I Got To Say It Was a Good Day

A colleague and friend just popped in my office door, cheerful and kind, asking how I was.  I opened my mouth and found myself spewing a fountain of ridiculous complaints.

Stop the record.

I'm sitting here a half-hour later, wondering why in the world I did that.  I'm surrounded by extraordinary blessings and moments of grace every five seconds, in my job and otherwise, and when I open my mouth out comes the stream of self-involved, over-processed bullshit.  I'm happy, for chrissakes!  I'm having a great day!  Why did I bitch and moan?  I just manufactured a whole bunch of drama out of nothing.  What is that about?

True, things have been tough at work lately, especially before spring break.  I had a little meltdown, I think, caused by not taking enough care of myself, working too much, and making dumb choices divorced from what I really wanted.  But a big chunk of that unhappiness, I realized today, has been manufactured by me being on bullshit-spewing autopilot rather than reacting to the present that happens to be around me.

So, how am I doing today?

Fantastic.  I had a great interview with the editor of my favorite magazine in the world, an interview I'll be able to use in a research paper I'm getting to work on.  I'm sitting in my cozy little office with a cup of my favorite tea doing research I'm really excited about--research about global warming, and the role of action and hope.  I was in a great class this morning.  The sun is shining.  It's the first day of spring.  I get to go home tonight to my incredible family who, when I walk in the door, scream "MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA" as loud as they can, and practically fall down weeping to see me, like I was Elvis or something.  We're having new friends over for dinner--friends with kids!  I get to crawl into bed tonight with my incredibly sexy husband.  There's a candidate running for office who makes me weepy every time he opens his mouth.  Many parts of the world (our own included) seem to be going to hell in a handbasket, and still there is beauty and grace everywhere.

I'm good.  To quote Ice Cube, Today was a good day....  And that's the truth, Ruth.

Nolacabulary

Glossary of Terms
What You Need to Know to Understand Nolie

BOCK!:  I'd like a glass of milk, please.

Bock:  Read me a book, please.

BOOSH!:  I'd like a glass of juice, please.

Cacka:  Give me a cracker, or I'll break your arm.

Dadadadadadada!:  Dad

Daddy:  Addie

Go away!:  Go away.

HUG!  Pick me up, NOW, bitch!

Hungee:  I'm hungry.

Mamamamamama!:  Mom

Nini:  Nolie

No ni-ni:  Don't even TRY to put me to bed right now, or I'll make your life a living hell.

No way!:  No way.

Tank oo:  Thank you

TEES!:  Oh, my God, look at all those trees out the window!  Holy cow!  I'm going to scream "TEES" all the way to school!  Just in case you are missing them!

Rocking Nolie

Nolie is wanting me to rock her to sleep again, a habit she had fallen out of before we left for Idaho, but got used to while we were gone.  I have mixed feelings about it, of course.  On the one hand, it's nice to be able to lay her down in her crib, say "night night" and then go enjoy some free time before I pass out myself.  [Note:  by "free time," I usually mean do the dishes, or pay bills, or catch up on work.  Sometimes love on husband].  Like last night, we had a few friends over, and it would have been great to chat with them instead of be trapped in the nursery of darkness, rocking, rocking, rocking.

Then again, it is perfectly lovely, this captive time with her.  Nolie still barely fits into my lap, her knees curled up, her head nestled up under my chin.  Her eyelashes flutter against my shoulder while she fights off sleep, and she whispers goodnights to all of her loved ones (ni-ni d-Addie, ni-ni Dada, ni-ni Mama, ni-ni Gigi, ni-ni Pru-Pru, ni-ni Papa...).  Then she goes limp and her heaviness sinks into my body while I murmur to myself at the gorgeousness of it all.

I was thinking, too, last night, of a time in the future when she won't want to be rocked by me, when such intimacy will be flatly refused, as it should be, as she grows up.  There will be plenty of time to talk with my friends then, to fill the space my girls will have left in their processes of individuation.  It will be interesting to deal with their own suffocation rather than my own.  For now, I'll breathe Nolie and Addie in when they crawl into my laps, and be glad they choose me for comfort.

Idahighlights

Excuuuuuuuse me! for not posting in half a decade.  I had to fall off the grid for a while, or else succumb to the demons of office politics, overwork, and constant obligation.  Also, we went on a familial junket to Idaho.  We're back now, and it's spring break, and I am only now bringing myself to check emails and post on this blog.

We got home, with both me and Eric having wicked sinus infections, and I slept a good fourteen hours.  Traveling with kids is never not exhausting.  But it was a great trip, for many reasons:

1.  It's such a gift to spend time with the kids away from the responsibilities of housecleaning and work and toddler birthday parties and all the other things that keep us busy (and happy, usually) here in Denver.  I felt like I got reintroduced to my babies, learned that Nolie knows a ton of words and that Addie has a wildly vivid imagination, mostly involving birthday parties, baby sisters, and princesses.

2.  Seeing Addie and Nolie bond with all their papas, nanas, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Here's Addie with her Uncle JB:

3.  Having absolute epilaughtic fits over the fact that Chuck Norris has two speeds:  walk, and kill.  http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/.  Thanks for that, Uncle Jade.

4.  Learning that, right in the middle of dinky old Twin Falls, Idaho, is a beautiful gorge that has been carved out by the heft of the Snake River.  How did I grow up in Idaho and never see this?

5. Getting a dissertation from Addie on the definition of "smooch":  "It's a BIG kiss, mommy, like this!  With a big smack and a squeak.  No, like THIS!  Bigger!"

6.  Having Nolie race around Nana Debbie's house, chased by her grandpa, and yelling "No tickle, gampa!  No!"  Then dissolving into fits of laughter when he caught her.

7.  Staying up late with my sister and her husband, pontificating on how hard it is to raise kids, and how they break our hearts every other second, and how it's the best thing in the world.  I'm pretty sure I drank an entire bottle of Yellow Tail by myself, and then got rug burns ON MY FACE when I tried to show the kids some yoga breakdancing moves.  Oh, well.

Magnificent Magnolia

In case you were wondering how Nolie's doing, here's a pretty good representation:

Can You Hear Me Now?

I've been thinking it might be time to change the name of this blog.  Since Addie had her surgery a year ago, her drooling's been pretty nonexistent.  And Nolie never really drooled.  Oh, I'll still get to work now and then with a huge smear of chewed up graham-cracker on the back of my skirt, or an urp-up of yogurt on my shoulder.  But these are more isolated incidents these days. 

Good news, though!  We took Nolie to the doctor today for her check-up, to make sure all of her infections have cleared up (they haven't).  While Eric was there with the girls, he asked the doc to take a look at Addie's ears.  Because, see, for the last week or so

the drooling has been back.

toddlerspit lives!

Plus Addie has had some noxious boogers in her nose, and hasn't been hearing us very well.  I'll ask, "Addie, are you hearing okay?"  "What?" she'll say sweetly, making Eric and I laugh nervously.

Turns out she's got more ear infections and a perforated ear drum.

Insert appropriate profanity here.

The Pain of the Preschooler Birthday Experience

Addie was invited to a birthday party that took place yesterday at a local gymnasium.  I was elected to take her, as Nolie is still recovering from her myriad viruses and has hamburger buns (literally--her ass looks like chopped meat) as a result of the acid-like antibiotics she's required to take. 

I'm always nervous about these preschooler birthdays, primarily because it requires me to talk to people I don't know, and my painful shyness emerges, coupled with frustration because I really am not shy but am outspoken and boisterous among people I know and like.  And I get all angsty because invariably there will be a parent there who says something that triggers my insecurities or fears or anger.  So there's this whole psychological drama taking place inside my head while a tribe full of preschoolers boings around on trampolines and cushy blue mats.

I'm starting to get to know some of the parents of the kids at Addie's school, so the preschooler birthday experience is getting a little less painful.  But I met a mom yesterday I hadn't seen before, and I liked her immediately because she was talkative and outgoing and interesting.  Personality-wise, she's the kind of person I could see having coffee with.  I could feel myself starting to relax around her.

But then I fell into the mommy judgment trap.  As we talked, I learned that she's a vp of marketing for a large company, and she and her husband travel a lot.  They have a live-in au pair.  They have three kids (two twins Addie's age and an older girl) and each of their kids is involved in at least a dozen activities--dance, art, summer camp, etc., etc.  As we paused our conversation to watch our kids running around the gym (her daughter active and agile, brave and quick; my sweet little pixie Addie tentative and careful, moving like a ragdoll dancer in her own private constellation of invisible obstacles) I felt big judgments.  How could you work so much and travel all the time and have someone else raise your kids and in the time you do have with them you ship them off to lessons every five seconds?  Didn't you hear that story on NPR about how kids need unstructured "imagination" time so that they develop self-talk?  Don't you miss them, for God's sake?

Isn't that interesting?  I mean, apart from the whole au pair thing, and apart from the thousands of lessons and activities, I'm not so different from that mom, right?  I'm professional and ambitious, and I love, love, love traveling without my children, and I have to struggle daily to be present with them when I am home and not just plop them down in front of the tv or coloring book or whatever so that I can get

five

minutes'

peace.

Interesting how the judgments and the fears get all bound up like that.  Interesting how those reactions typically have more to do with me than with the actual lived experiences of someone else.  Interesting how I was tempted to shut down communication, contact, conflict with this other person because of what I immediately projected on to her.

I've just come back from a faculty seminar with an activist and intellectual who works with and is part of indigenous communities in Mexico.  He talked about how, in a particular native language there, there is no concept of "I," only "we;" the self only exists in relationship to others or that which is around us.  Our language, our way of life, everything suggests to us that we are individual, separate from the world around us.  This is a terrible and fearful way of being in the world, and we try to address our terror through judgment and busy-ness and buying things.  The things that fill us--seeing our connections to one another, making contact with one another, through dialog or conflict or most importantly listening--are the hardest to do.

Especially at preschooler birthday parties.