Smiling Mom

Each and every time I go silent on this blog, it’s due to stress.  I find that when I am overwhel­med up to my eye­balls, I tend to walk around all day long making up witty posts in my head.  Howe­ver, by the time my kids are in bed, I’m to exhaus­ted and overwhel­med to write any of it down.

I’m not sure what I fear or why I won’t put my thoughts down on paper during these times.  Maybe it’s because I’m so at a loss that I fear I’ll sound angry or ugly.  I don’t want to be ugly.  Maybe it’s simply that I’m tired and the men­tal energy it takes to rehash life’s stres­ses is simply too much.

During the past few weeks, I’ve come to rea­lize how for­tu­nate I am to have star­ted this blog.  It brings so much to my life.  My family knows where my head is without ever having to ask.  Some friends that I’d since lost touch with are now back in my life full swing.  New friends have emer­ged.  I am truly blessed.

In my last post I spoke of my son’s sepa­ra­tion anxiety issues and how overwhel­med we’ve been with him at night­time.  Well, nights have got­ten bet­ter but life in gene­ral with him has become way worse.  As a res­ponse to my pre­vious blog post, a dear friend living on the oppo­site side of Ame­rica in part wrote me:

I don’t pre­tend to be a nature lover so bear with me on the accu­racy of these details. Pic­ture a baby bird. It is born in its nest, and the mother bird (much like us) pro­vi­des everything for her baby. She searches for its food, keeps it warm, fends off pre­da­tors, and as the baby bird begins to grow in size, strength, and inde­pen­dence, it begins to learn on its own. Over time, the baby bird relies on the mother less and less. She teaches her bird how to fly and together they look for food. Yet, at the end of the day, no mat­ter how much the baby bird has flown on its own, it returns to the nest. It is in the nest that the baby bird finds its warmth, secu­rity, and recon­nects with mom. While it couldn’t be hap­pier with its new found inde­pen­dence, there is still that need to get home to the safety of that nest.

With each pas­sing year, BC has grown more and more inde­pen­dent. He plays more inde­pen­dently now than ever, he is busy gro­wing and lear­ning at school, he is swim­ming like a fish and gai­ning confidence…all these things are let­ting him stretch his wings and grown. Maybe by the end of the day, he has exhaus­ted that inde­pen­dent energy and needs a few minu­tes to recon­nect and recharge in the nest with you. Isn’t his song, “You are my sunshine”? Perhaps he just needs a few minu­tes alone each night with you. It seems like that was all it took when you gave him the autho­rity to say when you could leave.

At this res­ponse, I cried.  She actually took time out of her busy day to check in on me and see how I am doing.  She spent time researching each pro­blem and con­cern I emai­led her.  She reached out to me from a place we’d never ima­gi­ned we’d recon­nect.  My blog.  Other blog­ging moms have also come to my aid offe­ring child­care, play-dates, drinks… I’m so grateful.

I’m never one to reach out and ask for help.  I gene­rally try to solve all life’s pro­blems by myself.  Moments like these make me eter­nally gra­te­ful to those who can read bet­ween my lines and see that at times I’m just a mom, nee­ding a good shoul­der to cry on.

Tonight was the first night in many that I put my son to bed without an all out Super­nanny ins­pi­red hys­te­ri­cal meltdown.

I like to pat my own back, toot my own horn, if you will, on occa­sion.  I gene­rally think I’m gif­ted in the mothe­ring cate­gory.  I got skills!  Or so I tell myself.

But just as I find myself get­ting cocky again, my dear chil­dren smack me down and throw off my equi­li­brium.  I quickly re-realize how many skills I still need to grow.

Take for exam­ple my four year old’s sepa­ra­tion anxiety gone hay­wire.  A vete­ran mom has her set of tools, a solid bed­time rou­tine, a vision of paren­ting that goes something like; start as you want to con­ti­nue. We have rou­ti­nes.  We don’t vary far from the script.  My son knows what to expect.  Life trots along accor­ding to plan until *bam* I’m smac­ked in the face with a severe case of sepa­ra­tion anxiety. Him, not me.

Wha…wha…what??  Um, excuse me, that’s not in my script.

This week I reached my brea­king point.  I nee­ded help.  Nothing I or my hus­band did hel­ped calm or sooth BC’s nighttime/transitional fears. NOTHING.

In addi­tion, hea­ring, “Mama” (A word I des­pise from the get go, I’m Mommy, thank you very much!) “I need you!” in the same tone and pitch repea­ted in the same rhythm for two straight hours is akin to Chi­nese water tor­ture to me.  PAINFUL.

Ear­plugs didn’t even help.

I cried uncle and finally called the advice nurse Satur­day night.  I was at a loss.  No great plan, no big pic­ture, I was stuck.  I was called this mor­ning and BC was sche­du­led an appoint­ment with his pedia­tri­cian for 1:30 today.

I had a plan.  Relief was on the way.

At 1:30 I pac­ked up my tired daugh­ter and my hooky-playing son and hea­ded off to see my life­line, the doc­tor.  His doc­tor.  A woman, who I hoped, would rea­lize that I’m a mom who doesn’t ove­rreact or freak out over small issues.  That my con­cern was HUGE and WORTH her time.

1:30, I show up, exhaus­ted and see­king help only to find out that I have an appoint­ment sche­du­led with ANOTHER doc­tor, one with a repu­ta­tion for a BAD bed­side manner.

How could this hap­pen? I exc­lai­med, I spe­ci­fi­cally said MY doc­tor.  My eyes welled up with tears.

No relief today. I left empty han­ded, with an appoint­ment at the end of the week.  It was time to pre­pare myself for anther 2 hour kic­king, screa­ming, scratching all out hys­te­ri­cal meltdown.

No relief.

After a good cry and a sho­wer, I deci­ded to pull up my boot straps and try again.

I for­mu­la­ted a tem­po­rary plan and did something dif­fe­rent.  Ins­tead of telling BC that I would lay with him for 5 minu­tes (part of our old rou­tine), I deci­ded to let him dic­tate the amount of time I’d lay with him.

I gave away my con­trol.  And if you know me, you know how monu­men­tal that act was.  I. am. in. con­trol. damn. it.  But I gave it away.

And I’ll be dam­ned if that little stin­ker didn’t send me out of his room after only TWO minu­tes, pro­mi­sing me he was ready to sleep calmly without tor­tu­ring me for the next two hours.

Two Minu­tes.  I gave up con­trol and the pro­blem, tonight, was solved.

Days like today, I rea­lize that I, in fact, don’t have all the ans­wers.  If I just take the time to lis­ten to my kids, maybe they’ve been SREAMING their needs to me the whole time.

Skill Lear­ned, BC, skill learned.

Ima­gine my sur­prise today when my dar­ling four year old son says to my impres­sio­na­ble two year old daugh­ter, “See that eClaire?  That’s out­fit is sexy.  It’s SO sexy!”

?????? Um, ok.…

I actually disa­gree!!    I believe this is sexy.  Oh and so is this.  And oddly, this as well…

But my first link is sexy enough to be revi­si­ted here.

Huh?  Don’t you agree!  SEXY!!!

Since both of our chil­dren were under a year we’ve have them par­ti­ci­pa­ting in once a week swim les­sons.  A year ago when Hubby hurt his shoul­der, all our swim­ming fun came to an end.

Having kids close together in age has so many pros, but in the case of swim lessons…not so much.  Two swim­ming babies equals the need for two parents to manage.  With one parent down for the count, we chose to take a break.

This past sum­mer we spent many hours in or around water.  It took us no time to rea­lize that our much enjo­yed break from les­sons has put our kids behind the curve in the pool.  It still requi­res two focu­sed parents to swim with our 4 and 2 1/2 year old at all times.  BC, at this point, should be a bit more inde­pen­dent than he is.  With his per­so­na­lity, deter­mi­na­tion, and drive, he has poten­tial of being a great swim­mer in no time at all.  Yet he’s not.

Recently BC’s deve­lo­ped some pretty bad habits such as his intense love for the doggy-paddle. (Head up, bent arms, feet kic­king below the water) And although this new found skill helps him get to the side of the pool in an emer­gency, it’s the antithe­sis of how he should be swimming.

In addi­tion to BC’s new found love for the paddle, eClaire has taken this year to step out of her fear­ful shell that she once lived in and now is out­going, exci­ted, and con­fi­dent in and around the water.  She kicks with ease to the side of any pool.  Her tech­ni­que looks good and she has shown more pas­sion for swim­ming than any other sport or acti­vity thus far.

Armed with this know­ledge we took the step of calling up our local swim club.  Their fall swim les­sons are already in full swing, but for­tu­na­tely for us, their hap­pe­ned to be two spots open for my kids at the per­fect time on the per­fect day!  Hurray!!

Star­ting this week, our kids res­tart their swim­ming edu­ca­tion and both Hubby and I can breathe a sigh of relief kno­wing that our chil­dren are once again lear­ning the skills nee­ded to become water safe.