Learn to Be Still

The first time I took a meditation class, I spent the initial five minutes panicking. I was at a resort spa in Arizona (part of my former life as a travel writer), and the goal of this non-religious form of meditation was to become an observer of your own thoughts: try to let your mind go blank, and then note your inner dialogue as your brain fought your attempt at quietness.

My inner dialogue went something like this:

I have to sit here for twenty minutes?
Uh-oh, there's a thought.
What if my butt falls asleep?
Ack! Another thought!
Wouldn't my boss be proud of me for meditating?
Don't think about your boss! Think about nothing!
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
That's better.
Yep, there goes my butt. Definitely some tingling happening.
Ack!

That first (and last) meditation experience came to mind this summer while on a camping trip with my husband and two daughters. We'd gone to Pfeifer Big Sur last year for three nights, and found it wasn't nearly long enough, so this year we booked six nights. This sounded lovely: sleeping under the redwoods with the music of the river constantly in our ears. In Big Sur we are completely unplugged: no cell service even.

But as the time approached, I began to wonder what I would do with myself for seven days in the dirt. I asked a couple of friends, "Do you think I could bring my lap top?" I didn't want to check e-mail, but when I get down time, I always am flooded with ideas and have an urge to write.

"Why don't you just bring paper and pen?" one friend suggested.

"No can do. I need my keyboard or my fingers can't keep up with my thoughts."

"Can't you just go and be?" the other friend asked. She's a new friend. She doesn't know me that well.

But her thought inspired me, so the laptop stayed home, though some embroidery projects did come along. My hands have to be busy, even if my mind cannot be. And I can still talk to the family and sew at the same time. Though the ideas did in fact flow in, until now, I have not written down a single one of them.

The first day of camping is filled with the business of setting up camp. I love it; it's like playing house as a kid. I imagine I'm Ma from the Little House on the Prairie series, an efficient and adventurous pioneer, sweeping up the dugout, gathering firewood. But about three hours in, when the last chair was set around the fire and the clothesline hung from the trees, a sensation came over me not unlike in meditation class. Camp set up? Check. Sat by the river? Check. Took a walk in the redwoods? Check. Uh oh. Now what? I have to stay here how long?

Sophia felt it too. She ran around frantically exploring all afternoon, but just as we sat down to dinner said, "Mom, I feel weird. What am I going to do for the next six days?" In fact, our family went through two days of busyness detox before we could truly relax. Then it became a wonderful experience, not just a vacation from daily life, but a life lesson. I began to like myself still, and I would chuckle on trips to the camp store when I saw groups of European tourists clustered around computers in the Wi-Fi hot spot next to the laundromat.

While I was trying to just be, I formed in my mind tomorrow's blog, "Lessons from the Campground." I've probably forgotten some of it by now. But return tomorrow, friends, and see if my inner dialogue among the redwoods was a little more productive and interesting than wondering if I was losing sensation in my derriere.

My Daughter is Cheating on Me

My beloved is in love with another woman. I’m talking about my four year old and her preschool teacher. Week three of her formal education is not yet completed and Livie’s passion for Miss Jessica is ardent. On the first day of school she marched upstairs and renamed her best doll Jessica.

At the same time, my baby has developed a love-hate relationship with me. Her sassy mouth is alarming (no profanity or anything), and it’s most stinging venom is reserved for me. The other day she said something insubordinate and I asked, “Do you talk like that to your teacher?” Wide-eyed, she answered, “Oh no, Mommy. I would never say anything like that to Miss Jessica.”

I use the language of infidelity to describe this little love triangle and I think its apt. Miss Jessica is the other woman: someone with whom Livie spends a small amount of time, gets affirmed for her uniqueness, and does giddy, fun things that she wouldn’t normally get to do at home (they mostly involve paint and paste). Meanwhile, Mommy is the one with whom she does the daily grind: school pick-ups and drop-offs, housecleaning, errands, teeth brushing, things involving the toilet. And because Livie and I are in a long-term relationship, we see each others’ flaws and have tedious daily conflicts.

I’m tempted to feel like the injured party in this situation. “Go ahead, dear, have fun with Miss Jessica. I’ll just go home wash your underwear and cook your lunch, and then you can be cranky and tired when you come home.”

But then today, I had a little affair of my own.

I spent part of the morning with a friend and her 18-month-old daughter Reese, who is my “adopted" niece, my “Reesey niecey.” I sat on the floor with her in my lap for a long time. We had a tickle fight. She climbed all over me and giggled. Reese played with my necklace, dropping it in and out of my sweater over and over again and exclaiming “Ta-da!” I fed her two mini muffins and she said “thank you.” She made me feel – sniff – like a Fun and Good Mommy again.

But then this afternoon I got a reality check that made me realize maybe I was partly to blame for my daughter seeking affection from another mother-figure. This afternoon, I was putting Livie down for a nap, and she reached up to touch the necklace Reese had played with for at least 20 minutes this morning – and I swatted her hand away! I had been so much more loving and patient with another little girl than I was with my daughter.

In any long-term relationship we are apt to get lazy and less kind. We stop saying “please” and “thank you.” We neglect to affirm our loved ones’ uniqueness and instead start to find their once-endearing quirks a little bit wearing. We let the urgent but mundane tasks of the day suck our energy for the little moments of fun and silliness that infuse our lives with joy. It’s true of my with my spouse, and true with my kids.

It’s easier to be fun with my friends’ kids or my nieces and nephews. When I’m at a friend’s house, the laundry and dirty dishes aren’t calling my name. There’s no e-mail to answer and no school paperwork to read. I’m also not responsible for these kids’ knowing right from wrong, their nutrition (hence the two mini-muffins), or their bodily functions. And so the entire dynamic is different. And so it should be. Moms don’t get to be a constant playmate; that wouldn’t teach our kids much in the long run or equip them for a world that does not revolve around them. This dynamic can make me feel like the long-suffering martyr in my home, but it needn't. If I let the spark go out of my family relationships, it's at least partially my own fault.

No matter how much I may wish I could share Miss Jessica’s pedestal, deep down, I know I’m still first in my daughter’s heart. Didn’t her eyes well up with tears when she saw me coming to class, so complete was her joy at seeing me return for her? Didn’t she insist that I hold her hand in the grocery store and be the one to put her to bed tonight? And isn’t the fact that she shows me her real emotions – even when they result in some developmentally appropriate insolence from that sassy mouth – mean that I am her safe anchor, the one she knows will love her no matter what?

Meantime, in between washing her undies, cutting her apples and putting her in time-out, I’m going to work harder at complimenting her artwork and dance moves, and look her in the eye when she's talking. I’m going to take time for a tickle fight. I’m going to let her play with my jewelry. I’m going to show her that our love – a deep, abiding love – is here to stay.

Barbie is the Bane of My Existence

Well, my mom was right about another thing: Barbie is bad.

I had a pretty mainstream American childhood, except for one thing: My mom banned Barbie. It wasn't a body image thing. It was because she thought Barbie (The brand? The actual character?) was materialistic. The goal of Barbie play was to amass material wealth: convertible, Dream House, and of course, a killer wardrobe. So, I owned no Barbies. I just went to Kelly Hines' house next door and played with hers. Mostly, we fought over whose doll got to wear the fur coat.

I had none of my mother's resolve on this issue. So Barbie first entered my daughter's life on her fifth birthday, when her best friend bought her a classic blond version wearing p.j.s, along with a canopy bed, a flat screen TV and a laptop.

By Christmas nine months later, the girls had been given at least half a dozen long-legged dolls, plus a Barbie Golden Retriever and three puppies; an above ground swimming pool; a Veterinarian Barbie and with baby animals and medical equipment; a celebrity chef Barbie with a tv-ready kitchen complete with microphone and tv camera; a pediatrician Baribe (who I refer to as the slutty nurse when the kids aren't around. The platforms on that girl! Seriously?); a jeep; two pink scooters; an RV (bought second hand); and more miniature clothes, shoes and handbags than I will own in my lifetime.

Sophia, age 7, has sort of outgrown Barbie (not that she will let Livie play with any of hers) but for Livie the obsession is very much a thing of the present. In May, we bought her a Ken doll in a tuxedo that looks just like Justin Beiber (Livie calls him Justin Beaver). She needed a Ken, she said, because she had lots of Barbies and they all wanted to get married. The reason we gave in is too long to go into.

Here's the problem, okay, problems, with Barbie. First, I do have a body image issue with her. I'm tired of looking at her naked voluptuous bottom and huge bosom lying around on my three year old's floor. It seems kind of obscene or at the very least, inappropriate.

Second, Barbie and her boy-toys are impossible for a child under the age of 7 to dress by herself. So guess who gets to squeeze her into impossibly tight leotards, gowns, bathing suits, stilettos and cowboy boots all day?

And finally, my mom was totally right. Barbie is one materialistic chick. She has way too much stuff: from personal electronics to professional grade cooking equipment. And her stuff is tiny. Like, so tiny that picking it up is like trying to pick sand grains out of shag carpeting. My husband -- half-amused -- has listened to my rants about how impossible it is to keep Barbie organized. I wish they had made all her accessories out of metal so I could just go in there with a giant magnet on a chain like they do at the dump and sift everything out from under my daughters other toys on the floor. I'm sure there's some safety reason why they haven't done that, or I'd make a million dollars on that idea.

Why, after weeks of silence on the blog am I finally coming back to the keyboard to rant about the toy buxom blond? Well, because Hubby, knowing all my feelings about her, came back from a garage sale recently with an 18-gallon tote of Barbie clothes and accessories. Apparently, he was originally going to let the girls pick out a dollar's worth of clothes each from the big bin, but then the lady doing the selling said, "Oh just take it all."

That lady got the upper hand on me, friends. She's basking in a clean Barbie-free house now, and I spent three hours going through that tote, at the bottom of which were 12 more Barbies and two Kens, a grand piano, a living room set, another whole kitchen, and Barbie SCUBA gear. They joy on my daughter's face as we discovered all this treasure I cannot even communicate.

I thought it would be greedy to keep all this, and told the girls so. So they lovingly dressed and accessorized eight dolls to give away to our church, which has a resource center of clothes, toys and household goods for the working poor in our community. I wish I could say my motives were pure. I feel more like I have pawned Barbie off on some other mother than that I have helped bring joy to a child's life. I await the day when Livie has outgrown them, and maybe then Barbie will just have to go live in the landfill. A whole other reason Barbie is bad.

To Risk-Taking Girls Everywhere

If all the other kids were jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?

I did. And I took my seven year old with me.

Yesterday we visited a friend and her sons in Huntington Harbor for kayaking and swimming. It's a neighborhood custom to jump off a bridge that crosses over the bay into the water, one that my friend Jenni and her oldest son Joshua have done in previous summers: Joshua gleefully, Jenni, with fear and trembling. Yesterday, we spent an hour or so at the beach without seeing a single person take the plunge.

But then, a group of neighborhood kids showed up, age range about nine to 16, and one by one started plummeting off the side. Knowing Sophia to be a daredevil and loving this about her, I turned to her and said, "Wanna do it?" Of course she did. Until one minute later, when she turned to me, eyes as big as golf balls and said, "You know mom, I heard Levi say you're not supposed to jump off the bridge and they never do it when the police are around, so we better not do it either."

"Nah, it's fine. Mommy says it's fine, so it's fine." A few minutes later, shivering with both cold and nerves, holding the hand of a friendly 10 year girl on both sides, she leapt. A minute later, with a "woo hoo" and very little grace, I jumped in after her.

It's official. I'm a bad influence. The classic metaphor used to illustrate that you shouldn't just go along with the crowd, especially when they're doing something stupid or dangerous, came literally true in front of my eyes, and I failed the test. In my defense, I wasn't totally sure what we were doing was illegal; I'd only heard a five year old boy say so. And also, there was no real danger. Reasonable height, deep water, we can both swim. No problem. However, on our way home, I did happen to see the big sign that said "No jumping from bridge." Too late.

I hope I haven't launched my daughter down a course of rule breaking. But Sophia is at a stage where she's a little too worried about following the rules, too anxious to fall in line and please others, and too concerned about others falling in line as well. So the bridge jumping is good for her (am I convincing anyone?).

In all seriousness, one of my core values as a parent (and person) is that if there's an experience that scares you, but isn't actually going to cause you serious bodily harm or harm to someone else, you should do it. It's part of my "Mama Don't Raise No Sissies" program. There aren't enough females out there willing to take risks, but overcoming fears is what life is all about. This is my father's influence coming through; this is how he raised me and my brothers. I want my kids to ride the roller coaster. Jump off the high dive. They'll feel proud they did, and maybe be more willing to take risks in things that really matter: faith, relationships, learning, creative pursuits.

My friend Jenni gets this. She told me that last year when she jumped, it scared her to death, but she did it as a psychological exercise, to prove to herself that she could, and to show her boys she was willing to take risks. At that point in her life, God was calling her to make some major leaps of faith, and this became her physical metaphor. This is one of the reasons she and I are so close. To risk takers everywhere, we say, "You go, girls."

Re-entering the Atmosphere

Today on the southbound 405 at approximately 3:15 in the afternoon, my mothering went down in flames.

My two daughters just spent the weekend with Grammy and Grampy at a resort in Palm Desert, while Jeff and I stayed at Grammy and Grampy's house in Newport Beach. It was heaven all around. But then on Sunday afternoon, when we had been reunited, it was the opposite.

Liv and I set off from the beach house together in our family's oldest car, which is without air conditioning. A stop at the produce market, and we were back in the car, sweating, with the windows down at 70 mph. Livie starts to scream, "I can't hear the music with the windows down!" And I start to yell back, "I can't roll the windows up! It's too hot!" Five minutes into this illogical exchange with my three year old, and I am screaming not to be heard over the wind, but simply because I am furious that she will not accept the situation and chill out.

"Do you want to listen to music or do you want Mommy to suffocate????"

One mile later, as I stand on the shoulder of the ramp where I have pulled the car over two exits too early because I literally cannot spend another second in that boiling car with that frothing child another minute, something occurs to me. Upon reentering the atmosphere of our family, some friction may occur. And in this case, the reentry was so abrupt, we went up in flames.

It also occurred to me hours later that back on the freeway, Livie and I were experiencing the exact same emotion. We were both confronted with a situation that we greatly disliked and could not control. Livie had only an hour earlier been cruising in the back of Grammy's leather-upholstered Mercedes Benz, listening to tunes and sipping water from her own cup holder. I was chilling with my hubster on Grammy's luxury patio, listening to music and smelling salty sea air. But suddenly, we both find ourselves smelling old Volkswagen and having our other senses blasted with hot air and automobile noise. No wonder we were both ticked off.

This freeway incident is somewhat discouraging to me, because one would think that after a relaxing weekend I would have more patience with my child and an adverse situation, but I often find the opposite is true.

Let's back up a minute, shall we. Friday after dropping the kids off, I had the whole day to myself and spent it sewing, riding a bike, reading a magazine, swimming in the bay, watching Harry Potter, taking a bubble bath, and then meeting my husband for happy hour and a movie. Did I forget to mention I got to get dressed and blow dry my hair ALL BY MYSELF. After the movie we got chocolate cake at a coffee house and then lay on the beach and looked at stars. And I haven't even gotten to the part where I had a day and a half after that with just my husband.

"What has gotten into you," my husband said to me from the beach blanket. "It's like you've been unleashed!" He forgets how much fun I am when I'm not busy mothering (don't take that the wrong way. I love mothering. No, really.)

But is it any wonder that such self indulgence would make me shocked to find frothy three year old in my back seat? My goodness, over the weekend I had almost forgotten what a tantrum sounded like. And meantime, she's been in swimming pool and breakfast buffet heaven. Why should she be happy to be running hot errands with me?

What's the lesson here? No fun for mommy because it ill-equips me for real life? No grandparents' sponsored vacation for the kids? I really hope not. If presented with the opportunity, I would say yes and cram in all kinds of fun all over again. But I will also be aware when the kids come home: There may be some bumps upon reentry, so buckle up.

Miracle Milestones

Why do adults always say to children, "Look how big you've gotten?" I hear myself saying it all the time to my friends' kids and my nieces. It's obnoxious, but unavoidable. Here's why I think we do it. Once we ourselves have stopped physcially growing bigger, and reached an age where we don't really feel ourselves getting older or changing with much rapidity, the dramatic growth and development of childhood seems outrageous, unbelievable. Being in stasis ourselves, we expect the children around us to stay the size they were when we first saw them.

Imagine, therefore, what it's like for a mom, who has tracked her child from non-being into being. Who first began measuring them in inches and ounces. Who remembers them once being so dependent they fed off our bodies from the inside, and then the outside. It's a breath-taking, mind boggling, daily miracle watching them move from total dependence to autonomy -- a truth that happens gradually and then occasionally dawns on us like a smack in the face. My dear friend and neighbor, whose baby is turning 13 this month and celebrating his Bar Mitzvah, keeps making me look at how much hair her son has on his legs. She just can't get over it.

I anticipate and prepare myself for the big milestones: first solids, first steps, first day of school. But some of the small milestones sneak up on me. On Monday, I took Livie (formerly the Delicate Chicken) to the community pool, for the first time since she completed 10 days of swimming lessons. Together we discovered that she can stand up -- or "touch" as kids everywhere call it -- in the shallow end of the big pool.

Gasp. My -- sniff -- baby, can stand up in the big pool. I don't know why this shocks me. She is about 40 inches tall, off the charts in height for a not-quite four year old, so of course she can stand in the 3-foot section. On second thought, I do know why it shocks me. A month ago, after much coaxing, she'd enter the "big kid" pool only if she could cling to me like a baby possum: belly to belly, limbs wrapped around me. My goal was to be able to hold her at arms length by the end of the summer without shrieking (her or me). Getting her toes to the bottom seemed as far as the ocean floor: an insurmountable distance.

Now -- all hail the Woodbridge Village Association's extremely cheap "water exploration" swimming lessons -- Liv can crab walk the perimeter of the pool, climb in and out the side, dunk her head under, jump to me from the side, and is brave enough to stand in three feet of water all by her little skinny self.

So the abrupt change is both beautiful and heartbreaking. You moms know exactly what I'm talking about. Standing on dry land watching her bob up and down alone, I witnessed the beginning of the end. The end of dependence on me, the end of early childhood.

Sometimes I'm really grateful I discovered blogging, because without it, I wouldn't be commemorating this small moment, which at this moment, feels big, and perhaps have forgotten it. But now I will remember. I celebrate Livie's accomplishment in writing. And one day when she calls me to say -- sniff -- that her baby climbed her first tree or took her first steps or went down the stairs all by herself without falling, I'll send her a copy of this and say, "Baby girl, I know exactly how you feel."

Hey DJ, Keep Playing that Song

Today is Jeff and my 12 year wedding anniversary, and for the last week I've been thinking about my husband of the last dozen years, my sweetheart for the last 16, and all the things he is to me. I decided his multiple positive roles deserved a blog on this day. Here goes.

My D.J. Since 1995, the soundtrack of my life has been arranged by Jeff. Thanks to used C.D. stores and BMG music club (back in the 1990s), he has satisfied his voracious musical appetite, and broadened the spectrum of what I listen to. He introduced me to Sarah McLauchlan and Neil Young. The way I first knew he was "into" me? A mixed tape with Weezer on one side and "Not Weezer" on the other side, a mix containing Oasis' "Wonderwall" which was our first song ("I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now..."). He knows how to set a tone that will make me feel good. For our recent anniversary road trip, Jeff made us eight CDs with 18 tracks a piece, a mixture of Tom Petty, Patty Griffin, The Decemberists, the Weepies, the Swell Season, and a whole bunch of other things I didn't recognize. Good stuff, man.

My GPS Navigational System: Just last week, I called home, frantic, from the 405, where I had almost exited Beach Blvd instead of Seal Beach Boulevard (about 8 miles off) on the way to meet a friend at a location I'd never been. With a dying cell phone battery at my ear and a bunch of orange detour signs out the window, I shrieked into the phone and my calm-as-usual husband, armed with google maps, talked me through it and got me there safe. This is a common occurrence. Until I get GPS in my car, Jeff is the one who makes sure I get where I'm going.

My Comic Sidekick Hubby is the Abbott to my Costello, the Andy to my Connan, the Chris Tucker to my Jackie Chan. Sometimes I can't get my next funny line out, because I'm still laughing so hard at his last one. Our senses of humor are idiosyncratic, but in sync. All day today, we've been calling each other Hoagy Charmichael and Neil Sugarman (each contributors to the Michael Buble album Jeff gave me this morning. I'm Hoagy.). Gosh, but we think we're funny.

My Copy Editor I can't spell, as Jeff learned back when we were corresponding across the Atlantic at a rate of at least one love letter a week. He finally wrote me to say that "agree" had only one "g." He's been checking my spelling ever since in everything from birthday cards to blogs. Last week I called him at work to find out how to spell "laminate" (well, he's an architect and it's a building term and I couldn't figure it out because I thought it had an "n"). That was crossing a line, he said.

My Filter Okay, so I have a tendency to say things out loud that I shouldn't. When in doubt whether or not to confront that friend, make that comment, or write that idea in a blog, I ask Jeff. He will tell me if it's appropriate or not. (Side note: if I know it's not appropriate but want to say or write it anyway, I do not ask Jeff.)

My Sharpener As it says in Proverbs 27:17, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." Or, as Michael Buble sang on my anniversary CD, "You make me work so we can work to work it out." Jeff has always made me want to be a better person, and in fact, I am actually succeeding under his influence. It's hard to demonstrate a lack of integrity around him. I can't yell at the kids. I can't be mean to my mom (when he's listening). I can't gossip. And I can't manipulate him emotionally (not that I want to, very often). He's too smart. The fact is, his opinion matters most to me of anyone's, and as he's a better person than I am, I have to keep raising my standards.

My Handyman and Bicycle Mechanic I can count on one had the amount of time in 12 years that I have had to pay someone to fix anything around here. He rocks at garbage disposals, wood glue, plaster, epoxy, jewelry repair. He recently installed a new gear shift on my bike. He rocks.

My Personal Shopper This may sound like a weird thing to say about one's husband, but Jeff has great influence on my style. It's even weirder because when I met him he was wearing a pink backpack and argyle socks with his Vans and shorts. But he pushes me to creative accessory and color combination and he always buys me cute things. He thinks I never listen to his opinion about what to wear (gosh, does he hate being asked about my outfits), but I do!

My Friend Still my most loyal and fun friend after all these years, Hubby is just a good person to spend time with. I can be myself around him, and I like the self that I am when I'm around him. We make each other better, as he wrote in our wedding vows.

So D.J. Jazzy Jeff, as I like to call you, keep the hits coming, honey. You know what I like.