Making Happy

I am pretty good at making happy. I have always been. As I watch Ava grow I think she knows how to do it too. Lilly is only 17 months old and there is a particular angst that goes along with this age where you are completely aware but posses very little reason and have low communication skills - i.e. if you are given three gold fish and you want more but there are no more, you can't understand, you're so tired, so you drown yourself in screaming until something comes along to make you forget about them or in Lilly's case your Mama scoops you up and covers you with kisses as you cling to her and sob and sob about the crime of no more goldfish.

(Above her sister touched her favorite cat towel and then I didn't pick her up after she got it back. End of the world.)

But anyway, so we don't know about Lo lo (as we affectionately call her) yet, but me and Ava we are happy makers. I think I was about school age when I started changing my dreams - I remember laying down and closing my eyes and conjuring up my bestest friend Candy Roper. We would run and play all night, my mom would often come in my room thinking I was awake as I would talk to Candy and my other night time pals in my sleep. My Ava has a whole slew of imaginary friends that she pops out anytime she's bored, it's quiet and then all the sudden you realize she's chatting it up with a friend.

I know how many pillows I need to sleep (three - two fluffy, one not), how to make my perfect morning iced latte, the kinds of rugs and pillows and stuff that I need to be happy in any home (it's all about the new West Elm look these days). The saddest, weirdest, most worry some days can be fixed for me with the right Pandora station and my favorite blanket, oh and maybe some Pinterest on my iPhone - so soothing ;) repin, repin, repin...

Sometimes I just need some hard, sweaty all day long work. The kind of work that makes your whole body tired but wipes your mind totally clean. Finding this simple settling in good things is important - so many people seem to be so lost to food, drugs, etc. to find peace. Or when I meet someone really perpetually grumpy it makes me wonder how long it has even been since they felt that full in your belly, warm, happy.

I don't need for all the stresses in my life to go away, they never will, there will always be some weird random thing going on just out of my control. I just need to take a drive with the windows down, put the girls in a full, hot bubble bath and dunk my feet in, write a blog post about the amazing and wonderful things in my life, watch a great movie with Joe.

I often hear people say that you need to find God to find peace but the more I consider this it feels backwards. I see people thinking they are following a spiritual life but not being able to see anything spiritual because they don't know how to slip out of this world into another place just with their own power over their own emotions, settling themselves down to a good, solid, happy place where they can hear.

p.s. When I write a post like this I always get emails asking if I am sad about something. Really today my motivation for writing this is watching my girls interact, feeling so inspired by Ava. Thinking of my husband who is at the moment working 7 days at week and gone from 6am to almost 10pm some days. Thinking of Lilly who poor little thing is getting six teeth in and how well this is all just life, busy and crazy and I want my family to always know how to walk out of those stresses at any moment and just be happy. How to make happy - no spouse or parent or friend can do that for you.

A Week-ish

I was glancing through my phone and I have been snapping photos of my girls like crazy the past two weeks. It's funny because sometimes dumping my iPhone photos can be so spiritual for me. The way I feel about my girls these days is almost surreal. These quick phone photos from the past 'weekish' are so inspiring to me, they remind me that no matter what small things might be troubling me and my husband from time to time the big picture is that we are living an amazing life surrounded by amazing little souls. 

 

We had so many first moments - first time swinging from the monkey bars without help, first time blowing a bubble, ha the first time Lilly LET Ava read to her (Ava can read!), the first time seeing baking soda and colored vinegar react. Also, I remembered what happens when I let Ava turn on the hose for 'just a second to fill up her watering can real quick'. 

 We had excellent times playing and exploring the world. I am reminded every second how easy it is to make children utterly, blissfully happy and I think that's why I've always liked them so much. This week, Ava told me that 'when she used to be a grown up she was a doctor' - a very classically creepy thing for Ava to say. Once exactly when my hand touched her toy airplane, that she hadn't seen for weeks, high up on my tall chest I heard her say to her Dad in the next room 'can I play with my wood airplane now'. She's crazy happy so we've just decided it's fine that she talks like a tiny psychic half the time. 

That Lilly is just growing up. She (clearly) hates the sandbox, but I still toss her feet in anyway. She has finally started to grace us with words, when she feels the inclination and she clearly is understanding most of what we are saying to her now. Sometimes, Lilly just clear as day bursts out with some word like she has just always said it, she may or may not repeat it after that as she is basically immune to praise from us and chooses when she will do almost everything. Watching her grow into a mini person is just amazing, comparing her now at 16 months to where Ava is at 3 and a half and thinking about what will happen to her over the course of the next two years is mind boggling. I always think the biggest difference in having more children is that you don't know the latter children yet the way you know your first child. I will have always had two more years of knowing Ava in and out and it's in someways like Lilly and I are just beginning. Such a strange power to be able to choose when and how to add these little humans to your family, to the world. The awesomeness of being alive. 

I want to hold up a sign that says ‘WHOA!’ and other thought s on being a new Stay at Home Mom

I had my first paying job at 15, by 16 I was up at 6:30 a.m. on Saturdays working the local Mc D’s drive-thru window, at 17 I waited tables and so on. I worked from 15 to 29 without interruption and then all of the sudden just stopped.

After we had Ava I started working from home almost immediately and by the time she was three months old I had directed the entire marketing plan and public face for a new Children’s Museum. I was busy! I had great flexibility at work and often while I was typing away or reflecting on strategies Ava was right there in my arms. My husband works in the retail industry and so we just adjusted our work days so that she went to daycare only three days a week and we sucked it up and paid sky high bills for a daycare with internet cameras in the classrooms and really good teachers. It was the hardest thing I have ever done taking a 10 week old to daycare but really with the camera I kept open in an internet tab all day at work and the cool stuff I had going on professionally I didn’t really have much time to reflect on my feelings about motherhood. We just made it work, like most parents that work do.

I still planned stuff for Ava to do on my days off. As soon as she was old enough we were building her kitchens and filling up sensory boxes. We had all kinds of little infant learning activities thanks mostly to stay at home moms who blogged about what cool things they were doing at home. I started this blog and although I certainly have increased my level of sewing and decorating and cooking I think that for instance building a light table would have been something I would have jumped on even when I worked. All that to say that I really didn’t parent all that differently when I worked from how I do now – I just like to make and do stuff, it is who I am.

Overall, society was incredibly generous to me. Sometimes I had a few instances where professional people treated me differently when I was pregnant and several times where people planned to take over my job when I was on maternity leave. Overall though, everyone seemed very impressed that I could work and still take time for Ava. After I had Lilly I did work for a very short time but I haven’t gone back to work since we moved from Florida to Georgia last January. Honestly, the traffic situation in Atlanta makes it pretty difficult to consider most of the jobs I am qualified for. Almost all of them would require an hour commute each way for me. Leaving my girls in daycare for 10 to 12 hour days isn’t going to happen. Plus, I really have been overwhelmed by how amazing this (almost year) home with them has been. When you are working a pretty intense job it takes up almost all of your spare thoughts. When you stay at home there is quite a bit of ‘down time’. Life slows down. There is time to think, time to play blocks for an hour, time to fix lunches and breakfasts and dinners. Going to the park or the museum or to meet up with other mom’s is your task of the day, not how you relax on your day off.

Sort of like a brain renaissance really.

The one thing that has been totally crazy is how all of the sudden I am under a weird mothering microscope. Not just other stay at home mother’s but lots of parents compare their children to my children right out loud in front of me! ‘They’ criticize my parenting choices or other’s right in front of them! I mean LITTLE things like how you feed your baby or what TV choices you make for your toddler. When I was working people were just happy my baby did eat, they didn’t care how I fed her and I guess TV was just something working mom’s need. (I feel the stay at home parent need to insert here that we only let Ava watch one hour of commercial free TV a day max* – SEE HOW BRAIN WASHED I AM!)

People were proud when we made Ava a wood kitchen not jealous that they didn’t make their kid one – hey for the record it is cheaper to buy a wooden play kitchen – we just like to make things! When I would tell a friend that Ava could walk or recognize her letters or something else fun and new I wasn’t seen as taunting or comparing I was just proud of my kid. But now I am sadly realizing that maybe it was ‘o.k.’ that Ava walked early because she had the ‘handicap’ of being a ‘daycare kid’. Can you believe that I have actually felt bad before that my kids were behaving and almost all the other kids were going crazy – as in ‘look at the weird well behaved kid, their mother must be crazy and scary at home if they are still listening to her in this situation’.

Can I just say that I want a big huge sign that says ‘WHOA!’

Being a fairly confident person from a pretty intense childhood I never understood the need for slogans like ‘Be Yourself’ or ‘don’t let anyone rain on your parade’ until now. I have no other thoughts on this topic except that writing this has made me feel better and so I hope it makes someone else feel better too.

Staying at home to see every little yawn and look of excitement on my girl’s faces is amazing and life is so short and I am so so so blessed. So next time I get bombarded by someone who hasn’t learned at 30 or 40 to play nice and take responsibility for their own feelings I am going to remember to ‘Be myself’ and ‘Not let anyone rain on my parade’.

*on the TV note above also add “Unless I am sick, busy or feeling lazy.”

working mom - today's issue of Goop

In case you didn't know Gwyneth Paltrow has a monthly e-newsletter called Goop. It is well written, informative and interesting. Today's was so on point for me because it was a day in the life of Gwyneth and two other mom's of similar status / lifestyle. It is super captivating. I haven't had time to think about not working full-time, ya know with the baby, maternity leave, crazy vacations, holidays, moving and our three week hotel stay - but in the back of my head I am sure it is there needing to be thought about. 

So read today's Goop. 

Let me know what you think, because I am not sure what to think. 

Hoping to Never Get the Memo…

This morning on public TV there was a reporter talking about big ideas like International Industry, the American Economy, how we handle our great minds as compared to other countries and so on. He so accurately described one of my core beliefs that I can’t get it out of my head since. When he started talking about some of the American students he had met recently with truly remarkable and revolutionary scientific and industrial solutions to our biggest global problems he made a brilliant point. He said that it was “like these students had somehow not gotten the memo” – the memo to hate the President or that we are in a disastrous recession – you’ve heard it - that America is in the toilet.

These students, that “aren’t getting the memo” are going to cure cancer, revolutionize industry and solve our energy crisis. I believe if these students can take this idea to a personal level they will enjoy their children, truly connect with their spouses and find peace in their religious and personal choices their entire lives.

I think this idea is why so many people responded to the Daily Show’s hugely successful “Rally to Restore Sanity” held in DC on October 30^th.  The ads for the entertainment event / political rally read, “We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard; and who believe that the only time it’s appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler. Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.”

 An estimated 215,000 people attended, some just for fun, and others that were frustrated with the people in their life that seem to make living by and broadcasting “the memo” their full time job. These negative voices seem to be multiplying by the moment and if it isn’t the cable guy ruining ‘Aunt Sally’s’ day then it is the government or the weather or my favorite inanimate objects - like cars and houses.

I try, very hard, to “not get the memo” – you know the one that has been handed to me a million times since birth – it says things like:

•           You ALWAYS have to choose a side. When someone disagrees with “your side” they are wrong. Pointing it out to them is the right thing to do.
•           Hate.
•           Racism.
•           Live with a sense of injustice and unfairness. Never forget to complain about it.
•           Complain and finger point to avoid hard work or when you are tired or sick or when things simply aren’t going your way.
•           You can’t do it and it is because of someone else.
•           Revenge.
•           Fear.

When I think about my girls I hope that even though the world will hand them its own memo a million times ours will still be loud enough to come through:

•           Work very hard and not only at your job.
•           Enjoy your family. Make time for them - lots of time for them.
•           Remember children are only little for the blink of an eye.
•           Push yourself. Give yourself a break. Find the balance here.
•           Find ways to really connect with the people most important to you as often as possible.
•           Make choices that are absent of fear or stress.
•           Be bold. Be honest. Be kind. Be sincere. Be patient.
• 
  

     What is something your ‘good’ memo say?

**I have written a few posts like this one and tagged them all ‘the modern women’.

worry and guilt

“I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing.” Gloria Steinem

I talk with my friend Michelle in Texas, a lot, she has 3 kids under the age of 3. Michelle stays home and does some professional photography on the side. I work out of the home 4 days a week. We both have guilt, worries, and nagging feelings that keep us from fully appreciating the day to day.

We talk about how we feel guilty when we go too long without changing a diaper or when we put on a TV show so we can get dinner done when we already put one on to get through the laundry. I talk about the guilt of Ava being in daycare three days a week and Michelle talks about feeling like one of her children is always having to wait. I don't think either of us come across to people as women who worry or feel guilty - probably quite the opposite. I think I would describe my personal worries and guilts as sort-of a quiet humming channel of things I need to keep on my radar - not always totally healthy and quiet, but mostly.

Michelle and I talk about our husbands (both awesome guys) and how they can forget a diaper, a jacket, or even bigger stuff and it just wouldn't occur to them to worry about it or feel perpetually guilty about, well, anything.

I will say my worrying and guilt is probably why we move forward in a lot of areas. I do try to channel my 'mind affliction' in healthy ways - I am a huge planner and goal maker. I always have a mental list of to-do's cycling through, being constantly re-prioritized and edited.

Maybe 'worry' is an important part of the female role in the world. Especially as mothers we have to be tuned in to the smallest details like food choices, warm foreheads, the little gnawing on the thumb that is out of the ordinary and might be the sign of a troublesome molar, or even harder to detect - unspoken anxieties or fears.

Well let's just go with this thought anyway because I can't worry about worrying - that might be a sin ;)

Being the Author of Your Family's Story

"My good friend Laura, a brilliant engineer and uber-mom, often has friends over for dinner and always has a spare apron waiting. Her kitchen is filled with beautiful pottery, old Sunset Magazine cookbooks and clippings, and ingenious tools to make cooking fun. Preparing dinner is a group effort at her house, and there's always a snack and a glass of wine to hold while you stir the paella or an interesting bit of news whispered in your ear while you toss a salad. I've found that once i have tied on one of her aprons, it's difficult to feel like anything less than a part of her family." - pg. 23 Heather Ross, Weekend Sewing

I came across this quote today when browsing through the book Weekend Sewing. As I have gotten older it has become more apparent how the need for constant re-invention is part of the female condition. We love to dream, plan, scheme and in general move forward by making improvements. When I read this paragraph my first thought was something like, 'wow I wish I had the time to make people feel like that or to feel like that myself!' Then I reread it and saw that Laura is an engineer and so she, like me, knows the struggle of small amounts of time and lots of responsibilities. I often catch myself thinking 'if i stayed home I would...' - fill in the '...' with silly things like 'make dinner every night' or 'never let the laundry get out of control' ...you know.

The truth is that what I really admire in this paragraph is the description of the atmosphere Laura has created.

Our home is very 50 / 50. Well, I don't take out the trash or mow the lawn and Joseph doesn't really shop for much but you get it - we both work in and out of the home equally. Sometimes this leads me to forget about things that really only I can create, like atmosphere. I, as a woman, have the ability to create a story for our life in a way that simply wouldn't occur to my husband, something I am sure he is grateful for.

This year for me has been about identifying the good stuff and making it 'bigger' in our lives. This blog is part of that - making the good stuff more important. These are the kinds of questions I ask myself:

How will my children remember dinner? Will it be hectic, rushed, un-healthy or will they remember laughing around the table, candles, getting involved in creative meals, great music flipped on in the background. Lighting a candle playing music, or letting your toddler pull a chair up doesn't take any more time really. Eating dinner at a table on the back porch in the summer might be a tad bit more trouble but totally worth it.

How will my children remember our home? Was it a total disaster, were their toys always lost and broken or were there special rooms just for them with all of their things in a perfect special place? Was there always a clean spot to pull out the train or set up an elaborate play house? Or will they remember me always trying to rush around and clean up a huge piled-up messes on my days off?

I try to keep this idea of the 'story' at the top of my mind because you just get one shot here - one shot to be a good parent to your children, a good wife to your husband, a good steward of your own life and for me 'story' and 'atmosphere' matter.

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