The New Playground

KidSpace4278.preview — The plan for the “New Kidspace.”

Middlebury’s Mary Hogan Elementary School got a new playground this summer. If you’re the parent of a young child, this is probably old news. I myself have taken my four daughters to what we call “The New Kidspace” on a weekly basis for the past month; they play on the playground while I gaze longingly at the school building and count the days until vacation ends.

The new playground is a welcome update. The “Old Kidspace” was erected back when I was in elementary school, when the height of technology was using Logo to move a pixelated turtle in a square on your computer screen. It was a splinter factory, constructed of wood and tires and heavy chains. If that sounds medieval, it was.

The New Kidspace is built mostly of plastic, which probably isn’t really plastic, but some sort of recycled composite material. It features two three-story tall towers, a series of ramps and walkways, multiple climbing walls, slides both twisty and straight, and ladders that rise perpendicular or twist around like double helixes.

After our first outing to the new playground, I asked my oldest daughter — who attended kindergarten at the Mary Hogan School last year and had daily experience with “The Old Kidspace” — to rate her experience.

“Is it better than the old playground?” I inquired.

“No,” she answered.

“Is it worse?” I asked, alarmed that my tax dollars may have been misspent.

“No,” she replied, “It’s just different.”

The next day, she was begging to return to the new playground.

And that, of course, is the essence of what it is to be a kid: Everything elicits awe and excitement. The new playground and the old playground are equally worthy, equally fun.

So my children, all four of them, give the new playground high marks. And me?

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

How Many Children Should You Have?

Last week, my husband took our two oldest girls to California to visit family for six days; I stayed in Vermont with our two youngest. It was the first time our family had carved ourselves up for an extended period of time. The decision wasn’t easy; I was just a smidge bitter that I’d have to skip a trip to the beautiful place that was our home for five years, and where we still have many dear friends and family. But it was a decision born of frugality (my husband had enough miles to cover exactly three airfares) and practicality (Ever tried flying cross-country with a newly-walking one-year-old? It’s like six hours of wrestling a very stubborn baboon; it can be done, but it’s best avoided).

I wasn’t sure the split was equitable. My husband took the louder half of our children; I was left with the half that can’t do as much for themselves — the half that still throws food and needs diapers. Our three-year-old wasn’t sure about the arrangement, either. She lost her two big sisters, whom she alternately irritates and idolizes, and was left with her baby sister, who doesn’t do much except toddle after her and chew her toys.

For the first 24 hours after half of our family flew West, I had a perpetual lump in my throat. It was so quiet. Too quiet. I missed the chaos.

Things looked a lot different after a good night’s sleep; after I’d put the toddler and the baby down at 7:30 PM and they’d slept a solid 12 hours. No post-lights-out bedtime party. No feet running down the hall at 5:30 AM to the cries of, “I have to use the potty!” I only had to prepare meals for myself and two other people! I only had to pick up after two people! I only had to get two people ready and out the door in the morning! And these two people actually sleep during nap times! It was so, so easy.

Which got me thinking about how many kids one should have. I know I’m not the only one thinking this, because almost every day my website statistics show that somebody’s been directed to this post because they’ve done a search for something like, “Should I have a fourth child?”

I would never actually answer that question. I have no idea. I never planned how many children I would have, never had a magic number in mind. Having children is extremely personal, and it’s usually not going to turn out how you planned it, anyway. However, if you are the kind of person for whom intention and biology are aligned; the kind of person who says, “Here’s how many children I want, and their birth spacing, and their genders,” and it happens just as you wish — then the rest of us resent you like crazy. But this is for you: My extremely biased and very tongue-in-cheek reflections on offspring numbers.

One child. As I always tell the concerned parents of only children, “I’m an only child and I turned out just fine (twitch, twitch).” Parents of only children tend to be concerned; in many cases, that may be why they only had one child. One child is a good match for people who like a sense of control and order: the worriers, the perfectionists, the cloth-diaperers. The temptation for outsiders is to say, “One child; they have it so easy!” DO NOT BE FOOLED: In my opinion, one child is about as hard as it gets. First, having only one shot at child-rearing puts a lot of pressure on the parents (and the child): This is it, and if Junior ends up becoming a terrorist, that’s all you’ve got. Second, if you have an only child, you’re all they’ve got. You are the playmate, the entertainment, the bells-and-whistles. My own four children will entertain themselves reasonably well for an hour or more, because they have each other; if any one of them was an only child, I’d have no peace. My hat is off to all parents of only children; I don’t know how my mom did it.

Two children. In retrospect, this is probably the ideal number of children. Two children are easily managed and, after a certain age, will be able to entertain each other. If Junior becomes a terrorist, then you still have a backup. However, there are risks inherent in having two children. First, if Junior gets carried off by a bird of prey, then you’re left with an only child. Second, if the siblings don’t get along (and there’s no guarantee that they will), then instead of entertaining each other they’ll fight constantly, and you’ll feel like a bouncer in a biker bar.

Three children. This isn’t bad, either. It’s a particularly good option for those who find that two children feel just a little too easy, or those who haven’t gotten the desired gender on the first two tries. (WARNING: My economist husband tells me that if your first two children are the same gender, your chances of having another child of that gender are greater than 50% with number three, and the percentage goes up as you add children. We’re living proof.) The complication with three children is that it’s an odd number, so chances are someone’s going to feel left out. Also, three children automatically creates The Dreaded Middle Child. But if Junior becomes a terrorist, you can still say, “The majority of my kids turned out great!”

Four children. Ending up with four children is probably preceded by a conversation that goes something like, “Well, we’re not completely broken yet. Want to try for another?” This is when it starts to get crazy. You will need a minivan, if three children didn’t already push you over the edge. You will never go out without someone saying, “FOUR children?!? You sure have your hands full!” You will feel guilty about overpopulation. You will be embarrassed by the amount of trash and recycling you set out on your curb. The noise level in your house will leave your ears ringing for an hour, should you manage to escape. (My favorite description of having four children comes from comedian Jim Gaffigan: “Imagine you’re drowning…and then somebody hands you a baby.”) But four children can be an awful lot of fun. It’s a nice even number: Everyone gets a buddy. And if Junior becomes a terrorist, you won’t even notice.

Five or more children. This is above my pay scale. If you have five or more children, chances are that you need them to help on the farm, or you’re trying to land your own reality show. If not, you’re just a saint. Five children is the point at which I would no longer feel even a tiny bit good about my parenting at the end of the day, because there’s no possible way I could begin to give everyone the love and attention they need. But some people do it, and do it well, and I’m in awe of them. I’m also in awe of their bodies, because five or more pregnancies and childbirths? YEOW!

As lovely as my week as a parent of two was, it didn’t feel right until all four of my girls were reunited. When everyone was back together under one roof, I felt so grateful for all of the love, the noise, the mess. For about an hour. Then they started driving me crazy again.

Good luck!

A Spiritual Life…With Kids?

In the juggling act of life, most of us try to keep multiple balls in the air in order to maintain our mental and physical health. The balls in play typically involve some combination of work, relationships, exercise, relaxation, and spiritual life.

Adding children is akin to lobbing a cannon ball into the mix.

At least, it was for me. After having children, work and relationships were bumped aside, exercise and relaxation fell to the ground and rolled away, and spiritual life…how do you maintain a fulfilling spiritual life with young children? Is it possible to have daily “quiet time” when no time is quiet?

Click here to continue reading over at On the Willows.

My Summer By the Pool

“If you value your life, don’t do hockey,” they said.

I heard that advice from multiple parents after our family moved to Vermont. Never mind that our daughters were still too young to participate in organized sports, or that they’d never once displayed the slightest interest in or aptitude for hockey; the advice came unsolicited: “Hi, I’m Susie. Don’t let your kids play hockey!”

I believe the warnings against hockey stem from a combination of the heavy and expensive equipment, the rigorous practice schedule, and the hours of weekend travel to tournaments. But I can’t be sure, because I don’t know any hockey families personally — perhaps because they’re either in the throes of or recovering from hockey season.

Nobody warned me about swimming.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Hang in There, Baby

On the Willows has been on hiatus for a few months, but now it’s back! And I have a new post up over there, about the strategy of “hanging in there” when you find yourself in one of life’s pits. Click here to read.

Lessons From This School Year

As I sit at my computer to write this, there is exactly one more week of school in Addison County; when this column appears, my daughters will have been on summer vacation for approximately 15 hours. Between now and then there are picnics and potlucks and packing up. My oldest daughter’s Kindergarten will have “Move Up Day,” when she will meet her new First Grade teacher. My second daughter will participate in a preschool graduation ceremony, during which we will celebrate her ability to play, do crafts, and sit in a circle for 15 minutes. (Really, I see no need to continue her education.)

This year — our first in the Addison County public school system — has been a wonderful school year for our family. In August, we’ll send two daughters to public school, while their younger sister begins preschool; we’ve gotten our toes wet, and soon we’ll be wading in deep. So now seems like a good time to reflect on the valuable lessons our family has learned this school year.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Teaching Our Kids to Cheer

A couple of weeks ago, our phone rang right after dinner. On the other end was a voice belonging to a 7-year-old boy we know.

“I was wondering if you could come to my baseball game this Friday?” he asked.

He’d recently started practicing with our town’s Little League baseball team, the Middlebury Meteors. That Friday they’d be playing their first game, against the Cornwall Cougars.

When a 7-year-old asks you to attend his first baseball game, you go to the game.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Celebrating The Good Stuff: Thoughts on Motherhood

The question started following me around early this spring: What will my daughters think if they read this blog some day?

Oddly enough, this isn’t something I’d spent much time considering. When I began this blog, our girls were so young that the idea of them ever reading independently seemed impossibly distant. In any event, I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve written here. (When I was growing up, my mother advised, “Never say something that you wouldn’t want to see splashed across the front page of The New York Times.” That’s a pretty high standard, but I try to apply it to what I write and publish online.)

Now that my kindergartener sits down and reads entire books to her sisters, it’s clear that it won’t be long before my daughters can read my own writing.

In a way, I see my writing as a gift I can give them; a chance to know me in ways that I can’t verbalize, a chance to see what I thought and felt at various points when they were young. But I also worry that this blog may present them with an overly negative view of my experience of motherhood. Much of what I share here about my life as a mother is the hard stuff, the embarrassing stuff, the “bad mommy” stuff, the snarky stuff.

There are good reasons for that. This would be a profoundly boring blog (to everybody but the grandparents) if each post began, “The girls did the cutest thing today!” It would also make people feel bad; in my opinion, nobody’s helped much by hearing about how wonderful your life is. The real opportunities to connect come around the things that are hard, embarrassing, and even a little ugly. (Although the popularity of Pinterest may prove me wrong on this, but I don’t do Pinterest because I suspect it would make me feel bad).

Another reason for the view of motherhood presented here is that this blog is, in many ways, my therapy: my chance to sit down for an hour of peace after a morning with my girls and hash out my thoughts. I try to tell the truth, and during that hour of peace my thoughts are not usually full of glowing maternal bliss.

And I hope that knowing the truth — that I struggled, felt insecure and guilty, doubted myself, got depressed — will one day help my girls when they feel the same way. Just as it’s hard to relate to a perfect blog, it’s hard to relate to a perfect mother. Should they feel any doubt on that score, it’s all here in black and white.

But, reading this blog, you may have the impression that without naptime, bedtime, and coffee, my life would be intolerable. While that may be true most days, that’s not the whole picture. I left out chocolate.

Okay, seriously: This Mother’s Day, I’ve decided to NOT make it all about me, to NOT focus on accepting the gratitude and pampering of my family, and instead to celebrate by feeling deeply grateful for my children, these four girls who are the reason I’m a mother.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t love Mother’s Day. I’m aware that it can be an uncomfortable and even painful day for women who don’t or can’t have children. I do not intend what I’m about to say to feel alienating to anybody. I do not think that being a mother is the Ultimate Thing. Mothers are not superior to other people; they’re just regular women who’ve reproduced, as women have been doing forever.

But here is what I want my daughters to know, without condition or sarcasm:

I love being a mother.

Motherhood was never one of my life ambitions. It never figured prominently in my future plans. When I first became pregnant, it was mostly because it seemed like the right time to try it; “everyone else” was having kids, why not us?

Someone once told me that the moment her child was born she felt a “massive love explosion.”

I did not feel a massive love explosion. I felt terrified and confused, because I’d just had a 3-pound baby by emergency c-section two weeks early, and I was strung out on magnesium sulfate and needed a blood transfusion and it was slowly dawning on me that I had almost died and that my baby was going to need a lot of special care.

The massive love explosion built up slowly. Now, I feel a massive love explosion for my daughters at some point every day. I also feel terrified and confused. Daily.

But I have loved motherhood, with all its terror and confusion, more than I could ever have imagined. Next to marrying Erick, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. And being a mother has been, hands-down, my favorite job.

Some of what I love about being a mother are the things you hear often: That it’s made me less selfish, and therefore more exhausted, dirtier, achier, and happier. That it’s taught me more about love than any other relationship, because as a mother you spend a lifetime caring for people who are often completely dependent on you and also completely ungrateful. That I love the noise and chaos; even though it often feels like too much, on the rare occasion when two or more girls are gone for several hours, I miss them.

But beyond those things, I love being my daughters’ mother.

You are each so unique. I know where you came from, but I have no idea where you came from. Parts of you are like us, but you have always been your very own people. Being your mother gives me a front-row seat to your lives, and that’s the most fun of all.

But having a front-row seat to your lives means admitting that I’m not always going to be up on stage with you. Motherhood is a slow process of separation, from the very beginning. Every year we say goodbye for longer times, longer distances. My job is to prepare you to leave.

And that’s another reason why I’m sometimes snarky, sarcastic, quick to dwell on what’s hard or embarrassing. We do that to protect our hearts when we know that the people we love so deeply are also people we’re going to have to let go.

Happy Mother’s Day to Fiona, Campbell, Georgia, and Abigail. I am grateful every day that the four of you were entrusted to me for the time we have.

The Value of Not Knowing

*You gonna tell this girl there’s no such thing as fairies???*

When I have no idea what I’m doing, I tend to behave according to what I think of as “The Script.” The Script is made up of all of the external advice and expectations that I’ve compiled throughout my life, things that I’ve filed away under headings like “How to be a Good Girl,” “How to Not Make Mistakes,” and “How to Blend In and Not Look Stupid.” It’s pretty safe to conform to The Script, but not very exciting. In fact, I’ve never made a good decision when I followed The Script; the best things I’ve done in life have all happened only when I took a deep breath and decided to improvise.

The Script has been there for my entire life, but it’s felt especially near during my life as a parent. As a parent, I have no idea what I’m doing almost all of the time. So I tend to grab onto a special parenting script for topics like, “What Would a Good Parent Do?” and “What’s Best for the Kids?”

I have no idea who wrote The Parenting Script, but I suspect it’s been drafted throughout history by all of the grandparents.

Please understand: I’m not knocking the grandparents. But in my experience, grandparents tend to be a little bit tighter on the safety (and looser on the purchasing) than parents. It’s completely understandable, really: they want their grandchildren to be happy and healthy. Most grandparents will question things like whether it’s safe to take your toddler backpacking in the Congo — or why you haven’t seen the doctor about baby’s runny nose.

So when I say that I suspect my parenting script has been drafted by grandparents, that’s because it’s so safe. The Parenting Script is all about protecting children, isolating them from any sort of harm (physical, yes, but mostly mental and emotional and spiritual), raising children who will never, ever end up in therapy.

According to The Parenting Script, I should have answers for my children. And the answers should be final and reassuring. Because otherwise, my children might feel insecure.

EXAMPLE:
Child: I’m scared.

Parent: What are you scared of?

Child: Ghosts.

Parent: There’s no such thing as ghosts.

How many of us have had that exact conversation? Numerous times? (Perhaps with something else in place of “ghosts?”)

And, on the surface, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with reassuring your child. Nothing wrong with telling them that the world is a safe place, that evil doesn’t exist — at least, not under our roof, not in our closets.

The problem is: It’s not true.

I don’t want my children to grow up paralyzed by fear. I don’t want to expose them to all the world’s evil before their minds can handle it (Can any of our minds really handle it?). No question: my children should wait a few years before learning about the Holocaust.

But if I answer with a definite, conversation-stopping “no,” when the truth is, “I don’t know” — am I draining my children’s world of possibility and complexity, of wonder and creativity? One thing’s for sure: I’m lying to them.

Are there such things as ghosts? I honestly don’t know. I’ve never encountered a ghost that I’m aware of, but “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio….” and all that.

If I follow The Parenting Script and act like I have all the answers, I’m trying to protect my daughters from uncertainty and confusion. Do I want to protect my daughters from uncertainty and confusion? Life is about uncertainty and confusion. There’s no failure in never having all the answers. Far more important is to ask lots of good questions and be comfortable with lots of “I don’t know’s”.

So, I’m okay with not being the final authority on all questions. I’m okay with not totally shielding my daughters from the reality that life contains evil and scary things. We’re quick to deny the presence of ghosts and monsters and things that go bump in the night, because we love our children and The Parenting Script tells us to keep them from worrying. But they already do. My own children — like most children — have already experienced the deaths of animals and people. Furthermore, they were born with a sense of fear, an aversion to the shadows. Ghosts and monsters are just where they put that fear until they can find better words for it. To shut down their fear with a simple “No” may not be reassuring at all.

So I say “I don’t know” a LOT these days: to questions about fairies and 9/11 and when we’ll die and a whole lot of questions about God and Jesus and the Bible. These are the BIG QUESTIONS, and I really don‘t know — none of us does.

It feels a little scary, a little squishy, to go off script. But it’s where I prefer to do my parenting, because a life that’s totally secure and question-free seems pretty boring. It’s like I tell my girls: If you removed all the problems from fairy tales, they’d be duller than dull. “Rapunzel woke up, ate breakfast, brushed her hair, went to work, ate dinner, and went to bed. The End.” Without questions, you never have to think, to ponder, to be creative. Without evil, you never have to love, or pray, or experience redemption. Without problems, there’s no chance for a happy ending.

Then again, what do I know?

Postscript: After Dropping the Baby

Last week, I published a post called, “And Down Will Come Baby” as part of Momastery.com’s “Messy, Beautiful Warriors” Project. First of all, thanks to those who read it and liked it and posted nice comments — no small thing, because it was looooong, as posts go.

That post was a combination of two previous posts from The Pickle Patch, both about the various ways I’d done stupid, clumsy things that endangered or hurt my children. And yes, it was long, but let me tell you: I spent the better part of a month editing it down, trimming off extraneous words. Out of necessity (or, out of respect for the number of times readers are willing to scroll down in a post), I omitted some things. But I think they’re things worth saying, so here goes:

The “takeaway message” of “And Down Will Come Baby” is that we can’t keep our kids from getting hurt — sometimes, despite our best efforts, by ourselves. But accidentally hurting my children (whether physically or emotionally) has taught me about grace (I need forgiveness from my children and myself), and about my daughters’ resilience.

True, true, true.

What I left out are the lessons I’ve learned from other people’s reactions to my parenting fails. Namely: my husband and my mother.

1. The Husband: Is that a log in your eye?

My husband has never, ever (to my knowledge) done anything to endanger our girls; never put their carseats too close to the stairs, dropped them from the bed, cut their fingers, or flipped them out of their strollers. Unfortunately, he’s had to remind me of this fact several times when I’ve criticized his own parenting skills.

For instance, a short time (a very short time, like, maybe, minutes) after I put Fiona’s carseat too close to our stairs and watched her slide backwards, I was nitpicking Erick about something. I can’t even remember what it was; probably that he didn’t cut up her food small enough, or put her diaper on tight enough — something small and ridiculous. And Erick looked at me in exasperation and said, “Hey, I’m not the one who just dropped our daughter down the stairs!”

If you don’t know Erick, that sounds harsh. If you DO know Erick, then you can only imagine how annoying I must have been to make him snap like that. But the point is: He was exactly right.

I find that the times I judge Erick’s parenting — or anybody else’s parenting, really — are exactly those times when I’m feeling the most insecure. After Fiona’s carseat took the plunge, I felt like a complete failure as a mother. So I reacted by trying to find something, anything in Erick that would make me feel superior. I may have let her slide downstairs, but at least I cut her food into small enough pieces!

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to parenting. Whenever I find myself becoming critical of someone else (especially poor Erick), I usually need to step back and consider exactly what I’m feeling guilty or insecure about.

2. The Mother: Everyone has something.

It’s extremely difficult for me to imagine my mother ever making a mistake. She’s a perfectionist, she’s incredibly careful and thorough in everything she does — and she only had one child. (Me).

I published the original “And Down Will Come Baby” post on Mother’s Day, and ended it with well wishes for my mother — who, I said, had certainly never dropped me.

My mother happened to be visiting us when that post came out. She read it, and then walked over to me and gave me a big hug. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, “you fell off of the changing table.”

This rocked my world. First, I have absolutely no memory of ever falling off the changing table. Second, for all I’ve done wrong, none of my daughters has ever fallen off of the changing table. (There I go, judging again!)

What my mother’s confession revealed to me is that everyone has a story. I never thought, back when my own baby-dropping incidents occurred, that I’d ever share them. I was mortified, certain that if anybody knew how I’d blown it as a mother they’d…I don’t know, not like me anymore?!? But through simply sharing my stories, I learned that my mother still loved me, and she’d done the same thing!

And not just my mother, either; after “And Down Will Come Baby” appeared through “Messy, Beautiful Warriors,” I was barraged by baby-dropping stories, both from people I know and people I don’t. Apparently, babies are flying through the air at an alarming rate. But we don’t know it, because nobody talks about it. And my guess is that nobody talks about it because we’re embarrassed that we’ll seem like bad parents, because…nobody else ever mentioned dropping their baby, right?!? It’s a cycle of repression that keeps us under guilt’s thumb.

I think it would be great if parent education classes included this little bit of information: “At some point, you will probably drop your baby. Or nick them while cutting their fingernails. Or fail to properly supervise them and they’ll hurt themselves. You will feel terrible, but it happens. And your baby will, more likely than not, be okay.”

Until that happens, I’m convinced of the power of sharing our failings, embarrassments, and insecurities with others — especially with new, terrified parents. Because “Me, too!” is one of the best phrases out there — “Me, too!” encapsulates the best part of being human. And you can’t get a “Me, too!” without first submitting a “Me.”