From lots of yoga to none and back again! This week I’m taking part in the Anusara Grand Circle and Wanderlust Vermont. I’ll be reporting on the events for my Washington Times Communities column but at least wanted to post some personal reflections here before my head gets any more exploded!

These are groovy people. They really want you to be happy with yourself. I knew that Anusara yoga was about opening the heart, but I am learning that it does that by helping you believe that everything is good in its essential core and that you are whole and beautiful just as you are. “No one can make the kind of artistry you can,” said Anusara founder John Friend in his Monday morning class.

Just hearing this kind of feel-good message – especially from such a lovely voice, and later repeated by other teachers – can be transformative on its own if you’re in a place where you’re ready to hear it. But here, in the beautiful mountains of Vermont, on a crisp clear day just before the summer solstice, the words came at me while I was breathing deeply and moving intentionally in a yoga practice. It’s a powerful thing, this combination of worthiness talk while my body’s nervous system is getting calmed down and every cell is getting a jacked up dose of oxygen.

Today, I was a little intimidated to do a full backbend or wheel pose since it’s not something I practice regularly. I do know that bridge pose often leaves me feeling like my body has just been washed in warm sunlight, the kind that calms but doesn’t burn. In fact, it was the hope of changing my sour mood and getting myself back to sleep that caused me to do a bridge pose the day before my daughter was due. Instead, my water broke and she was born 4.5 hours later.

But wheel requires more upper body strength, something I’ve never had much of. So it was a huge surprise and such a delight to find myself today actually giddy after we’d done it a third time. The first two times, I just rested on the top of my head, but the third, I found I could rise up, and it felt delicious. I started laughing when I came down. Clearly, I was not alone in my reaction; John friend said knowingly, “Backbends can make anything better.”

My backbend two days later, more tired and a little less able to reach for the sky. Don't you just want to take a strap and pull up my hips and nudge my shoulder blades so that I can lift my heart up and forward?

The class with John wasn’t especially hard; it was longer than a regular class but shared a lot in common with the great classes I took at Centered Yoga during my 10-day/10-class yoga challenge earlier this month. I felt very well prepared. But with extra assistants in the room in the large morning class and later in the alignment and fundamentals class with Deb Neubauer, I got some helpful assists and adjustments. Maybe it was the extra dose of talk from John on the message of “No, really. You seriously are fine the way you are. Nothing needs to be fixed. You just need to come into alignment to realize the full expression of yourself.”

Or maybe I was just ready to believe that I am not broken because I left my house a complete mess, spent hours packing for this trip and still forgot things and slept less than I needed to the night before we left (two hours later than I’d hoped).  Maybe I inherently do believe that it’s okay that I pursue all the things I do. Maybe I’ve invented the belief that I should feel guilty just because my husband doesn’t greet each new project I undertake with pom poms on the sidelines or because other women seem to be perfectly content to full-on homeschool and to do handwork all the time.

I love the idea of being an artist, something that was said today many times. I love the idea of dropping self-criticisms or questions. I mean, isn’t it more enjoyable to be around someone who relishes her life and makes no apologies than someone who constantly is saying she’s sorry about not replying to emails or lamenting the fact that she didn’t get around to something she wanted to do with her kids?

Methinks this is exactly what my friend Patricia recently talked about in her workshop. If you are intentional (a big word in Anusara) and live according to your priorities rather than just stumbling along or going through the motions – whether that’s in sun salutation or parenting – just how fulfilled can you be?

So I’m inspired! And yet, I’m writing this at 10:40 p.m. with a baby on my back because she would not go to sleep and stay asleep any other way. There are realities in our lives beyond our control, but if I remember that parenting is part of a chosen path that brings me so much joy and wisdom, perhaps I can drop the grumbling about lost free time.

For now, I’m thinking that I will be so sore in the morning that I will stay home from the morning yoga and hope to get the internet working in our rental house so that I can post this and maybe write some more.

Related posts:

Yoga festival co-founder shares her vision: Interview with Schuyler Grant

Yoga gathering celebrates “magic” on the solstice: Report from day one of Anusara Grand Circle

and

Yogi goes to Vermont, the second post I wrote about the event for this blog but the first post I actually got up. This post, the first I wrote back on Monday, was held captive on the laptop that couldn’t connect to ethernet, and we had no flash drive and no opportunity to get to wireless for two days, so I’m actually posting this Wednesday night and back-dating the time stamp to when I wrote it. Did I mention I’m sitting the parking lot of a hotel siphoning off their public wifi while my daughter sleeps in her carseat. Here’s hoping my son stopped crying when I left instead of having a fit that his grandmother was going to put him to bed. I do feel guilty enough that  probably won’t stay as long as my battery would let me, just in case he’s refusing to sleep.

Just how many different people can I be in my head in one day? Well, at least two solid positions are staking claim to my mental landscape. One is incredibly sad that yesterday was my son’s last day at his Waldorf school, and the other is very excited for our family to become part of the local public school community.

So why the ambivalence?

E’s Waldorf school — where he spent a year in parent-child, a year in the three-day “kindergarten,” and this year, what is designed to be the first of two years in five-day “Oak Tree Kindergarten” — is a beautiful place. I love that he has been able to unfold, as they say, free of expectations to “achieve” or perform in any particular way.

The boat my son loved making at his Waldorf school, and his book of colorings. His symbol this year was a seashell.

Yesterday, after we admired the boat he made (and loved making!), we looked through his book of coloring from the whole year. I was in tears seeing how he’s gone from abstract scribbles to intricate drawings with clear storylines all on his own, with no direction or suggestions. At this school, he truly is learning for the love of the experience, not on anyone else’s timeline or following anyone else’s agenda. What a gift.

Waldorf education has a reverence for nature and a foundation of being in tune with the seasons. He starts the morning outside, playing for almost an hour no matter what the weather. If he’s staying until 3:00 (as opposed to noon, when the regular 5-day program ends), he plays outside again before lunch and for another 20 minutes or so before pick-up time. The playground is small, but it’s lovingly tended, and the children make use of logs and wood chips and the sandbox — and their imaginations — rather than relying on a lot of equipment, other than a small slide and a climbing wall.

Beyond questions of space and “curriculum,” it is just so clear that he is loved at this school. His teachers are so kind and thoughtful about their interactions, and he knows his place in the community. The class has 16 children, each of whom has a symbol and an “acorn child” likeness doll. He was so excited to report to me over the course of the fall whose child appeared and when, and wearing what clothing.

On the last day of school, his teacher gave each child a small book with their symbol on the front and a simple series of four pictures inside. It is such a quiet expression of love, of celebrating the simple wonder of something like flying a kite and the child’s discovery of the joy therein.

His teacher also gave the children “gems” on the last day and gave a special one to my son to remind him to take a nice rest every day. The teacher knows E stopped napping at age 2.5 (he is now 5.25) and that I fear the summer with a boy who won’t nap and a baby who has become increasingly resistant to going down for a nap unless she’s driven. (Let’s hope it a phase.) I’m grateful to the teacher for this gift and for all he and his assistants have given us this year.

I am in tears. How can I take my son away from this beautiful environment to a bigger class where academic expectations might trump magic and beauty? My heart breaks every time he talks about how he’s going to be a Tall Oak next year (when he turns six), and how he’ll get to make a sword. This year, he loved sanding his little boat and was apparently quite taken with the process, I’m told by teacher and son alike. He was the first one to finish his boat, something he seems to take great pride in. I feel awful for keeping him from more memories like this in the beautiful spaces that are his classroom and school.

But, he is not my only child, and mother is not my only role. Sometimes I wish I could approach it that way, but I know it’s no use trying to push a square peg into a round hole. I need to pursue writing and to put a significant amount of time into my health and wellbeing in order to be the best possible — and most sane — mom I can. This means I need some amount of childcare, and I need to prioritize expenses.

His school is a large expense. We’ve had him in three days of the school’s 12-3 p.m. Afternoon Program for the past two years, and while the hourly breakdown is comparable to babysitting, it adds up to a whole lot of extra money for time with just one child. I now have two. I think the program has served him well with its calm routine, and I don’t relish long summer days that depend on my willpower and energy in the face of not having any control over whether the baby will cooperate with a nap or scream unless I put her on my back.

However, we would not be able to rationalize the expense of the Afternoon Program next year and also pay for the regular tuition and for some childcare for the baby so that I can do a little work, exercise, and get to appointments. Without the Afternoon Program, my son would be home every day at noon, which means my daughter and I would have less than three hours each morning together and that her nap would probably have to once again revolve around her brother’s schedule. That, or (and/or?) her brother’s afternoon schedule might need to revolve around his sister’s need to nap. And in the middle, I will have next to zero time to do much for me, let alone house chores or preparing food for my high-maintenance diet. I expect we’d devolve into my staying up late and stressing my adrenals ever further.

I realize that there are things I can and perhaps ought to let go. However, one area I will not compromise on is food: there is no microwave in my kitchen, and very little that we eat that comes out of a container. We do not eat fast food, and we rarely go out to eat. (With the exception of a luncheon at the organic oasis of Restaurant Nora and a trip just tonight to Food Matters since it will be closing soon, I haven’t eaten at a restaurant since I started the GAPS diet at the beginning of February, over four months ago.)

My son always has — and will have — a healthy lunch, and until recently I made all the gluten-free substitutes I had to send for his school snack: bread on Tuesday and Wednesday and a muffin on Thursday. So even though his school serves only organic food, it doesn’t work well for us as celiacs.

At his new school, the day will start at 8:00 instead of 8:30, which might be a little hard at the outset, but the earlier start means his father will be able to take him to the bus, or, more likely, right to school (just two quick miles away through neighborhoods) before heading to work. This means I can continue to prepare a healthy breakfast and start to provide a calm morning environment since I will not need to get myself and the baby out of the door at the same time.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll pick E up from school at 2:41, carpool with a neighbor, or let him take the bus home, but he will be done at the same time every day, and it’s my hope that I can use some of the early afternoon time to prepare at least part of dinner so that I can be more present with him when he returns.

I hope this new schedule benefits my son, who will get time with a less harried mom and time with his dad in the morning. I hope it benefits my daughter, who will get to have a nap on her terms and (if she ever starts eating food) breakfast at home without being rushed. I hope it benefits my husband, who will get more QT with his son in the mornings and get out the door at a consistent time. And I hope it benefits me by letting me eat without stress and thus more fully digest my food and heal my gut, which I know is key to all my other health issues, physical and mental.

But it’s not just about schedules and distance from home, as compelling as those are. No, I would not entertain any of these logistical perks if there weren’t other reasons to feel good about this elementary school. But there are. A lot of them.

The school uses a portfolio-based assessment instead of grades. The curriculum is hands-on, an Expeditionary Learning approach that is patterned after Outward Bound. Students participate in multidisciplinary units that are several weeks long. The K-1 (multiage) classes have tables and centers but not desks. The school principal never once mentioned standardized tests on the tour I took, and during the open house my husband attended, she said something to the effect of test scores not being a reason to come to this school.

She refers often to the school as a “community,” and it’s clear from the beautiful grounds and the lively gardens that it’s not just talk.  Last year the school donated 100 pounds of lettuce to Arlington Food Assistance Center, and I’m told the children also enjoyed their harvest in salads at lunch, which is served in classrooms rather than a cafeteria. I know several people who send their children here and love it.

Everything the principal has said on tours and in conversation with me conveys an openness to seeing each child as an individual. The school utilizes the Responsive Classroom model that includes a community meeting at the beginning of every day. So much talk is not very Waldorf, but I do think it will serve my chatty son well.

The playground is large and open. There is a tricycle path, logs for climbing on, and, when I dropped off my son’s paperwork in April, I noticed a group of girls digging in the dirt with pails and shovels. The school sits next to a nature center with which there are ongoing talks about more collaboration and married landscape construction. (I understand these things don’t move like lightning, but at least the desire is there!)

All K-1 classrooms have doors to the outside, and children go out twice a day (or at least get to go to the gym in bad weather). I’m expecting that my husband will walk E to the school from down the street so that he will have exposure to the elements every day. Oh, and I think I will take E on Fridays so that I can attend the whole school community meeting. Maybe then I will take the baby to the nature center or for a walk on the nearby bike trail after that.

Assuming we are happy enough to keep him there, E will have the same teacher for grades two and three and then will loop again with the same teacher for fourth and fifth grade. The continuity is something I value. Teachers in Waldorf schools stay with the same group of children for years.

I also like that E will be getting music and Spanish in school, and the art in the hallways is beautiful. You can tell the children all had the same assignment, but they were given the freedom to find their own way into it. I didn’t see photocopies of the same sheet just colored differently.

But beyond all these assumed-to-be-great things about this particular school, I am also compelled to join the ranks of public schools because I think it’s important from a social justice perspective. I want to be an advocate for all children, to give them the opportunity to have healthy choices. Last night I attended the documentary What’s on Your Plate at Barcroft Elementary School as the culmination of the PTA-organized spring Farm to Table Week. It’s exciting to see people bringing awareness of healthy eating and sustainable farming to public schools, but it’s not going to happen without involved parents. I feel I ought to be one of them.

I also don’t want E insulated from the community in which he lives. He is certainly exposed to many cultures and languages at the Waldorf school, but it’s not the same as the rest of the county. Having taught high school nearby and having worked on issues of diversity in honors vs. regular classes, I feel it’s important for my son to get to know a wide variety of people and to learn from an early age that people don’t all think and talk the same.

Of course, I was comforted by a lot of sameness at the Waldorf school. If you’re a parent who eschews most TV and electronic media, it’s great to know that other parents around you do, too. Being on the same page with people is great, and I honestly do think the world looks prettier without big plastic toys or cartoon characters on backpacks. My son is a sponge, and he does notice everything, and sometimes even the smallest exposure translates into wanting things I don’t want him to have or even know about.

But I can’t keep him in a bubble forever on that front, and I can make choices I feel good about at home. I just need to stick to them! And my hope is that our new schedule will make it more possible for me to interact with other Waldorf-inspired friends and homeschooling moms so that I can make my home environment more in line with my values. This is quite a learning curve!

On that topic, I should at least mention that it is not for lack of interest that I’m not homeschooling. Sometimes I think that would be ideal. I just don’t think it’s right for my family at this time, mostly because of my temperament and some because of my son’s super-social nature and his intense early attachment to me that seemed to call for interaction with other adults. I do feel that he benefits tremendously from interacting with other caring adults and with other children in an organized setting on a daily basis.

I still don’t think it would be the right dynamic for him and for me, and it would be hard for me to manage with the baby since I still don’t feel like I know a fraction of what I’d like to know about creating a home. However, if he struggles mightily with this transition or if I feel that public school is wringing out his sense of fantasy and magic, I will consider it until there’s a spot open at the Waldorf school or until we decide it’s time to try public again.

Although I do worry about him having sensory overload in the chaotic and cluttered public K-1 classrooms, E has been in plenty of mainstream settings with camps and other programs, and he always does fine. He usually asks to go back!

On Thursday, I kept him home from his penultimate day of school because he fell out of bed the previous night and split open his lip, which was still incredibly puffy in the  morning. I expected that I would skip visiting Barcroft that day even though I wanted to take photos to write an article about Farm to Table. Around 11:30, the baby had woken up and nursed, and I decided we’d just go ahead and go anyway.

On the way in, we saw our friend who works there part-time, which was a treat. In the cafeteria, E was happy to try snap peas with peanut sauce and yellow squash with a yogurt dip while I chatted up the guest chef and snapped photos (with the baby on my back). He stopped to admire student art in a case on the way out, and when we got home, he offered of his own volition that he had a really nice time and was glad we went.

I felt relieved that he was not freaked out by the setting — the bigger kids, the bright lights, the loud cafeteria — and that he actually felt quite comfortable. Later we picked peas from the garden made an accompanying peanut sauce (which he said tasted just like the one at the school even though I totally made up the recipe). And he was so excited to buy a “yellow cucumber” at the store later that day! I’ve promised to make yogurt dip tomorrow with the yogurt we got at the farmers market on the day Barcroft kicked off its week last Sunday.

While we were there, we saw the outgoing PTA president of the school he will be attending in the fall. E remembered her and her son from the open house he’d attended in February. I whispered to her that he would be going to the school but that we weren’t sure if we’d come to the picnic later this month since we haven’t told E yet. She offered that he would probably be excited to see the big playground. Of course, she also dropped as “carrots” face-painting and ice cream, which are the opposite of a draw for me! But Waldorf parents enjoy their sugar, too, so that’s not a new challenge.

The public school picnic will take place a week after his last day of Waldorf school and three days after the end-of-school picnic, which will be the last big time to see his Waldorf friends and teachers. Of course, we do plan to stay involved in the Waldorf community and to stay in touch with people through playdates. But I wonder if E will feel sad if he goes to the Waldorf picnic without knowing that this is goodbye to the school. His teachers suggested not to talk about next year until August, but I just don’t think that will work for E. He may play “in the moment,” but he also has one heck of a memory and at the same time is often thinking and planning for the future. He is his mother’s child.

We could wait to tell him after the Waldorf picnic but before the new school picnic. Or we could just let the new school picnic seem like another open house; I’ve already sort of mentioned it in that light after seeing the PTA parent. But another little boy down the street is going to the same school in the fall, which I think E will be very happy about, and I’m sure the other boy will probably talk about them going together. And I expect that the other people at the picnic might say things like, “Are you excited to come here next year?!”

So what do I say? How and when do I break the news? Should I skip the picnic and deal with it later, after we’ve gotten back from vacation and he’s settled into his summer camp? I don’t want someone else to tell him before we do, and some of his friends may have gotten the word by now or will soon.

I have wavered from confident to crying and back again many times writing this post. It is beyond long at over 3000 words, and I still haven’t found a place to say the things I blubber to my husband like, “How can he possibly be as loved by teachers who have over 20 students and who have to prepare kids for standardized tests?”

I started this post early this morning, over 16 hours ago, and my snippets of time to write have been brief. Since then, we’ve accommodated E’s request to go to Home Depot to buy some lumber. He suggested maybe it would be right for making a sword. I’m hopeful that we can make some decent efforts to offer him some of what he liked best about the Waldorf school, honor his emotions without mixing them with ours, and present to him a confident decision that the new school is the perfect place for him to go to kindergarten.

I welcome any and all advice on how best to serve his needs in this transition!

Thanks to my friend Elaine for her blog post on leaving the Waldorf school. The title — “Sailing on” — and the photo of her son’s boat have me bawling again!

A tale of two redheads

You know that newborn hearing test you’re supposed to get when your baby is born? Mine got hers today. She’s nine months old.

Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to things.

For example, sitting in the waiting room with her there and at the chiropractor’s office was about the first time I’ve looked at her for more than 30 seconds since she was a newborn.

It seems I’m always keeping her brother from pouncing on her. Or when it’s just us girls at home, using awake time to chop vegetables to take care of my complicated healing diet or fold laundry or do some other house-related project. Or I’m reading or typing while nursing (or closing my eyes if I’m trying to get her to sleep). Or she’s on my back in the Ergo while I hang diapers out to dry or water the garden.

So it’s not as though I’m actively ignoring her, but it is a little sad that most of our eye-to-eye bonding occurs during diaper changes.

While we waited today to be called back for her test, and later when we waited for the chiropractor to see her, I got some good long looks at my girl. In addition to the straight strawberry patch she has on the pack of her head, she’s got several super-long strands of darker hair wiring up from the top (which still has cradle cap).

These long strands are goofy, but they give me reason to believe that perhaps she will not follow her brother’s footsteps into the land of Bozo and the year-long-mullet. For the record, he does have thick hair now, as do I, who was mostly bald until age two. In fact, at my super-not-fancy Hair Cuttery trim yesterday (a far cry from the stylist adventures of Dumb Mom, who writes today about being on “What Not to Wear” and the aftermath), the woman behind the scissors kept remarking on how lucky I was to have such thick hair.

So I expect Baby AJH will eventually be just fine, if a redhead, and without her brother’s or mother’s curly locks.

I just hope that her mama wakes up and starts to play with her a little more!

In addition to the extended, uninterrupted time we had today, it was a jolt to hear probably 20 different people in an hour commenting on her luscious full cheeks and her bright blue eyes. Thanks to the community and to the clock for teaching me something about appreciation!

Spring hasn’t fully registered here in chilly but blossom-filled Northern Virginia, but I think my stomach is finally on the mend.

I started the GAPS diet on February 6, and I am still in a modified introductory stage. I’m only just now even considering trying to eat any raw foods (besides juice, and avocado). It has taken 6 or 7 weeks for my gut to tell me that it’s starting to heal. Bone broth (so far only chicken stock) is and will continue to be a mainstay, and I can eat eggs, meat, nuts and nut butter and most non-starchy vegetables roasted and/or cooked for a long time in broth. Butternut squash never tasted so sweet!

I still have a long way to go, and I don’t anticipate eating grain or anything starchy for months to come. But it sure is nice to not be in pain!

It’s so clear that this diet is what my body needs, and I am 100% committed. But it sure takes a lot of time!

So the blog has been quiet; I didn’t get to Farm Food Voices, and I haven’t been much on Facebook. My friends’ emails often get ignored or replied to well beyond their time.  Even going to the pediatrician is a major ordeal: it’s impossible to be away from the house for more than a few hours. First there are the specifics of what I need to eat, but then there’s also the fact that eating on the go or while stressed seems just about as bad for me as eating problematic food. I can’t always be sure that eating at home will be stress-free; you never know when the baby is going to wake or change her mood! But at least here I can more closely approach mindful, intentional eating.

I’ve had questions of “what are you eating then?” and probably a lot of people wondering why I’m just MIA. This is what my days are looking like of late:

• Wake between 5:00 and 6:50 a.m. depending on the baby’s antics during the night and morning. I can usually get up and start things moving while she remains in bed, but sometimes she accompanies me downstairs in the Pack N Play or is worn on my back in a carrier.

• Put tea kettle on for warm water. Drink with added mineral drops.

• Make breakfast for husband and son (egg, a healthy nitrite-free breakfast meat, some veggies — usually zucchini and spinach, or maybe green pepper and tomato).

• Make an egg for myself and set aside with sauerkraut, avocado and olive oil

• Take Bio-Kult probiotic

• Bring in-process chicken stock (bone broth)from the day before back up to a  boil and then turn down to low. I have a batch going about 65% of the time and have started using the bones for a second round (and ordering necks and backs from my farmer. But I still haven’t gotten to the beef bones!

• Warm up already-made stock and add onion, celery, spinach, carrot and whatever other veggie I want to let get good and cooked. Add garlic toward the end

• Juice carrot, celery, romaine lettuce (in my birthday-present Omega masticating juicer) and drink it right away

• Take my son to school

• Hope baby transfers asleep when we get home. Or try to get her to sleep if she’s awake. Or give up and have her sit with me while I eat breakfast of broth, egg as noted above, some leftover home-cooked meat and perhaps some leftover “bread” made out of egg, coconut oil and almond flour or pancake of almond butter, egg and zucchini. Take digestive enzyme and Green Pastures cod liver oil

• At some point have lunch. Hopefully I left myself some broth from this morning to heat up so I don’t have to chop more vegetables. And maybe I have more leftover meat (chicken, salmon, beef, pork, turkey) rather than another egg.

• At some point maybe have a snack of apple (if I’ve been cooking out the sugar on the stove in water) and ghee, or crispy nuts, or some almond flour “bread” or pancakes with some almond butter or sunflower butter (the only packaged foods I’m eating. Sometimes a nursing mom just needs a spoonful of fat!)
  

  GAPS diet pancakes of just almond butter and eggs with banana. Right now I'm doing onion and zucchini instead of banana (which was Monica Corrado's adaptation).

• Take care of the baby when she’s awake or try to nurse her back to sleep again. Maybe take a walk. Maybe get some housework done.

• Pick up my son at 3:00 (three days a week. The days I pick him up at noon have a whole other layer to them!)

• If we have nothing going on that afternoon, work on dinner in between giving him attention and trying to keep the baby happy. Wear her on my back in a carrier through much of dinner prep.

• If we have a playdate or a class after school, I’d better hope I spent some of the morning chopping vegetables to make a stew in the crock pot or that there is something else ready as a leftover to have for dinner!

• Hope my husband gets home in time for us to all eat at least part of our dinner together by 6:00. But sometimes I need to feed my son closer to 5:00 and let him eat a second time when his dad gets home.
• Hope the baby will make it until 6:30 so she can see her dad before I put her to bed. On a good day, she’s napped enough that she can happily sit at the table with us. So far she’s tried a little broth and some very mushed veggies (tiny pieces). She seems to really love the lemon-flavored cod liver oil!

• Emerge from darkness around 7:00 or 7:30 to clean kitchen, prepare my son’s lunch for school, and then prepare whatever is necessary for tomorrow’s food — maybe strain and jar the stock if it’s done, or make a “loaf” of almond flour bread or a batch of pancakes, or simmer some apple, or soak the nuts, or get the nuts out of the dehydrator.

• Check email, do laundry (diapers every other day, regular clothes most other days).

• Collapse.

• Or, go back up to nurse the baby and then decide that since I probably two or three quiet hours ahead of me, work on the computer or on the house until way too late. Then feel hungover the next day, especially if she’s up every 90 minutes from midnight until 6 a.m. when she decides to sleep soundly after I’ve gotten out of bed.

So there you go. And it took me two days to get this post up. There are a ton of other things I want to write, but right now — especially the week after my son’s fifth birthday brought with it cleaning, rearranging, buying, baking, and more cleaning — I just am going to need to be rather than reflect in pixels, as much as it hurts to keep my fingers off the keyboard.

What a surprise I got tonight when my Holistic Moms co-leaders and members presented me with flowers and a (gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, refined-sugar-free) cake at our monthly meeting!

Holistic Moms Arlington/Alexandria co-leaders: Leigha, me (Jessica), and Mary

We decided not to do a huge anniversary party again this year after last year’s blow out, and I wasn’t really missing all the stress! But they kept the anniversary in mind and were so kind to honor me for starting the chapter on my own two years ago (two days after spending the entire day trying to get home from the inauguration before going back out to a ball. What a week!).

It’s been a lot of work from the start, and lately I’ve been a little grumpy about how much time I spend on Holistic Moms, in part because both my co-leaders are stepping down. Don’t get me wrong: leading the chapter contributes a lot to my sense of self because I feel like it makes a positive difference in the lives of others. As I said in my intro tonight, if even one child is helped because one parent saw a flyer or email post about our Special Diets meeting and got a bug in his/her ear to investigate food sensitivities, then all the effort is worth it.

And yet, it’s a lot of effort, and my children and spouse deserve that kind of attention and devotion. I often feel I shortchange them with my various interests (Holistic Moms being just one of them, but connected to most of the others), and yet I also know that it doesn’t send a positive message to hold myself back and not pursue my passions. I want my children to see their mama as a committed and involved person who makes a positive contribution to others’ lives. I just want that to include their lives, too! And their dad’s!

As I stand in this space of hoping for new help to run the chapter — and hoping to find the right childcare fit to let me work from home on this and other holistic-health-related pursuits — it was really lovely to feel heartfelt and totally unexpected appreciation from the people who have supported me in the development of the chapter. The meeting was great, and I’m hopeful for a sustainable future.

Thank you, everyone! And happy birthday to me and to us!

Yesterday I went to a yoga class for the first time since the baby was born five months ago. And I cried.

It was a big deal to get out the door. For weeks, nay, months, I had been looking up schedules at all the local studios to see when they might have a class that might possibly work for me to attend. Between erratic sleep and unpredictable eating times and needs (both mine and the baby’s) and plenty of other things that need to happen on the weekend, yoga never made the cut.

Evenings were busy enough already, and weekdays I have no baby childcare. You’d think I could have gotten to a mommy and me class, but with all the driving I already subject the girl to for her brother’s preschool, I’d kind of just rather let my little one sleep than take her out again to try to keep her happy while I half-do some half-moons.

I was, to put it mildly, out of practice.

That’s part of the reason I chose to go to a class with Teresa (not her real name) as the teacher. When I was pregnant, I’d come a handful of times to Teresa’s gentle class, where once I was one of only two students. She was a mom, a casual teacher, an understanding spirit. We’d emailed a few times, and I’d shared my birth story with her. The studio was where I’d done some prenatal yoga classes, which were better-attended but still small and friendly.

To return to yoga with Teresa at this neighborhood studio felt safe and familiar. How many people serious yogis are going to come out to a yoga I class on a Saturday morning? I thought. As I registered online, I imagined Teresa checking the roster and smiling in anticipation of seeing me. I envisioned some chatting as I set up my mat, maybe even joking about how it was on that very surface that my water had broken when I went up into bridge pose the morning my daughter was born.

But, as usual, I left kind of late, trying to fit in just one more thing since the baby was napping. I arrived an eyelash after start time, approaching the door just as Teresa was about to lock it. “Sorry, I’ve got to get started,” she clipped. It wasn’t rude, but it wasn’t the homecoming I expected.

Nor was the sight of the room. It was packed. Teresa announced that they’d have to make a fourth row. I could have turned around and left, but I had paid my $20 and actually left my house. Alone. Going back to a whiny four-year-old didn’t sound fun, even though I felt kind of shamed.

“It’s good to give yourself a few extra minutes to work out these logistics,” Teresa said to the room in a lighthearted tone that suggested,”I’m not trying to make you feel like shit, Jessica, but this happens more than I’d like, and it’s really not respectful of everyone’s time.”

I dumped my bag and jacket into the cluttered coat room (where I was used to seeing bare shelves) and quickly claimed the spot that was being created for me at the front of the room. “I did the best I could,” I muttered. Teresa made some “it’s okay” kind of comment.

Then I think she got it. As I was rolling out my mat, she asked, “Have you been back yet?” My answer was an unquestionable “No.”

I was already starting to cry, but there was no going back now. I couldn’t leave the class without totally disrupting it. We were all in our places. I looked around for tissue and saw only a roll of toilet paper lying on its side next to the iPod. My sleeve would have to do for my snot.

As Teresa began talking us through our opening centering, I closed my eyes and let the tears roll. The people next to me probably knew something was up, but I wasn’t sobbing audibly. Teresa, I’m sure, saw.

Thankfully, the class was not physically challenging, with no partner work or moving to the wall. I simply staked out my little spot on my mat like everyone else on theirs and tried to be just one of the masses. Eventually the well was dry, but, I never fully lost my edge. When Teresa came around to make an adjustment to my pigeon pose and ask me if I was okay, all I could say after a few beats of silence was, “I’m here.” She cooed, “I’m glad you’re here” in response. I didn’t really believe it.

Of course I also couldn’t blame her for wanting to start on time. Goodness knows, I could never tolerate lateness gracefully (and goodness knows even better that I would never have it in me to be an open-hearted yoga teacher). Still, I was disappointed and hardened. I tried to avoid Teresa after class by leaving right away, but that just put me by the doors as she opened them, which gave her the chance to say things like, “I’m glad you came” and “We’ll see you again real soon, okay?” I put my jacket on facing the wall and said only, “I”m sorry I was late.”

Then I left and sobbed some more. The idea of walking into my home a bigger wreck than I was when I’d left — ostensibly to get enlightened — was not appealing. Who wants to greet her husband and visiting mother-in-law with post-yoga tears? What kind of thank you is that for watching my two children for two hours? If this is how I look after yoga, the rest of the day (week? month? all of parenthood?) looks pretty grim.

Luckily, my sister was able to clear a little time to talk me down. I poured out my tale of woe to her over the phone as I sat in front of the house in my car, getting chilled with the engine off. A neighbor tried to get his dog to pee on the sidewalk, but I let my voice keep cracking. She said all the right things about me, the teacher, my husband. She understood how overdue it was to take care of my needs, how simple and yet earth-shattering for me it was to get out the door, and how benign yet deflating it was for a teacher to regret my timing instead of celebrate my return.

When I walked in the house, I knew that if breakfast was not ready, I would be able to calmly ask LJ to make it like I’d asked. I knew that if the baby was awake and hungry, I’d explain that I needed to eat first. If asked about my red eyes, I believed I’d avoid self-flagellation and just say that it was a big deal to get to my first yoga class in over five months, and sometimes big deals come with big reactions.

As it happened, there was breakfast not only made for me but positioned into a funny face like I do for my son. My husband’s inquiry about my demeanor was gentle and appeased with “I just got really emotional.” And he even asked later if I wanted to talk about it some more (my dream response!)

Maybe we fought again the next day. Maybe I started to wallow in self-pity later that weekend. But at least I got through The First Yoga Class and its immediate aftermath.

Sometimes maybe we all do need to just cry it out.

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Have you ever found yourself in tears in a place where you really didn’t expect to lose it? How did you rebound?

Welcome to the January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Learning from children

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 the many lessons their children have taught them. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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It almost goes without saying that my son has taught me about living joyfully, living in the moment, and living as though every detail in the world were worth exclaiming over, lessons I forget and re-learn daily.

But what he’s really taught me is about me.

It’s not that I was new to introspection before he came along. I’ve written plenty about the various roads I went down pre-child to deal with my issues and get healthy in my head and heart: talk therapy, craniosacral therapy, emotional freedom technique, flower essences. I always considered myself a pretty self-aware gal, almost annoyingly so.

But. Then I had a child. Plenty of books talk about needing to get in touch with yourself in order to be a good parent. And plenty of people probably find ways other than parenting to really explore their own complexity. Still, there is something special about having a being that is a product both of your nature and your nurture, something that screams: “So that’s who I am!”

Some of the things I’ve realized about myself have been surprises, but most have been frightening confirmations.

I talk a lot. This I knew. But hearing the never-ending stream of narration from my toddler then preschooler’s mouth. It’s not just a phase. He’s using my words.  My gestures.  My inflection. I even titled my first blog “Mama’s Mouth” because he had a replica of mine, both in shape and in spirit.

I am messy. I do not live a ritualized, orderly life. My son has inherited and/or learned to copy my hoarding tendencies and my failure to put things away in a logical place when we are done with them. Yes, this is the opposite of a Waldorf approach, and yes, we’re working on it.

I am judgmental. Not in a scary way. But when I hear him — with a finger-wag in his voice — spouting about how someone biking without a helmet is not safe or that someone shouldn’t eat a certain food because it has chemicals, I cringe. He’s been learning a bad/good dichotomy from me that I don’t want to be a part of our lives. Safety is cool, and good nutrition is great. But telling people what they should and shouldn’t do? Not so much. The more bossy his four-year-old self gets, the more I remember being that obnoxious girl in preschool who told her classmate, “There’s no such word as ‘buyed.’ It’s ‘bought!’” Notice I said classmate, not friend. My haughty ‘tude never made me all that popular.

I am sensitive. The more I write, the more it sounds like I’ve been stunted at the developmental level of a four-year-old. But when my son stomps his foot, or says he wants something NOW, or falls into sobs on the sofa, I know just how he feels. I can remember doing the same thing at his age, and I’ve spent the intervening 33+ years trying to figure out more appropriate ways to channel the same frustration, sometimes more successfully than others. My heart broke like a Christmas ornament when he came home bleeding from a sledding accident, telling me his friend’s parent said “it would be the most fun run” and that the third parent on the scene was supposed to keep them safe but didn’t. I’m not sure when or how I’m going to get over watching his faith in adults drip out of his mouth.

I am a singer. Never a soloist, I’ve still always been someone who likes to say it with a song. I remember lyrics like nobody’s business, and making up new ones is a specialty. I’d forgotten this until Junior came along, and it was like I rediscovered an old friend in my new and returned singalong self. Now that he’s doing the same (all. the. time), I’m reminded to call on that self with his baby sister, who tends to get me more often distracted than channeling my inner Ani DiFranco.

I am loving. The sincerity with which my son tells me he loves me at least once a day gives me a clue that, despite all of the above, I’m not doing so bad. He seems to get supreme joy from sharing his feelings, making his love known. That won’t always be the case, I’m sure, but I don’t think he’d say it if he didn’t hear it, really hear it, from me.

I can make a positive difference. The baby is the best teacher of this right now. When I’m just muddling through, trying to get dinner made or get the boy run around while it’s still light out, I catch my five-month-old daughter just staring at me with her big blue eyes. All I have to do is smile at her, and she’ll smile back. Wiggle my hips and she’ll giggle. Clap my hands above my head and she’ll laugh.

Then, and when she’s crying in her dad’s arms but stops the instant mine take over, it’s those times I know that I’m not just a broken mom passing her bad habits and quirks onto her children. I’m someone who can create joy, soothe spirits, warm hearts.

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See also this post about watching parents lost their cool at the zoo; at the end, I list some books that discuss how learning about yourself helps you become a better parent. And how to deal with all those issues you carry from your own childhood so they don’t become your kids’ issues, too!

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What is the most profound — or the simplest — lesson you’ve learning from your child, or just from parenting?

Or a lesson from a parenting book that made the biggest difference?

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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 January 11 with all the carnival links.)

• Affection — Alicia at I Found My Feet has finally become a hugger and kisser, now she has someone sweet and small to snuggle with. (@aliciafagan)
• Learning from Daniel — Amy at Anktangle hopes that she and her husband will always be open to learning from their son. (@anktangle)
• Kids Cultivate Awareness of Universal Truths — From forgiveness to joy, Amy Phoenix at Innate Wholeness has become aware of deep truths that come naturally to children. (@InnateWholeness)
• What the Apple Teaches the Tree — Becky at Future Legacy has learned about imagination, forgiveness, and strength.
• A Lesson in Slowing Time — Bethy at Bounce Me To the Moon revels in the chance to just be with her baby.
• Learning From My Children: I Am So Honored — WAHM Chante at My Natural Motherhood Journey is learning to choose tea parties over work. (@MyMotheringPath)
• P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E — Now that she’s a mother, Danielle at born.in.japan is finally learning about a personality trait she lacked. (@borninjp)
• Top 5 Homeschool Lessons My Children Taught Me — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares what she learned from homeschooling her (now grown) children. (@DebChitwood)
• Learning to Live in the Present By Looking to the Future — Dionna at Code Name: Mama finds the patience to be a gentle parent, because she knows how fleeting childhood really is. (@CodeNameMama)
• The watchful Buddha boy — At Dreaming Aloud, they are learning to cherish their thoughtful, sensitive child in a action-driven, noisy world. (@DreamingAloudNt)
• What My Children Taught Me — Dulce de Leche’s children have taught her to value herself for the wonderful person and mother she is.
• Lessons from the First Year — Having a child made Emily at Crunchy(ish) Mama realize that her decisions affect more than just herself. (@CrunchyishMama)
• Lessons from Loss — Erica at ChildOrganics learned so much from the love — and loss — of her sweet Bella, five years ago. (@ChildOrganics)
• The Socratic Baby — Erin at Multiple Musings has so-called “identical” twins to serve as a daily lesson in nature vs. nurture. (@ErinLittle)
• Learning to be a Mother — Farmer’s Daughter learned the type of patience that enabled her to calmly eat one-handed for months and change clothes seven times a day, before noon. (@FarmDaughter)
• A Few Things Being a Mom Has Taught Me — Heather at Musing Mommy shares the curious, hilarious, and sometimes Murphy’s Law-like tidbits we learn from our children. (@xakana)
• I Feel You — Motherhood has taught Jamey from At the Bee Hive empathy, and it extends beyond just her child. (@JameyBly)
• Lessons From My Child… — Jenny at I’m a full-time mummy shares the inspiring ways she’s learned to expect the unexpected — and have a camera ready! (@imaftmummy)
• My child is my mirror — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama has seen herself in her children – and it’s not bad. (@crunchychewy)
• There is enough to go around… — Kellie at Our Mindful Life learned that love doesn’t diminish when it’s shared.
• Learning From Our Children, Every Day — Kimberly at Homeschooling in Nova Scotia, Canada is continually inspired by her children. (@UsborneBooksCB)
• Life Lessons From My Children — Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood has learned that every slug is fascinating, doing the dishes is fun, and sharing a banana is a delight. (@crunchymamato2)
• Things I’ve Learned From My Children — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings uses pictures to share what she has learned from her children. (@sunfrog)
• Beyond the questions lies the answer — Lauren at Hobo Mama stopped wondering and started knowing — loving and liking our children comes naturally. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Learning from Children — Lily, aka Witch Mom, finds out just how enchanting balloons can be. (@LilyShahar)
• Lifelong Learning — Lindsay at Living in Harmony has learned that what works for one kid might not work for another. (@AttachedMama)
• Walking alongside my daughter — Lindsey at Mama Cum Laude is learning to give the clock less power over her family’s life.
• Things my baby taught me about me — Luschka at Diary of a First Child is proud of how she has grown as a mother. (@lvano)
• From my children, I have learned — Mama Mo at Attached at the Nip has a litany of beautiful lessons, from selflessness to sleeplessness.
• The Little Things in Life — In a simple and lovely prose poem, Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children shows how adults worry about the wrong things and forget the little, important ones: watching ladybugs, jumping in leaves, cherishing each moment as it comes.
• The Virtues of Motherhood — Melissa at The New Mommy Files has had opportunities to learn from children as both a teacher and a mother. (@NewMommyFiles)
• My Kids Have Taught Me That It’s Time To Stop Blogging — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! has learned that childhoods fly by too fast to blog. We’ll miss your wonderful online presence, Melodie, and we wish you much peace and happiness. (@bfmom)
• Having Kids Has Taught me a Thing or Two — Michelle at The Parent Vortex learns all day long — from fun facts about hedgehogs to tying a complicated wrap with a screaming child and an audience. (@TheParentVortex)
• We Could All Learn from the Children — Momma Jorje takes time to get on the floor and play so that she can see the world through her child’s eyes.
• Teaching Forgiveness — Mrs Green at Little Green Blog has a daughter who’s taught her unconditional love — even when she feels like she does’t deserve it. (@littlegreenblog)
• Parenting as a joint venture — Olivia at Write About Birth appreciates watching the astonishing way her children learn. (@writeaboutbirth)
• Beginner’s Mind — Rachael at The Variegated Life learns from a child who builds bridges to nowhere, calls letter magnets his numbers, and insists dinnertime is truck time. (@RachaelNevins)
• A baby’s present — RS at A Haircut and a Shave presents a short poem on the differences between a baby’s mindfulness and ours.
• Self-Confidence Was Born With My Daughter — Sara at Halfway Crunchy learned to trust her instincts by responding to her child’s needs — and saw her self-confidence bloom.
• The Importance of Being Less Earnest — Seonaid at The Practical Dilettante has one list of earnest and one list of silly things she has learned as a parent. (@seonaid_lee)
• Lessons my children have taught me — Sheryl at Little Snowflakes learned that attachment parenting was the best way to meet the needs of her child and herself. (@Sheryljesin)
• Till the water is clear — Stacy at Mama-Om learns that being present is the best present. (@mama_om)
• I Hold It — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine has learned that the ability to communicate is much more important than the number of words a child knows.
• What My Children Taught Me About Letting Go — Summer at Finding Summer is learning from her kids to laugh in the face of heartache. (@summerminor)
• Finding My Tools — The Artsymama has applied some of what she’s learned as a mama in the classroom, with great results!

At age 37, I still haven’t learned to ski, and almost five years and two children into parenthood, I can’t quite believe in myself as a real mom of a real family with real traditions of its own. Although a few years of experience in Waldorf education tells me that children thrive on daily rhythms as well as meaningful rituals of celebration, truthfully, I suck at both.

Apple candle from Advent Garden, an inspiring tradition in Waldorf schools

But I’m working on it. If I’ve learned anything from studying positive discipline, it’s that the first step to thinking forward about parenting is usually looking backward at your own history. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my childhood — about the traditions of my family and my role in them.

It was an awkward position to be youngest child of five, almost nine years after the fourth. When I was young, I was the only one still really getting a kick out of kid things. And from a fairly early age, I was a little too conscious of the fact that everyone else was ready to move on. I struggled between wanting everyone to be excited the way I was and just wanting myself to grow up already so I could be like them.

The traditions we had — of storytelling on Christmas Eve, of finding the bounty of red pistachios left by the “Valentine Pig,” of hunting for Easter eggs from clever clues — they were all around well before my time and seemed to have a fast-approaching expiration date. By the time we moved to a new town when I was ten, my siblings were all in college. It was like starting over.

Couple that with the fact that on the verge of an already-going-to-be-rocky adolescence, my brother died a week before my fourteenth birthday. Cynicism and sadness crowded out joy and expectation when it came to celebrations. I grew up before my time.

I got a bit of my groove back as in my 20s, but, as I developed into a more holistic-minded person, I lost the lust for many of the trappings of traditions. They seemed tacky at best, toxic at worst. Once you give up the candy, the glitzy plastic, and the TV, things can look at little, well, dull.

I’m all for eschewing consumerism and going green, but being a full-on Debbie Downer is not exactly inspired parenting. My children deserve a model of joyfulness. My wider family has rekindled a secret Santa tradition with all the cousins and spouses included; we write poems to reveal who has given to whom. But in my house, I’ve been living in a fog, not knowing how to build something from scratch with my new family of four.

Where I am right now, with a son nearing five and a baby daughter barely rolling over, is trying to release my humbug and embrace a joyful spirit. To start, I am trying to identify some core values so that I can create traditions I feel good about … and actually sustain them. Without that crucial first step, stuff just doesn’t happen in my world. It lingers in a pile in the corner. In order to really get invested and model excitement for my children, I need to figure out what I want to hang my hat on.

A great source of support has been my chapter of Holistic Moms Network, where last year two life coaches talked about aligning values and priorities, and where last month, our “holistic holidays” speaker helped us get beyond mundane (though important) questions of how to deal with your in-laws giving toys or foods you don’t let your kids eat, and to think instead — at a more fundamental level — about what kind of experiences we wanted to create for our families.

Our new "Harvest Wreath" that will come out again next fall

After taking my baby out to the “holistic holidays” discussion, I decided she wasn’t up for accompanying me to Craft Night the next evening — or for staying home without me. I struggled a bit with the desire to honor her needs while also trying to become a crafty domestic goddess. I identified “beauty” as a value I wanted to uphold in my home in general and with respect to the holidays in particular, and I wanted it to start now, darn it. But just the suggestion of the wreath-making activity and then the jovial reports of those who attended were inspiration enough to get me started.

With those models in mind, I took my son to the craft store just before Thanksgiving so we could make a “harvest wreath” that we will put up every fall. We got started on a Christmas wreath, and I stowed away some blue and white ribbon for a winter wreath and pastels for a spring wreath.

Our new Christmas wreath that will get new greens each year

It should be noted that I am not one of those people who ever has anything on her door, much less seasonal banners flying in the breeze off my front porch. A friend got me a subscription to Family Fun magazine, and I usually look at it with astonishment that it and I exist on the same planet. To walk up the steps and be greeted by something pretty hanging on my front door is just short of revolutionary around here. So I’m pretty excited at our initial efforts.

My son and I also wove a ribbon placemat on which to put our signature GFCF pumpkin pie and made sure to start that Thanksgiving and every dinner since then by lighting the candle he made at his school’s fall festival. He was so excited by our mini-decorating spree and by the resurrection of the candle that I went a little crazy adding to the school’s group order of beeswax candles from Hinode Farm. I decided I’d rather spend money up front on a quality product from a vendor I feel good about than rush to come up with something at the last minute, either running out for cheap tchotchkes, drawing a crappy picture with whatever random marker happens to be available, or just doing nothing. After a lifetime of flying by the seat of my pants in a society that values disposability, I’m working on approaching parenting with intentionality and on treating things with a sense of reverence.

Decorating our first family tree

So now, we will have special candles to light just for holiday nights — among them a turkey, a bunny, and a pine tree — and a leaf, a star, a tulip and a daisy for solstice and equinox celebrations. Also, I pushed for going out to get a Christmas tree from a farm this year — just like I used to do as a child — and I was amazed how happy it made me to have it to decorate.

That’s the mom I want my children to see. The one who both sings Christmas carols at full tilt (while sprinkling colored raffia on a pesticide-free tree) and who also tears up at the silent beauty of our school’s Advent Garden.

Never mind that I don’t yet have any more specifics on holiday celebrations or seasonal festivals. There is plenty of time, and plenty of reading material for ideas. We’re celebrating baby steps around here, and today, I’m just glad to have started to believe in myself as a happy mom who can create something beautiful for her children.

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo 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:

• Traditions? What traditions? — Olivia at Write About Birth needs your advice: how can she make the most of the holiday season in a new country with only her immediate family? (@writeaboutbirth)
• TRADITION!!!!!! — Ella at My Intentional Journey reminds us all to be thankful for family traditions; there are those who have none.
• tradition! — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine came to realize that families can make incredible memories, even if they’re not wealthy (or organized).
• Taking a child’s perspective on traditions — Lauren at Hobo Mama wants to keep in mind how important even the mundane traditions will be to her little ones. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Sunday Dinners and Lullabies — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment finds traditions in the small things throughout the year.
• Simple Family Advent Traditions — Michelle at The Parent Vortex crafted a set of advent bags with daily surprises to eat and to do. (@TheParentVortex)
• Parenting: Family Meetings – A Timeless Tradition — Amy Phoenix at Innate Wholeness discusses a year-round tradition in her household: Family Meetings. (@InnateWholeness)
• Our Mindful Holidays — They may not be “traditional” traditions, but they fit the family of Kellie at Our Mindful Life.
• Our Holiday Traditions, New and Old — Even with three young children, Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings is finding ways to be intentional and meaningful about holiday traditions. (@sunfrog)
• Our Cupcake Custom — Amy at Anktangle knows celebrations need minimal excuse and lots of cupcakes! (@anktangle)
• On the bunny slope of tradition-making — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama is finding her groove as a holistic-minded mama with a joyful holiday spirit. (@crunchychewy)
• No, Virginia, There Is Not a Santa Claus — Just because her family is not going to do Santa, does not mean that Sheila at A Gift Universe can’t instill some mystery and magic into Christmas. (@agiftuniverse)
• New Traditions — Becky at Future Legacy shares a few traditions she is starting for her family, including popovers, a birthday banner, and service.
• My Holiday Family Traditions — The Artsymama continues a long tradition of adopting family members and sharing two favorite games that work well for a crowd.
• Mindfully Creating Family Traditions — Alison at BluebirdMama has ideas for celebrating birthdays, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas — though her family’s still figuring some of it out. (@bluebirdmama)
• Memorable Traditions — Lori Ann at MamaWit follows four mindful steps when instituting any tradition.
• Let’s Talk Traditions — Lily, aka Witch Mom shares her family’s traditions that are centered on the wheel of the year. (@lilyshahar)
• Homeschool Christmas — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now did not always celebrate the Christmas season in the same way with her family, but they always celebrated together. (@DebChitwood)
• Holidays, food and family — For Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood, the holidays are about family and food. (@crunchymamato2)
• Giving Christmas to the Critter — Rachael at The Variegated Life has found a way to tie her Zen practices to the Christmas story of the baby in the manger. (@RachaelNevins)
• Family Traditions + To Santa Or Not To Santa — Stop by Natural Parents Network to discover some of the traditions from other natural parents. NPN is also featuring snippets of posts from NP bloggers on the topic of whether to encourage children to believe in Santa Claus. (@NatParNet)
• Family Tradition Origins — Momma Jorje discusses her family’s traditions, and her desire not to make anyone feel obligated to conform to them.
• Everyday Traditions — For Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children it’s the small, daily traditions that make life special.
• Establishing Traditions and Older Child Adoption — MrsH at Fleeting Moments is trying to find ways to start traditions with a family that was made very quickly through birth and adoption.
• Emerging Family Traditions — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! shares some of her favorite birthday and Christmas traditions. (@bfmom)
• Does Rebellion Count? — Seonaid at the Practical Dilettante has instituted a day of rest and PJs at her house on Christmas. (@seonaid_lee)
• December Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Traditions — Sybil at Musings of a Milk Maker tries to give her girls a mix of traditions to foster togetherness — but worries that not being near extended family is a disconnect.
• Craft-tea Christmas Celebrations — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud created a delicious Christmas tradition that she named “Craft-tea.”
• A Christmas Tradition — Luschka at Diary of a First Child knows that even though she won’t be able to have her usual holiday traditions this year, the important thing is that she has her family. (@lvano)
• Celebrations without the Holiday — Asha at Meta Mom shares several ways to celebrate the winter holidays without focusing on religious traditions. (@metamomma)
• Celebrating the Journey We Have Traveled Together — Acacia at Be Present enjoys the chance to draw closer to her family during the Christmas holiday.
• Celebrating Motherhood — Do you celebrate the day you became a mother? Dionna at Code Name: Mama offers some ideas for traditions to mark your passage into motherhood. (@CodeNameMama)
• Celebrate! Winter Traditions Brought Home. — At True Confessions of a Real Mommy, TrueRealMommy and her family are celebrating many different religions and traditions this month. Stop by to see their schedule of events. (@TrueRealMommy)
• “Always Ready”, Holiday Style — Amy at Toddler In Tow discovered that it’s not the traditions themselves, but the emotional experience behind them that makes them special.

It was exactly a year ago that I found out I was pregnant. I tested two weeks after I’d ovulated and was ambivalent. On one hand, I had been told I was glowing, and I seriously felt buzzy electricity where those cells were dividing. It’s like there was a frequency, and every once in a while, I’d tune in and feel the vibration. So I kind of suspected.

But then there was the fact that this was our first try. And things weren’t exactly going swimmingly around the homestead, so it was with some hesitation that we even pulled the trigger. But I’d wanted my son to have a sibling, and I was far enough away from weaning and past the move and a busy October that it was the time to start trying, already halfway through being 36 and all.

I had, in fact,  been planning for this for months with detox and health consults and herbs. I started writing a “how I got pregnant” essay when literally asked that by a friend who was trying to conceive, and I have yet to finish it and add in a bunch of links to make it useful for sharing. But someday I will.

Right now, I’m still scratching my head at that double pink line on the first of five or six tests I took those first few weeks when I had zero symptoms other than two nights of insomnia while my in-laws were here for Thanksgiving. And scratching my head that a morning I woke up before dawn

Pensive, like her mama, on this anniversary of the discovery of her soul.

thinking the day would look one way, I ended up with a baby in my arms less than five hours later. And now, here she is, with the fire wand her brother made three years ago at his first Waldorf school fall festival placed oh-so-lovingly on her head, the better for watching race cars on a plastic track.

I still cannot believe she is here.

Shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I started a little blog I don’t think I shared with anyone, except maybe a friend from my writing group. http://maybebabywaitandsee.blogspot.com/ Maybe my husband, but I don’t think so. I wanted to write daily, but didn’t, and then trailed off around 16 weeks. I just re-read a few of the entries and wish there were more.

There’s something people tend to say every time I talk about regrets, which include: The regret that I spent so much of the pregnancy afraid that I could pull of a vaginal birth, or that the baby would make it and be okay. Regret about the way the birth video and photos turned out (and our lack of preparation). Regret that I didn’t have a soundtrack and so that two hours in the tub was just so damn quiet. Regret that I didn’t do more hypnobirthing preparation so that I could have breathed through those early contractions more and waited to push so that those last pushes would have been more powerful and less of the this-needs-to-happen-put-it-all-in-even-though-you-don’t-have-much-left variety (both for my own sense of satisfaction and so that the baby wouldn’t have started to lose her color). Regret that I wasn’t enraptured in joy and smothering her with exuberant kisses upon lifting her out of the water but was so freaked out that she was out, that her cord was too short for high lifting, that she wasn’t active or crying, that she looked so darn freaky.

People say, “Next time.”

I don’t know. What is the right motivation to bring a child into the world? I wondered if I’d “heal” from my c-section if I didn’t have a vaginal birth. I did want another child, and I really wanted E to have a sibling. But I also wanted this for me. And yet, how fair is it to have a baby if you doubt your own investment as a mother. I’ve hardly looked at my daughter. I can’t keep my brain focused on her for more than half a minute, running down the list in my head of all the things I want to do, write, reply to, sign up for. Hell, I’m writing this instead of doing a lot of things I could be doing for my kids. Or I could be sleeping, or doing yoga, or cleaning the house so we all felt a lot calmer.

For three and a half months now, I’ve wanted to be pregnant again, to just enjoy the experience, to look forward to the birth. After I got past a big event when my daughter was six weeks old, I’ve wanted to live through another newborn period without so many irons in the fire and just really doing a laying-in babymoon. I have an essay in this anthology about fantasizing about a do-over for my son’s first year. I’m really good at wanting another chance.

But there are issues of time, and health, and  stability of various kinds — marital, mental, financial. And, though part of me thinks I want my children to be able to say that they have siblings, plural, what kind of childhood can I seriously give them if I’m this distracted with just two kids?

In five years, am I just going to wish I’d made up my mind, stopped wondering, and enjoyed settling into the present as a mother of two, certain that would remain my future?

When I first took Rene Hackney’s Positive Discipline class as part of a play and workshop series at Parenting Playgroups, my son wasn’t even two, and he was too cute for words. Just coming off of some intense separation anxiety and just starting to string together sentences, he could do no wrong. It was easy to practice what the class preached, and to think that everyone else could and should, too!

Now, not so much. He’s goofy and quirky and whiny and annoying. My tolerance is low. It’s like I turned back into a teenager and he turned into the parent I roll my eyes at. I forgot what it was like to cringe this much. There’s potty talk, a host of demands, and a never-ending string of bizarre mashups of language — real English words and things that would seem to rhyme.

And it’s sweet that he loves his baby sister, but not when he becomes a health hazard. There’s the risk of suffocation by adoration, the chance he could get so excited about her that he squeezes her toys clear off.

It’s not exactly attractive, this new attitude of impatience and distaste of mine. I am not committed to being this kind of parent, and I hope it wears off when he hits a new developmental stage, or when I’m less newly postpartum and sleep-deprived.

A packed crowd listens to Kirk Martin at Arlington Central Library

But I do have to admit that I find myself saying and doing a lot of things that I know better than to say or do. It would help to re-read some material (some books I like are in this post), and I plan to take Rene’s play and workshop class again when baby girl is a playful tot. When I heard good things about Kirk Martin’s “Celebrate Calm” workshops happening in my area, I decided to check one out.

I was not disappointed. There is something about hearing someone dramatize parental anger that sends chills up your spine. He was that dad, for nine years. Even if I haven’t sunk to the depths of many of his examples, I could identify with the emotion behind them more often than I ‘d like to admit. And I was feeling like my husband could, too, so I begged him to go to one of the sessions later that evening.

The first and most important thing Martin said is something I know I should know — that our job as parents is to control our behavior and to teach children how to control theirs. We can’t think of ourselves as “responsible” for what kids do, as though we have to fix them or clean up after them, as though we’re supposed to control them. And we can’t let them control us by letting ourselves lose our composure because of something a child says or does. We just have to be the kind of people we would like for them to become. That means patient, compassionate and, yes, calm.

I have read this in books and practiced it with Rene’s workbook. I have complained to my husband about acquaintances who say things like “What is wrong with you?” to their kids and even blogged once about a mom’s negative behavior in a toddler class. I have tried very hard to be a positive mama. But life looks a whole lot different with a four-and-a-half-year-old who is a big brother than it did with just a toddler. So I’m glad I got some powerful reminders and some new  insights.

Kirk Martin at a Celebrate Calm presentation

One thing Martin said that I hadn’t heard elsewhere was about video games, something I hope we can stay far away from for a very long time, even if I have caved somewhat on screen time in terms of watching TV. Video games, Martin said, are so appealing because they are consistent. The rules never change. Kids always know what to expect.

Waldorf education is big on consistency. Children thrive when they feel safe and secure, when they fall into a comfortable rhythm. It’s too much freedom or too many peaks and valleys that pose challenges for kids.

So video games provide a techno substitute for consistency when home life — and parental emotions — are erratic. No wonder they are so appealing.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around a more rhythmic life for a while, and this point about video games and the importance of creating the right home environment for calm and peace — the morning after I heard Waldorf educator Jack Petrash say many of the same things at a lecture.

It’s inspiring when approaches dovetail and the path becomes clear. I haven’t even popped in any of the Celebrate Calm DVDs I bought, but I swear that attending that morning and sending my husband that night were like shots in our arm, boosters (if you’ll pardon the vaccine analogy) to our rekindle our previously waning commitment to a positive, happy home.

And I have to say, seeing the packed crowd hear this man speak — especially with all he had to say about sensory issues and other contributors to behavior, including food — I felt hopeful for a whole generation.