parenting sanity
-
Rebecca - - No responsesEmry putting himself to bed on the couch, November 2016 I've written a lot about sleep over the years. When I recently went back and read old posts, I have to admit I actually shuddered. The sleep situation in our house was that dire. For many years. Thankfully, over the last four years, as Elan's sleep apnea has been successfully treated and Emry has gotten older, sleep is no longer the limiting factor in our lives. Well, at least not most nights. And not usually because of the kids. But I remember so clearly the ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesA beautiful morning in Berkeley, April 2016 I'm loving the time management/prioritization concept of "3 big rocks," which I discovered via writing coach Jenna Avery, and she credits to Stephen Covey. If you're not familiar with the concept, Jenna explains it nicely in this blog post, so I won't recap it here. This has got me thinking: what are my three big rocks, overall, in my life right now? Two are easy: Boys. Book. But what's the third? I'm torn between two possibilities. It could be Wellness, which would include my near-daily attempts ... more -
Rebecca - - One responseMarch 2016 It's not that the kids refused to try Judo, but they were hesitant. Elan was anxious ahead of time. We were in the car, and I found myself saying to him, "Listen up. I'm going to tell you the secret to life." Once that came out of my mouth, it seemed necessary to pull over. I parked under a tree and turned around to face them, my two beautiful boys, their perfect skin, their eyes - brown and blue - pools reflecting liquid light. "The secret to life," I said, ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesMy then-shaggy boys in the Mojave desert where I grew up, December 2014 Sometimes I fear that I'm doing my kids' childhood all wrong. Not enough forts, for instance. When I was a kid, we had a corner of the living room devoted frequently to forts. There was a living and a family room. Plenty of space for forts. Our house here in Berkeley is little. We make forts, though we haven't made one in a while. The giant camo blanket, lightweight with strings sewn into the edges, is perfect for fort-making. We tie ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesEnd of summer, San Diego, August 2015 There's a poem in my head and I don't know how to write it. Riding my bike home, I hear the bing-bing of two metal things hitting. I decide to not stop. The sound is rather pleasant. A man is installing a rain gutter in hopes of El Niño. A woman in white pants trims something in her garden, as I pass a large van with a bumper sticker on the back window that reads WITCH. Two old cars rot under a plexiglass carport. Across the ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesOne of my favorite spots in New Jersey, July 2015 In many things, I am a perfectionist. I try to tell myself “good enough is good enough,” but it’s often hard for me to believe it. However, there is one place in my life where striving for mediocrity is just right for me, and that is meditation. There has only been one period of my life when I meditated regularly, and I always did it badly. In fact, I remember only two sessions of meditation that felt anywhere close to transcendent. ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesEarlier this week, I posted here on the blog about our decision to let Emry make his own choices about his hair (to read it, click here). When we did that, we were simultaneously setting a family policy that, if you have strong feelings about your own hair, then you get to make decisions around it. (This doesn’t include hygiene, because neither of my children would ever choose to wash or brush their hair if it were up to them.) (Check back to see if the policy ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesEmry & me, Kauai, February 2015 We started getting the questions when Emry was two and a half: "when are you going to cut his hair?" We cut Elan's hair when he was a little over two. He had beautiful blonde-brown hair, often scraggly but still beautiful. But it started bothering him when it got in his face, and he showed signs of wanting to have it shorter. Emry, on the other hand, was always quite sure that he didn't want his hair cut. He wanted it long. He liked it long. ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesElan, September 2014 When Elan realized he left the stuffed penguin at home, his face fell. It was PJ-and-stuffed-animal day, and he was wearing his Avengers pajamas, the ones I had to buy specially for the last PJ day, since this kid who I could never get out of his sleepers just a few years ago no longer wears pajamas to bed, just clean clothes. If we hadn’t already been inside the schoolyard, he would have cried. Loudly, in fact. But we were at school, so no tears. Just the ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesEmry, October 2014 This is what the living do. We want and want and want some more, and then we are suddenly satiated, and this is grace. Riding my bike through the autumn morning, the piles of leaves damp from a little nighttime rain, or maybe it was heavy dew, the sky a brightening blue with strewn white cloud over it. A sky like that has promise. The way the light slants past the street signs, hitting the tops of the trees and letting them show off their yellows, their ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesEmry, July 2014 For the last several months, Nubbins has been dropping his nap. (Everyone who has parented a nap-dropping child now sighs.) I'm knocking wood as I type this, but so far, this transition hasn't been nearly as gnarly as Elan's nap-dropping chaos was. Part of this is probably because I have not attempted to force him into nap or enforce a set rest-time. I'm still scarred from the screaming fits that happened when I tried to convince Elan that a good alternative for a nap would be to have quiet time ... more -
Rebecca - - No responsesOrr Hot Springs, November 2013 As soon as I became a mother, I starting hearing advice that I needed to be sure to take “Me Time.” Bleary-eyed with milky exhaustion, occupied 24/7 with learning how to care for a newborn, I nodded at what sounded like wisdom, but I didn’t really know what it meant. Personally, I hate the phrase “Me Time.” It sounds so upper class, so privileged, so optional. For me, the phrase summons up the image of a perfectly coifed woman getting a mani-pedi while reading a magazine. Over ... more
