the strength of womanhood

Strength in surrendering

All I could do this past weekend was go for a walk in our serene Arb, communing with the trees and prairie grass. Then I got to a crossroads and I paused. I wanted to walk on, but I wasn't sure I had the time for it. A woman who'd been walking in front of me had sat down on a log and was overlooking the view, I thought, and I didn't want her to think I had paused just to follow her next move. So I explained. "I don't know which way I should go." I can't recall the order of our sharing past that, but it sort of went like this (condensed version; I talk fast, so a lot more went into it):

She: "I just want to take the path you don't take."
Me: "I'm just trying to figure out if I have the time for the longer route. I'd really like to take the longer route."
She: "I just want to be here in the Arb. I'm supposed to meet some friends at the college for a concert and it's supposed to be fun, but I just want to be here."
Me: "... I can't decide. I am coming undone."
She: "So am I!!!!"

So then I gave her a big hug.

And then we talked.

mucking around in the mud, opening my heart to the sun

My yoga teacher said something beautiful the other day about the symbolism of the lotus flower in yogic tradition. — How the lotus flower grows from the bottom of muddy, cloudy waters, rising above the surface and opening itself to the sun. Suggesting how we too can open our hearts to lightness and brightness, even when we feel ourselves stuck, mucking around in the mud, be it our everyday mundane lives or grief-stricken anguish.

This reminded me of how another yoga teacher used to describe me as a lotus flower with her petals always wide open. And how sometimes I might try to protect my heart a little by folding my petals inwards a bit when encountering unkindness or aggression.

For me, this closing in without shutting off is a real challenge; it's like I can never tell before it's too late that this would be a good time for closing in a little.

This fall, I will make more of an effort to follow the lotus flower's balanced modeling of exuberant opening up and graceful closing in.

image: wiki

when sentimentality rules

Our house is a sailboat and the fuck is my life but my life is also a wildly exciting roller coaster ride. And I have been finding more calm lately by simply observing and accepting, returning not only to my yoga mat but also to my former dabblings in Buddhism. I'll write more about that later. The bit I wanted to share today is my newfound lesson that sometimes sentimentality rules.

So I have planned this crazy packed Europe tour for my book, leaving this Friday and returning on the 31st in the afternoon. There is no coincidence in my coming back on Halloween. I feel immensely sad and bad about leaving my four-year-old for so long, even if she'll be in the highly competent care of her loving papa. It's my second long trip overseas this fall and on the previous one I missed first day of preschool. I simply can't miss Halloween.

So I've made these really busy stressful plans, cramming as much as possible into those ten days I'm in Europe before catching a flight out of Amsterdam early in the morning of Halloween to be back, well, for Halloween.

And though it may sound like I've gone entirely mushy, the fact of the matter is that it works.

the f*ck is my life

This is no f*ck

I went to a friend's mother blessing yesterday and it was good. It was good, because it was real. It was good because it wasn't all about showering her with gifts and well-wishes, though we gave her those too. It was good because we also shared our losses and pains and our sorrows and worries, even as we celebrated the arrival of new life and the strength of motherhood. As a friend of mine pointed out, the fact that we can so genuinely share our times of heartache makes the celebration of our times of joy all the more heartfelt.

Pain and love always coexist, another friend commented.

I take great comfort in my circle of mama friends; we are the rock mamas.

I need this kind of communal comfort these days. Feeling the ground shifting beneath me, I find comfort in coming together to share pain — and joy. Just life.

There is a section in Cheryl Strayed's bestselling collection of advice columns originally published at the Rumpus Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar that really resonated with me. It's a column she wrote in response to a reader's query that simply asked "WTF, WTF, WTF?" Cheryl responds by sharing one of her own immensely fucked-up childhood experiences of her father's father having her jack him off when she was three, four, and five.

our house is a sailboat

This time right now, these weeks, these months, is probably the biggest and most significant time in the lives of our little family. Leighton and I both got a lot going on, both professionally and personally. Some days it's like I can barely hold on, there are so many things and they are all moving so fast.

It's like time stood still just long enough for us to open up to bliss and savor before we were thrown on board on this whirlwind thing; no, *these* whirlwind things. "Weary legged," a friend of mine said the other day over coffee, commenting on how she personally felt this fall after an intense stretch of professional change.

I've always thought of our house as my sanctuary, but what happens when there's a whirlwind of change going on at home too?

i've caused my sweet 4-year-old to lose her cool

First day of school

We had a sunny summer of bliss, Lilly and I, me taking time off from work to regain some perspective, and she growing ever more confident and amazingly competent at the pool and at the beach. There was no hurry. There was only savoring.

Then comes fall. "Fall of excitement, here I come!" I posted on Facebook while packing up for my first trip abroad to promote my book. Preschool resumed while I was gone; missing first day of that is in itself a faux pas.

I've never missed any of her big milestones. In fact, I've only been gone from her a single night before on two different occasions and that was both three years ago. Then towards the end of this summer, Leighton and I had our first couple's only vacation, leaving her with grandparents she doesn't see that often for three whole nights.

And then I go over seas for ten days. In turn she starts extended days in preschool so Leighton can get his work done.

Seeing her again at the airport last Tuesday was pure bliss. She was so happy to see me! So excited! And the feeling was completely mutual.

But then came the nights with my exasperation at her crawling all over my body. And a house full of stress with both Leighton and I having more than our share on our plate this fall. As they say; when it rains, it pours.

independence: you crave it, and then you don't

In many ways, this has been our big summer of independence for us. Sure, I've been more with Lilly than I was this spring. What with my healing journey and taking time off from work to be with her. Time we've spent mostly at the pool or at the beach. In the glorious sun and heat we've been blessed with this year.

But she turned four this summer in June. And she had her very first sleepover at a friend's house while Leighton and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary in July, going out on our very first full date night out ever, all previous "date nights" having been arranged early in the evening with her at a play date, meaning we'd pick her up and put her to bed after our date (read: anticlimactic). And she hosted a sleepover for that same friend later on. And she spent three nights with grandpa and grandma while Leighton and I got our very first couple's only vacation, on which we had a blast, by the way.

So she turned 4. And she wanted goggles for her birthday. It was a Friday. It was an overcast weekend. The sun returned that Monday, so we resumed our afternoons at the pool: first thing there, she dove under water. She'd been wanting to do that for so long! Her jumping grew steadily more adventuresome. Soon she was jumping far out, swimming 8 feet and more doggy style, scooping up pool water with her arms as if it were ice cream, to get back to the edge of the pool.

By August, she joined the big kids at the diving board. Jumping and jumping, oh so gleefully, her mama (ME!) cheering her on with the true and amazed and triumphant joy and glee of someone high on stunned pride.

link-love: gender boxes, sexual fluidity, and extreme breastfeeding

These are excerpts from some posts worth reading if you haven't already:

Gender boxes limit all kids by Margot Magowan at Reel Girls
A thoughtful post with helpful, practical advice for parents:

I do have some tactics to suggest for parents to deal with sexism/ gender-pressure, but before I even go into that, it’s really important not to let this issue devolve into: who has it worse, girls or boys? When we create rigid gender boxes for our kids, everyone loses out. Everyone. This is about raising healthy, happy, children, helping their brains grow so that they can reach their potential. [...]

Here’s the thing: Most kids like to play with dolls, but we label them “dolls” or “action figures.” Most kids enjoy pushing objects on wheels, but we sell them either trucks or babystrollers. As I wrote, most kids would have fun painting their nails if they thought it was OK to do so. Most kids, while playing outside will pick up sticks and occasionally poke each other with them. Most parents respond to that same act with “Boys will be boys” or “Sweetie, stop that! You’ll hurt yourself and rip your dress.” [...]

wild: staring down fear and aloneness

I picked up Cheryl Strayed's Wild because I so loved Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water featuring one woman's journey from loss and hurt to empowerment and peace through the rugged path of alcohol, drugs, and a lot of sex. The marketing of Wild made it sound like the two women had some things in common (and in fact they belong to the same writers' group). And they do. All of us on healing journeys do. But this one was different. Like with The Chronology of Water I got hooked but not quite as viscerally. The waters didn't run as deep nor wild in Wild I thought whereas reading The Chronology of Water was an immensely cleansing experience.

Yet I couldn't put Wild down and I found it both greatly entertaining while also rather lovely and even poetic at times. Subtitled From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail it features memories from Strayed's childhood and recounts how her own first marriage as well as her family fell apart when her mother died from cancer when Strayed was only twenty-two. On the trail four years later, she is forced to come to terms with the aloneness and fear she'd sought to numb in heroine and sexual affairs. Tapping into her own strength, and detecting her connectedness with it all, she comes out on a quite beautiful note.

free to be you and me

What my first couple's only vacation since becoming a parent gave me was the opportunity to simply be free to be you and me. "We're off on our 'first romantic getaway,'" I wrote a couple of weeks ago, but that really didn't put the right spin on things at all. There's something so awfully 1950s about the term. Like she dresses up for him and he courts her, and they live happily ever after.

Our experience was nothing like that at all. What I found was the chance to drop our roles as both parents and husband-wife and simply have a lot of honest, sexy fun together. We both went giddy wild consignment shopping together for a whole afternoon, after which we drenched our thirst with local beer at one of the many brewery pubs in Fort Collins. We dressed up and dined at all the recommended restaurants I'd tracked down in Denver, but our conversations weren't dressed up. They were the kinds of conversation shared by best friends and lovers, fellow travel through life companions and soul mates. Lounging on roof top decks and court yard patios, surrounded by the nighttime fireworks of thunder and lightning, we not so much gazed lovingly at each other as we gave ourselves and took each other in completely with our words and eyes.

final summer bravado: first romantic getaway as parents

On this last morning of work before we head off on vacation, I've finished up a few things I had to do this week for an erotic film festival I'm co-curating. I was also going to work on an abstract for an article on the speed limits of women's desire in Norway. Instead I've found myself googling fun and romantic things to do in Denver, Colorado where Leighton and I will be spending a few days and nights while Lilly gets to visit her grandma and grandpa in Wyoming. It'll be our first couple's only vacation after Lilly was born and we are all very excited. I'm hoping it stays that way, and that we won't get a phone call with a crying child on the other end begging us to come get her. She had her first sleepover at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago while we went out to celebrate our five-year wedding anniversary, and we all had a wonderful time that night, so I'm hopeful. 

I'm particularly excited about the romantic date nights we've got planned, getting hungry just looking at all the mouthwatering pictures from recommended restaurants, such as Le Central (French food, French wine, French desserts... nothing says romance like a French bistro... Call ahead to reserve a spot in the delightful garden room at the back of the eatery for a French countryside ambiance); Cuba Cuba (Cuba Cuba offers traditional Cuban fare in a cozy setting — plus they serve Denver's best Mojitos. Dine by candlelight on the patio for that perfect date ambiance); Highland's Garden (Soak in the quiet ambiance of the restaurant while savoring the fine dining. After a sumptuous meal, stroll hand-in-hand through the gardens and take in the sights of the lush gardens); Tamayo (A rooftop deck that affords gorgeous views of the Front Range... This sleek, contemporary Mexican restaurant is appreciated equally for its to-die-for margaritas and tequilas and its unexpected, delicious takes on old standards); and Sushi Den (Wonderful, high-quality dishes are sure to please, and fresh fish is flown in daily — a practice that makes for a slightly pricier, but more than worthy, menu. The modern decor encourages trendy crowds to visit over sake, sushi, and sashimi).

fighting the US resistance to taking a break

It started out slowly. The sigh-it-out feeling of relief; that things are coming together; my first book will soon be released (which I hope will free and inspire a lot of moms and women — and dads and men! — in general to claim, own, and explore their sexuality on their terms). Suddenly all the blogging and Facebooking and Tweeting just seemed less urgent. Plus, the days were getting longer, warmer, sunnier. And are still lovingly long, warm, and sunny, even if we've passed the solstice.

I grew up in Scandinavia, light and heat deprived and all: how could I not seize the moment to soak in pleasure and joy right now?

So I did. Like I've done many times before (though not last summer when I was crunching in work hours to get said book done).

Taking time off is definitely not an uncommon thing to do for me and most of my fellow Norwegians (who claim five weeks of paid vacation each summer), as well as numerous continental Europeans. On the contrary: we take pride in it. Which is so unlike most Americans who in the US take pride in their workaholocism though their production and achievement focused obsession shows no improvement is results from those of the Europeans.

the vulnerability of writing

I'm writing a new book and it makes me feel skinless. It's a painful and slow process and it's all I can to do. I write and I cringe and I edit and write and cringe over and over again. I become hyper critical of my writing. I look at old posts and I cringe. I look at new posts and I cringe.

Leighton reminds me it's always like this for me when I start a new writing project, that this is also how it was when I was in the early stages of writing my After Pornified book. I would write and go back and cringe and edit, over and over again.

getting up and going down

Lilly turned four last Friday: goggles was on the top of her wishlist. She tried them on in the bathtub last weekend as the rain poured down outside, and then when we went to the pool on Monday, she excitedly started jumping up and down, prepping to duck her head down beneath water. And then she did it! Just like that. She enthusiastically kept jumping and ducking up and down, over and over again.

It's not that she's fearless or reckless; it's not that there isn't some apprehension. It's just that this is something she's been wanting to do, testing the waters to do, for a very long time. Lilly, as a close friend of mine once pointed out, very much demonstrates a sense of caution and competence. The quality of standing back and observing, making judgment of what she may or may not be capable of doing; what may or may not be wise to be doing; what she truly would like to be doing or not. I'm quite impressed and invigorated by this modeling; I'd like to do the same.

So this week, I've worked on kicking up into handstand.

four years and healing

After 64 hours of labor: first of many nights together

My child turns four today. How did it happen? Where did those sucking-at-the-breast all the time days go? Now replaced by the talking-all-the-time days. They were, are, both wonderful and draining at the same time, sucking it all out of me while filling me up again all the more too. Plus with some.

Really, I do feel, as I posted on Facebook a couple of nights ago, that my child is my little yodi; my little teacher and inspiration.

i don't have ADD, just an interesting EEG

I posted a while back that my therapist suggested I be assessed for ADHD. I've been experiencing inattentive moments since I can remember, but this can also be caused by my anxiety/PTSD. The therapist who tested me for ADHD concluded that I do not have many symptoms consistent with other adults who have ADHD, just "an interesting EEG," as he put it.

Apparently, adults with ADHD experience inattention more persistently whereas all the QEEG recordings done of my brain electrical activity ("brainwaves") show a pattern of transient half second "momentary lapses." It is possible that these lapses occur more frequently under stress, amplifying my experiences with anxiety; of not being in control. Because they don't feel like merely drifting off or tuning out in conversation. They have a more jolting, disconcerting effect of dropping into a black hole; like something was entirely lost for a split second and I can't hold on to anything.

The Womanly Heartaches of Bleeding

Infertility

As if it's not hard enough going back to work after a lovely long holiday weekend, I got my period that day too. We've been trying to conceive another child for a good year now. In reality, I feel like we've been trying much longer. Heck, I was taking pregnancy tests before Lilly turned 1 and I didn't even get my period back until she was close to 3 and stopped nursing.

I winced upon seeing the blood. Lilly looked at me. "I got my period," I explained. "Oh," she said; "that means there's no baby. It's okay, mama; we can try again tomorrow!" (tomorrow representing all future tense for her at the moment) She smiled at me and I did find some comfort in her words.

balance: it takes work

I believe a lot of us think of balance as letting go. To go with the flow more. And not work so hard. Stop striving towards the impossible goal of fitting it all in. Let go of perfectionism. (I too have been thinking in these terms). However, last week, I came to another conclusion. — Achieving and maintaining a sense of balance takes work. Real, hard work.

It's like in yoga. When you practice a challenging balance post, you have to muster all your core strength and mindfulness not to fall out of the pose. Balance is hard to attain and it's easy to fall out of. But in yoga, if you fall out of the pose, the idea is to always enter the balancing pose again before moving on to the next pose.

why we must normalize, not hyper-sexualize breastfeeding

With the lingering effects of the controversial Time cover that has a mom and her nursing son gaze at a voyeuristic (and thereby sexualizing) camera, I am re-posting a post that I wrote a while back in response to the hype around a European baby doll made specifically to teach little girls about breastfeeding. Writing against the negative sexualizing of breastfeeding, I also address the healthy sexual aspects of breastfeeding and our bodily functions. And the need to normalize breasts and breastfeeding in our culture, also by teaching young girls about it.

little girls need to learn to breastfeed  

Reading a post about a European Breast Milk Baby toy coming to the U.S. had me thinking about the unfortunate hysteria that lingers around breasts in this culture that apparently obsesses about the female sex while bemoaning it. Think for instance of the public outrage Janet Jackson’s now historic naked breast during the Super Bowl halftime show caused, which had Europeans shrugging their shoulders incredulously. Or nursing tents used to cover up the breast (and pretty much all of baby) while mama nurses.

I am a huge advocate of breastfeeding, and my toddler daughter (whom I still nurse) will often pull up her shirt to "nurse" her baby dolls. I would not invest in $89 to purchase a specific doll for her to pretend nurse, but I think the concept is interesting. The (small Spanish family owned and Christian) manufacturer of this novelty toy claims that “little girls need to learn to breastfeed.” While this may sound preposterous, I actually agree that this is the case for American girls where breastfeeding is not sufficiently supported.

quizzical mama's feminist vision at the mamafesto

Quizzical mama aka Anne G. Sabo

I was proud to be featured at The Mamafesto's "This Is What A Feminist Looks Like" series this week. In case you missed it, here's a link to it. And below is a brief excerpt.

At least here in the US, I see working for more comprehensive, paid parental leave as one of the most pressing items on the agenda for feminism. With only 6 to 12 weeks of maternity leave, many new moms opt to sacrifice their careers to stay home with their children, and for good reasons too, breastfeeding being one of them. This pattern will continue to reinforce traditional gender roles to the detriment of women and men. Cut to Norway, where political groups are now lobbing for an even more equal division of the one-year parental leave between the parents, lest the women lag behind in the workforce in terms of promotion and retirement plans.

french parenting is not for me

Pamela Druckerman: wannabe French

I got interested in Pamela Druckerman's memoir Bringing up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting based on a couple of reviews that suggested I had some things in common with French moms. As it turns out, we got just about nothing in common. Nor do I care much for their approach to parenting.

Druckerman, on the other hand, does. Druckerman is practically drooling in awe over French moms' approach to parenting, from how they get their kids to sleep, eat, and behave so well, to their attention to adult time and sassy looks.

Of course, all these things sound great. But then take a minute to pause as Druckerman learns to do the French way with her children and consider this: practicing the pause in terms of (not) checking on their babies when they are learning to "do their nights" when only a few days or weeks old (and at least by three months) is the same as Ferberizing or even crying it out at a very young age. It only has a different name and since "everyone" in France practices it, nobody worries about it either.

people who never get angry frighten me

One of the things I respect the most in people is relentless honesty including on the less finer moments of life. Like couples' arguments, of which you don't see too many blunt personal anecdotes, despite their commonness and recent research finding couples arguing stay together. Which is why I ultimately fell in love with Poser with its forthright disclosure of everything, including marital bickering which the author, Claire Dederer, comes to see "not as the beginning of the end of the world but as just another way families communicate." "We bickered pleasantly," she concludes.

Recounts Dederer earlier in her book about a "not entirely successful" date night out, "that vaunted American custom," which, when you are married "buzzes irritatingly on the periphery of your consciousness, the way New Year's Eve does for single people." They were out on a date night to celebrate her birthday, but both were exhausted, possibly with the flu, and on deadlines. Feeling rebellion fomenting on her side of the table at the lack of her husband's courtship and conversation, she "glared briefly" at her husband.

look at these two girls' swimwear and tell me which one is "improper"

What Lilly wears in the below picture is what was judged "improper swimwear" at our city pool last summer:

Lilly flanked by her grandpa and papa

This, on the other hand, would have passed as "proper:"

introducing babysitters and parents-only vacations

Just in time before Lilly turns four, Leighton and I had our first date last weekend while she was with a babysitter. This isn't to say we haven't had dates before, child swapping with friends, but not too many times; 10 times tops. And with family scattered across the US, we've had a total of 4 dates while either visiting or being visited by them, counting a yoga class and coffee too.

Needless to say, we would have liked more dates, but we are not martyrs for having opted out of them.

First, both Leighton and I have been opposed to any needless stress and crying, and for us, leaving our child anxious and possibly crying, even in the care of good friends or close relatives, has not been an option. Instead, we've waited till she was ready for separation.

witches and yogis: lining up my people in times of trouble

"In times of trial and tribulations, I line up my line of people," mused my therapist in last week's session. She went on listing sever spiritual leaders, some poets and a few philosophers. She explained that in situations like my own where there are no parents to "hold you" and "call you forward," one can find other figures to provide that sense of safety and support.

This sentiment makes such good sense to me; I left our session with a profound sense of hope. Until later in the week, I found myself floundering. Because, who are my line of people? Have I failed to do my homework here? Am I that alone?

attachment parenting and feminism

Photo: Chasing Virtue
New York Times review of Poser

I'm in the midst of Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer, a self-conscious freelance book critic and new mom, surrounded by North Seattle's organically living attachment parenting moms. Dederer's voice is funny and often right on in pointing out how exhausting attachment parenting can be. Still, I find myself viscerally reacting against some of what she's saying.

What bothers me, I think, is how Dederer puts up this simplistic division between her mom's generation of women who, intoxicated by the women's movement, left their families to pursue their own lives, turning their children into attachment parenting moms with mommy brains on a mission. That just doesn't sit with my own experiences of attachment parenting as a feminist woman:

Which is why I found blue milk's recent post on feminism and attachment parenting, and why they’ve more in common than in conflict. Excerpt:

peace, love, courage: a yogi's mindful approach to birthdays

My birthday falls on the first day of spring, and spring is my favorite season, but not for that reason.

Spring has that ecstatic sentiment of new life to it—the rejuvenation of life—but also a tender, almost vulnerable, skinless feel to it.

Some spring days have me flying high, and I've been known to take my birthday celebration seriously. But this year I wanted a more mellow observation. Something sincerely true to where I'm at in my life right now. Which is a mixed bag.

Professionally, I really am flying high. I have a book coming out this fall; I got a new job; and I've been invited to give talks and readings from my book this fall in places around the world, including in Mexico, Norway, Germany, and England. I also have found more balance in my life, with more hours for me to work, and more opportunities for dates. I even got an extra special early pass at the gym, so my time working out there won't interfere with my work-work time.

different cultural approaches to parenting and uses of homes: books i'd like to read

Summer arrived this past weekend just in time for spring break, and it makes me want to kick back and relax in the sunshine with a good book. Of course, that's not so easily done when you have a 3-year-old home from preschool all week, but should the opportunity arise, these are a few of the books I'm eager to get my nose into:

• Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman.
  The balanced, laissez-faire style of parenting her memoir recounts appeals to my own approach to parenting. "Most French children, unlike many of their American counterparts, did not need to be entertained constantly by their parents," explains Druckerman to NPR. — "'French children seem to be able to play by themselves in a way.' Some might see this scenario as evidence that the French are less thrilled with having children and are more selfish as parents than their American counterparts who are constantly playing with their children. But Druckerman does not think this is the case. 'The French view is really one of balance, I think. ... What French women would tell me over and over is, it's very important that no part of your life — not being a mom, not being a worker, not being a wife — overwhelms the other part.'"

mama gets to work

Work and Dates
used to look more like this.

I've been craving more time to pursue my work, so we've made some positive changes around here. Leighton has cut down on hours from his position, meaning I now have a total of at least 25 hours to work each week: 15 in the morning when Lilly's in preschool, and 10 spread out on three afternoons. Two days a week I have a full 7 hours, and I still get to pick up a hungry, tired, mama-needy Lilly from preschool and spend a couple of hours with her before I head back to the library to write.

It's a good thing for us. Now I get to be the coveted, fun parent at the end of the day at least a couple days a week. And I'm more patient when I'm around Lilly, in general just happier to see and be with her.

now, where was i? diagnosed with add as an adult

I almost leaped up from the couch when my therapist asked if I'd ever been tested for ADD. Back in 2006, after my second round of therapy, I was almost convinced by a person I met at a conference that I had ADD. It would explain so many things! Difficulties concentrating in numerous ways that I had worked so hard to cover up and compensate for, especially as a scholar and teacher, and even as a friend.

I immediately called a friend I thought would sympathize, but was brushed off with a "that's just talk." How could I have achieved so much, intellectually and academically, if I had ADD?

why you shouldn't trust sleep experts {featured read}

I've always been skeptical to the universally prescriptive measures of sleep experts, so this new survey of 300 sleep studies analyzing more than a century of sleep experts' research, stood out to me for at least a couple of reasons. 1) For more than a century, children have consistently gotten less sleep than recommended guidelines. 2) Recommended guidelines change over time and appear to be pretty subjective. 3) The hectic pace of modern life has been blamed as the culprit throughout all the surveyed studies, dating from the late 19th century.

So perhaps they do need more sleep. But in reality, there is almost no evidence about how much sleep kids truly need to function their best. “We think for no particularly good reason that kids need more sleep than they’re getting,” says [senior author Tim Olds, a professor of health sciences at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, who studies health and how we use our time]. “People are always recommending kids sleep more than they do.” “Every so often a group of blokes get together and say, What do you recommend, boys? Should we push it up to 9 hours, 15 minutes? It really is like that, honestly. It’s an arbitrary public-health line in the sand that people draw.”
...
The take-home message, according to Olds? “Never trust sleep experts.”

Read the whole article at Time Healthland: A History of Kids and Sleep: Why They Never Get Enough

i could be tilling the soil

I am a stay-at-home-mama-writer who struggles with guilt. How about you? If you're a stay-at-home-parent who's also pursuing your own work, do you feel guilt too?

I posed this question to a friend and fellow mama-writer in town at a book reading she had from her hot-off-the-press stay-at-home mom manual earlier this week (cover pictured). She answered no, not so much; your standards sort of slide, she explained (as a mother of two).

I know I probably worry too much because I dread so much being anything like my mom. I also know it's my responsibility, and certainly not my child's, to set the boundaries I need to ensure I get enough done of what's important for me to stay sane.

We live in a more child oriented time than ever. Many of us structure our lives around our new babies (unlike tiger moms and French parents who apparently expect a baby to smoothly fit into the life they already have). I've written that:

i'm pregnant, but not in the typical way

I Am Not a Goner

This post is about giving birth. To a book. The two things I've been hoping the most for lately are a baby and a book. So, we've been having more sex (not a bad thing), and I've been working longer hours at night (yes; yet again). Now, listen to this: I submitted a query for my now soon-to-be-published book to the publisher (that has since offered me a contract) on the day I had penned down in my planner that I was probably ovulating. When I early one morning after that received a response telling me they were interested, and I jumped into bed to wake Leighton to tell him, his response was that it was just like when I jumped into bed years back to tell him my pregnancy test was positive.

And it felt the same way.

I really would like to be pregnant with a baby again too. I really would like another child in our little family.

But I really also want to give birth to a book. Recently, I've found myself intensely missing more of my professional self. I miss conferences and giving talks. Teaching college students. Having more patient students to teach. Engaging in more complex conversations.

good arguing is good for the family

Research shows that arguing can be good for your marriage, but only if it's done right, reports the Star Tribune. "There's a difference between 'good fighting' and 'bad fighting,' and the latter can be as destructive as the former is beneficial."

I grew up in a house of anger and never knew there was such a thing as "good" or "constructive" arguing until I met the family of my first boyfriend. A raised voice still reduces my body to a pit of dread. In my head, I know that it can be totally fine and healthy to engage in a heated argument, but my body just doesn't trust it.

I really struggle with this one, because I want to be a good role model for Lilly. I want to be able to demonstrate constructive-issue-oriented arguing to her (as opposed to destructive-people-oriented, intentionally hurtful and abusive fighting) but I still haven't been able to have an argument with Leighton without feeling death, even if, when looking back on it, the argument was in fact quite "good," and with a sense of closure, resolution, at the end. Says William Doherty, a professor in the University of Minnesota's Department of Family Social Science, about arguing in front of your children:

bad parenting: how much slack should we cut parents?

There's a post over at BlogHer that has provoked quite the storm of responses this past week, essentially for provoking moms who feel the author Issa Waters (of the blog Love Live Grow) isn't cutting them enough slack when she argues that "parenting isn't hard." But the claim is rhetorical, for Issa immediately states that, "okay, sometimes it is hard." Her point is that we cannot excuse abusive parenting with the dismissive "parenting is hard." Excerpt:

Sometimes I participate in a discussion about someone in public being mean to their child. By “being mean” I mean spanking, slapping, grabbing, yanking, dragging, yelling, name-calling, belittling, punishing and so forth. And there’s always someone in these discussions ready to declare that “parenting is hard” and we should therefore cut the parent some slack. And I just reject this wholeheartedly. It is not hard to not treat people like shit. Children are small, dependent people, and we should be doubly sure not to treat them like shit.

Parenting is the very act of caring for these smaller people. It should not be synonymous with treating them in abusive ways.

Say I’m in a McDonald’s. In a booth near me is what appears to be a romantically involved man and woman enjoying a meal together. Near the end of the meal, the woman accidentally knocks her soda over and it spills over the table and floor. The man leaps to his feet and yells, “Oh my god! I told you to be careful with that!” He grabs her by the arm and drags her out of the booth. “That’s the last time you get to have a medium drink!” He shoves her off to the side while he starts to clean up. “Go stand by the door, we’re going home right now!” After an initial little gasp at the spilled drink, the woman remains silent, body slack, eyes averted.

balance, schmalance and sheet therapy

I’ve read somewhere that depression is worrying about the past, and anxiety is worrying about the future. I've been doing a lot of both lately. And aside from writing about it here now and then, I haven't done that necessary murking around, as my therapist calls it, not to feel like there's this huge tsunami brewing that will wash over and drown me.

So I went back to therapy this week for a third round of serious murking around. I realized when talking with my therapist that I had somehow fooled myself into thinking that my previous rounds of therapy had, if not fixed me, at least sort of allowed me to take care of business and put it behind me. Not true. The wound inside will always be there. I can distract myself as best as I can, but it won't make it go away. And the more I avoid going there, the more I refuse to let it be part of me, the uglier and more ashamed I feel.

did you set out to sleep train your child?

Working on my sleep question book again, I'm struck by the absence of the hardcore sleep trainer. Sure, there are several moms and dads who've shared their experiences using some form of the Ferber method with its recommended intervals of crying, or the Baby Wise sleep scheduling and cry-it-out approach, or Dr. Weissbluth's solution of "controlled crying" or "all crying" ("extinction"), but I have yet to find a first-time parent that set out to sleep train from the get-go. While some are quicker to turn to sleep training, and all seem happy with the results, most moms and dads who've shared their experiences with me, resorted to sleep training as a final recourse after much sleepless agony.

When I started my sleep question project, I imagined I'd find one camp of co-sleepers and nurse-on-demand mamas, and another die-hard camp of sleep trainers and child behavior schedulers. What I've found instead are these murky waters of a lot of in-between and a-little-of-all.

Which is why I now wonder: is there anybody out there who set out to sleep train their firstborn child from the outset? Did you or do you know someone who did? Please comment or email me at anne(at)lovesexfamily.com. And please pass this on to other moms and dads. Thanks!

the other side of the holiday card

If you received our holiday card and think everything's swell over here, let me clarify:

Lilly went to summer school and nature camp and music camp over the summer. So she was prepared and very eager to start at her Montessori preschool. Every day she looks forward to school. We are proud of her and have heard many telling reports about how happy she is there, very social but also concentrated on her work.

This is all true, but fails to mention that Lilly has been sick with one cold after another all fall long, ending on a big note with an eye infection on the first day of the holiday break, after which followed strep throat symptoms. She remains under the weather.

Anne has more time to write, now that Lilly is at school every morning. She completed translating a manuscript into English, and is shopping it around at publishers. She has had very encouraging feedback from an agent and even a request for a proposal for her second book. All the time and effort she has put into creating her online platform—including three of her own websites—is starting to pay off, as she is now being sought out in both the US and Norway.