Drama III, Robert Munsch, and more
Last weekend I took Noah to the Robert (Bob) Munsch reading at Chapters. Munsch hasn’t been doing too many readings; he had a pretty major stroke at least a year ago and so I had sort of given up on the idea that Noah would get to see him. But, he did - along with 220+ of his neighbours at this end of town. It was quite energizing to be in a group of people who had all rushed out for a reading. That is my tribe. The publishing industry is in chaos, but Mortimer remains.
Noah had a blast, after all the waiting. The waiting was looooooong.
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Friday Noah had his doctor’s appointment to follow up on this anemia thing and we have a requisition for more tests. He has had a vitamin most every day and I have been food combining like mad - beef and lentil and kale stew, for example. (Liver is pretty much out for a variety of reasons.) We also have switched over to cold cereal a few times a week, so as to get all the additive iron in it.
After that, Noah and I had made plans to go to the museum together; I’d actually booked the whole entire day off work. Just before our doctor’s appointment who called but my mother; apparently the ex-communication was lifted.
Before I knew it, another system member had invited her and my dad along to the museum. I was pretty grumpy; not only was this supposed to be Our Day Out but I thought there should be penalties for all the shit. However, I didn’t care enough to call back and cancel. I have told myself:
- One trip to the museum does not entirely wreck boundaries that have not yet been set.
- I get bonus karma points for not going off on my parents.
However it still doesn’t sit right with me. But the truth is, I (and others) had not done the system work to get everyone on board with a plan, so no plan was implemented and the good girls took the day. This is both human and multiple; I think it’s human to find yourself doing things you wish you hadn’t. But it’s multiple to be really REALLY sure you’re not going to do something, and find yourself doing it anyway.
The person who went ahead is part of the MMC, which is a whole other post.
In any case, it actually was a nice day regardless. The museum was pretty quiet, and Noah hooked up with a docent in the kids’ area and uncovered a whole bunch of dinosaur bones in the dig-your-own spot and she helped him figure out which each one was.
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Noah’s swim teacher remains excellent. In three days he’s gone from dreading the lesson to crying that it ends too soon, and has put his head underwater and swum a bit holding onto a noodle.
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Taking the day off was really good for me. There is so much to like at my job, but the other parts are horrid. I don’t have a strategy in place. But I do need to exercise ’cause it really is high stress.
It’s always something…
So today I had booked to work from home, in part because I have to go to the Dreaded Dentist at 3 and this still, even after years of therapy, makes me fuzzy and uncoordinated. It seemed like an almost perfect set up; time to get most of my work done, go, and then pick Noah up.
Except at 4 am this morning: “Mummy, I pooed.”
Err, did he ever. And again at 6:30. Stomach ailment alert! In point of fact it is now 10 and we don’t have more runny poo yet but… one of the rules of daycare to which I wish all parents could adhere is “if you suspect your child has a stomach flu, STAY HOME.”
So now I’m doing the juggling act, aided by Carl who was paged around the 6:30 event and hasn’t yet surfaced from fixing things, but will in time for the dentist. And I am working in front of Signing Time with the boy on my lap as I type this.
I’m not feeling very competent lately, work wise. A lot of this is due to the slow progress over which I have no control. But meanwhile my capacity to be upbeat and on top of things is eroding. I am hoping it comes back as soon as we can actually launch. But the side effect of this feeling of general incompetence is that I feel panicked all the time that I will be revealed as a poseur. It’s like an imposter syndrome.
I don’t think I need to lean on my years of therapy to point out that it taps pretty deeply in the multiple and abuse thing - that my WHOLE LIFE I have largely had to present as someone I am not, going through things I am not, to the point that I really have to work to feel anything else. It has handicapped me in a lot of ways that I still experience and lately I have kind of despaired that it will ever get any better than this. Not that this is terrible. But it is not peaceful, either.
That extra little tip of the scales - dentist, sick toddler - puts me in a tizzy in my head and heart, still.
I wish things could be a little easier sometimes. These are all normal everyday events, but I seem to feel them more than others. And then I think and you want another child in all this?
Any thoughts?
Characteristics
And, as a side note, I really believe children come with their own personalities that are uniquely theirs. Also a lot of behavioural traits are just developmental stages.
Even so, one of the joys of having children (and I don’t think they have to be biologically yours to play, although that’s a traditional requirement) is to speculate on which aspects are related to you. In our system, even, we play it, so here’s some of our imaginative leaps about Noah’s current personality traits.
Noah continues to be amazingly extroverted; other kids, especially, seem to gladden his heart and bring him deep wonder. I think everyone in the system would turn and point to me for this one and I think that’s true; in that, he is very like me.
Noah’s favourite foods are lima beans (he seems to think they are like candy and when they show up in dishes he digs through the dish to eat them all first), fruit of all kinds, other beans of all kinds, broccoli, and lemon cookies. I would say he pretty much has Lyria’s taste in food. Although he has recently discovered ketchup too.
Noah also has this elephantine memory. An an example: before Carl left on his trip we had to go to the driver’s licence place. Friday we had to go back on Carl’s behalf although Carl couldn’t come along, and Noah hit the door and started getting upset and saying “daddy!” Finally I sorted out that he thought Carl was leaving on a trip. But really just about everything is like this with Noah, and he remembers where everything is in the house - seriously. If I lose something I just ask him and 9/10 of the time he takes me to it. I would say this is very much like Lynn. (And Carl, but we are playing the game in system :))
Also like Lyria &/or Lynn: Noah is pretty sensitive to people’s moods. Now that he’s talking more and more he often will tell me if someone’s hurt, angry, sad, happy, etc. Sometimes I have no idea if he’s right though.
And he loves his body, which again I think is like me… before society got hold of me anyway.
Weird religion stuff // influences
A lot of time in my life I have wondered why it is that things have gone right for me (us; the ‘I’ in this is very fluid).
I mean a lot has gone badly: sexually & emotionally abused as a kid by various people, some of it in a cult-y context maybe-sorta-possibly (I hang onto my denial) and Emily’s death top the list, although I’d throw in a gang rape at university too, particularly as we stand at the entrance of October again. Focusing on the child-stuff though, I often really have wondered why it is that things went right too. And a lot of it was that there were people to stand in our life as “enlightened witnesses.”
One of the stranger set of witnesses were literally that - Jehovah’s Witnesses, Carrie and Alan. I don’t know what the impulse was that led my mother, Presbyterian by breeding and United Church going at the time, to engage in bible study with two JWs and, more importantly for me, send me off with them once or twice a week for at least a year (I think more because we went to two annual meetings). And if you asked me what the result of that was I would have said until lately it was:
1. An abiding love of maple-frosted doughnuts, perhaps an unusual choice for the clean-bodied JWs as bribe of choice to my 10 year old self
2. A lasting suspicion of anyone that tells you God doesn’t want you to have Easter eggs or a birthday party (No one ever bought into that aspect of the JW faith)
3. Yet Another Contribution to the child prodigy aspect of my youth: not only were the JWs fascinated by my 10 year old ability to read and interpret the Bible in two official languages (I think Lynn may have been floating around here), but this was during the time that Quebec had just de-criminalized JW as a religion (yes, it was illegal) and so there was a sense that anyone that could witness in French was on a fast track to saving the world, or whatever.
Lately - remember we had some JWs come to the door and Lynn had a snippy encounter with them and in fact, they came back with a pretty good answer (God can’t be a terrorist ’cause he’s the government - the George W. Bush defense, really)? Well they have kept coming.
And Lyria welcomed them which is typical Lyria - show up anywhere near my house and it radiates herbal tea and cookies, on the right days anyway. And so they’ve kept coming and actually…
… I think I’m kind of glad. And so are other people, or at least, other people participate.
You may be surprised. But let me continue.
I don’t know if all JWs are like Carrie and Alan and these two women. But given how awful so many fundamentalists are I have to kind of explain why these are not.
Today I said point blank that I didn’t see why God would care if people were gay or not, and in fact I believe that if there is a God he made them that way, and that I didn’t want to discuss it because it would just make me frustrated and angry with JWs for their prejudices and is one of the reasons I find it hard to respect their literature, and that was - fine with the JWs in my living room.
Whatever training the JWs get they come to some almost Buddhist-like state - I think it is how they emulate the Jesus they believe in actually. They don’t back down and pretend something’s okay if they don’t think so. They just drop it. But they drop it in the nicest possible way, respectfully, like a yoga instructor admiring your form in a Pilates pose or something.
It’s hard to explain but for me, it’s made the whole experience of choosing to talk religion with these particular people okay. We don’t all agree, and that’s actually okay.
Lynn enjoys them I think because she is having a religious/existential crisis. After all, she loves Noah in her own way and that brings a whole lot of things to a head. It’s one thing to believe in eternal damnation for herself, but what about Noah? And she’s done enough therapy to agree that raising Noah in a fairly normal way - you know, to basically be on the side of God and good and all that - is How Things Will Be. But she isn’t sure if she believes that and how to implement it either way.
I wouldn’t say she is looking to the JWs for an answer. If anything, Lynn can out-Bible them any time. But she is studying the actual women who come quite intently, and it’s not in a mean way (in fact, she has become rather solicitous of their mental health and if she says something disturbing, often gives them a way out… like today she pointed out that Lucifer does what God asks in tempting Job -after- Satan lures Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and that confused things for a while until Lynn allowed that Lucifer might obey God for his own evil ends, or something like that. I lost the thread of it but I saw the relief happen, in the two women.)
I can’t really say what Lynn’s learning, but I think I’m glad she’s having some space to do it anyway. I really haven’t felt ready to try to find her the right people to talk to (whoever that would be). But in the meantime it has been very convenient to have some kind of religious um - instruction? - show up at the door.
But Lyria’s surprised me until today when I realized that the JWs are pretty much the granola Christian cult: they have to take care of their bodies because they will be resurrected in them and God therefore wants them to respect them, and so they don’t consume any drugs (including, MY GOD, caffeine) and the two JWs who come to see us, anyway, say in great innocence things like “well you know how fruits and vegetables don’t have good vitamins in them any more? Well imagine how healthy they were when Adam and Eve ate them! And when God brings paradise on Earth they will be that healthy again!” (And then have a whole digression about figs in a certain area of the former Yugoslavia, now Croatia.)
And although my fae Lyria thinks the idea of God Almighty, you know, Mr. You’d-Better-Shape-Up-God is pretty funny, she is totally down with a future that involves healthier fruit.
So on that level I see why we’re enjoying it.
There’s also the spiritual elephant in the room all the time, of course, which is Emily. It’s one thing to be living with Noah and wondering how to raise him with respect to spirituality and to wonder if we should baptize him or attend a church with him or do a comparative religion thing with him and basically how to shape his moral development.
But it’s an even bigger thing to wonder not only how say, God could have let my baby Emily suffer and die but also to wonder - well - did she have a soul and if so, where is it? Reincarnated? Frolicking? (One of the more horrible episodes with the kinderlynn that has rolled through over and over during since March of 2004 is whether there might be a general sort of afterlife and if so, what if my (abusive) grandfather is there with Emily and if so would he be being nice or being a shit? Because we aren’t there yet to protect her.)
And in the midst of all that - I don’t know.
As a faith itself, I am somewhat uncomfortable with Christianity in general and “young” Christian faiths - faiths that have not, say, had hundreds of years to be corrupt and go on stupid crusades and totally fuck up and have to deal with that a little - kind of make me feel like I’m watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure as a serious attempt at world history.
Do they really expect me to believe that the prophets wrote down the mind of God that was translated accurately and can be understood in words? Dude!
JWs are kind of a far out branch of this innocence. They commit some of the usual err “sins” of fundamentalism - gays bad, marriage good, Catholics icon worshippers, everyone else wrong.
They also have this (to me) touching and childlike belief that what God wants for us all is to return everyone that’s died onto the Earth into their bodies, but better ones really, and all the animals get along (and the lion shall lie down with the lamb) and there to be no sickness and death or anything - on Earth - and for God to have his council of Really Special Snowflake People (I think this is what keeps a lot of JW psyches going) and run things right. And then we’ll spend our days frolicking about and eating really good fruit and be like Adam and Eve before Eve messed up.
And soon; any day now; in fact the deadline was misunderstood twice I think.
I don’t know what quirk it is in my nature but to me this just about goes along with the whole Wish Foundation sending dying kids off to Disneyland. It’s lovely and you can see that it would really make some people (people less perverse than I) happy. But MY GOD WHY DO KIDS HAVE CANCER! You know?
I just don’t see at all how this can possibly relate to either any understanding I have of human nature, where I think people would immediately start to argue over whose apple was bigger, After Death or No After Death, or the God of the Bible (locusts, etc.) or any God I might care to conceptualize for myself. Etc. ad nauseum.
So for me exploring the JW faith -itself- is kind of like reading light chick lit, where buying shoes and meeting the right man makes you happy. It’s nice to visit for a couple of hours but it in no way relates much to my life except you know, that I think about it and enjoy it and might like shoes a bit myself and it says a little bit about people but not always very much.
And yet.
And yet, and yet, and yet.
I suddenly see how Carrie and Alan, who were gentle and kind and loving and really, despite the whole birthday party thing, amazing Christians - in the sense of hanging out, talking about God and Jesus politely and rationally, and not say -raping- you or even making you feel any less than special - may have helped us keep a concept of a benevolent universe going.
And that the Bible was involved probably helped promote some internal communication between Lynn and us, without which we would have been sunk later on. And bingo, perhaps some of the body-respecting stuff that kept us out of the darkest of self-destruction and mostly thanks to Lyria, came partly out of that. (Although I still think Lyr is just plugged into something totally else and cool.)
It has not escaped my notice that the JWs happen to have shown up on the doorstep right when we may have needed to start to reconnect a bit with spirituality. And that this is not the first time in our collective life that two kind people identifying themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses have shown up at the door when, perhaps, we could use a little bit of innocence and a trip to Disneyland.
All of which is to say that if there is a benevolent universe - Goddess - God - trinity - AllThing - flow - it certainly works in mysterious ways.
The yuppy saga continues
You can tell that Lyria really is around more and more, and that she’s coming back from the brink a bit. Proof:
- We have canvases on our kitchen counter which are half-painted (a crafty sort of project, not art-art)
- Homemade oatmeal-wheat germ cookie bars (recipe below, which is an amalgamation of two recipes from the oh-so-70s Feed Me, I’m Yours)
- Somehow last night’s dinner (a chicken-zucchini dish + mashed sweet potatoes) also produced reams of baby food (chicken + sweet potato, sweet potato + zucchini)
- I took a nap with Noah yesterday
The week got better and better after the low point in the middle. I finished some work. I went to playgroup, which was also a demonstration of a myriad of baby-wearing options. It was good to try them on. I’d thought I was going to get a mai tai or a maya wrap, but I ended up getting an actual carrier - the Ergo. It cost as much as a stroller, but I think we can use it on hikes for quite a while, and that’s what we really needed. I can make a wrap myself by buying the fabric, if I go that way. I do like our ring sling, but Noah’s quite squirmy these days. The frugal and bank balance checking side of me wanted to look for it used (it really was quite a splurge for us, these days). But Sandra from Pooka Baby had come out to our group to talk about babywearing and put all the demonstration time in and she’s a local eco-friendly businesswoman and so - I just went ahead and bought it. I’ll report back at some point on how useful it is. I should do a gear post sometime.
Yesterday Noah learned about the word “no.” He bit me at said babywearing session, and I said quite firmly: No biting! and closed up the boob shop. He was happy to substitute toasted-Os at the time, but then at the going-to-bed nurse he would put his mouth around my tit without sucking or anything, barely touching it. And then he would sloooowly bite down until I said “no biting!” and would cover up for a few minutes. We did that about 4 times, and then he laid his head on my breast, patted it, and went to sleep.
My little social scientist.
Carl also decided to give me a real lie-in this morning - until 9 am! And then there were doughnuts! - which really, really helped with the whole sleep thing. This afternoon we are off to such a yuppy thing I almost shudder to tell you what it is: it’s an open house for a Waldorf pre/school. I seriously doubt we’ll be into the private school thing, but Carl knows one of the board members and well, why not spend a bit of time there? Although this is part of their “Walstock” (a whole day of musical events) and I am not sure I can get through anything involving the word “Walstock” without getting tossed out.
Cookie recipe!
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c butter
dash of baking soda
2 c oatmeal, uncooked
Boil sugar and butter and baking soda until it’s all blended and bubbly. Stir in oatmeal. Spread mixture into a greased 8 x 8 inch pan and bake at 350 for ten minutes. During last five minutes…
8 oz semisweet chocolate
6 tablespoons peanut or other nut butter (I use almond, currently)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 c toasted wheatgerm
Melt chocolate and mix with nut butter and vanilla. Stir in wheat germ. When the oatmeal cookies come out of the oven, spread with this mixture. Let cool on rack for a bit then keep in fridge.
The resulting bars do have a slight tendency to come apart a bit but they are really yummy and not -terrible- despite butter, sugar, and chocolate.
My secret identity
The weekend and yesterday have both been busy. A lot of it was great fun - dinners with friends, visits with relatives, Noah-adoration in spades, etc. - but it’s left me feeling a little stressed ’cause I didn’t get much downtime and I needed it to make space for writing this week. So that’s what I’ m doing today, I think. Making the headspace and hopefully getting to some, depending on naps.
I read a blog where the mum’s smaller child naps 9-11 and 1-3 and her older kid naps 1-3 and I think - man. Noah’s naps, if I’m lucky, total 2 hrs a day, usually one 45 min one and one 1 hr 15 min one. I’ve tried all the techniques to extend them and I think the reality is - that’s how he naps. He does get tired but he doesn’t have meltdowns, and his bedtime doesn’t get too affected. So… I just have to accept that and figure out how to manage some professional/writing time regardless. I really am thinking I’m going to have to find a teenager to come in a few hours after school twice a week, where I can hear them. This would also be a good step towards babysitting.
After thinking more on the whole blog journal writer webspace professional personal public thing (note the lack of word private, ’cause there is a big difference between a personal thing and a private thing :)), I have figured out a few things for myself:
1) I am back in the closet, because of Noah. This is not a terrible thing, but it is interesting. I’m getting closer to some of the mums in my mumgroup, where we’re sharing actual stuff. But I’m not sharing about our multiplicity. I don’t think my desire to be open and - well - seen and understood trumps Noah’s need now and in the future for community. And multiplicity is - too weird.
But in chatting up mums and starting to get to know them, I’m taking about 5 giant steps back from how I have been conducting new friendships.
Over the last few years I’ve simply told people about being multiple and handed out the URL for my d-x and therefore this blog “if you’re curious,” and then rather cheerfully ignored most of the multiple stuff unless it came up directly, like “oh Lyria wants to do this with you.” My belief was that people can’t really grasp “I’m multiple; that is, a we” very well and trying to explain it is really hard. But by sharing some things over the ‘net with those who were interested enough to bother reading, I might be able to show things. (This has been very much a “Shandra” project, as you all know. :)) And those who wanted to ignore it, could, by not reading online.
I guess it gave me the space to feel accepted enough without having to make multiplicity an ongoing issue. Most of the time.
Carl and I discussed this a few times, most recently when Lynn’s poem got all blown up about on DP, and he believes that this middle course - being open enough, but not advertising it - is ok, even with the added responsibility of protecting our kids and nurturing a “tribe” for them. Actually he was quite fierce about not trying to stop being who we are doing what we do.
So right now, if someone comes to my house and sees stuff with Shandra and Magdalynn written all over it and then goes to a search engine and plugs it in and gets this blog and reads this - okay. We’re not going to try to rip everything out of the Internet and start actively hiding.
But I’m trying to keep “friends I have for my son” separate.
It’s kind of a new interpretation of the fine line between not wanting to create uncomfortable situations, and being ashamed. We’re not ashamed and if someone or anyone finds out, we’ll deal.
But I’m finding…
2) Part of being myself, which is really important to me and many in the system, probably more important than it is for a lot of people, is probably entirely separate from having people know that we’re multiple. I can be the parent & person I want to be, and even leave space for Magdalynn and Lyria to be the parents & people they want to be (to name a few), without ever ever coming out multiple and 95% of people will probably not notice much except a few inconsistencies.
But I’ve lost track of where that line is. Being myself without being pretty openly multiple.
In the past I’ve thought that those inconsistencies could torpedo relationships. I’ve maintained that a lot of people sense switches, but if they don’t know what they are, they just get a really vague uneasy sense and kind of drift off. I based this mostly on how much better my friendships & relationships got after we came out multiple. And it has all worked pretty well as a cohesive unit.
But it may not be the case that it’s the /being open about multiplicity/ that has improved my friendships, but the simple being more me (and getting better at it). I just don’t know.
And now I’m struggling. I have drawn a line of non-openness, and I feel hamstrung, closeted, and trapped. And I don’t know if I’m stringing myself up by being muted and trying to think through “if I tell them my favourite food is steak, what will they think if Lyr goes off on a vegetarian thing?”
3) This also comes up for me as a writer. I’m having to supply bios, which is fine. But do I put a website? If so, obviously it won’t be this one. But what kind of presence do I want to have in that way?
4) The temptation is to start a new multiple-lite blog, to test out creating a new persona for us, the parent-writer-non-multiple us presentation to the world. But I’m not sure what I think about that.
If anyone has any ideas I’d be curious to hear ‘em. This is mostly just me musing but it is sort of directional musing. Where do I go from here?
Boy
I was nursing Noah and thinking about this whole thing and why it has my attention. There’s a certain trainwreck quality to it, for sure, and it drags up a lot of the bad feelings from a couple of years ago.
But my feelings are also tied into my recent decision not to open my life to professional parenting blogging, and about a story that ties into my grief around Emily being out to another market. These are decisions I made with care, one in one direction and one in the other. If I publish something about grief and reviewers and readers shit on it (I should be so lucky to get the attention), I need to not go ballistic about it. And conversely, I think I’m right on my decision about blogging, but it means money my family won’t have.
So that’s why someone who’s known for at least two months that their blog was searchable going obsessive-bugfuck about it - someone who’s been on the ‘net for ages and really should know better - is really irritating me. But of course that’s not Terra’s stuff, it’s mine.
Today though it ties also into the big-word thing. Terra’s comparing people reading - reading! not commenting! - her blog to her feelings about being raped; to harassment and stalking. It’s so crazy. And she’s trying to make the facts fit, as if people spent a gazillion hours tracking her down. When in fact, for us, and I’m pretty damn sure for other people, we messed about on Google and found her journal - read a bit - stopped, remembered about it one day while breastfeeding, typed more terms in to find it again - clicked on it. Read some more. Rinse and repeat.
And Terra /knew/ this because she was told, by Jensco.
So why the drama? What the fuck?
And I want to say that it’s not understandable to me at all.
But sadly, it is: when our system was coming apart and we were just crazed inside that at any moment the world would end - a feeling that could be applied to almost any situation on the outside but really was just an internal free floating feeling - we said similar, crazy stuff. It makes me sad, for us and our past. It sort of makes me sad for Terra, because she’s still living in that headspace from what I can tell. (And I can’t tell much. But the way this exploded makes me suspect.)
It’s hard to describe: it’s like your brain is patterned for life-threatening fear, and if things aren’t going well in your life, the anxiety level rises and rises until something tips it and then wham! All the words and thoughts you couldn’t have growing up - that someone was actually raping and abusing you - seem to fit. In therapy we call it shadow-boxing, as in Jung’s thing about projecting the hidden shadow on other people.
And that is where as an adult you destroy and lay waste to things in your life. And those are the regrets you carry forward… if you can look at them. Some people can’t; they just continue to go on with a good year, and then a space where everything falls apart, and they need to move on, move on continually.
With everything we’re carrying now - fears about parenting, about career and money decisions, recent trauma around losing Emily, family stresses and concerns, plus the ups and downs of every day life - it would be easy to slip back into something like that. I recommit my energy to not doing that. Not just for me and us and Carl and Idaho and our friends and family, but especially for Noah. I so hope he does not ever have a reason to understand how crazy things can get, when pain and trauma are suppressed, and then haunt one’s life.
And I blog it here to remind me and everyone else.
I am so blessed with people in my life who say - okay, sure, but what’s the real problem? Including me I guess. But I have been shown the way. Thank you guys - I think you know who you are.
Surreal moments
Lyria was making finger sandwiches last night for playgroup today (hummus & roasted red pepper; cream cheese and olive spread; cheese and jam; cucumber was made this morning).
While Magdalynn listened to Korn and Bauhaus.
Rich in love #6 - way too much on parenting & time
If you, dearest readers, have not yet tired you are insane. But here is the last post in this iteration of the series. Then I can continue with my usual days. (Today we went to the mall just Noah and I and it was a blast. I had a latte (drink of yuppies!) . Tomorrow is the truly exciting day though because I am getting my hair coloured for the first time since fall 2004. At least if Noah doesn’t freak. Yay!)
First a shitload of some of the thinking I’ve done around this.
Here’s the thing. I don’t entirely buy the quantity (structuring every minute of the day around the child) or the quality (structuring in “really good” child time around competing demands of career and adult stuff) time arguments of child rearing.
We could go back and forth all day about whether “a happy mummy” is more important or a “child-centred environment” is more important.
[In fact they're both important and sometimes are going to be absurdly the same and sometimes are going to be in direct conflict. And although I think any adult can be really good or really bad at this, one nice advantage to being multiple is that having fought our way through our own competing/aligning needs and desires and goals, we at least have some sense of how to a) find joy in meeting the needs and demands of others and b) figure out when it is that something is really important to mental health.
Of course all that is an ongoing, flawed process for anyone. There is no One True Way. ]
Still. What I think any child needs overall (above and beyond basic, safe supervision; give me the credit of assuming the basics at all times:)) is for one of their parents or other caregiver to be tuned in enough at any given time to be available to their needs. (Within human standard; there are going to be days when things go wrong.)
Because, you know. Every kid is different and every day is different.
So, if a kid is playing happily alone - let them play! Do your own thing! don’t fuss over them and try to make every moment educational! So they learn to be okay with being alone! And they can get bored and be a kid!
On the other hand, if they’re playing alone and don’t -seem- unhappy or happy, check out whether they are actually happy or not and if they look at you with needful eyes, sit down. If they don’t, back off. Have a routine so that the daily life stuff - homework, playgroup, outdoor play, indoor play, teeth brushing, etc. - generally happen at predictable times so no one needs to stress over them.
Build into this some routine time for the adult needs too - date time, exercise time, whatever.
And then pay attention to know when to break the routine and find out what’s up or deliver extra help or extra fun or whatever.
The thing is, running a routine /and/ being tuned in takes a lot of awareness and being present. A Lot. It’s a hard thing to do if 20 million things are running through your head. I already find it hard to do and Noah’s needs are still rather incredibly basic in this regard - but they change constantly. Also, with a baby the communication is less clear than ‘MUMMMEEEEEEEE’. It takes observation to catch the rooting before the fussing before the crying.
So rule #1: Be as tuned in as possible. This includes knowing the stage your kid is at.
I also believe that kids do best as a part of a family. A family’s where you first learn to deal with other people’s needs and personalities and things.
And I think this involves a certain amount of age-appropriate participation.
So for example, I believe in taking one’s (rested, fed) children to the grocery store at all ages, so they gradually learn about food and budgets and the balance between needs and wants, and get some choice in picking out things, and learn manners and public standards of behaviour. I believe participating in house chores in a -positive- age-appropriate way is also key. I think exposing Noah to different situations (again, appropriately) like readings and art galleries and bookstores will be a great joy.
And I think, within very mild reason - right now, lying in a baby-safe crib for 4 minutes while I go to the bathroom - kids need the opportunity to learn that they too can give to the family. I really don’t mean anything crazy here. Just a very gradual safe slide towards consideration for others, too.
What’s more, I think part of being in a family is that you are always going to be surrounded by people with foibles and weird quirks who love you. So some families ski together, because that’s what they do, even if one of the kids isn’t totally thrilled with skiing. Hopefully not so obsessively that their kids miss every weekend birthday party. Some families play video games (hopefully well chosen ones) together. Some families go over to their parents’ for dinner every Sunday and fight with their adult siblings. Some families host cocktail parties and bribe the kids to stay in their rooms.
I personally believe that in the very good and understandable drive to raise kids as well as possible, some people forget that the best most rarified environment can also be very isolating. So your child only eats organic healthy food and participates in stimulating activity - okay, both those things are excellent if you do them too. But sneaking off with an aunt to eat a hot fudge sundae has its own value. Being allowed cake and ice cream down the street has value too.
Pretending that you only eat organic and then sneaking off to eat M&Ms just teaches your kid dishonesty and a kind of disconnect between themselves and the real people that are their family. In my opinion.
(Note that I am not talking about porn or violent movies or sex on the couch or something!!!! Have some sense! And also they aren’t little adults, but that’s a whole other post.)
So rule #2 is Don’t try to separate your kids out from the family. Let ‘em tag along for as much as possible, in the house and out of the house. And then when it’s not appropriate, draw a firm line.
One thing that we, Carl and I both, do in this family is mess about on the Internet. And like, I’m not sure that’s a great thing, and I certainly don’t want my 6 year old going in chat rooms unsupervised ever (or 15 year old but - err yah. AAAAHHH.) I certainly don’t think anything obsessive is good. But, it’s important to each of us for our own reasons. I could make the argument here for me that it keeps our system communicating (it does) and feeling connected (it does) but all of that could just be justifying a bad habit. It may be a bad habit. But even bad habits sometimes have their place.
The question for me really then, in regards to time, is how to reconcile #1 and #2. And I don’t always know. I do know how it works now.
It is totally different from how I thought it would work. When we were pregnant with Emily we had this huge master plan where I’d parent all day and then Carl would come home and take over /some/ days and I would go off into my office and write and also have internet time, and then on weekends again that would happen; we’d each have alone-parenting time, and together parenting time, and I saw internet time as sectioned off from parenting time. Of course we didn’t have a wireless network then. :)
But also it involved more equal parenting in that sense. That hasn’t happened, largely because Carl is responsible for a lot of processes that happen between 6 pm and midnight (and also seems to have to work all day most days. And oh yes weekends too often.) And this is kind of the source of some of my kvetching; it’s really felt like our life isn’t working right. (And yeah, Carl does get some play time but not enough because of his work, and mostly WoW ’cause he’s so burnt out it’s too complicated to do exercise or woodworking, and I still reserve the right to be Grumpy about it. :))
But lately I’ve been just accepting more that it is the way it is right now and riding it a little better. I think I’m adjusting to the parenting bits, at least, and not looking for the “when do I get 2 hours off!”
So.
I get up around 6 and nurse and stay up, unless it was a high-needs night or I’m extra tired, and then I sleep ’til 9 if Noah does. If I stay up I do house/life foo and then write ’til he gets up; during this series & sometimes else I blog, but my eventual goal is to seriously work on the novel in the morning, even if it means getting up earlier. Right now I admit I’m still rather precious about my sleep since I have no confidence I won’t suddenly have to be up 48 hrs straight or something.
Then I often turn AIM on around 10 or 10:30, after Noah and I are connected and stuff (if he doesn’t go down after his nurse, sometimes he has a nap now, too), and surf a bit while I drag the laptop around. He plays on the floor and I sit on the floor and have the computer nearby and type a sentence here and there; we dance around with it there playing iTunes, have a change, flop on the bed, visit the mirrors, type another sentence, whatever. This tends to be high interactive play. When Sass or anyone says that we’ve chatted all day, that means with significant pauses. And if things aren’t going so well, then he comes first obviously.
I can’t say I think this is the ultimate in childrearing, but I am telling you it makes me happy and feeling less isolated and like I have an adult brain to have the combination going. Also, I don’t obsess over his play, so he has some room to explore.
Often I do maybe 20 min of chores while he’s playing, in or out of a bouncy chair or slings depending on the chore. I talk to him while I do, and he seems to like it. I think babies like to be included. And I don’t really think parents should clean exclusively while children are napping; it makes it seem like the cleaning fairy does the work. :)
I nurse in front of the computer and type one handed some of the time. He still nurses about 8-10 times a day, with 6 of those being big feeds and the rest seeming to be sort of comfort sucks. A few select ones I still have in the rocking chair so we can really just be together, but some I type with. I figure with him nursing 4+ hours a day it’s a fair trade off.
While he has naps I either attack my to-do list (I approved the birth announcements! Yes that’s late but I had a Thing about it, like he would drop dead as soon as I did them, probably ’cause of the experience with Emily’s shower gifts.) or I write, or sometimes I just relax and chat. Like Mondays. (hint to someone :))
And so the day goes, unless we go out. I have been trying to get in the habit of going out at times things seem likely to happen - in the morning before a morning nap, in the afternoon after an afternoon nap. Because once spring hits we will have some playgroups and gardens and in the summer hopefully swim lessons and things. But only a few. Because I don’t want to overschedule us despite leaning that way.
But right now we’re still nesting.
He’s starting to consolidate naps again (yay!), so eventually I should be able to get more things done and have more of a routine. But up until now it’s been pretty unpredictable and so I haven’t tended to get into anything that is longer.
Towards the later afternoon - 4-ish - regardless of his naps, I tend to have a drop in my energy level, but he seems to gear up for being awake longer at least, if a bit more inclined towards fretfulness.
So this is when we use our Devices: he has a go in the swing, then we play a bit with him in my lap, then some time in the sling cuddling and playing with soft toys, then some time in the bouncy chair with his fine motor stuff and me chatting with him. In whatever order. If it’s a high needs day we might retire to the basement and hang out on the futon together. This is also when Sass gets home and we often have dates. Sometimes they’re short, short, like 20 minutes. Sometimes they’re longer. They’re pretty patient with one handed typing (no not that kind!) and pauses.
By the way, this does work because Noah is the world’s easiest baby. But, he is, so I am glad to go with the flow. I predict he’ll make up for it once he can talk.
Around 6:30-7 Sassy& head off for their evening life and we have dinner (out of the crock pot a lot, or I make it with him in the swing/sling, or if Carl can hold him with Carl) and then start the bedtime routine. Sometimes dinner happens after the bedtime routine. Lately Noah’s bedtime routine has been go down around 8, wake up around 9 or ten, go back down around 11 or 12, and I haven’t liked that much. But then he sleeps to 6, nurses, and sleeps ’til 8:30 or 9.
Saturdays we have our date, so Noah’s morning tends to be either with Carl if he’s not working, or slightly less interactive (more like the bouncy chair routine). Then the afternoon can be full-on parenting right through, since Carl (if he’s not working) doesn’t have the 4-6 o’clock dip that I do. Or someone will come over. Sometimes this results in personal time for me, although Carl’s still getting over the “oh the baby’s fussing; I will hand him off!” habit that dads seem to get into because mums have The Tits. And we grocery shop.
Sundays are kind of up in the air depending. If Carl’s working it follows the Monday-Friday routine with less AIM. Otherwise it can be any combination of chores, shopping, socializing, or hanging out. Whatever. But with an exercise class!
Now this is what works this week. It may not work next week, or tomorrow.
Some days it hasn’t worked at all and we’ve just focused on Noah, or my clogged tits. And there has been the odd day here and there - usually on a weekend when emotionally I feel like there should be some kind of break happening and when Carl’s worked so much I feel like I can’t even ask for a small thing because he’s overloaded - where I have not been as tuned in as I like. I’m not talking about feeding and diaper changes and all that - those are givens. But where Noah’s gotten crankier than he should have to ’cause I haven’t been paying attention to his signals.
I feel bad about those days and see them as failures really. What I’ve been doing instead isn’t as relevant as that I haven’t tuned in. It sucks. I hope they’re sort of adjustment failures and eventually it gets easier not to have them, but I suspect they come in some form forever - physical sickness, life stress, whatever. And that’s part of an imperfect life.
But oh I hate that anyway. I know I can’t give my kid the “right thing” all the time ’cause who knows what that is. But you’d think I could at least give myself. But some days - no, it’s been a little more mechanical and a little less me.
But - overall, I think we work it out okay, all of us.
What my week does not include right now is a lot of TV time, although some of those high needs days I do end up watching DVDs (and I am very glad for them). I don’t care about that. It doesn’t include any volunteering. I do care about that. And I am on true maternity leave, for which I am very grateful. I read about so many mums heading back to their jobs at 3 or 4 months, in the US, and I am awed at how they balance things because I would be finding it extremely stressful.
I figure the hardest period will be coming up around 9 months, because he’ll be obsessing on me, mobile, wanting to walk/do complicated stuff, but needing major adult involvement, and all those things, but not old enough for a few hours in playschool and that kind of break. Also he’ll notice more if I’m typing here and there. However, I also think he’ll eventually have more of a nap routine when I can say “I’m likely to be around at this time.” And I bet we can work out some other stuff.
I also still hold out hopes (expectations, even) that Carl’s job will settle down. Because Noah needs the dad time and Carl needs the Noah time. And that will free up a bit of my time in the evenings.
However.
What I have learned is that it doesn’t really matter what plans I make.
Carl’s job may be so nuts that I end up parenting 6 am - midnight every day and so I make compromises like I have. He could lose his job. I could not have a job to go back to. Either one of us could have to start a new job. Idaho might go back to school, making her time totally different, or start a new job with different hours. At one point in Emily’s short life, after all the plans for how to share parenting, we were staring down a life of making sure she didn’t choke on her own spit 24/7. I didn’t ever do that so it’s all a little bullshitty but emotionally I felt the capacity to do that.
Noah could need extra attention and time for whatever reason - and hey it’s not like I’ve done this before so I really know what to expect. I thought I’d be dragging him all over the GTA by now! Instead I’m lying on the same rug every day handing him his squeaky chicken toy and making up silly songs and it’s - surprisingly okay.
But I do know that if I’m tuned in, and we’re tuned in, our family - extended in traditional and non-traditional ways - can support him and each other, even if it also means instilling a few habits like “4-6 are quieter times for no good reason except that they are.”
And that is cool with me.
Okay. That’s it! Those were very good jumping off points. And I love the comments. But right now I am going to bed ’cause it looks like Noah did not wake up after 9. Which means he may be up in three hours aiiiieee. :)
Rich in love #5 - adult time
Okay, here we are to the question of how it actually works and time and priorities and those things. None of this is to imply, by the way, that we have some kind of utopian bliss. We’re just people working things out and making it up as we go along, too.
As someone who was a master dissociator and as a member of a multiple system I am highly aware that time is the scarcest resource for any human being. None of us has enough time for what we want to do in life, and as we get older the hard limits on it start to become scarily apparent. I’m also aware of how easy it is to fall into bad habits of thinking or behaving so that one’s time isn’t aligned at all with one’s values. So I think it is an interesting question, although as Xy pointed out, it wouldn’t be fair to have to justify my time to anyone.
I’ll use the actual questions here now at last. I’m starting with the adult stuff. Between us consenting adults, I think whatever works, works. So this is how it’s worked up ’til having Emily and then in between and then having Noah:
Is our marriage the primary relationship? Who would we choose?
Our primary relationship is always to ourselves. If PersonX is suicidal, raging, or depressed, we can’t be there for anyone else. This ought to be true for everyone multiple or not, but in a multiple system it feels anyway like a more delicate balance (but I only have that experience from which to speak, so.).
I hope all the rambling and taking you through our actual experience demonstrated how we have dealt with those kinds of decisions in the past and how seriously we take our vows and bonds. I don’t see that changing. (It’s made me reflect on it too, which is good when one’s baby-crazed. :))
The question of whether how we use our time reflects that is a serious one though. Because I think it’s absolutely true that it’s possible to get unbalanced and neglect a relationship (of any kind) without meaning to. And quite often people do claim that their marriage or family or whatever is their top priority but manage somehow not to nurture that.
At the same time I laughed at the question of whether Internet time means me neglecting Carl, because out of the two of us it’s been me flipping out at Carl about his time on the computer/riding his bike/down in the basement woodworking/playing World of Warcraft and not the reverse.
He’s a strong introvert. I’m a medium extrovert. Carl’s idea of a blissful weekend involves both of us doing our own thing, together, if that makes any sense. So for him, me sitting at my laptop and him sitting at his, sharing a bowl of grapes, is marital bliss.
For me, not so much all the time. So one reason our compromise has worked for us on a practical level is that I am at home sharing his space, so he gets the warm fuzzies, and yet I am off online chatting and hanging with people, which gives me & the system some warm fuzzies.
One way it hasn’t been working lately is that he’s been working all weekend (or, on occasion, playing World of Warcraft) and then I get twitchy. And I feel it’s really important in that case not to go bug Idaho or J. or other people to make up for it, but to go and ask Carl to work towards more time with us. (And there’s Noah, which is a whole next thing.)
And as to chores and things, I/we do the lion’s share of them. I don’t do anything involving a drill, because I can’t drill straight. But I do the cleaning and cooking and laundry and finances, except if I get overwhelmed, in which case Carl usually steps in. It’s my unpopular belief that chores fit in pretty well with taking care of a single baby, and frankly, given that Carl works outside of the home, right now when Noah can’t participate in chores as a bonding thing, I’d much rather Carl spent time with Noah while I vaccuumed than that we met some ideal of chore-sharing.
In thinking about this post I got really defensive about that bit, the chores. I think this is because of all our growing up chores issues. But in any case during Noah’s nap yesterday I took some pictures of our house (I’d been meaning to anyway) just as it is almost every day, messy spots and all (although where the messy spots are rotate according to our own version of the Flylady system.)
So I’m not so worried about time with respect to our marriage. The real danger for me is that we might share things with Idaho and not with Carl, or vice versa. This is a danger with anyone - a really good friend, sympathetic coworkers, or family can be the same kind of confidante. I think we all know people who bitch about their spouses without ever actually talking to them, or who tell other people what’s really going on and not their partners.
But it’s not about time because people can be together all the time, and still not really talk.
It’s something we watch for a lot. It hasn’t always been balanced - last year when Carl was in Ottawa and we were in Toronto it was hard. I think we’ve overall managed pretty well. But that’s where I get twitchy.
And the corollary: would I be upset if Carl had an online relationship? In other words could I be fair?
I’d be okay with it, if he were open and honest and ensured that we still got some time and that he still talked to us and all those things. I’m sure I’d be nervous and all those things; that’s human. But as long as our relationship is working in and of itself, then I’d be an idiot to deny him all the joys we have experienced.
Next up: parenting & time, because that is where it potentially does get sticky.