wooden framed dorm couch, sitting next to LJ. A junior just back from study abroad in Germany, he’d happened upon the first-year party with some friends because there was nothing better to do. It was a small school with a subdued nightlife.

He and I spent much of the night sitting next to each other on the boxy cushions of that couch, looking into our dark brown bottles and sharing the darkness of our souls. His parents were just splitting up, and I shared how my (so young!) life had been shaped by my older brother’s suicide five years earlier. Not exactly flirtatious material.

But it stuck. He walked me home across the quad in the chilly April air, and we hugged goodnight on the steps of Dewaters dorm before he headed to neighbor Trowbridge Hall. I figured that would be it; we’d shared a connection, we knew each other better than we knew some of our friends, but this was not the stuff of romance. And I was on the rebound anyway. Too early for anything too deep.

Sitting alone at breakfast in the cafeteria the next morning, I felt a little funny as he walked by, tray in hand, alongside another woman. (This was also the season of defining myself as a feminist, so my classmates were no longer “girls”). Smiles were exchanged, and I think I might have passed him later that day while he was playing frisbee golf near my dorm room. I do know the day was grey, and I know that later that night I had an innocently awful date with the basketball player. We rented White Men Can’t Jump. I probably don’t need to say anything more, but it’s too tempting not to add that he made me pizza with pepperoni, not realizing I didn’t eat mammals.

Rather than accept his offer of staying over in his extra room, I drove back to campus mostly sober and to answering machine messages from Ivana who told me that LJ from the night before had been wearing a funny hat and looking for me. She said he seemed disappointed that I was on a date. She didn’t know a lot about him except that he seemed nice, and she thought he’d been on Land/Sea, too. So our start was build on somewhat false pretenses. I thought he, too, had hiked through the Ontario wilderness.

It wasn’t long before I learned that he hadn’t and that I got a chance to learn a whole lot more about him. He found me that night and we chatted in the florescent light of the “lounge” in my dorm, an underutilized square of cinderblock walls that looked like a place furniture went to die. I wonder how the green and black stretchy sweater I was wearing would look now. At the time it seemed clingy, but in an age just after oversized was fashionable, it’s hard to know.

Our first date soon after was a trip to Meijer’s so I could buy deodorant. The next time I bought tampons. I didn’t even really consider that he’d flinch, and he didn’t. We had dinner at Pizza Hut and Burger King. This was all on my dime, our excursions in my car with my new feminist bumper stickers. LJ hadn’t much worked, and his folks were fighting at each other through his finances. I was buoyed by parental allowance and my own earnings from summer jobs.

LJ made me a mixed tape of jazz and I didn’t really know how to appreciate yet, and I took him to see Tracy Chapman. When tickets for U2’s Zoo TV concert went on sale, I stood in line at a Harmony House back home where I ran into high school buddies. We all bought tickets in a block together, me musing I hoped I would still be with this boyfriend when the concert came around in September, something like three months and what seemed like a lifetime away to a 19-year-old.

I was still with LJ, after a summer of visiting LJ on campus for K’s then-year-round calendar while I was living at home and working at the now-defunct F&M drugstore. I used to buy I bought discounted Entemann’s goodies to bring for my weekend visits to Kalamazoo. At the time of the U2 concert, LJ and I both were sick with bronchitis, but we went anyway and watched Bono talk live to the MTV awards show.

We spent the fall together on campus and then most of the rest of our relationship long-distance, through him graduating in 1993 and me going to France for six months. LJ visited over Christmas, and when we fell asleep to the smell of a honey candle I’d bought at a farmer’s market in Lyon, I knew it was his arms I wanted to spend my life in.

After that, I found a way to take my summer off so I could live with LJ and work, and be involved in my sister’s wedding preparations.  I also got myself a student-teaching job in Ann Arbor the next winter, so we lived together then, too.

But meeting someone at 19 seemed too young for forever. So after I graduated in 1995, I set off for Washington, DC to work at the Feminist Majority Foundation. LJ came out for our big conference, Expo ‘96 for Women’s Empowerment and brought my underslept and overworked self a lot of food from local restaurants. He’d moved to Austin, Texas, and was working for the central offices of Whole Foods Market even before they opened a Bread & Circus in DC or eaten up all the Fresh Fields stores.

He transferred to Chapel Hill so we could have a year of living only 4 hours apart, and then we moved together to Cincinnati so I could pursue graduate degrees in English and Women’s Studies. I started to think of marriage an arcane and sexist institution, and watching my sisters with their kids did not inspire maternal instincts.

After a few months working at Joseph Beth a super cool independent bookstore, LJ got himself a consulting gig and started to ride the dot-com bubble, jet-setting across the country and living out of hotels. While he built up his bank account and filled our cheap apartment with furniture for then-little-known Room & Board, I was reading and teaching about social justice and finding myself wondering if we were headed in different directions.

But we planned to move back to DC, where I started teaching in 2000. The transition hit me with a severe bought of depression. When LJ communicated his intention not to live like that forever, I got motivated to get help. Within months of getting on medication, I felt like a better version than I’d ever known of myself. Our landlords said they intended to sell our apartment. We decided to buy a house together, and while we were at it, I said, we might as well go ahead and get married. The meds helped me see both the forest, and the trees, and even the leaves, and I knew I wanted to be with LJ. So we put in a contract a month before LJ got laid off and began planning a wedding and 10-year-anniversary celebration for the following summer, to be held near our new home in July 2002.

LJ was unemployed and home painting the house when 9/11 happened. I called him from my classroom at school, and we went to an Ethiopian restaurant that night, pondering our future just miles away from the Pentagon. We’d met just weeks before the Rodney King verdict and LA riots set off a “Day of Gracious Listening” on our campus and protests, undoubtedly, nationwide. All the major historical markers of my adult life have been shared with LJ.

LJ benefited from the post-9/11 unemployment extension and got a job just before our wedding, which we did a little on the cheap but had a lot of fun. It made me sad that none of the girlfriends who’d been around when we met could attend and that two of LJ’s friends didn’t make it, dealing as they were with divorces of their own.

We had a wonderful time in spite of missing company, and it was great to celebrate a decade of togetherness. Still, it was a lot to plan for a wound-up gal like me (no J.Lo event planner in the budget!), and between the stress of that, the bigger crises of 9/11 and the DC-area sniper scare the following fall, combined with the day-in-day-out craziness of teaching high schoolers in crisis, my health started to suffer. My history of medications and a diet that wasn’t suited to me contributed to my finding myself in a bad way in 2003. Just when we were ready to start a family, I started to get depressed and anxious. My thyroid was out of whack, my gut was a mess, and my periods were nowhere to be seen. It was not pretty.

On my journey to heal it holistically, I learned I had celiac disease and was intolerant of dairy, too. Research and consultations with alternative health practitioners and mainstream docs alike became a part-time job. Although I was earning a decent wage, what with two master’s degrees and four years in the school system, it was a good thing that LJ had found his way back to employment that put teacher salary to shame. From a rough place to a healthy one cost a pretty penny.

In 2004, I was much improved. One weekend we attended the standout Napa valley wedding of our best man, who married his Kalamazoo sweetheart, and the next weekend we went to Colorado for another classmate’s nuptials. The former included lots of reminiscing, and the latter, not so much. LJ had been that friend’s best man at his first wedding to the woman he started dating the same spring LJ and I got together in 1992. What a blast that first wedding was in 1994. How bizarre to refrain from “remember whens” a decade later at the celebration of a new pairing. And humbling. Take nothing for granted.

When LJ’s mom remarried in 1995, she changed the date because I had a college friend getting married that same weekend. That friend, too, has since remarried. There have been moments I’ve wondered if LJ and I could make it. After my health had improved by our conception prospects looked uncertain, we started going to counseling, ostensibly to get support for dealing with potential infertility.

We got pregnant a month later, and have been riding the parenthood rollercoaster since. With both kids, there were months in the postpartum year when the lack of sleep and the trippiness of hormones converged to put me in great doubt about our future. We are not always the partners we want to be to each other.

Last fall, when it became a possibility that we could buy the house next door and renovate it exactly as we wanted, I knew it was his dream come true. His college application for Kalamazoo said he wanted to be an architect, to go to the 3-2 program and finish up at the University of Michigan after getting the best of the small liberal arts college experience. He didn’t pursue that path, but the desire to design remains.

And for us, the opportunity to take a look at how we live in our new family of four and shape a nearly identical home to suit that was an opportunity we could not pass up. So, for the past several months, we’ve been looking at our space and our habits and spending every waking moment thinking about what makes sense, what will be beautiful, and what will make us and our kids happy for years to come.

Although I’ve all but checked out of my friends’ lives in recent weeks and have spent a lot of money on babysitters while we manage this project, and although there are times when we’re at each other’s throats about all there is to do before we can sell this place and move into the new one, the process has helped me appreciate my husband in a new light.

For one thing, it kicks ass that he has figured out how to manage this insanity from a financial perspective. He did all the research to find out how to get us approved for a second mortgage while we still own this house, and then he did everything to get us to buy the new place directly from the owners, with whom he negotiated a deal worthy of neighbor envy. He’s an impressive realtor, without the capital R.

He’s also done a ton of work on both homes, in and out, and has designed most of the place such that we’ve needed architects only for permitting, drawings, and for feedback. The one we’ve turned to for design consultation says repeatedly, “You’re really good at this.”

She’s not kidding. He is. And he’s funny. And he can still play the piano like no one’s business, even though he hardly ever gets a waking moment to sit down at the bench without a child climbing on one of his extremities.

And, even though I am someone who unfortunately set expectations too high for any mortal to meet, no one can argue with the fact that he is an amazing father. When he comes home from work, it takes only one “Go see your daddy!” to get our 20-month-old daughter off my pantlegs and giddily waddling toward the front door. When I woke up next to her this morning, admittedly in the futon in our son’s room while he and my husband slept in our king-sized bed across the hall, I felt such a feeling of gratitude.

This person has seen me through so much. Through stress, frustration, success, joy. Through accomplishment and embarrassment. Through accolades and disappointments. Through sickness and through my journey toward health. Through two pregnancies and a lot of time wondering if they would happen. Through a c-section and an homebirth. Through breastfeeding struggles and successes, going on five years’ worth now. Through mothering, with all its attendant ups and downs, and extremes. How astoundingly lucky am I?

I wouldn’t want to go back and tell the 19-year-0ld me where she’d be in 20 years because I wouldn’t want to change a moment of its natural unfolding. But when I think about her, I think about the magic of that night and a night a few weeks later when I jumped into LJ’s arms after a Saturday apart and before a spring dance. It was this night I spoke of in my wedding vows, of this moment on the quad looking up at the stars, asking for this to last.

It has. For a really long time that sometimes feels like just a few breaths even though it’s over half my life. When LJ and I met, I used to jog around campus in the evening, wondering what it would be like to own a home, to be a family. I imagined the babies I would have with LJ, never seeing being baldness into what has become redheaded childhood. I am living the life I dreamed of and so much I never knew to expect.

The other day, before LJ got a much-needed haircut, I looked at his shaggy head and saw a glimmer of the young boy I’ve seen in photos from a few years before we met, at his sister’s wedding. He was in a late-80s Don Johnson pastel suit. I didn’t know him yet, but after 20 years of sharing our stories and looking at albums that now show us where our children’s eyes come from, nothing is a total surprise.

And at the same time, everything is.

I love you, LJ. Thank you for a wonderful 20 years. Happy anniversary. I love what we’ve built together.

This time of year is always good for smacking me around. Even on a sunny day like today, when the quince and camellia are blooming and you swear it can’t be January it’s so warm, winter is in my bones.

And my mom’s too.  Right around this time in 1995, while I was doing my student teaching, she fell in her kitchen and broke her leg so bad it popped through the skin. At the time, my father was on his always-dreamed-about trip to New Zealand. Travel was not an anomaly for him; he’s done plenty for business and plenty for pleasure, including a trip to Thailand after he fell in love with the cuisine. I’m told he went bird-watching in Arizona (I think) shortly after I (his fifth child) was born. To say that my mother does not share his love for travel is a grand understatement.

When I signed up to read the novel The Art of Hearing Heartbeats for the From Left to Write book club, I hoped I would be able to reward myself with the novel read after finishing a volunteer project I was working on. But then I got more work tutoring in the last week of the semester at the boarding school where I help a few kids. And my children here at home kept needing a mommy. And their mommy needed more sleep. So she didn’t finish the book, but its tale of travel in search of a lost father is certainly intriguing.

Last week, I was on a high after the successful fundraiser, and I was pleased with how well I was feeling. And yet, I’ve also been reflecting lately on just when it is that my health gave me clues that I would have a challenging road. My mom has been wondering the same for years. Maybe that leg break was as bad as it was because she was (like me) celiac and didn’t know it, or because of some other health condition that weakens bones. The skin issues and digestive issues I’m having now are not new; they’ve been cycling through my body in various permutations for years. And even my mom has admitted that her body was not the ideal place to start a life, belonging to a stressed out (and a smoking) mother of four (ages 8-12 and up when I came along).

I bet she and I share more health issues than we are aware, though I hope that my discovering things at and earlier age and the newer research around these days will contribute to an easier road for me eventually. But right now, it’s a little challenging. The heaviness I feel around the time of a drop in my thyroid is knocking at the door like a canvasser who won’t disappear. And, even if this mild winter continues, it’s always tough to go into the month of February, recalling the death of my brother in 1987.

The year before he took his life, my parents and I went to the Bahamas for my seventh grade mid-winter break, a week that Michigan schools take off so that everyone can keep a little sanity. Finding green helps. The year before that, sixth grade, we went to Hawaii. My mom probably hated every minute of both trips. I loved them but wanted to do more activities and wished I had siblings closer to my age to join. When Pat died, I was on a vacation with a friend and her family on a small island near Barbados where we went on the most spectacular hike to a waterfall. A few days later — a week shy of my fourteenth birthday — I had to fly back home alone to the dreary Midwest.

Today, I still have my father’s zeal for adventure and his propensity to get and stay busy, but my body isn’t exactly keeping up. I’d like to join my sister-in-law’s yoga retreat in Costa Rica in March, but seeing as my thyroid really crashed just after meeting her family in Vermont for the Anusara Grand Circle and Wanderlust last June, and seeing as I have to cook all my food from scratch or face a lot discomfort, travel will have to wait.

I’m not even sure how I’m going to make it to Baltimore for even one day of the three-day Fourfold Path to Healing Conference this weekend. Although I fantasize about staying overnight by myself without having to wake to nurse my 18-month-old back to sleep, my not coming home Saturday night wouldn’t magically disappear all my issues. I’d still need to bring a bunch of food with me, and I’d probably want to pump. In order to reap the benefits of something that would be therapeutic, I have to make some sacrifices that might otherwise jeopardize my health (not to mention that of my daughter, son and husband, who I’m guessing wouldn’t have the greatest night of sleep since we haven’t done a dry run on the night weaning).

And what would they do all day Sunday if I stayed at the conference until it ends at 5:30, or would I leave at noon? How would my daughter react once I got home, and then had to go out after dinner to tutor? How would my body react?

Tonight, when my husband was trying to use playful parenting to get my son out of whining mode during dinner, he took on the voice of a train conductor. E didn’t understand the “sh-clunk” sound of the pretend hole punch. We realized our little boy, almost six, has never been on a train other than the Metro. Maybe my husband could take the kids up to Baltimore on a train partway through Saturday, and we could all drive back home that night, I suggested. “With both of them?” my husband asked, his eyes practically reflecting the shine of headlights. After a few minutes, he said he’d look into it.

Maybe the promise of adventure can somehow give me the space to pursue some healing without a whole lot of guilt. But probably just for one day.

—

How do you balance physical and emotional needs?

What did you inherit from your parents?

What pushes and pulls?

—

When Julia travels to Burma to search for her missing lawyer father, she discovers much more than she expected. Join From Left to Write on February 1 as we discuss The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

The instant I read the words, I regretted picking up my BlackBerry that one last time before going to bed. A well-meaning relative of mine had read my recent post about my health and my leaky gut problem and told me: “This is not the time to volunteer for things.” She intended to point out that there would be plenty of time later in life for me to pursue my interests when I didn’t have as many health challenges to face and when I wasn’t in such a busy time of motherhood with a kindergartener and opinionated non-verbal toddler.

I get her point. Really, I do. The problem is that her note assumes that volunteering is something that detracts from my well-being. Sure, it might have seemed that way in the post she read. I’d rushed to finish it and get it up rather than wait until who knows when I’d get a free moment to sit down again. I did, I realize, sound a little overwhelmed. And yes, balance is something I’m working on.

But I don’t regret my choices, and I don’t want them restricted. That wouldn’t help. If I weren’t busy with something that felt meaningful, that contributed to my priorities, that gave me joy, or that fueled me with passion, I would be, simply put, depressed. Staying busy and engaged in something bigger than myself is a necessity for me to stay mentally healthy without medication.

And staying off medication is something I feel is a physical necessity as well; I simply don’t think my body can handle being on anti-depressants. They made an amazing difference for two years, and then again for a year while I sought treatment for hyperthyroidism (Graves’ Disease).

But they are drugs. Even if I weren’t a true believer in the healing power of nutrition and energy work, my system has shown me it simply cannot handle anything artificial. As much as SSRIs helped, I’m also pretty convinced that they contributed to the mess I’m in now — a much smaller role than 30 years of eating gluten, probably, but a role nonetheless.

No amount of saying no to volunteer work is going to undo all the damage that was caused by decades of eating food my body couldn’t handle, to say nothing of mild but young substance abuse. What will help me heal is continuing to eat real food, pursuing what makes me happy, and cultivating a mindfulness practice. It takes a lot more time and energy than popping a pill, but I really don’t see that I have a choice if I have my long-term health in mind.

Until I got this late-night email, I was, I admit, stewing a little about the lack of time to do everything I cared about. But rather than push me to step aside, as was its intention, the note inspired me to remember why I have chosen what I’ve chosen to do and to be grateful that I have the opportunity to do it.

The fundraiser I was working on was a great success, both in money raised and in positive momentum and a spirit of community, which was probably even more valuable to this project about which I care deeply. Even as I wished for more hours in the day to proofread the program and organize the volunteer schedule, I remembered that I proposed this event because I believe in the cause and that I offered to head it up because it’s something I knew I could do well. I knew it could be a great thing, and I wanted to create that.

So I carried that purpose with me into the event and sincerely enjoyed it. I lapped up the kudos with nary a self-critical remark or “if only we could have” lament. It was just good, plain and simple. We can debrief and learn from it, sure, but the thing I am most proud of is just enjoying it.

And then, when I came home after being gone at the school 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and launched right back into domestic goddess mode, I took on that role without resentment. Sure, there was a smidge of “really?” in my brain when my husband said he was super tired, but rather than go to a place of bitterness, I just chalked it up to a confirmation that the job I usually do of managing house and home is, indeed, a tiring one!

I wanted the laundry and dishes dealt with, so I did them.

I wanted celery and other veggies for the next day and to not cook that night or ask my tired husband to rally, so I went out to the grocery store after picking up take-out.

I wanted to do yoga before eating in peace and quiet, so I waited until after the family meal and bedtime to get on my mat and then eat my own safe food.

Somehow, that email sparked — or stoked — a fire. What started as angry turned cozy and glowing. The email inspired me, in part, to take the Mother’s Self-Renewal workshop to explore issues of balance and honoring our many selves. That first session then gave me the sense that I am both not alone in my dilemmas about time and also that my process is one to honor. It is part of my mothering to model not perfection but an embracing of personal growth and inquiry.

So thank you, dear relative, even if noting you wish you’d gotten advice from your elders still doesn’t convince me that you weren’t being more judgmental than supportive. Regardless of their intent, your words helped me see through the messiness of internal conflict and to look toward something varied and beautiful.

Yesterday there was no childcare or playdate. Just a lot of rain. I truly felt like a stay-at-home mom, like back in the day before I took on freelance work or started up a chapter of Holistic Moms.

Some of yesterday was full of giggles. Some had me wanting to rip out my hair.

I consider it a victory that: I did a few stretches at home, then made it to the grocery store and then to yoga. My daughter had a few fussy moments during Lil Omm’s yoga playtime (an adult class where kids can hang out), but for the most part, I got in a decent practice. Of course, I was going just on fresh juice (kale, carrot, lettuce, parsley, lemon, beet) and didn’t eat breakfast until 11:30 after I’d put the babe down for a nap.

It would have been nice if she’d slept more than an hour and if she hadn’t been so whiny during the time of just us girls. At least, after her insanely mammoth poop, she amused herself in the tub while I folded clothes. (Note to self: get replacement plug for tub since husband threw out the old one). And then, before we headed to the bus stop to pick up her brother, we both gorged on Artisana coconut butter.

The happy surprise was that after she rejected my attempt to nap her again while her brother, ravenous after a hard day at kindergarten, was eating a second lunch, she was in a great mood. The two of them played individually and together for a good long while, during which time I chopped vegetables, washed dishes, and read and wrote emails related to work, the house, school and weekend planning.

Last week, I caught a piece on NPR about a study in the American Sociological Review that talks about how much more multitasking working mothers do than working fathers — and how much more stressful the mothers’ multitasking is. It’s worth a listen. When your brain constantly is engaged in three projects, it can’t do any of them well. Our circuits get fried. It’s tiring and not rewarding for us. And for our kids who have only a small pie piece of our attention, it’s got to be annoying. I don’t advocate dropping everything to coddle your kid 24/7, but some more focus on words that start with h, c, f, and d might be nice, I’m sure.

So the time from 3:30 to 5:30 was more productive than it was glorious. I got to plug in while they played well, and I only had to wear the baby on my back for a small chunk of time. She perked up when I fed her pomegranate, and I actually bounced on the rebounder (a few different times, since she kept climbing up to join me) and did a little more yoga in the few minutes between dinner being ready and my husband getting home. The physical activity alone made this a banner day!

But, after my son came downstairs at 8 p.m. complaining that he couldn’t sleep, I felt a little guilty for not giving him more focused attention and for not getting us all outside despite the rain. Ironically, I was in the middle of writing about natural playgrounds and playtime at school when he toddled in his too-small red jammies into the dining room, blinking at the light.

After I led him back into his room and tucked him back into bed, I realized, “Oh, you probably didn’t go out today, did you? No wonder you’re not so tired.”

“Just for morning break,” he replied, acknowledging that lunch recess was indoors. “We always went out in the rain at my old school,” he said of his Waldorf school. “I don’t know why they don’t go out in the rain at my new school,” he mused, pointing a knife toward the heart of his mom who chose free public school with a full day over returning to the outdoor-enthusiastic but tres expensive half-day Waldorf school.

I asked if he ever missed his old school, and he said yes, a lot. When pressed on what he missed, he described in great detail the joyful experience of playing with the rain that dripped down from the gutters of the old church that housed his school.

And then he switched his gushing praise to the current state of affairs, where he can pick to ride a trike or scooter on the track at school (and where he’s previously said he loves the big playground, and the soccer games at lunch). The enthusiasm about the new place was heartening.

I came back downstairs, checked a few items off the to do list my daughter had scribbled on hours earlier, finished an email, and went back to pacing out the floorplan of the next door house we are going to renovate starting as soon as we can make our decisions and get drawings ready to submit for permits.

When the baby started crying at 10:10, I said goodbye to the day, knowing that in the morning — after I got juice, broth, veggies, egg and sausage made, lunches finished up and packed, newly washed (and dried in the dryer because they were still in the wash when I went to bed) diapers stuffed and a new one on my girl’s bum before she went to the sitter’s — I knew that I’d get to pretend for a few hours that I am my own person who can do one thing at a time.

Like write about being a mom.

Being one of some 1500 traditional food enthusiasts here at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference is humbling and exhilarating. So many people have regained health or healed their children through real food. The stories at the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS diet) lecture alone were amazing. It’s easy in mainstream circles to feel like an outcast, a weirdo. When your diet is so restricted, you just smile and nod when others wink and nod about chocolate, or wine, or even about fruit or raw veggies, which I still can’t tolerate after nine months on the GAPS diet.

Real Food blogger panel at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference

But here, as I listen to people who’ve put their whole family or hundreds of their patients on the GAPS diet and who, unlike me, actually render their own goose and duck fat, I feel like I’m getting off kind of easy, doing okay after nine months on the grain-free, starch-free, sugar-free diet.

And yet, listening to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride talk about the physiology of damaged guts with damaged gut flora, I’m ever more determined to get well. As long as I continue to suffer from psoriasis, I will know that things are not okay in my body. Even if it goes away in a few months, as it did after my first child started sleeping (rather than nursing!) through the night at age two, I know I need to be very careful about what I eat. Forever. Not just in terms of no dairy or gluten but in terms of blood sugar fluctuations (which happen with a vengeance even just upon consuming fruit).

And the lifestyle component. Sigh. I need to give something up to simplify, but I just don’t know what that is. I need to make relaxation a priority or I won’t do it. I need to commit not to just taking care of pain and digestive distress but to the whole of my body. And not just to promoting and cooking real food and being an active volunteer in school and community but also to the whole of my home and family.

Tonight my husband spent almost two hours in the car – including a bathroom and sushi stop at  Kroger – to bring me my baby to nurse and my son to see after I’d been at the conference all day, some 15 miles away. In the grand scheme of things, this is not the end of the world. The kids were both fine and happy during dinner, but I’m sure it sucked to be stuck in Dallas traffic for so long. My husband was pretty blitzed.

Other dads attend this conference with the whole family. Still other dads might go to McDonald’s rather than care about where their food comes from, much less want to spend money to sit in a hotel all day to listen to people talk about food. Mine is somewhere in between – supportive and on board but not an advocate or anything close to a purist. I don’t get criticized, but I don’t much get thanked, either. And I definitely get the sense that I kind of make things hard. Maybe I do.

I believe that my children and my husband benefit from all I learn — and practice — about health and wellbeing. Sometimes that seems to get lost in my pursuit of something like a writing and editing career (and the hope of a future career). And lost in my desire to spread the word about all the things that have made such a difference for me. It’s not just enough to live it; my life and my telling about it have to be meaningful.

So it can feel like an indulgence to go to lengths to have great experiences like coming to this conference. But then I meet someone

Annette Fischer of Wilderness Family Naturals and daughter Logan sell oils, nuts and other snacks at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference

like Annette Fischer, who founded Wilderness Family Naturals with her husband in 2000. They were living in the wilderness with no electricity and no water, with seven children who were born at home, and they wanted to share information about living naturally through herbs. So they put up information (most of which had to be taken down due to pressure from the FDA), and now they sell the highest quality products they can find. I’ve been a happy customer for years, since I first learned about WFN from an employee at MOMs Organic Market. Now that I’ve met the co-owner and her eldest daughter of nine, aged 10 to 24 (they now have another two children who they adopted from Haiti), I feel like my passion and my family should not be at odds.

And I’ve just now heard Kristen of FoodRenegade.com talk about earning more money than her husband through her blog, with the biggest source of income coming from her own products: e-books and e-courses. She quit doing copywriting work – which allowed her to stay home with her kids – when a conflict of interest surfaced with a client, and now, three years after she started blogging, is performing such a service and earning a living to boot. While homeschooling three kids under the age of seven!

I can’t not write. It’s just not an option. And I can’t watch important things happen and not have a say. I think of my children’s future health and freedom to eat real food, but I’d also like to earn some green to go toward that food we buy.

Time to sign-off before I get picked up to head back to my father-in-law’s where I expect to be coaxed away about every two hours by a baby who wants to nurse. Before I leave again in the morning to learn some more.

How do you balance passion, work, and non-work?

—

Check out this post on my Washington Times Communities column — a quickie first-day update from the conference.

A tale of two conferences

I’ve had a split personality this weekend.

Much of my time has been spent at the wonderful blogging conference, Blogalicious. Since I first arrived at the conference Friday morning, I’ve met great people, caught up with friends, and learned a ton about social media and media resources in general. A favorite session so far was a panel on finding “balance” led by Jessica Smith and Jeannette Kaplun. I’ll do more of a recap later this week for TheDCMoms.com.

Most of the Blogalicious attendees are staying on site at National Harbor, but I still have a baby who nurses through the night, and I live only nine miles away. I also have an extremely restricted diet and feel a whole lot better if I cook my own food. So I’ve spent mornings and evenings here at home with my family.

Take Back Your Health Conference expo hall

But the split doesn’t stop there. This weekend is also the inaugural Take Back Your Health Conference right in my backyard in Arlington, Virginia. Organized by an amazing young woman who was so sick she had to leave college but then found healing through diet and lifestyle changes, the conference has a great line-up of giants in the field of holistic health. So I spent some of today there, too.

It’s been interesting to be at the blogging conference thinking about my priorities and passions and then to see so many people engaged in those passions at the health conference. And then to come home and live some of those passions — at least attachment parenting and healthful eating, anyway. A few other aspects of healthy living are taking a back seat with so much shuttling around.

Think I’ll go have a mindful moment with my partner now!

That is, if my daughter doesn’t wake up first.

It was a quietly successful day.

What does that mean?

I usually prefer to get up before everyone else so that I can have some quiet moments alone, even if it’s just to start the breakfast (which means start the broth and veggies cooking, and the eggs, and some kind of meat, and get out all the veggies for juicing). If I’m in the right head space, I’ll do some yoga or breathing before I hear any noise on the baby monitor. Things almost always go smoother on those days.

So it’s not my ideal choice to get up at 8:00 and come downstairs to see my son and husband eating non-soaked oatmeal and know that I still have to do everything to feed myself, and I haven’t gotten any solo time or laundry or email checking done yet.

But instead of grumbling about the loss of early morning, I stayed in bed nursing my congested baby and feeling warm and snuggly. I’d slept as soundly as one can when her daughter cries out for a breast and cries again after nursing before switching from near-wail to “hmph” to sleep. But I was still tired, and she was still tired, so I just stayed on my side until her whines turned to amused gurgles accompanied by bats at my nose.

Then I did all that kitchen stuff. Well, LJ made the eggs, but I fed them and everything else to the baby, started laundry and did a short yoga practice while everyone else ate. I got to actually read and digest after my own breakfast when they went out on some errands. The baby came home awake but fell asleep well, so, at 11:40 a.m. I finally took off my flannel pjs from a chilly night to head out into a now-toastier day for a short, gentle jog under cloudless skies. What a thrill to see the sun and feel its rays warm my skin.

Inside, though, sniffles abounded. The baby had woken and the boys didn’t look so great. The younger one wanted to go buy soccer ball. After some sitting on the front stoop and a fresh diaper, off they all went again. This time I had the luxury of putting away laundry while talking to my mom on the phone and making a little more progress in organizing the kitchen while they were gone and after they returned with a girl who didn’t fall asleep in the car.

She nursed, I read more of my novel. She snacked in her high chair, I folded cloth napkins. She needed to poop, I folded clothes.

Even though I’m not at the peak of physical fitness and wasn’t looking for more exercise, I still hadn’t changed clothes, so I put her in the stroller and headed out into the late afternoon sun to see if she’d snooze. She babbled the entire time.

Upon our return, I declared it time to clear out the garden. Our three tomato plants had taken it over in July and we gave up the fight. Until today, when we reclaimed it for some late attempts at seeding lettuce. We all pulled the vines until E wanted to kick his new soccer ball instead and the mosquitoes scared away his dad and sister.

Then the boys went out for tacos, and I had I think what was my first evening alone with my baby girl. She ate, I cleaned. I ate, she ate. I read, she played with her food. And ate some more.

Somehow, though we didn’t get to the beach, or to a pumpkin patch, or out camping or any of the other many things my son is always asking to do, and I didn’t get  hours of work done, he got his soccer ball, the car got an oil change, and our garden got a new start.

It felt like a good day.

It was a day when every hour looked like 5 p.m.

Grey. Rain. Then rainier, and windy.

My boys, on their way home through the hurricane. (Alternate title: A visual representation of the fog I've been feeling in my body and mind for weeks.)

So why am I feeling better than I’ve felt since, like, June?

One guess is the yoga. I did about 20 minutes alone upstairs in my bedroom this morning, after 5 minutes using the chi machine. Post-juice, pre-breakfast. And pre-arrival of babysitter who was to spend four glorious hours keeping the kids entertained. The wash of ooh-ah-um after even a short bridge pose is amazing. The high is so obvious when you don’t do it for a while.

Yes, yoga probably helped. But what else?

Last night and this morning I used some Bach flower essences. Olive for exhaustion. Scleranthus for indecision. Elm and something else for responsibility/burden and blaming self. Or maybe I chose the one on forgiveness.

Speaking of forgiveness, last night I brought up an unresolved hurt from last weekend with my husband. I wouldn’t say I have zero fear of the same kind of thing happening again that I initially got upset about, but I did feel reasonably heard. So that probably helped. As did some Tivo’d Saturday Night Live we watched after clearing the air. (Thanks, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph for the opening monologue/duet on the Mother’s Day episode).

Reading about letting go and being mindful in Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children and Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life has probably helped my mood (and my willingness to drop last weekend’s scuffle once I’d had the chance to shout about it).

Though I find myself often slightly annoyed at the authors of these books — with a crabby, “Yes, I already know that’s how I should be. But how? Map it out for me in my actual life!” –  I also notice that just the act of reading about Zen makes me breathe more slowly and deliberately. Chew more. Pause. All important things. All possibly due some credit when it comes to my improved mood and energy.

On a more physical level, some changes might finally be taking effect. It’s Saturday night, four days since I saw a chiropractor/healer who adjusted me, muscle-tested me, gave me two doses of homeopathic remedies and loaded me up with supplements. I had so much going on, I sucked up my daughter’s appointment too, taking almost two full hours of this doctor’s time!

My thyroid is low, and my cholesterol super high. My adrenals are a wreck. I’ve felt not just depressed but fatigued beyond my years since early July.  Some bodywork a few weeks ago might have helped, but I was banking on a visit to this healer to get me on the road to recovery. Some Standard Process supplements and others should help with my fat metabolism problem, which is probably the cause of my high cholesterol and thanks to  my thyroid disorder, which is probably exacerbated by my adrenal fatigue, which probably also messes with my digestion and means I’m not absorbing nutrients. I’ve got supplements for all those issues, at least for a short time until I round a corner. Maybe the new pills I’m popping — or the extra food-based B vitamin with dinner — are starting to take effect.

Just before the earthquake started, the doctor was muscle-testing me about sleep, coming up with the prescription for 8-10 hours and a bedtime as close to 9:00 as possible. The rumble of the ground, I believe, was the universe hearing the doctor’s pronouncement and pounding exclamation marks over and over like a teenage girl’s note about a crush.

Okay, I get it. I need to sleep.

One of the tidbits of wisdom in the Buddhism for Mothers book was a quote from someone else to the effect of: it’s not at the gas pump that you actually use gas. Right. Store up the good to use later, or pay for it if you run on empty. I believe I’m now — one year postpartum — feeling the effects of doing too much after A’s birth, not napping with her at all (like I did daily with my son back in the day), and having even more interrupted nights very early on postpartum (thanks to my champion newborn night pooper!).

No wonder my digestion got so wonky. No wonder my skin is scaly and red. No wonder I bruise if you breathe on me.

And now the hair shedding has begun. And my belly has the look of an ad with the headline “Is your thyroid making you fat?” And since July, it’s been all I can do to walk around the block by myself, or up the stairs carrying the baby. Whose body is this?

Today, it feels a little more like mine.

Maybe the fact that my house is finally getting back in order after a kitchen remodel has helped. I can see the floor of my office again. Drywall dust has been wiped off the dining room table. The kitchen is usable enough to go from clean to messy to clean again several times a day, just like normal (except with more room, and prettier!) I got to inhabit my home all alone for a short time today, and it’s so much prettier and happier. Me too.

As Hurricane Irene pounds the coast and darkens our skies, there was nowhere to go this afternoon. Nothing to do, so we moved the couch and did yoga together. It was one of the rare times I’ve looked around and though simply, without any qualifiers, “This is my life.” And I smiled.

After my husband checked the gutters, we all went for a walk in the pouring rain, happy in hats and summer heat. Soaked enough to peel off everything upon our return. I washed my hair for possibly the first time this week.

Power may be lost soon, but for now we all have bellies full of delicious roasted chicken. Pathways have opened in my home.

Thanks be to my babysitter, who took kids outside before the rains came and to a rec center after they descended.

Thanks also to my husband for earning the money to build a kitchen I can love.  And to my doctor and everyone whose skill and hands have helped my weary bones.

Thanks to wise mama writers and wise-cracking mom actors for reminding me to smile.

And thanks to the threat of natural disasters for helping me see clearer priorities, for shining light on this darkest of summer days.

May the world look familiar tomorrow.

The sunflower that wasn't eaten by deer. Just appeared this week. Maybe I should give it some credit for the sun in my heart.

Once upon a time, I could go on a road trip without making all my own unprocessed, organic, starch-free food.

Once upon a time I could go to my parents’ house without drooling over idea of family-provided childcare so that I could enjoy some time to catch up on all things computer — email (professional and person), internet research, volunteerism and activism, blog writing and community-building/social networking.

Once upon a time, I did not measure my life in the time between naps and meals.

This is not that time.

On the Pennsylvania Turnpike

I have so much to say about my travels thus far, here in the Midwest with family while our kitchen gets expanded back home in Virginia. From an four-hands energy healing session at a groovy new spa in Ann Arbor to images of my son driving a golf cart, there’s plenty to say.

But the baby, who was listening to my old Fisher Price clock sing “90 Years Without Slumbering” is now done laughing at me in irony of the tune and is instead going for the computer cords, just like she does at home.

And I need to eat.

So I will catch up later. But I am here. And I will have plenty to say when I can find the time to say it.