Parenthood - the job that lasts forever

There is no harder job ever than signing up to be a parent. Whether you come to it by surprise, marry into the task, work hard or pay dearly for that amazing day when you go from being M/S no kids to M/S with kid there is no real way to adequately prepare for the change that will occur when the new person arrives in your life - forever. There are no test drives, return if not satisfactory policies or "oops" production overrun sales. There are no do overs when you become a parent.

As a Nana I am now in the enviable position of having hindsight and some days some tiny glimmers of insight into the overwhelming job of becoming a parent. I wandered into the role of motherhood without a real plan for the end game. Each of my children honed my skills as a parent. When I listen to young mothers now I fear I would have failed woefully on the 'good mother' yardstick.

So this is my wisdom: Every child is unique. What works for one will not work for another. In fact with infants and toddlers, what works today will not work tomorrow. Know that the more you thought you knew before the wee one arrives, the less you will know once they are here. Google is great for finding a thousand and one recipes for chicken and directions to obscure restaurants but like Dr. Spock it is not gospel. The reason it takes a village to raise a child is no one person can know everything. There are some decisions that you make or don't make that will effect whether or not your child will go to Harvard but very few of them are made before he or she is 2. Most children who learn to drive are also potty trained and have given up their sookies.

What is important: Sleep - for the parents. The old adage that it will look better in the morning was coined because a good nights sleep gives you hope of survival for another day. Pick your battles. You can not make your child sleep, eat, or potty on command (at least I don't think you can). It takes several years before they can begin plotting against you! Babies and children have internal rhythms. As parents we can help shape them but it is an uphill battle to ignore them. Be kind to yourself. The fact that you are worried and thinking about what is good for your child means you are already a good parent. Will you always get it right - NO. Will you usually get it right - YES.

Looking back I wish I had played more and worked less. If I could do it over I would have made more time for bedtime rituals like bubble baths and stories, I would have worried less about a clean house and more about listening. To all of the parents of my grand's - you are doing a great job, thank you for sharing their lives with me.

It was a LOUD bird

Have you ever had a word or idea that you rolled around on your tongue like a chocolate - tasting the sound, thinking about the flavor? A true pronouncement. Last night my 20 month old grandson (with some coaching from his parental unit) was telling me about his day. He went to the Baltimore Aquarium and saw ----- fish - red fish, orange fish, blue fish and a LOUD BIRD. Loud is a word that requires scrunching up your face and rolling your tongue in your mouth and saying LOUD bird. It is a lucious word. He says it with all of the passion and energy of someone making a pronouncement on the future of the world and once he is done he sits back and laughs as if there is no better word in the world for what there is to see and experience.

Children - mine and others - coin phrases that rattle around in my head as the small kernels of truth that come back to ground ideas. Years ago my youngest sister became famous as the pronouncer of truths. We stayed at a resort in Ocean City that was next door to a motor court of little mention named Miami Courts. Once day when she was little and I not yet a teenager were walking back from a foray to the corner store, I said something about cutting through the parking lot and she looked up and said with all of the seriousness of a toddler -- are we going to Your Ami? As the years have gone on I have always remembered her confusion with the syntax of the english language and the fraility of puns. She is also the authoress of my other favorite quote from her years of horseback riding. She came home one day in a thorough funk and proclaimed at dinner that Dusty would not behave for a little jerk. Of course she meant that Dusty the horse was not responding to the reins - but forever her pronouncement has stayed in my thoughts as not responding to a little jerk. I can not tell you how many times that phrase has come back to me to explain what was going on in life. Is the problem the Little Jerk or the little jerk? The third one -- bear with me - was an Easter joke. In a spurt of craftieness I though that I would let my youngest child help me create Easter Eggs. I made all of the preperations - eggs, dye, stickers - and called him to help. His pronouncement to his siblings was they should all come help -- we were going to Kill Eggs. Ahhh english as a language.
For those of you who are dyslexic or who don't hear the fine nuance of words and phrases this will be funny. For everyone else you will go "Huh". This was an inside joke for all of us on the ADHD/Dyslexic list serve.

Romper Room and Meeting Place

This will only appeal to those of us who watched morning television in the 1950's and maybe the 60's. There was a show (originating from Baltimore - small cheer) where every day Miss Nancy started by getting everyone to sit down in front of their televisions while she got out her magic looking glass and said hello to us. She would call out our names as she looked through her magic glass. Then we would say the pledge of allegiance and sing songs. Sometimes Mr. Do Bee would come to teach us how to be polite. "Do be a Do Bee". I always wished she would call my name but alas Jinni was not a popular name at the time.

Every time a meeting place conference call starts I remember Miss Nancy and wish sometimes Mr. Do Bee would show up and remind us about being on time and muting our phones when we are in a bar. We all log in and our names pop up on the screen, our leader calls out our names - I see Brad, is Tom on yet? And then we go through our agenda and make our reports and say goodbye. It is a lot like Romper Room.

Thank you Miss Nancy and Mr. Do Bee - I have remembered your lessons and it makes some of these calls a little more fun!

The Jeopardy Game

My grandson Ashby is a serious student. He takes great pride in what he learns and practices all of the time. He has been learning sign language for at least the past six months. Every week Ashby joins a group of toddlers and Mommies as they learn new words and practice old words. He has moved from single words like cracker to concepts - where is Nana's dog Zed? or Where is the man's hair for Granddad.

His mom and dad reinforce his lessons by practicing the words and rewarding him with a "Good Ashby" affirmation. This week he started training Nana. The first time I caught on to my tutorial he and I were sitting at the window watching the world go by. He would point and look at me and I would say what we were looking at and he would give me the 'yeah Nana' nod. Then we moved on to the wall, the floor, feet, eyes, hair, - well you get the picture. When I got it wrong he would give me a second chance.

He likes to run through all of his key words and phrases first thing in the morning, when he gets up from his nap and most importantly when it is getting close to dinner and bed and he is winding down. I have gotten smarter under his unflinching tutelage, he never cheats, so now I am quickly going through the A list of bird, jogger, dog, car, train, wall, window, eye, hair, feet and the list goes on.

Today I got to go to music class with him. A dozen or so little people with their attendant parental units, one nanny and one Nana were in attendance. The instructor was great, the wee ones were wee ones. Some of the little girls were focused on the program, Ashby was focused on an escape plan. He circled the group, checking for any possible enemies or other untoward behavior. He checked out all of the visible and reachable sippy cups. But he kept a close eye on the proceedings. You could almost hear him saying, "Listen you guys, this is a classroom and you are all jumping around like jumping beans. Sit down, pay attention and then go home and practice." And practice we did when we got home. He got out the napkins and we did the scarf dance. We stomped, clapped and kept time on our knees. I didn't know the best song that has lots of hand clapping, thigh slapping and hand waving so I had to revert to the only one I know "We're going on a bear hunt" We have hunted a lot of bear today. Every time he thinks my mind is wandering he flops down legs out and off we go up the hill, look for the bear and run back down.

Thank you Ashby, I had a great time! I had forgotten how much fun it is to dance with scarves and I promise to practice my words every morning.

Fortune telling

Babies are such wonderful little mysteries. I am always studying their eyes and smiles wondering if there are clues to the future hiding in there.

I found a picture of Pete and his Dad on the day he arrived. He is giving him the one-eyed baby stare. I had forgotten how much hair he had when he was born. (No comments on the current status of the Dad's hair)

This is a picture of Pete with his new daughter. She is not sure yet if she is going to melt your heart with one of her little smiles or check you out with her thoughtful stare. I am pretty sure she is using her melt your heart looks on her Dad.

New parent secrets

As a Nana I can now safely look back on parenting and wonder why no one ever really tells you the truth about babies and toddlers. Is it like childbirth - if we remembered every little detail over and over we might all leave home and join a convent or at least remain celebate for the rest of our lives. Like childbirth the stresses of new babies and toddlers are passing. Time may seem to stand still still but in fact it is moving along at the same rate that it did before the arrival of the new person.
A combination of the natural order of life and intuitiveness seems to send messages to little ones that - wait - the parent units are near breaking - sleep an extra half hour and give them hope that someday in their distant future they will be able to string together 6 or 7 straight hours lying in their bed with their eyes closed. Toddlers seem to know that if Mommy doesn't get her hair washed and her legs shaved life is going to go downhill. And it seems that is the afternoon they stay snuggled in an extra 30 minutes of what seems like miracle time.
The complex part of the equation is that sometime parental units and wee ones aren't on the same email server and don't get the message in time. The night of the extra half hour comes when Mom has given up hope and is watching late night tv waiting for the 'chow time' call or is scurrying around finishing up a project just waiting for the 'here I am come get me' call. Truly syncing in must be a Zen moment, fleeting and wonderful.
Maybe I should have put my forehead against their foreheads and thought really hard -- "I just need 20 more minutes this afternoon and I promise not to fritter it away and will use my time wisely."

Fresh air

Seasonal depression is a really annoying problem. It sneaks up on you over the long gray days of winter. Slowly you begin to sleep later, no longer being awakened by the sun peaking through the edges of the blinds or the morning sounds of the neighborhood. Everthing is muffled slightly. Mornings when the sun is bright and sky is blue trick you into thinking spring is near but a quick walk out on the back deck reminds you that it is still too cold and wet to work garden, and a coat, hat a gloves will be needed for a walk.
I know this cycle, I have lived with the cycle all my life so I can't quite figure out why I am always surprised. When we lived in Canada it started in late November and lasted until the end of March, reaching a crescendo in February before ever so slowly loosening its grip as the days began to get longer and the snow and ice slowly melted from the north side of the yard.
When we moved to North Carolina I was ever so hopeful. For the first several years we had months of glorious weather. I could bundle up in a heavy sweater and sit in the sun on the deck in December. Winter cold was kept where it belonged in West Virginia - a place to visit, enjoy the cold and then pack up and come home to the land of sunny mornings.
This year winter came early in the south. It swooped in before I was ready. The garden was not cleared of debris, the bushes were not cut back. There it was - cold, wet, miserable weather that keeps you in the house. Now that I have cleaned off my rearview mirror and gotten a pretty good look at where I have been, I am making an effort to beat the blues. I have gone back to the gym - yes exercise is good for the soul - and have given myself a new goal of cleaning out the garden 6 feet at at time. All of you ADHD friends know that my biggest challenge is thinking small - just a few feet at a time, especially when the view from the windows is the whole enchilada as I read my Southern Living magazine while visions of sugar plums and maybe a fountain dance in my head. So back to the real world. I cleared out the dead daisies and am slowly cutting back the edging plants. I am limiting myself to no more than one hour a day. I am almost to the unruly rose bushes.
I am obsessed with my garden or lack thereof. For some unknown reason I feel that the garden and my mind are linked - a messy garden and a messy mind. You can drive up and look at the front yard and know how I am doing, you never have to come in. Are the roses wild, are the day lilies a mess, are the shrubs unruly. My mind is probably in the same shape. Wish me luck - I am tackling the roses this weekend. I will probably end up scratched and bleeding - landscape roses look wonderful in the spring and summer but if left untrimmed in the fall they become brier patches. But if I can hack them back into submission I have great hope for my mind.