I Can't Hear Myself Think!

Sometimes I hear myself saying things to my kids that I should listen better to myself:

• If cleaning your room at the end of the day is too overwhelming, you'll need to clean as you go.
  
• You don't need to be perfect; just try to do your best.
  
• Why are you so critical?
  
• STOP YELLING!

Sometimes I think that parenthood is little more than an ongoing lesson in recursion. After seeing a friend lose her temper with her son recently, and then getting an abject apology from her by email, I constructed a story in my mind: A little girl grows up, getting yelled at sometimes for doing things wrong and feeling pretty bad about it. By the time she's a mom, she knows she'd prefer to deal with her kids without yelling if possible. But there's still a voice in her head, yelling at her when she falls short of her best intentions. You know the one? Then, lo and behold, when one of her kids screws up, she finds herself yelling at the kid in front of other parents, leading to much embarrassment and self-flagellation.

So how do we break the cycle? For this kind of yelling/criticism loop, I suspect it has a lot to do with learning to be gentle with ourselves when we screw up. Otherwise, how can we manage to be gentle with our kids? Can we come up with a mantra for ourselves? Something like, "I will remember that I am a good parent, that I have always done the best I could, and that I have passed on to my children as few of the hurts that I endured as a child as I could possibly manage. And someday, I'll get some rest!" (That's a paraphrase of the Parents' Commitment in Co-Counseling.) Or how about a chant I heard in a women's singing circle: "I will be gentle with myself. I will love myself. I am a child of the universe, being born each moment." Is it possible to remember that life is an ongoing learning process, and that most learners, ourselves included, don't do well with constant criticism and put-downs?

Looking at the list above, it seems like my own chief demons are perfectionism and impatience – the inward- and outward-facing parts of the same stinkin' thinkin', as FlyLady might call it. FlyLady's lessons have been one of the most helpful things for me in learning to be more patient with myself, to the extent I manage to do that. My co-counseling experience was helpful, of course, but FlyLady has helped me take the lessons of self-acceptance and patience with myself and others into the less orderly context of my daily life, amid chores, kids, and household chaos.

I still have a ways to go. Perhaps alongside FlyLady's 15 minutes of decluttering per day, I could try a daily practice of forgiving someone -- myself, my kids, my husband, a stranger, but myself at least some of the time -- for something. Anything. It's time to declutter my mind of impatience, perfectionism, and eventually whatever other demons I might turn up after those clear out a bit. Then maybe, when I give one of my kids a piece of advice or correction, I'll be able to hear myself think!

Attack of the Exercise Imp

I remember my first bike ride for fun after I moved to the Bay Area 18 years ago. I’d had the same mountain bike all through college and pretty much only ridden it for short trips around campus and town. I didn’t have, or know how to use, a patch kit. I didn’t have a quick-release rear wheel; this was great for locking my bike on campus, but not conducive to repairs. See what’s gonna happen here? My girlfriend and I went for a 12-mile-or-so ride around Contra Costa County, on rural roads through grazing lands and rolling hills. Just about as far from BART as our route would take us, my rear tire tangled with a 6-inch piece of barbed wire on the shoulder. It was a mess. My girlfriend had a patch kit and the knowledge to use it, but not the 15-mm wrench to remove my wheel! We walked to the nearest farm, and fortunately found someone willing to lend an adjustable wrench. After something like an hour of dealing with this, we were back on our way, having used just about all the patches we had. And then I had another flat. No need to go on; suffice it to say that that day was what my dad used to call an existential experience. I did eventually proceed to ride long distances (six years later, from San Francisco to Los Angeles!), but it took a little while to get back in the saddle after that debacle.

Is there some spirit of mischief that plagues people trying to set out on the path to a healthier, more active lifestyle? I ask because I think today it bit me again. This past week, I got my bike back in riding condition for the first time since last summer, and I took my daughter to her dance class along with the little guy in the double bike trailer. It went pretty well, though the ride back home, uphill all the way, was a challenge. I figured I’d have all spring to get in better shape, now that my bike is ready to go, I’ve found all the appropriate locks, etc.

See it coming yet?

So this afternoon, when we all decided on the spur of the moment to go to the library, I suggested we take the bikes. Husband and kids were all game, and soon we were off. No sooner did we get to the library, though, than the little guy barfed up his lunch in the parking lot. Oops! Was he motion-sick? He’d never had that problem before. We decided to hang out outdoors for a bit and see. Nope. More barfing. He’s just sick. I hung out with him outside the nearby supermarket, while DH got some dinner stuff and a roll of paper towels for cleanup. More barfing. We rode home slowly, checking on him constantly. He’s convalescing slowly in front of a video now, to take his mind off things. Or maybe just to make us feel better – he only seems unhappy for about 30 seconds longer than it takes him to have a couple of heaves. Thank goodness for small favors!

So I’m thinking, how long will it be before we’re ready to get back in the saddle for a family bike trip? Maybe, now that we’re pretty sure it’s not motion sickness, not too long. I will be packing a change of clothes and carrying that roll of paper towels and a plastic bag or two in the trailer, though! Maybe we can avoid the spell of the exercise imp and get past the mental barriers this time. Wish us luck!

Putting On My Own Oxygen Mask

For 15 years after college, I lived in the same area in California. I built a good network of connections there that gave my life stability and depth. Now, three years into my life in Boulder, I'm still looking for that. As an at-home mom of two young children, I crave adult connection. It gets hard to be really present with my kids if I don't get that. So what works?

I've gone door-to-door in my new neighborhood, sort of like a Welcome Wagon in reverse, meeting people and compiling a neighborhood contact list. I probably know more people in my neighborhood by name than most longer-term residents -- but only a few any better than that. I have hopes that this will progress into regular neighborhood-based social activities or mutual aid like sharing tools or skills. But there's still work to do.

I joined a local church in my denomination (Unitarian Universalist) and have met some folks there. But between having two young kids and my husband not being a church guy, it's been hard to take full advantage of opportunities for connection there. Connections at church are starting to form, but they, too, need work.

So does school. I talk to some of the other parents at my daughter's school, but finding the ones I have much in common with is a slow business.

The one place I felt instantly at home, when I found it, was the monthly spinning/knitting gathering at my local yarn shop. The people there are all different ages and have pretty widely varying lives, but something about their being crafty with fiber seems to bring out common values:

• We crafters seem to value making things more than having them. Many knitters give away most of what they make; it's really the pleasure of creation that keeps us going. This tends to correlate with interests in things like simpler living and slow food, though that's not universal.
  
• We value teaching and learning. People often ask questions when they're having trouble, and there are always people ready to drop what they're doing and help out. Just listening to conversations there, I learn more about the crafts I know and get useful background on those I have yet to learn.
• We know it's important to take time to create. The setting selects for that, of course. Some of us have children or demanding jobs, but we make time for fiber, somewhere between once a month and every day. It feeds us and makes the rest of our lives more doable to take this time for something we love.
  

For me, as a mom, socializing with fiber folk is a form of putting on my own oxygen mask first: making sure I get some down time, some connection, so I have something to give to my kids when they need it. In some families, I think the same idea is expressed, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Amen.

I continue to work on connections at church, school, and in my neighborhood, but I've made the most progress with crafty gatherings. Since December I've been hosting a monthly craft circle at my house on a Saturday morning and serving lunch afterward. My husband, who can see the benefits of these connections for me, takes care of our kids and sometimes others who come with their moms (it's all women so far) while we sit and ply (or spin, or knit, or crochet!) our crafts. I've taught a couple of brand-new knitters at the gatherings.

Our circle is slowly growing, and it's knitting together (oh, but the puns are rich here!) friends from school, extended family, and folks I've met at the local yarn shop gatherings. (I got the owner's blessing to recruit there as long as I don't schedule in conflict with their spin/knit-ins.) I can feel my root system getting deeper and more complex with each monthly circle. The oxygen mask is on, and the air is sweet!