The MamaTrip

My three year old is driving me crazy.

Overemotional.
Tattletale.
Crybaby.
Clingy.
Cheeky.
Sassy.

It's gone from the occasional sassy that's somewhat cute, to full-blown obnoxious. "CB, don't touch the sanitary napkin trashcan!" said in a theater bathroom elicits a melt-down of epic proportions. Simple requests for picking up after herself are met with deaf ears and cheeky glances (so you know she does hear you). Everything is a reason for her to melt-down. H took her chair, she doesn't WANT to pick up her room, R won't let her use the computer, she can't have more milk.

So, I went dictator on her tiny little person.

Not ACCEPTABLE! Not COOL! Not HAPPENING! Time OUT! No STORIES!

I heard echoes of my father's authoritarian approach and my mother's hysteria. And, after I put her to bed, I cried my eyes out from exhaustion and frustration at having to be a hard-case. It's the hardest part of parenting, I think. The part where you have to draw a hard line and then figure out your strategy and stay consistent despite exhaustion and wanting to just give in to get a little peace and quiet.

You want it to be effective without harming their burgeoning personalities. You want them to understand appropriate from inappropriate and differentiate between respect and disrespect without breaking their spirits.

And, in the process, sometimes this little person breaks your spirit and your heart all at once...

Then, in the morning, you go in to wake up this child, still bracing for terrific frustration, your shoulders standing sentry at your ears, your abdomen taut, body in battle formation.

What you find is an angel there, where the demon went to sleep. And the angel is loving and snuggly and kissing you all over the face, telling you she loves you. The angel is docile and sweet and simply gorgeous and your heart overflows, and the walls of frustration melt into rainbows like you were on some kind of massive acid trip.

And, that's how I'd sum up motherhood, at least today.

A really effed up acid trip... but it's happy acid...the kind you'd drop again next week.

Another Bedtime Story

What is it that is so intimate about bedtime? I suppose it's what differentiates friends from family in some ways. If I've shared my daily bedtime and waking with you, whether as a lover, a sister, a daughter, a roommate or a mother, you have innately been a part of my family.

R, H and CB have been sharing a lot of bedtime lately. All of them are enthusiastic about sleeping upstairs together. Sometimes CB is on a futon next to H or R's bed. Sometimes the three of them cram into the double bed that serves as a place to lounge, or a place to wrestle. Oftentimes, it isn't even CB's idea to sleep upstairs. In the tone and tenor of her question "Mama, can I sleep upstairs tonight?" you can hear the intonation of a whispered boys voice. Sometimes you overhear the boys planting the idea in her head in the other room.

I resisted this at first, being rigid as I am with bedtime. I've always seen bedtime as sacrosanct. It's the demarcation line between Tricia the Mother and Tricia the Person. But, as C has pointed out to me, this is a sweet time of bonding they're experiencing. We should embrace that they want to be together. So, I have begun to flex my flexibility on the subject.

Tucking CB into bed upstairs last night, I was getting ready to read to her. Both boys bounded from bed and came flying across the room and into the double bed. C lay at the foot of the bed, all my loves crammed into the tiny space. I read the book with voices, R provided color commentary about the quality of the plot, H provided vocal reading of the signs in the story. C and I provided love filled glances at one another, not quite believing our luck. These three beautiful children who have informed us that they are brothers and sister.

After the reading was done and all the children were kissed and tucked into bed, C and I met in our own room with starry eyes and full hearts. So beautiful, we said to each other over and over.

The most amazing thing, beyond the magic of our blossoming family, is that this family is a growth from a point of origin, and that point of origin is our strong, passionate love for one another. I am truly blessed to live in a house filled with such an abundance of love. My heart overflows.

My Boys

C's kids are my boys. I didn't give birth to them, but through circumstance and their sheer awesomeness I have grown so attached that my heart couldn't possibly grow any bigger to accommodate more love. Except that it does. Every day. They break my heart with their sweetness and sometimes they just plain break my heart.

The frustrating thing about being a stepmother, a member of the "tribal village" or a "vital parental figure" to a child not of your womb is that you get the full-body joy and pain of raising children - NOW with added boundaries! An already difficult road is made muddy, sometimes.

Being a mother myself, and having the shoe on the other foot with a former lover and his wife, I'm very sensitive to this. I don't want to be called a stepmother because of my own sensitivity to the back-end of that word. I am lucky in the fact that C and I share our perspective on this and our view on the collaborative aspect of his children and my child vs. the weight of responsibility is very similar. We are letting this family grow in the way that is right for us.

But.

(There is always a but.)

When things go awry (or things go awry in the other house that makes up the world of your family) you are stuck with biting your tongue till it bleeds, as LOM so rightly put it, ages and ages ago. And that is tough. You have to live with the decisions that are made, but aside from discussions with your partner half of the equation, you cannot control the outcome.

I was thinking about this frustration and my diplomatically expressed opinions about these precious souls for whom I feel so deeply, and it made me think: Perhaps this will be good preparation for surrendering to the helplessness of loving these children when they are adolescents and adults.

To learn to love fierce and well without control or agenda. That must be valuable! Oh, the difficult and varied avalanche of gifts the road less taken heaps upon your soul.

A Break in the Weather

My winter blues have been deep and wide this year, so the recent thaw has been a balm for my soul. I had actually gotten a bit worried that the blues were more than winter blues, wondering if my theory that a good, warm day would blow them away would be true. We had that good, warm day on Saturday and I felt my spirit come alive.

Yesterday afternoon, C and I chiseled six coats of paint off the front of the front door revealing orangey lacquered wood. We're going to sand it, maybe stain it. What a difference it makes to the front of the house!

It was the first project we've taken on together since the house became somewhere we both make a home. It was symbolic. It was beautiful.

....It called my attention to every dust bunny and corner of clutter.

A wise woman of the theatre, Ms. H once said to a group of us seeking her counsel: "Don't should on yourself, dear." She was in her 90's. She knew what was what.

So, after spending part of last night getting myself wrapped around the flagpole of "should," I decided to celebrate the beginning with something more productive. This morning, I centered my spirit and hung the Tibetan prayer flags across the porch, following C's instruction to not make them "too even."

The sun was rising, the sky was clear and the breeze was fresh.
It was an auspicious beginning to a Monday.

growing

So, looking through all the old photos and videos, I saw CB and R and H grow up before my eyes all time-lapsey. I heard the bass notes start to enter R's timbre. I laughed with tears in my eyes at Charlotte's stilted language. I saw H grow inches.

I thought of how fleeting this time in their lives is. And, how much we've all grown together. This is the second year I've given my little buccaneers Valentine's gifts. I was surprised at how sweet it was to do something for the second time. Usually, I'm more blown away by the firsts.

Two nights ago, two small boys came one after the other into the kitchen for a big hug and a kiss goodnight. "Oh!" I said, startled before settling into a grin that ran the width of my face. C walked in a couple of seconds later and saw me surrounded by small arms, my lips buried in shaggy hair and he had the same reaction I did. "Oh!"

It was a first. Not the first time I've given them hugs and kisses goodnight. But, the first time that I was not the initiator. They wanted me. They sought my arms.

There is a sweetness to the repetition of new traditions, and a sweetness to the adventures into new frontiers of family-ness. It is the beauty of watching growing things, including my own ever expanding love.

...but she's ours!

We arrived home from our big weekend in Chicago with CB in tow, fresh from her stay with her Dad, his wife M and his whole family for a week. When I say fresh, I mean it the same way my mother used to say "Don't use that fresh tone with me, young lady." She's fresh, alright. Freshly spoilt. It's to be expected. But, dealing with it isn't a rose garden.

Getting your child back from their other parent is a double edged sword as with so many things in loving your child. On one hand you feel complete, an aching hole is filled, the world is brighter. On the other, your head feels like it is in a vice with the constant whining, jokes you don't find funny (but the child's other biological half clearly did) and the general exhaustion that can strike anytime, but seems to strike harder when you've had a week of peace and quiet.

I've done this before, so I know that my patience runs thin that first week, despite my joy at having my girl back. When my mother asked if she and my dad could take CB for the weekend right after she returned, I didn't hesitate with my "yes."

My sister KW decided to come out from Philly for an impromptu visit and take CB up to my parents' house for them, a day early. Monday night, sitting around the dinner table, I mentioned KW's visit and CB's subsequent departure. Much to my surprise, H got indignant. "So, CB is going away AGAIN?" he asked. I said yes. His voice went up two octaves and he said "But, we just got her back -and now she's going to leave again?!" I explained that my parents hadn't seen her at Christmas. He went on: "But, she's ours! She should be here with us, not going everywhere else!"

H's indignant response was music to my ears. So is the way he'll quietly take CB under his wing and teach her things, or the way he'll patiently play Candy Land with a two year old who has the attention span of a gnat because he sees the value of teaching her to love board games, knowing that it's an investment in years of beating her at chess. For my part, I think she'll give him a run for his money.

My Sister Mother

I live in K's old house that she used to share with, what is now, my family, too. We gathered as a tribe on Christmas Eve for tamales and white russians, exchanging and laughter. Children, children everywhere. It was joyful and strange, my skin still stretching to accommodate all the new love and my throat still swallowing all our histories, gone before.

The lights and candles shone as we sat together on her piano bench that still lives in my dining room, sharing our thoughts and mutual admiration.

One time, at a party many moons ago, before I'd spent more than a handful of minutes with K, someone made a gossipy observation. It wasn't meant in an unkind way, but I became silent with defensiveness. I thought: "You can't talk that way about the mother of my boys!" It startled me, then.

I spent several years immersed in Orthodox Judaism. Someone used to say to me that "In Judaism, the Mother is everything." It was a sentiment I heard reflected in a Rosh Hashanah service some time later. The rabbi intoned that the men present were there for women: their mothers, their wives. At the time, I found it to be somewhat sexist. I thought: "Isn't that a classic move, we make you second class citizens, then tell you you're the reason we exist."

Now, I'm not so sure. I believe that the richness of my connection with K is greatly responsible for this integrated family life that is such a blessing to me, to my partner, to hers and to all our children. It feels as though the ancient wisdom of sisterhood informs my own tribal lore. And, while I do not pretend to know the exact alchemy that has produced my blessed luck, I like the idea that K and I have conspired together to be the architects of our family.

We are not the only participants, but it often feels as though we are the origin of the tribal life-force. I find myself mulling over the role of women in family personality. And, wondering if maybe the rabbi had a point.

Proper Care and Feeding of Ghosts

On Halloween, the ghosts were rampant. K and I finally got a chance to speak about the nature of family and our excitement and trepidation of the future. Today, I emailed her for the first time on my own, sending her photos of our tribe and just acknowledging her. It felt so good to me.

In my second response to her, I referenced Frost's The Road Not Taken. It sums up the experience I've had since I veered off the traveled road.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.