toddlers – Live Now and Zen

Perspective From Two Hours On A Flight Next To A Hungry, Tired Toddler

by MeApril 18, 2022April 19, 2022Leave a comment

Sitting in the small airplane, four seats wide, sharing the row with a young mother of three with a screaming toddler on her lap. Toddler is tossing everything she is handed onto the floor.

“It’s been a while since I had littles,” I tell her with as much patience and understanding and motherly wisdom as I can muster, “but I remember those days well. No worries.”

Her four year old son sitting behind me kicks my seat the entire flight, stopping only to push both feet long and slow into my lower back. Six year old daughter next to him bugging him for the iPad. The mom next to me looks exhausted and, boy, do I get it. Her toddler thrashes in her arms, grabs my hair and pulls. The mom is mortified and apologizes, and I nod with understanding. It’s been seventeen years since I last held a wailing toddler on a flight, but that experience never leaves you. The muscle memory of the anxiety and embarrassment remains fresh.

The toddler in her lap, likely desperately tired and frustrated, begins howling with increasing ferocity. The mom hands her off to her husband who is sitting next to their oldest daughter across the aisle from the young ones behind me. As her daughter thrashes like a shark in shallow water, the mom shrinks, puts her head in her hands, and shakes it slowly back and forth. I know she is counting the seconds until her tiny creation at last succumbs to the sleep she needs.

As she is doing this, I look out my window-seat rectangle with its rounded corners. I am grateful to be wearing a mask as the silent tears slip behind the fiber filter on my face. You see, I said goodbye again to my almost 21 year old this morning after I passed him the four bottles of wine we couldn’t fit into our checked luggage. And I’m heading home to my high school senior who will be moving away in four month’s time. The ache this mom is feeling as she wishes the time on this two-and-a-half hour journey would pass more quickly is a similar ache I am feeling as I wish these last few months would pass more slowly.

I would never tell her these things, as she will be in my shoes far sooner than she can fathom. She will discover in her own time the way childhood speeds up as it approaches puberty and adulthood. What starts as seconds moving as sand grains, imperceptibly draining through the narrow tube in an hourglass ends as deluge of sand dumped from a toddler’s beach pail. And this mom will learn, as I did, that those prayers for time to speed up aren’t selective. Time doesn’t speed for the rough moments without also speeding for the good moments. Time is brutal that way. Lucky parents will learn this the hard way, seeing their children mature in the blink of an eye and move on. We’re the fortunate ones, the ones who get to see their children reach adulthood. Many parents don’t have that same good fortune.

For now, I say a silent prayer for this mom in opposition to her prayer to speed time up. I pray that she will embrace all the moments with some quiet, inexplicable gratitude for what they are because she will be like me sooner than she knows, with greying hair and reading glasses, hugging her adult son and handing him wine bottles. She will be both excited to get home to her high school senior and afraid to get there because she knows there are 46 days until graduation.

Parenting is the greatest purveyor of perspective I’ve found. It simultaneously breaks me and saves me over and over again.

Puppies And Toddlers…Basically The Same Experience

by MeOctober 2, 2021Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I cared for a young child. Tonight, though, I was reminded of that long since past experience courtesy of our newest family member.

We decided to try the puppy on a short walk not long after dark. He has made it most of the way around our block on leash once already, so we figured it would be good to try again. I should have known our endeavor would not go as well this time because, as I was working to put his harness on, he wrestled and squirmed like a toddler recognizing that his pajamas mean bedtime is imminent. Once we had him outfitted for the walk, we went out the front door and he sat down, bit the leash, and refused to move. Undeterred, I picked him up and walked him down to our yard, where he walked into the grass, and threw himself down in a pouty, dramatic sploot, belly down with feet splayed out behind him, chin on the ground. Still, I thought since Ruby was walking ahead of him, he might perk up so I picked him up and walked on. Along the way, I several times tried again to see if he would follow Ruby’s lead and walk. Each time, he dramatically flung himself onto the grass in a petulant, defiant show of stubbornness. I gave up and carried him the rest of the way so at least Ruby would enjoy the walk.

When we got close to home, Ruby and Steve went ahead. Loki started whimpering. I know that sound might mean he needed to use the grassy facilities, so I set him down in our neighbor’s yard. He walked a couple steps forward and, sure enough, started doing his business. I praised him for his effort, pulled out my iPhone so I could train the flashlight on his deposit, and waited for Steve to come back out. I was afraid if I didn’t mark the spot, we would forget where it was, and I didn’t want to leave our new neighbors (whom we just met last night) an unwelcome puppy prize. While I was waiting for Steve to return with a poop bag, I set our mail on the ground. There was a bag from J Crew. Loki amused himself by gnawing on it. He was dragging it around and as the bag got closer to his mess, I panicked. I tried to grab the bag from him and he resisted, backing up onto his fresh pile, squishing it between his little white feet. Dammit. I’d saved the bag, but now the dog would need a bath.

Steve put the dog in the utility sink while I dug around for the mildest soap I could find. I knew we didn’t have any puppy soap, so I settled for a mild castille soap since we would targeting his feet. It was only his second bath and we quickly discovered bathing is not his favorite. We got his feet washed, both of us working to get the wriggling ball of fur through the ordeal as quickly as possible. We wrapped him in a towel, and tried to dry him as best as we could. He flipped and flopped and gnawed at the towel, little puppy growls of annoyance coming from underneath as if he was cursing us, which he probably was.

When we’d decided he was dry enough, we set him loose. Clean, invigorated, and freed from his unpleasant experience, he started running around the laundry room with increased fervor. He’d gotten his second wind. He went straight for the door stopper, bit at it several times, and barked at it for mocking him. Then he turned around and started chewing on my shirt. It seemed like it might be witching hour and I was out of energy for this, so off to puppy jail he went. Once inside his pen, he crawled up onto his new bed, collapsed, dropped his chin onto the edge, and began to close his eyes. He was done. And so were we. All three off us exhausted and ready for sleep.

Then Ruby pushed her stuffed candy corn toy at me. The rest of us might be out of energy, but this one isn’t. I can’t remember how I survived these nights when our sons were 2 and 4. Earlier today, those days would have seemed like a million years ago. After tonight, they feel like yesterday.

Mama Said

by MeJanuary 23, 2013January 24, 20133 Comments

Two boys in a jogger stroller and a 75 pound dog on a leash? Yep. I got this.

As I was exiting yoga today and walking towards my car, I noticed a mother with two young sons standing by a minivan. I’m not a highly observant person as a rule (ie., you would not want me to pick someone out of a line up), so it’s fair to say that the reason I noticed them at all was because her oldest son was mid-tantrum and wailing terribly. She was holding her younger son on her hip while the older son rolled on the pavement in the parking lot. Next to him were the spilled remnants of what appeared to be a large cup of fro-yo complete with toppings. She was talking to him in a stern voice in an attempt to quell the tantrum, but the whole thing wasn’t going so well for her. I knew she was having one of those Calgon-take-me-away moments to which all moms can relate (even if they don’t want to admit it). She was young, or at least younger than me, and she was beside herself and becoming increasingly frustrated. I averted my eyes lest she feel inadvertently judged, got into my car, and quietly thanked the heavens that my boys are no longer toddlers.

I don’t miss those days, although I do remember them as if they were yesterday. Like the mom today, I too bear the scars of dropped ice cream cones that gave way to full-fledged meltdowns in public places where passersby shot me derisive looks and shook their heads. I recall the amazement I felt when I realized I’d been reduced to a spineless, kowtowing dope by a 30-pound, 3 year old boy who was only standing on this planet because I dropped him here. Literally. It was a sobering moment. As I watched the mom struggle in the parking lot today, a part of me wanted to approach her and tell her she was doing a good job. I wanted to tell her that despite what all the books tell you some days being a parent feels more like a curse than a blessing. I wanted to let her know that I had been standing exactly in her shoes and that some day she would be standing in my shoes watching another mom struggle through the same situation. It happens all the time. But, I didn’t go talk to her. I didn’t say anything because I know that when I was at that point in my life, any comment about my parenting experience was like nails on a chalkboard. When people would see my young kids and tell me to “enjoy them because they grow up so fast,” I wanted to smack them for asking me to cherish something that was beyond unpleasant for me in that moment. I get it now, but then I was bitter.

When I think about my experience parenting over the past almost 12 years, what strikes me is how unfair I’ve been with myself. I’ve berated myself and belittled my efforts. I understand now that I’ve only ever done the best I was capable of at the time with the knowledge I had in that moment. Sure, in hindsight I made some stupid decisions, but I didn’t know any other way. I wish I could go back in time and tell that younger me, standing there in the parking lot at the mercy of my tantrum-enhanced child, that it was nothing more than a bad day. I would tell myself to relax. Ice cream gets dumped. Kids throw fits. It happens, and it doesn’t mean that you’re an overly indulgent parent or that your child is a spoiled brat. It simply means that gravity won that round.

Some days being the parent truly sucks, as the minivan mom in the parking lot of the Vitamin Cottage today can truly attest. Parenting books offer suggestions, but they don’t know you, your unique child, or your family circumstances. Some days you have to sing Kumbaya and practice a trust fall with yourself, knowing that in the end it will all work out. Mama wasn’t lying when she said there would be days like this. What she failed to mention, though, is that you shouldn’t sweat it. You’ve got this.