Dr. Mom, Nurse Nana, and Undoing My To-Do List

As a mother for thirty-four years, and a grandmother for four, you'd think I would have figured this out by now.

Kids get sick!  And then the other kids get sick!  And then I get sick!

I'm sick of this!

One of the most frequent interruptions to work I have tried to do, and a life I have tried to make, has been the illnesses of children.  Acute and chronic.  Slight and more serious.  Physical and mental.  And quite often, some combination of these, and affecting more than one child at a time.  And always requiring some alteration of my routine, either minor or grand.

I accept that providing the care and nurturance needed to support these children who depend on me in their return to health and functioning is my responsibility.  Not my responsibility alone, but one that has fallen mainly to me, if for no other reason than that I am capable of fulfilling it.  Exceptionally capable.

At present, my household includes one minor (in his late teens), and one young adult, in addition to a spouse who is by nature helpless when it comes to dealing with his own incapacitations, let alone those of others.  Additionally, I provide part-time childcare for my daughter's four-year-old and five-month-old.  I am no longer chiefly responsible for any of these individuals.  But their illnesses still throw a wrench in my works, as they have done this week--what with the extra trips for Pediacare, and for prescriptions and sick food; the extra hours spent sitting on the floor with a barfy preschooler; the worrying and advising as my asthmatic, acutely ill, and recently employed son learns to work while sick.  The chicken soup.

But here's the thing.  Not only is it inherently stressful to deal with sick people, and particularly small sick people.  There's all that regression, the whining and screaming and demandingness.  And there's the barfing, the uncovered sneezing, the shiny green snot on the upper lips.  The hacking cough that hurts to hear.  And the loss of sleep, the twenty-four-sevenness of the whole thing.  But added to all this are the demands of work that are incompatible with this job of home nursing.  Demands that don't go away, just because we are not in a position to respond to them. 

In our society, we don't arrange our work lives to accommodate illness, though it is pretty much a given that it will occur.  And it is generally women who pay the price of this lack of "intelligent design."  For some of us who are employed outside the home, it is an issue of paid, or unpaid sick leave.  Some workers cannot take time off, period, to deal with illness.  Others must sacrifice income to do so.

In my community, we recently passed a paid sick leave ordinance, which was subsequently stopped by an injunction; then the injunction was overturned on appeal; then the governor signed into law a bill blocking the ordinance.  The ordinance would have required that employers allow workers to earn paid sick leave, which could be used for their own or family members' illnesses.  It would have been a major benefit to low income women and their children.  Other communities have passed measures mandating paid sick leave, and still others have attempted to do so.  The National Partnership for Women and Families is working to establish support for national legislation providing for paid sick leave.

It will never be fun or easy to take care of sick children.  Or to be sick ourselves.  But we shouldn't be punished for stepping up to the task.

In addition to the paid sick leave issue, there is the societal more that work must come first.  No excuses.  This expectation is increasingly problematic as work creeps into our homes, and beyond its workday boundaries, with email, texts and smartphones expanding our accessibility.  It is difficult to contend with the feelings of guilt and resentment engendered by these requirements while simultaneously carrying barf buckets, washing extra laundry, administering medicines, visiting doctors, taking temperatures, and providing TLC.

In this environment, it is a radical act--one that I am trying to educate myself to perform--to let oneself off the hook.  So this week, I intend to let go the work that interferes with what I need to do for the sick people in my family.  And I will not push said work into the time I need for rest, so that I don't get sick.  'Cuz God knows, no one has time to take care of me!

Taking Out Each Other's Trash

Gretchen Rubin's latest happiness tweak is throwing away someone else's trash.  

I get the whole thing about doing something small for someone else.  And not just to "boost your self-esteem."  The application with which I am most familiar is related to stress reduction.  It is said, and I have experienced, that the act of slowing yourself down by letting someone go ahead of you in traffic, or in the checkout line--especially when you are feeling rushed and short on time--creates the perception of more time.  It works.  It really does.

Not incidental is the positive feedback that generally attends such public generosity--although occasionally the response is more like "What are you?  Nuts?"  And you can end up feeling a little sheepish.

But the kind of trash that troubles me most in my own environment, I think of as "life trash."  In this category are undone tasks, unfinished projects, and unfulfilled dreams.  It strikes me as a particularly appealing kindness--one I'd love to be on the receiving end of--to help another dispose of detritus of this sort. 

As a mom for more than half my life now, I am in a great position to help out in this way.  Living with two young adult men, I find myself frequently hip-deep in refuse, life- and plain old.  But as a mom, I have learned--not without pain and stumbling, on my part and theirs--that it isn't always a purely good thing to rush into the breach without summons.  

Yet another opportunity to practice that all-purpose virtue--BALANCE.  

But it does feel really good to magnanimously offer to move a load of wash to the dryer for one of my roomies.  Or to put gas in the car when they're running late.  Or to post a letter they forgot to send.  And helping them to experience life as a bit more doable helps me to believe that I can manage, too.  But it's not so much fun if they begin to rely on my rescue.  And if they ask, it had better be done nicely.  I don't do demands from this crew.

And just for the record, if someone offers to do the dishes I haven't gotten to, I'm taking it. 

Done for the Week: Shit Happens, Once Again

Another short week.  And a huge bite out of the middle of it.  (See item #6 on the list below.)

I'm not sure I have more than my share of mini-crises, though I have been told that my life reads like a bad soap opera at times.  And here we are at the beginning of December, and my family is on its second baffling medical mystery and third fairly significant trauma since October.

The challenge for me is to respond each time with love and courage and flexibility--and not to completely abandon my life plan in the process. 

How am I doing?  Not great.  But not awful.

Done for the Week:  Nov. 28-Dec. 4, 2011

1. Biked twice--still recovering from injury
2. Read No Signposts in the Sea, by Vita Sackville-West
3. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
4. Published 2 blog posts
5. Continued work on current clients' projects
6. Spent 24+ hours in a clinic, a hospital emergency room, and the hospital with my son, ruling out Guillain-Barré syndrome
7. Spent a day catching up on lost sleep and recovering from stress
8. Meditated three times
9. Attended 1 yoga class
10. Went to my tap class
11. Watched one episode of Eureka with my son
12. Watched one episode of Boss with my husband
13. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
14. Made Sunday soup
15. Saw my doctor for injury evaluation
16. Went to dinner with my husband
17. Did laundry 
18. Orchestrated hanging of our outdoor Christmas lights
19. Read draft of my husband's journal article
20. Took my grandson on his day-long birthday train adventure 
21. Printed out a copy of the Unschedule

A great deal of my energy last week was spent "rising to the occasion" of my son's frightening physical symptoms, which came on suddenly midweek.  Doing what needed to be done to shepherd him through the medical system and support him in enduring the necessary workups and tests and procedures, including approximately thirty attempted blood draws in his dehydrated state, was the most important thing I got done.  At this point, we don't really have an answer as to what caused his progressive numbness, or why it began to abate after 48 hours.  But the scariest things have been ruled out.  And he is back at school, though the ordeal has put him behind at the end of the semester.  We will continue to follow up with doctors, and hope to put the experience behind us.  And I have yet another chance to learn how to move forward from the periodic derailments that continue to visit my life.

Last week's focus goal was "to resume work on my novel."  Ahem.

It was once suggested to me, rather unkindly I thought, that the drama in my life, both good and bad, served the purpose of protecting me from the risk of failing (or succeeding?) at my most important work.  Never mind that the person making this suggestion didn't know me well; mistook for my "most important work" the work she thought I should be engaged in; and was most ultimately offensive in focusing on the adoption of my son as the great interruption she saw it for. 

I think it bears examining the pattern even a stranger, albeit a rather perceptive one, could observe in my bumpy history.  For whatever reason (Could it be the six kids my husband and I share?  my large, close extended family?  the dark intensity of my Irish-Catholic roots?  my embrace of a slightly offbeat lifestyle, grounded in the '60s? bad karma? psychological instability?), I seem to have a penchant for "coming a cropper," as they say, and for being blown off course in the wake of personal and family disasters. 

Perhaps I need to start seeing this stuff as, in Thomas Moore's words, "nourishing to the soul."  And perhaps I need to draw on all this unsolicited nourishment and develop a routine for righting myself in the aftermath.

So once again, I need to get back on the horse, and focus on resuming work on my novel.  I don't want to believe that I choose or allow the frequent big-deal interruptions to "my work," but I do admit that they have functioned, at times, to let me off a hook or two.  And I vow to get better at resuming my work, and my focus on it, in the periods of calm between the storms.  This week, I will try to make better use of what calm spaces there are, to more proactively protect my time, and to complete at least a chapter of my novel.

Done for the Week: Another of Life's Little Detours

I'm still up to my neck in four-year-olds this week.  That is to say, I've been spending the better part of my waking hours with one very talkative, very energetic, and very dear little boy, and trying at the same time to be as much help as possible to his mother--my daughter.  Her new baby turns two weeks old tomorrow, although by rights she shouldn't really be born for another seven weeks. 

My brilliant advice to my daughter, which I'm trying to remember to follow myself, is to take this challenging period one day at a time.  It seems that's the best I can come up with.  Really.  In the meantime, here's what I got done, somehow, last week:

Done for the Week:  Oct. 17-Oct. 23, 2011

1. Continued 5K training with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race--Finished Week 8 of 9 Week Couch-Potato-to-5K program
2. Took my son shopping for new running shoes, and running gear
3. Cheered my son after he came in 5th in his age group in the Fall Classic 5K, and 24th overall! 
4. Won my age group , beating last year's time by 3+ minutes
5. Ran three times (including race), swam once
6. Read Where the God of Love Hangs Out, by Amy Bloom, Once Upon a Time There Was You, by Elizabeth Berg, and Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk:  A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
8. Published 2 blog posts
9. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
10. Continued to give nearly full-time support to my daughter and her family as they coped with early arrival of their baby, and my daughter's continuing health problems
11. Helped my son purchase required laptop for school
12. Celebrated my son's first day in technical college automotive program
13. Went out for happy hour with my husband
14. Saw The Ides of March with my husband 
15. Watched first episode of Boss with my husband
16. Did laundry
17. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
18. Paid our household bills
19. Vacuumed several dogs worth of hair off our living room carpet
20. Entertained my out-of-town stepdaughter and her two sons, and arranged a family tennis outing
21. Took my grandson to his swimming lesson

Once again, the "most important thing" I accomplished last week was continuing to help my daughter and her family deal with the demands and difficulties of her medically complicated postpartum period and the needs of her preemie infant in a Level III NICU miles away.  We continue to refine the schedule and strategies for dealing with this temporary situation, and to marvel at the resilience of this tiny being as she matures and sheds one tube after another on her way to coming home in a couple of weeks.

I am working hard, but not minding the commitment or its requirements.  For whatever reason--probably the rewards of having had my own surprise children, and the lessons of relinquishing control when it was denied me--it is easy for me to take the long view.  This time will be here and gone before we know it, along with its special opportunities.  I am grateful to have the freedom and flexibility to be able to support my daughter in this way.

Last week's focus goal, in the midst of this adventure, was to "fit in three runs, in preparation for Sunday's race."   I managed to run twice before the race, and to swim once while taking my grandson for his swimming lesson.  Not ideal preparation for our race, given that I had only trained once the previous week, but the best I could do.  And good training in acceptance.

Next week's focus goal is to resume meditating.  Period.

Done for the Week: Where Have All the Hours Gone?

Last week, fraught though it was, seemed to last about 5 hours.  Or at least that minimal time frame would be consistent with my perceived level of productivity.

Here's the official list:

Done for the Week:  Sept. 19-25, 2011

1. Continued 5K training with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race--Finished Week 4 of 9 Week program
2. Ran once; swam once
3. Read The Shallows:  What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, by Nicholas Carr
4. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
5. Published 4 blog posts
6. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
7. Attended Prayer Vigil for jobs
8. Attended NAACP Freedom Fund dinner
9. Resurrected and read through half-done novel
10. Gave substantial support to pregnant daughter
11. Attended tap dance class
12. Did laundry
13. Took my dog to the dog park, with my husband
14. Watched episodes of Eureka with my oldest son
15. Finished reading Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
16. Went out for Happy Hour with my husband
17. Straightened out serious snafu with health insurance, affecting drug coverage for oldest son
18. Filled three prescriptions, requiring four trips to drug store
19. Fought with AT&T (and won!) over misrepresented replacement cell phone
20. Began using my son's old cell phone, until mine resurfaces
21. Found new mechanic, and arranged for inspection and adjustments to car my younger son plans to take on his first road trip this week

Last week's "most important thing" was supporting my daughter and her family as she makes her way through a high-risk pregnancy and the increasing maze of tests, regimens, and appointments.  My own pregnancies gave me some familiarity with the scary landscape she is negotiating, and I am happy to live close enough to do whatever I can to alleviate some of the everyday stress of dealing with an energetic four-year-old while going through such a difficult time.

Modern life and the so-called feminist revolution have left many women feeling like we have to fit our planned and obligatorily healthy childbearing in between the demands of our professional lives.  It has been my experience that some of us don't get to do it the easy way, and that at least this beginning part of motherhood resists compartmentalization.  We struggle not to feel guilty and/or defective because we are not able to carry and birth our children as efficiently as O-lan in The Good Earth.  

But this time of disruption for my daughter, and for me, will last at most the next two plus months.  And it is a time worth paying attention to, and giving space to.  And nothing else I am doing right now is as important.

Last week's focus goal, before my daughter's situation worsened, was to "return to work on the novel I put away last winter in the midst of my state's political upheaval."  My husband has expressed his disbelief that I would attempt such a thing with all that is going on just now.  But I have a few hours each week that I am attempting to keep sacred, to devote to making progress on this half-completed undertaking.  For as long as circumstances permit, I intend to "make hay while the sun shines."  I did manage to spend most of the scheduled time reading through what I have written thus far--material that I haven't laid eyes on since last February.  I plan to begin writing more of the draft this week.

In light of all that is on my overflowing plate at this time, my focus goal for the coming week is to meditate a minimum of three times.  As I have written before, meditation is most difficult when most needed.  Clearly, it is most needed now.

Vacating My Post--Finally!

No, not my blog post.  Although I will be doing that too, tomorrow, but not "for the rest of [my] life," (as Humphrey Bogart's Rick warned Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa).  Just until next Wednesday.

No, the post I'm referring to--in the sense of "job, employment" that Thesaurus.com tells me is synonymous with "appointment, assignment, berth, billet, office, place, position, [and] situation"--is that of full-time mother.  I have occupied this post, up-close and from afar, on- and off-line, for more than thirty years.  Most of us who attain this position, whether through careful calculation and arrangement or, as in my case, by backing into it--not once, but three times!--never stop being mothers.  But I have been reluctant to stop mothering, more so than your average (Mama) Bear.  

Some would (and have) call(ed) much of what I've done smothering, or brand me with the disdainful sobriquet "helicopter mom."  I would (and have) counter(ed) that I have placed a high priority on parenting, and that my last two, in particular, have been relatively "high needs children."  School years and adolescence have been bumpy--to say the least--for my two-years-apart male offspring, the tag ends of a not-so-blended family.  Their older mom was "sandwiched" between their own and a geographically distant elderly generation of family members requiring major support.  And these boys both came with their own charming but challenging traits and difficulties.  It has not been The Brady Bunch, by any stretch of the imagination.

At twenty and breathing-down-the-neck-of-eighteen, however, they are as ready as any their age that I can imagine to spend several days on their own--in each other's company, even!  They can cook and launder their own clothes, if not clean up religiously.  One can drive the other to work, or to the emergency room.  A sister who won't hang up on them lives nearby.  There is food in the house.  The dog will get them up every day.  The setting and their own amazing maturity will keep them as safe in my absence as I can when I'm here. 

My nest is not empty--yet.  But I am the one leaving it.  For my own good, and theirs, and their father's.  But not for good.

Beginning to put to bed a long and (mostly) lovely part of my life. . .

Musings of a Lame Duck Mom

A mother holds her children's hands for a little while. . . their hearts forever.

I was going to post this on Mother's Day, but my husband and children kept me too busy celebrating to finish it.  So here it is, in true procrastinator fashion, five days late.

I never intended to become so wrapped up in mothering.  If the truth be known, in fact, there was a time when I thought I didn't want children.  In the heady rush of my feminist awakening, I made big plans, and they did not include little people.

But what did my head know? 

My three children, when they did come, were all surprises.

And so was the mother they gave birth to.

Turns out, loving and nurturing and enjoying small persons whose care, and upkeep, and upbringing I have been entrusted with is probably my greatest gift.  In every sense of the word.

As I approach the end of the thirty-three plus uninterrupted years I have spent as a mom to minor children--my youngest turns eighteen next month--I find myself somewhat at sea. 

My nest is not yet empty.  Two of my children still live under my roof, and the other is ten blocks away.  I am not finished being a mother.  But I am not nearly so actively engaged in mothering as I was even a year ago.

There are some other things I have to contribute, and meaningful--if not lucrative--work that I am doing.  But I am not sure I will ever again be as good at anything, or that I will derive as much satisfaction, or have as much fun as I have had as a mother.

Then again, having backed into this particular phase of my life, perhaps there is something wonderful ahead that I haven't foreseen. . . .

Happy (belated) Mother's Day, to my mother, who taught me more than I acknowledged; to my daughter, who first made me a mother; and to all of us moms, accidental and otherwise!

Done for the Week: Getting Stuff Done Anyway

As I wrote last Friday, I was not particularly successful at keeping my wheels on the rails last week.  Again.  

A fair amount of stuff still got done, as this list details.

Done for the Week:  Feb. 14-20

1. Continued off-season race training, distracted by earth shifting beneath my feet in Wisconsin; biked once
2. Finished The Choir, by Joanna Trollope
3. Stepped up volunteer support to transitioning nonprofit, due to death in colleague's family
4. Attended viewing, funeral, graveside service, and repast
5. Worked my two part-time jobs
6. Published 5 blog posts
7. Wrote 1 Gratitude Journal entry
8. Meditated 2 times
9. Attended transitional jobs meeting
10. Celebrated middle child's Valentine's Day birthday--twice
11. Went to the movies with my two sons
12. Had a lunch date with my husband
13. Watched Treme with my husband
14. Watched our 2 teams play 2 basketball games, with my son and my husband
15. Demonstrated locally, and in Madison, with my son and my husband respectively
16. Attended two yoga classes
17. Learned some more new html tricks
18. Took my dog to the dog park, with my son and grandson
19. Spent one of two scheduled sessions on "novelling"
20. Spent way too much time online, following political uprising in my state, "working" Facebook, Twitter, and political sites, and updating my organization's website to reflect on-the-ground scheduling 
21. Spent an hour beginning assault on our basement with my son
22. Reconnected with my brother

As I look over the list above, the time I spent with family, in red, seems most important to me.  The birthday we celebrated reminded me of the impending emptying of the nest I've been watching over for 33+ years.  I work at remembering to enjoy the time I still have under the same roof or in the same zip code with all my children.    
 

Last week's focus goal was the same as the week before--to "ease into the coming week, and to resist getting drawn into the vortex of other people's agendas."  One protestor's sign I saw gave my state's Governor F's in Listening, Math, and Playing Well With Others; I have to say I deserve the same failing grade in keeping my nose to the grindstones I've assigned myself to tend.  The death of my colleague's brother derailed plans on two consecutive days, and an explosion of democracy took much of my energy and attention on the rest.  (See Stopping for Death, and Stopping for Stupidity.)  We're still trying to decide if we're a Midwestern Egypt here in Wisconsin, so I don't expect things to settle down soon.  I'm just going to try to go with the flow, or the seemingly unending snow, or whatever else is coming my way.  

Next week's focus goal will be to meditate daily, no matter what.  For the rest, I'll be trying to hang onto the strap through the present wild ride.

Family Work: A Physics Lesson

Yesterday I wrote about Laura Stack's 2nd pillar of personal productivity, which is Priorities.  (Stack's book Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It is the current focus of my Tuesday Life Management 101 discussions.)  According to Stack and her Personal Productivity quiz, "priorities" is something I'm fairly good at.  

But from where I sit, it feels like my "priorities" are keeping me from getting things done.  


I know full well that family would not be mentioned prominently in the mission statement of the man with whom I share my life, were he to fashion one.  But it is at the top of mine.  It is an important part of how I see myself, of who I want to be in the world.  But it is not the whole picture.  And it is the rest of the whole that fills my calendars and my to-do lists, and dominates my weekly lists of achievements.  


I fear that this post could turn out to be yet another dreary rehash of pre/post/quasi-feminist observations about women's continuing difficulty in blending "work" and family.  But despite the Second Wave Feminism that predated my wifing and mothering, and all the career advances, the "sequencing," the "opting out" of stay-at-home moms and recent "back to work" lures that have shaped our relationship to mothering and other work, many of us, myself included, still have trouble giving family work the respect it deserves.  It shocks me to have to admit that, even though mothering in particular was a focus of much of my earlier academic work, I still don't get the physics of it.  Specifically, I function as though I don't recognize that it takes time.   On some days, some weeks, some months and years, a lot of time.  


So why do I expect to fit it in around the rest of the things I try to do?  Why does it merit only interstitial status?


Partly, I suppose, because my culture tells me that I could be parenting much more efficiently, with the energy and attention left over from my more worldly activities--in my spare time.  And it seems that so many other women manage to do so, and with seemingly stellar "results."  By rights, I should be mostly done raising my three kids.  But I'm not.  By rights, the younger two shouldn't face so many obstacles at this stage of their lives.  But they do.


Granted, much of what they still need from me is difficult to schedule.  Their crises can't really be booked ahead.  But at least I need to stop judging my daily accomplishments by a standard that discounts this very real, and time-consuming work.  It would be good, too, if I could stop blaming myself for their difficulties, not all of which are the result of my imperfect child rearing.  


It is likely that the priority I place on family, and in particular on supporting my sons as they scrabble their way into a presently unwelcoming future, will continue to interrupt my progress on other fronts.  If my mind is where my heart is, this will be better than okay. 

Procrastinating with Children: Staying Flexible Without Getting the Bends

I am late getting this post up today because I HAVE TEENAGERS!  My three-day time log, on which yesterday was Day 2, will ultimately show that I have spent several hours over the last two and a half days actively mothering these two humans-in-waiting.  That total includes two and three-quarter hours in the middle of the night rescuing three young people from their own bad decisions.  Only one of them was mine, but since I was out there anyway, it seemed only civilized to toss virtual life preservers to the other two.  I'd like to say I believe any other mother would have done the same, but I'm not so sure.  My kids appear to be surrounded by others whose parents are "on leave" from parenting, for one reason or another.  


My other near adult has needed many hours of help over the last couple of weeks, looking for a car he can afford; haggling with unscrupulous car dealers (playing sane cop to my behind-the-scenes crazy cop husband, as I tried to help my kid get a fair deal and a drivable car); and processing his decision to spend a few more months working to save money and preparing himself to enter the school that has accepted him.  It looks like he will end up with the car of his trimmed-back dreams, and I will end up with. . . a fairly severe sleep deficit.


But really, I wouldn't have it any other way.  These tag-end children are the ones brought to me in my second marriage by flukes and miracles, the ones I had no right to expect.  And I am proud and happy to be their mom.  I feel pretty good about who they are and who they are becoming, and about all I have learned along the way.  And I just plain (mostly) enjoy their somewhat quixotic company.  


However, my triathlon training schedule for the week is in tatters; my cleaning campaign is in retreat; my meditation routine has been curtailed; and I have the energy of overcooked linguini.  So I am going to give myself "props," as my kids would say, for continuing to keep the commitments I made 19+ and nearly 17 years ago to love and protect these nascent people; for being clear about my priorities; for being mature enough to roll with the permanence of changes; and for recognizing the need today to engage in some needed R & R for myself, with other tasks taking a back seat.  


This too shall pass, and I'll be saddened when it does.  I have passed on to my daughter, now a mother herself, the not-so-literary poem I clipped from an Ann Landers column when she was young.  Its sing-songy lines have stayed in my head all these years since, and though it's unlikely to be anthologized, the thought at its core still compels me.

TO MY GROWN-UP SON

My hands were busy through the day;

I didn't have much time to play

the little games you asked me to. 

I didn't have much time for you.

I'd wash your clothes, I'd sew and cook,

But when you'd bring your picture book

And ask me please to share your fun

I'd say "A little later, son."

I'd tuck you in all safe at night

And hear your prayers, turn out the light,

Then tip-toe softly to the door. . .

I wish I'd stayed a minute more

For life is short, the years rush past.

A little boy grows up so fast.

No longer is he at your side

His precious secrets to confide.

The picture books are put away,

There are no longer games to play,

No good-night kiss, no prayers to hear.

That all belongs to yesteryear.

My hands, once busy, now are still,

The days are long and hard to fill.

I wish I could go back and do

The little things you asked me to.

                            ~ Author Unknown


Though the portrait of mother and child is dated, and the language somewhat quaint, this poem can still bring tears to my eyes.  And it reminds me to be in these final moments of parenting minor children.


But I also need to remember, better than I have sometimes done, that my life, too, is flying by, and deserves my attention.  The things I neglect to do for myself, the opportunities I decline, can also leave me with regrets.  I, too, am a child of the universe, as are my children, with my own birthrights and promise.  And no one left to see to them but me.  I can't fill every minute with mothering.  In the spaces in between my children's needs and crises, I must return to my first responsibility, which is to myself.  I don't want my "empty nest" days to be "long and hard to fill."  I have to miss my children when they are gone, and their childhoods, but I don't have to miss myself.  So if now is the time to enjoy living with my kids while they are still at home, it is also the time to continue growing my own life.  


As soon as I get some sleep.

Paying it Backward: Surrounded by the Procrastinators I Helped Create

I have become aware in the past few days that I am living in the midst of procrastinating others.  Even my dog waits to eat his food, until he gets the proverbial "round toit."  


It is probably a truism of families that we partner with people who share or admire or can stomach at least some of our dysfunction.  We then go on to reproduce and nurture beings with similar predelictions, until we are swimming in a sea of whatever distressing traits we may eventually wish to discard in ourselves.  And thus, we pay the price in spades for our quirks and foibles, as they come back to bite us in the end.


My children have watched me struggle to get things done since they opened their eyes, though they also witnessed much ultimate accomplishment.  (I'm a busy little procrastinating bee!)  My eldest saw less of it, as I was younger and in a less stressful period of my life.  She is an inveterate list-maker and action-taker, relatively unscathed by whatever nature or nurture might have influenced her to be a putter-offer.  My second and third children, both boys, both still at home and sharing the pool of stress that has been my Calamity Jane existence for more than a decade, are another matter.  


My oldest son is presently conducting an advanced seminar just for me in relinquishing control over what is not mine to control.  "Do what I say, not what I do" has proven every bit as effective as we should have predicted, and the result is a soon-to-be-adult master procrastinator.  Less than three weeks from his arranged school start date, we are scrambling to complete a daunting set of postponed tasks required to get him where he purports to be going.  And we are trying to evaluate the portent of his delaying tactics.  Cold feet?  Developmental issues common to most young people, learning to get from point A to point Z, staying on task, and delaying gratification?  Practical inexperience?  Congenital or learned difficulties with time management?  General unreadiness, which would dictate a sensible retrenchment and pulling out Plan B?


Whatever got us to where we are, and wherever that turns out to be, the current state is intensely painful.  Yesterday's post detailed Dr. Neil Fiore's procrastination metaphor, which likened the situation my son finds himself in to having to walk across a board suspended 100 feet above the ground between two buildings, having himself set a fire in the building he is in.  I've been there so many times myself I don't have to imagine his distress.  And it turns out that I am in the burning building with him, captive to my overidentification/codependency, and the impact that his failure to plan is having on my time and resources.


I am learning on the job how to handle this one.  The level of difficulty for someone with my habits is high, as are the stakes.  What I need to do, for both of us I think, is to help him figure out how to construct or recruit a net, and not to become that net myself.  As he has told me, it is time for him to leave the nest, even if he falls out.  


On a recent stroller trip to the lakeshore, my two-year-old companion and I were watching a particularly graceful seagull up in the "'ky," and I observed no mother gull flying behind or below him.  Wherever that mother bird was, with her head under her wing or not, she has much to teach me.


Another lesson of this involuntary curriculum is how painful and stressful it has been for those who care about me, and those who must live with me, to watch me flail and wail and scramble to meet stretched deadlines and deal with the chaos of my own making as a habitual procrastinator.  I'm not sure what AA step this is, but I can appreciate its power. Hopefully, in helping my son I will help myself. And vice versa.

Done for the Week: Learning to Exhale

Last week was busier than I wanted it to be.  Most of the things that took me away from some planned relaxation time were happy events and opportunities, and most involved my immediate family members.  I probably need to make an effort to find and designate a few sacrosanct hours that I will yield only to emergencies (or "emergency" trips to Paris).  

The gift, and the burden of my largely self-determined schedule is its flexibility.  "Stay-at-home" moms have experienced the situation of having little respected, unassailable time.  And now that so many of us have become "working-from-home" moms, with other enterprises added to the responsibilities of motherhood, it is even more challenging.  But I am learning that the person I have the most difficulty with, the least likely to take my schedule seriously, is me.  This interacts with my seemingly congenital poor sense of time to compromise needful self-care, and desired accomplishment.  I continue to work on making more mindful decisions about unanticipated requests and invitations.  

Despite interruptions, and in some cases because of them, here's what I got done last week.

Done List--Week of May 17-23

1. Began Sprint Triathlon training--completed Week 1 of 11-week program
2. Finished The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters; Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, translated by Ronald Knox
3. Took my blood pressure daily
4. Attended one meeting
5. Published 5 blog posts
6. Meditated 5 times
7. Continued cleanup effort, in small steps
8. Had wonderful coffee date with friend I hadn't seen in 17 years--"power catch-up," and reconnection
9. Helped my husband purchase and put up new bird feeder
10. Went out for two Happy Hour dates with my husband (just for the extra practice)
11. Wrote 6 Gratitude Journal entries
12. Wrote 4 Morning Pages
13. Phoned my Mom
14. Attended friends' boat re-naming/birthday celebration
15. Continued efforts to launch teenaged son; worked (with moderate success) on not nagging and not rescuing (target launch date, June 14)
16. Supported other teenaged son with school and job issues; applauded his progress
17. Had fruitful therapy session, accompanied by my husband
18. Survived four days as "single parent," with my husband out of town

Last week's focus goal was to continue the cleanup effort begun the previous week.  I attempted, with some success, to add to each day's efforts--to keep up with dishes, laundry, picking up, and making my bed (since Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project promises it will make me happier)--two cleaning/straightening accomplishments from my backlog of uncompleted (and in some cases un-begun) chores.  This goal was lost in the shuffle of social and family involvements from Friday through Sunday.  Prior to that, I managed to recover two separate sections of kitchen counter space; clean out my microwave; reclaim my half of our bathroom vanity; dust living room surfaces; and find the top of my dresser.  I am committing to this focus goal for at least the next week, since I expect that clearing the decks will enhance my mood, and prepare me to concentrate on more writing when my work hours change in a few weeks.

In determining the most important item on the list above, I am torn between all of the relationship building items (#s 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, and 17--and maybe 15 and 16), and the biggest leap, which is item #1.  Ultimately, I decided that the one that is most outside my previous frame of reference may be most significant for me right now.  I should note that I have committed to go as far with the triathlon training program as I can, and have not yet signed up for the event I am considering, which is scheduled for August 16.  For now, the biggest hurdle before me is to figure out how to breathe while swimming.


And, come to think of it, I also need to figure out how to breathe while parenting, working, relaxing, and stressing.  I suspect it shouldn't be this difficult.