It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it. - Zora Neal Hurston
Nora attended her first Harvest Moon Festival yesterday. We packed up raisins, bananas, crackers, pears, apples, water, diapers, and picnic blankets and set out for the old ranch house nestled into the gated community near the college. We walked in as the drum circle was in full swing.
Nora was mesmerized...she couldn't be bothered to drum or shake gourds or talk to her little chums...she just stared. Bobbed up and down occasionally...and stood fixated. Drums might just be her instrument.
After the trance of drum circle, it was time to finger bumpy gourds, hay bales, bamboo trunks, and giant tree trunks.
And, of course, the lion costume came back out. You can't miss any opportunity to dress up with such a fantastic shiny jungle cat outfit at your disposal.
Here's the menacing shadow of one Ms. Lulu Bell.
Dancing to Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Beach Boys covers...mixing with leather-skinned women donning skeleton earrings and skirts far too short for their wise years. I even got a view of the orange underwear of a grandmother who enjoyed dancing with Noodle.
I have started to feel very connected to some of my "Mommy & Me" friends...certainly, most of us only share a common birth month of our children, and teething advice and conundrums about tantrum throwing; however, a few are falling gently into friends-beyond-motherhood category. Last night, as I sipped white sangria and scraped the side of an oreo mud pie with Margie, it struck me just how magnificent it is to once again have girlfriends close by...with whom to share my musings, my worries, and my hopes.
As much as I still miss my friends caught in LA, the geography of this So Cal urban sprawl causes distance far more than the mere 28 miles on a map. There are job schedules, day care, missed time with husbands, freeways, traffic, naps, and errands to contend with. These 28 miles turn into an hour drive each way...and since Nora still screams bloody murder during car rides, this keeps me bubbled in my beloved Long Beach...thinking of my old friends...and gratefully making new ones.
**Just in case you need reminding, Nora is now dispensing post-it flags. Helpful little bugger, no?
There is a blissful sweetness to fall. It has always meant my birthday (celebrated this year with a small family dinner), leaves changing colors, a crispness in the air, and pumpkins.
I have never been a fan of Halloween. Rarely dressing up and going to great lengths to darken the house, block access to the door with benches, and ignoring any adventurous trick-or-treaters who brave the obstacle course and knock on the door.
This year, Halloween took on a different flavor. An adorable costume, well-loved last year, landed in my lap (Thanks, Liz)...and suddenly, my little lion was roaring into a new level of cuteness. I can hardly stand it. And not only Nora, but her entire clan of animal, fruit, and funky friends...all clad in their finery at a warm afternoon picnic in the park just made me smile so much today.
A lioness, a skunk, and a cow went to a picnic.
The cave boy (that's her b-day friend, Shane) ran away in terror from the attacking lioness and skunk.
And finally, all of us moms managed to wrangle our vibrant characters for a picture.
Some other favorite costumed cuties. A Buddhist monk, twin strawberries, and Wonder Girl.
We roared into our morning with a visit to the local pumpkin patch with velvet-tongued goats nibbling kibble from Nora's hands, lovely turquoise carousel horses making her squeal with delight, and mountains of pumpkins and hay.
There are countless motherhood moments that I wish to burn into my mind. They can't be captured in words, photo, or video. All senses combine to form these perfect morsels of connection between my daughter and me.
As I rocked Nora just now, nursing her down to sleep (yes, yes, I know...not sure if it was her or me not ready to give this up)...my fingertips swiped wisps of her cocoa brown hair behind her ear, swirling around to smooth the skin between her eyebrows. Her eyes blinked heavily as her soft fingertips poked my nose, outlined my lips and patted my cheek.
I have memorized the contours of her face, the cadence of her frantic "time to nurse" pants, the scratches of her nails, and the smell of her milky breath. Please let me never forget.
Even when she resists my staged photo shoot and screams at me because I won't let her run into the driveway. Her screams, by the way, could break glass.
Here is a photographic evolution of one of Nora's ever-more-frequent meltdowns (I totally feel your pain, Luke and JeeYoung!).
"Hmmm...I know, I'm going to run towards the cars!"
"What? Did you seriously just tell me 'No'? Why?"
"Why aren't you letting me run down the driveway?"
"You are totally ruining my life."
"Ugghhh. Unbelievable!"
And no, she's not moving into adult cutlery...this is pure Filipino tradition. She was very curious.
Then pissed.
Her official "13 months shot." Captures her right now perfectly.
Finally, she officially has hair long enough to style into shampoo swirls and spikes!
Several months ago, a sweet little fixer-upper landed on our email update. It was affordable and right down the street from my mom. We saw it. We loved it. We signed papers, held hands and crossed fingers...and then waited and waited and waited.
The photos above tell this story:
One day the bank said the house could be ours. And after all the negotiations, inspectors, contractors, painters, electricians, plumbers, roofers...sleepless nights...washers, dryers, fridges...have all been chosen, we are ready to begin the adventure of owning our first home.
This weekend, we entered the house for the first time alone. Just the three of us. No fabulous real estate agents (thanks, Auntie Barbara) or repairmen...just us. We kissed on the porch and turned our silver key. We walked into our silent and empty home. Encouraged Nora to run down the halls, bang on the floors, and hear her voice fill her room. We opened the blinds in her room. A lush orange tree filling her window frame. We sat and sang and blinked. We feel grateful and nervous, excited and tired.
I am not sure where the hours have been going lately...but my day has also contracted due to a promise between Daniel and me. We agreed to force each other to go to bed by 9:00pm and lights out by 9:30pm. One of us usually complains, grimmaces, and begrudingly closes the book or laptop or magazine.
Nora's vibrant screams light up our mornings by 5:00am for several weeks now. She also sprinkles in some midnight music from time-to-time. This makes for sleepy and crabby parents...UNLESS, we fall asleep early.
So, does this mean Nora's sleep is wonky? Yes. Is she teething? Double yes. Is she more easily cuddled at 4:30am when I'm not exhausted? Triple-yes.
But she's a big girl, never crawling and always walking (and falling), signing words and trying to speak, eating a ton, and just wanting to be a part of the mix. In the business.
She can now use sign language to say: cat, dog, more, eat, all done, dirty, change, bye-bye, pear, banana, milk, water, cheese, blanket, please and sleep.
She loves the new house...or is it merely the fantastic echoes produced from her clapping, screaching, and stomping feet?
All is well...and now it's off to get the oil changed and make copies of our new house key!
Video Fun
And on a rainy morning, what better way to hang out then listening to "Puff the Magic Dragon" and cuddling with a soft bear?
It conjures up images of a gritty and vocal resistance. A fight of words, fists, bravery, cowardice. Against indignities, inhumanities, and malice.
I am not entitled to use this verb "struggle" in relationship to my life. Hyperbole, perhaps. Nothing more.
This struck me this morning. Clad in pajamas dribbled with creamy banana yogurt. Nora's warm clothes even more indulgently splashed with yogurt and a wide variety of other breakfast foods. NPR chirping the background, our beloved "Banana Boat Song" coming across the air waves. It was an interview with Henry Belafonte, speaking of his mother.
Their family's poverty, so severe, that they had to "struggle to survive." Struggle.To.Survive.
As I sit at this computer, an hour later, in those same pajamas, sipping cold coffee, monitor lighting up red with Nora's mild protest against her morning nap (we are separating nursing from sleep...a notion that strongly offends her). My world has become myopic. My fixation with child-rearing, child-feeding, parenting methodology...all pool into the cavern created by my abundance of time and energy, my fortune, my true "need" for nothing. Vexation and analysis spawned from the privilege of lacking nothing.
I have no struggles...and my eyes glisten just typing those words.
Boo hoo, I'm fat. Boo hoo, my daughter likes to nurse and wants to be held too often. Oh, it's so stressful to buy a nice home. And piss to have a husband who craves another degree to further increase our financial stability...so I can stay at home...and pack picnic lunches for our afternoon at the nature center...and write this blog post...and watch the monitor still jump red while our daughter groans. Not out of hunger or fear but of pure irritation...cause she likes me so much.
So, thank you, Mr. Belafonte. Your eloquent words slipped under my skin. They will stay with me today. Make me slap myself around a bit.
Your mother also said, "Never let any injustice go unnoticed" and you claim this as your "rosebud moment." As you forged ahead in your career as a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fighting for civil rights and human rights, and as your songs of Jamaican folk became part of every child's musical memory.
Perhaps more than most qualities I would wish for Nora to posses, it is that of her finding her own voice. Making her own colorful imprint upon the world, her own footprint upon the beach of humanity. Not to spend nearly as much time with concerns of what others think of her, nor fretting about fitting into a box that her dad and I inadvertently created.
I want her to choose her own path, decide upon her own belief systems, embrace her passions and creativity and intellect...and hopefully receive a paycheck for swirling all of these together somehow.
I hope that she visits us when she's older out of desire...not obligation. That she replicates some of our family traditions out of joy...not guilt.
*This morning she enjoyed her first self-spooned oatmeal with raisins. She's practicing for her visits with her Aunt Kathy.
I talk a good game of college, college, college...but really she may choose a very different route.
Her soul may be fed from a different religion or no religion at all.
Her heart may be held dearest by a woman, a man, children or maybe just cats.
She might eat tons of red meat and adore leather jackets while wearing animal-tested make-up.
Okay, now I have my limits. If she drives a Hummer, I will have to put my foot down.
I hope I can embrace her despite how she differs from this image I try not to create of her as an adult.
In no particular order, may she be: independent, kind, strong, unique, empathetic, creative, intellectual, loyal, fun-loving, nature-loving, grateful.
Hmmm, quite the checklist for myself.
I hope to see that she is living and expressing and loving in her own grace. Of course my brows might knit and my lips might purse at some of her choices...but if she's dancing to the beat of her own drummer, I hope I can be proud of her journey.
Now, I say all this a few days after she uttered "doctor." As clear as day. Daniel and I were dressing her for her 1 year check-up and telling her about the doctor. She looked up and said it. And kept saying it. We were elated. We told her, "Yes, yes, you can be a doctor."
And then yesterday, as she sat upon my mother's lap, looking at the final page of her Chicky, Chicky book, she said it again...
but wait...she was looking at a tractor.
Well, I suppose she could be a tractor, too, when she grows up.
Drum on, baby girl. Drum on.
Enjoying snaps with her Grandma.
Drumming to her beloved "Chain Gang" morning spectacular.
Ok, ok...the past few days I have been caught up in a frenzy about toddler feeding and nutrition. This morning was the crest of that wave.
My panic button was pressed.
The following sentence sent me into a spin of FIRST, wanting a donut; second, fearing for Nora; third, feeling anxious.
"Your child will grow up to feel about eating the way you do. If that gives you a little thrill of dismay and dread, you have work to do."
After leaving a frantic voicemail for Kathy, I had to step back and take a breath. A few of them.
First, no driving to a donut shop.
Second, Nora is going to be fine.
Third, my anxiety is not from this mountain of a mole hill. I feed Nora pretty well and she is a good eater...there's something else underneath at the root of all this.
Hmmmm...my stressors...
Part of it is that I am suddenly overwhelmed by the academic/professional void in my life since being out of work now for over a year. At first it was just awesome to NEVER have to go to work but t he initial euphoria of motherhood is no longer new. I have even caught myself looking longingly at my professional teacher slacks in the closet.
Calls and emails to pre-baby friends often (and understandably) go unanswered for a long time...I imagine that's because they are busy with their jobs. Applying their minds and time to something outside of the domestic sphere.
I used to be important (please don't tell me I'm important to Nora...I inherently get that). I mean that I used to be a highly-respected English teacher. Colleagues sought out my advice on curriculum, behavior issues, methodology. I was the mentor and coach to new teachers. I had a strong and passionate voice at staff meetings. Administrators praised my abilities. I was proud of being a teacher. Yes, I complained..but at the end of the day, I knew I was good at it. I used big words.
Parenting is different. Sure, on MOST days, I know that I have done a solid job parenting my daughter...but my brain still feels more and more gelatinous by the hours of grocery shopping, cleaning, dishes, laundry folding, dealing with cloth diapers, cooking meals, and the phenomenal hours of engagement and entertainment provided to Nora. Prior to motherhood, I did not particularly enjoy cooking and cleaning...and yet, there are now hours allocated each day to these tasks.
In addition to missing my profession, we are in the first week of escrow on a house. A gigantic step in the land of adult-financial-responsibility (more to come on this as the process moves along).
Daniel is also going to return to graduate school for the next 3-5 years to pursue his MBA...while we continue to move towards having a second baby.
A year ago, this entire list of items would have normally been discussed and vexed and mulled over with a beautiful group of friends. Friends that have busy lives...all of whom now work outside the home.
So, would I like some cheese with my whine? Yes, I would. A huge chunk of sharp, blue-veined, morbier, please...and a donut on the side.
Wait, isn't that how this post started? Coming full circle.
I ain't no therapist but looks to me like some "transference-to-food-of-anxiety-over-other-things".
Longing for genuine friendships and time to daily talk.
Missing my career of a decade.
Vexing about a potential 5 years of many nights/weekends of single-parenting of perhaps two (kind and veggie-filled) children.
Starting the process of buying a home in the midst of a major recession.
Huh, it's all making a lot more sense.
Because, truth be told, the advice from the book led to instant and amazing results. Not a single screaming fest since I gave up on my tricking and pleading and shenanigans at meal time.
Here's a photo spread that tells the following story from Lulu's perspective:
"Mom was stressed out about me eating vegetables, although, I really just wanted to eat them myself.
You see, I am devouring it when it's part of the tortilla casserole that her and Daddy eat.
I even got to drink from a cup by myself.
I didn't quite understand how to do it...but I was having fun.
Well, until it splashed on my face. I'll practice this more.
But my first "Independence Meal" ended well. I had lots of sauce in my hair and water on my clothes...but I'm a big girl.
Someone has clearly taken my "baby" Noodle and replaced her with a much more ambulatory, verbal, strong-willed, ravenous, and sleepy toddler.
The past few days have found us dancing to German folk music at an Oktoberfest and Nora toddling 8+ steps across the floor to deliver various toys or crumbs into our hands. It's fun...but has me often looking at her wondering "where is my baby?"
She is talking in her own special language. Certainly a mix of German and English that comes out in squeaks and bobbles and sign-language mish-mash. She has added "water, shoe, read" to her signs and also a fantastic verbal copy of Daniel's "putchyer, putchyer, putchyer, putchyer pants on." She now shouts "Putchyer! Putchyer!" anytime she's on her changing table and belts it out when putting on her shoes.
And although I do strongly resist the connotation wrapped up in pink-princess-glittery-overly-feminine clothing, I have put Nora in a dress on three occasions. She wore a baptismal dress, an Easter dress, and now this cocoa brown number. And admittedly, she was sweet in all of them.
With her orange cloth bootie peeking out from underneath, it was a colorful moment.
The feather cap of an ancient Bavarian boy also became an adorable exclamation point to our afternoon spent at the Phoenix Club's Oktoberfest.
We went with the lovely Carrie & Ed and their baby Ruby.
Along with Amy & Malta with their daughter Paloma.
A very authentic festival complete with real-live Germans selling bratwurst and beer, donning lederhosen and dirndles, and of course, large rings romping to the chicken dance. A truly horrifying dance that for some odd reason is repeated at every event pertaining to Germans.
There were, sadly, no Turkish foods, songs, or people (that I could obviously spot), to make me feel like I was at home with my peeps in Cologne...but that's a whole other post for another day.
I had to take some ridiculously cheesy photos.
We had a blast feeding Nora saurekraut and potato salad.
Sipping on giant beers while she danced under the German flag.
Playing with her amigas, Ruby and Paloma, on a picnic blanket...Lulu was the eldest child, the wise one (by one whole month!).
To see the complete set of Oktoberfest pictures, click here.
On the toddler-eating tip, I've been reading a great book given to me by my sister-in-law (who has her smarty-pants-enormous-brain doctorate in nutrition), Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense by Ellyn Satter (also a giant well-used brain).
I was laughing yesterday as I underlined these key points below (having just shot the video of us wanting her to eat her broccoli mash the day before).
If a struggle emerges about eating, a toddler will get so involved with the struggle and so upset that it overwhelms her need to eat.
The diets of children of all ages suffer when parents go to extremes of being controlling on the one hand or failing to provide support and guidance on the other.
Children eat poorly when parents criticize, manage, or intrude on eating.
The more trouble parents take to make special food for a toddler, the more inclined the toddler is to reject the food.
Don't try to reason with her. She can't reason, it won't help her eating, and your efforts to persuade her will only teach her to use the issue as a bid for attention.
Children learn only if they get opportunities to learn.
Resist the impulse to entice, reward, play games, placate, and make special food.
She can use her fingers to feed herself, learn to use eating utensils, and drink from a cup.
She needs predictable feeding times, three meals and two snacks, and she needs help coming to the table rested and hungry but not famished.
Despite her erratic and sporadic hunger and appetite, she will get the calories she needs by averaging her eating out over several days.
So, hmmm...my giving her constant snacks when she begs, when she's fussing in the car, when she seems bored or irritated at a playdate, trying to force "green"' foods if she doesn't want them, worrying that she's eating too much fruit, not wanting her to get messy or spill food all over the floor and so feeding her most of the time...apparently all of that could use a few adjustments. Because frankly folks, I have some food issues. I eat WAY TOO much, too fast, and too often. I had asked Kathy for a book that would help me approach Nora's eating with some more thought than I give my own.
And I am amazed at just how often I contradict the above. How often Nora must have seen me eat a monstrous meal of unbalanced foods, eat out of the fridge/bag/box. How often she sees me eat when I'm upset, bored, happy...basically any emotion. I would like her not to turn to food for an emotional embrace. And as her primary food-provider, she is already taking some major cues from me. I carry her special snacks with me and dole them out all the time.
When did that happen, I wonder? This doling out of constant raisins, goldfish, mum-mums, crackers, cheerios, puffs? Most moms I know have these items on hand. And they aren't given at an official "snack-time" seated up at a table, but rather sprinkled around to keep a kid happy or quiet, help them calm down, stop crying, or allow a phone call or email to finish...or because the child is watching you snack and starts to beg for some (that's me!). I am doing all of these things...all the time.
But let me be clear...I am writing these words and NOT feeling guilt....because I am learning this gig as I move along. Always learning and adjusting to how I might serve Nora better.
Even if I stay against Nora having ingesting hormone-laced meat, insecticide-coated produce, salty foods, sugary sweets and drinking juice, if I've set the wheel in motion that she craves food whenever she feels any emotional high or low or boredom...(like her mama)...then I have still done her no favors.
So, I feel a renewed excitement about my approach to her eating. I am not proud of my relationship to food...but my daughter doesn't have to feel the same way. I am almost at the heaviest weight of my life (the same weight I was at 40 weeks preggers...this is painfully obvious in this photo from Sunday...wow, that's hard to look at!)
...but Noodle doesn't have to obsess about her weight the way I do.
Our days ahead will hold more opportunities for Nora to eat "regular" food, get messy, learn to pick it up, chew it up, and feel the textures. No wiping her mouth often, no feeding her on my hip without much thought given to sitting down.
She will not be forced to eat her veggies...but offered them regularly. No more gravy-train of snacks spilling out of the diaper bag. No more holding her at the kitchen counter and doling out snacks as I graze myself. I will stumble in my new path...but I am grateful for the information. This will not be a perfectly-straight path...it could never be. But I will try.
When you struggle daily with food, weight, body-image like I do, having a daughter and wanting a different experience for her, must be natural. But my habits are deeply entrenched...habits that I hope helping Nora not to acquire might help me to recognize more in myself. Oh, I'm sure there are books about how you are not to correct your own deep issues through your children - and maybe one day I'll read one of those, too...or Nora will hand it to me after seeking therapy!
I do want my heart to beat strongly into the future. And that will demand changes in my behavior. I always write this type of post here when I'm fed up. I send it out into the world to shake things up. I think these pictures of late, combined with my neighbor recently telling me that I always look frumpy and my grandma saying about Nora's birthday pictures, "Your face looks happy and the rest of you looks...well, your face is happy. Your cousin is losing weight and feeling really good about himself. Did you know that?" have struck a nerve. Yes, you don't need to tell me that these comments were mean. Spoken without malice...but still unkind.
Noodle always enjoys her pint-sized friends. Friday found us at birthday festivities and "goop & dust" parties. Both were a hoot.
Here are some of my favorite weekly pictures. Plus some adorable videos of her with her dad...reading and getting tickled.
Daniel and I are about to go out on a hot date. Yup, that's two dates in two weeks - a RECORD for us love birds. We would love to keep up this amazing streak of luck and babysitters.
Charlotte sharing a ball with Nora.
Susan helps Melissa blow out the candle.
Nora showing Lydia her downdog. She was not impressed.
Our "sensory" playdate. Each month, a lovely mom is going to set out various textures, surfaces, and materials for the kids. This month's inaguaral activity was goop and playdough and flour. Large troughs of cornstarch mixed with water for an awesome goop, homemade playdough in big sticky balls, and bowls full of floor to sift.
Nora was in hog heaven. Rubbing her hands all over her hair, drizzling goop on her lap, sifting flour in piles on her shirt.
She ended up in a blissful state of sticky, dirty, and nearly naked. Being allowed the ultimate treat of climbing our porch stairs over and over and over...coating her knees and hands with filth. It was indeed an easy journey to sleep last night. Her eyes closing and lips loosing their grip almost as soon as nursing began.
The infamous "daddy foot tickles." If he stops, she grabs his foot and brings it to her tummy for more. I can never get enough of watching these two.
And her new favorite book (since we try and hide "Goodnight, Gorilla" out of shear exhaustion).
