PPC day twelve: Turning a double negative into a positive

Last summer I made a decision that has lived in infamy in our home to buy a used light bright for Truman, my two-year-old.

I was picturing quiet created by concentrated combos of the little pegs, introducing color theory, and the final products shinning peacefully over him as a nightlight while he slept.

None of that really happened. Despite the fact that the lady has assured me her kids had just replaced the light bulb and that it worked, it never worked for us.

I was too thrifty to throw it away, thinking we could still play with it, we just couldn't plug it in.

Well, playing with it became dumping the pieces out of the handy, organized container (pictured above) all over the living room time and time again, while I foolishly and feverishly reorganized them by color (obsessive? yes. But I did say foolishly).

The light bright became a bane on our existence and Joe was constantly asking me to get rid of it.

Finally in a furry of nesting I threw it away and all the tiny pegs, too, but decided to keep the box.

Today Truman dumped out a bunch of the snaps I am using to revamp his diapers from the aplix velcro of doom Bum Genius 3.0s came with to lovely snaps that will stay put as pictured here:




(I will post more information about that project when I am done.)

Both of these situations were negative, yet I realized the snaps would have a perfect home inside that light bright case.

The snaps were just in open plastic bags that didn't seal, now they are well-contained and easy to work with.

And as an added bonus I don't feel so bad for my horrible light bright fail.

So there you have it: negative + negative + the right attitude = positive.

PPC day nine: Sticks and stones

I will parent the way that is best for me and my child, even in the face of opposition.

When I first became a mom I lived in fear of the obnoxious on-looker, this fictional character I had created — kind of a cousin to the shifty-looking thief on those neighborhood watch posters — who really just embodied all of the fears I had about the choices I felt were right for my family, but stood out.




A piece of me was afraid of being judged for being different, but over time that piece grew smaller and smaller.

In reality, I never really had an encounter with any of the evil people I thought existed until last Saturday.

We went to 5 p.m. evening Mass because Joe was singing, which means he has to go an hour early so we went to 5 p.m. Mass at 4, which means we spent two hours in church.

For the first hour we headed down to the nursery to play. When Mass started, Truman did not want to leave and so we stayed for a while because I know that time of day is hard for him and that staying still in church is hard for him.

Eventually we headed up to the church, walked through, listening to what we could, then took communion. Afterward he wanted to look at the candles people had lit for special intentions. I have decided that if he can look with his eyes and not with his hands it is okay for him to explore these.

How else is he going to engage with his faith of origin at this age? Toddlers gain knowledge by interacting, touching, engaging, not sitting.

He was frustrated about the no-touch rule, but following directions. He was even making a good effort to whisper. Then he saw a statue holding a scepter and couldn't resist the urge to grab the "sword." When I told him no he got mad. Then I asked him to gain control or we would have to go take a minute. He did, but as he was stepping back he hit his head on the pew.

Crying ensued. Crying loud enough that all I could hear over it was the music.

Until I heard rapid snapping coming from behind me. I assumed the old man behind me was just going to try to cheer Truman up and was ready to tell him it was nice but wouldn't work because he was hurt, not mad.

Instead I found a grumpy face talking in a whisper shout I couldn't hear gesturing toward the music and the cry room. He was actually demanding I take my flailing child into the cry room in my 8 month pregnant arms because he couldn't hear the second reflection song well enough (although I could still hear it very well above the crying).

Ignoring the irony that the reason I was having a hard time was because my husband was in the act of making that music, wouldn't do the story justice, but the real point is this:

At that moment I could have gotten angry. And at first I felt that seeping in, but then I realized that nothing could be gained from anger. Nothing could be gained from letting him tell me how to parent child. Instead, I did what was best for us, which was to sit there, calm him, and move on.

After the song, the man stormed out of church. Truman had calmed down, but then got angry again because he wanted to light the candles.

We headed to the bathroom (one of the only actual non-distracting rooms for a child in the church) to take a minute and I started crying right along with him.

It was a horrible moment that I'm still sad happened, but it allowed me to realize how powerful I am as a parent.

I was able to keep from folding under the presence of the Obnoxious Onlooker. I'm freed from that fear because I faced it with all the positivity I am gaining from this challenge.

PPC day seven: Acceptance

Accepting things that are not ready to be changed frees me to experience the lessons and joys emerging from these short-lived stages in life. There is positivity in avoiding resistance. I will remind myself that I am not "giving up" when I choose this option with my children, only pausing for peace.

It's easy to get caught up in behavior modification with children and to start to believe that every negative behavior is a sign of something that needs to be changed.

I have a lot of tools in my tool box to work on these things — by figuring out the deep need that he has that isn't being met, by keeping him from situations that bring on the behavior, by creating more rhythm or schedule in our day to give them a sense of what is to come and avoid the anxiety of the unknown.

But I am finding through this process that maybe I need to add a lot more acceptance into my parenting. Sometimes "negative" behavior is just a part of that age or stage for my child and it is better for me to take my desire to modify it out of the equation and instead help ameliorate the effects.

For us, it's easy for me to step back and look at our every day and think there are things that are "wrong" with it. It shouldn't be this hard to change a shirt, put on pants, put on a coat, hat and shoes and get in the car, right?

I've tried having him pick out his clothes, helping him to dress himself, talking to him in length about why and where we are going, and other things I can't remember right now.

But at this moment I know that it is just hard for him to do something he is not self-motivated to do. This will probably be a part of his personality forever, but at two it seems to be at its maximum.

So, instead of making both of us frustrated pushing for change, I take breaks, find acceptance that this one thing is hard for both of us, make as little fuss about it as possible when I am getting him dressed, and let it go as we move through the day.

I have noticed if I talk about it too much, he begins to build anxiety about the moment. Then frustration, or desire to control himself, that he expresses in the moment is increased. The more matter-of-fact and quick I am about dressing, the less anxiety builds. For now I have chosen to do this to ameliorate the effect and let the underlying sit on pause.

It feels like giving up, but it's not.

What made realize this was a lesson from my little yet-to-be-born child. I've been back into the practice of yoga regularly for over a year now. I took a few weeks off in early pregnancy, but otherwise have been growing a little yogi.

Many amazing moments have emerged practicing yoga with my unborn child, noticing the changes in my body from week to week as I work through the same poses and freeing my mind to focus on us for a concentrated period of time several days a week.

Last week it became hard. The baby went through a growth spurt, which makes sense at 31 weeks, and I felt bulky and even my favorite positions weren't feeling right. Downward dog felt horrible and child's pose didn't have it's magical benefits.

During that yoga session I found myself crying on the mat. This was the same day as that first bad day in this parenting challenge, and I gave in to a feeling of failure — that I couldn't handle my child on the outside or my child on inside.

What followed has been a week of interrupted sleep and daily tiredness.

All week I have resisted these feelings. I have found myself thinking that I must choose not to be this tired right now. I must feel the way I did 4 weeks ago — energized, ready-to-go, able to easily fall back asleep and go through all my poses feeling strong, poised.

I was too tired to get up for morning yoga yesterday, then realized that I couldn't go to afternoon yoga because I wanted to listen to a photography marketing webinar. By evening I was tired, but Truman said he wanted to go to Y, so we did.

On the way I realized that the tiredness might become a part of my life for the foreseeable future. That I am going to start getting rounder and heavier and maybe poses that were easy would become hard. But I will accept that.

I will accept that this is the stage that I am in with this child and in acceptance free myself of the self-defeating thoughts of modification. Instead, I will embrace the end of pregnancy and beginning of a new life.

Accepting things that are not ready to be changed frees me to experience the lessons and joys emerging from these short-lived stages in life. There is positivity in avoiding resistance. I will remind myself that I am not "giving up" when I choose this option with my children, only pausing for peace.

The Egg

So we've been calling the baby "the egg" for the last few weeks, primarily because my belly has taken on an egg-like shape, but partially because I sometimes joke that I'm going to pass the egg to Joe for a while as penguins do.

The other night I got stuck on my back in bed and realized I felt very much like humpty dumpty — like a big egg with arms and legs that couldn't get up.

Joe rescued me, of course.

I've also been really into the idea of having a pet turtle one day. Maybe it's because I feel a kinship with creatures that get stuck on their back ...

These are some pictures from 32 weeks.



See the egg shape?