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.” [...]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

teaching preschoolers about the pagan roots of yule

I taught college students for years, but when I joined Lilly's Montessori preschool this week to introduce the children to some of my native Yule traditions and customs, I felt myself a bit jittery. It's almost embarrassing to confess how much time I spent mulling over my "lesson plan." Thinking about how I would go about doing it all, teaching the children a little about the pagan roots of jul (from the old Norse jól) while keeping their attention and having them interact with me. My goal was also to semi-teach (I didn't expect them to learn all the Norwegian words!) a julesang (Yule song) with its dance around the tree.

I really wanted the children to experience that sense of joy and magic, which I imagine once experiencing as a child celebrating jul at my grandma's. But you can't force or fake that sentiment; it has to be true.

So, I began by asking the children if they celebrate Christmas, and that of course got everyone animated, talking excitedly on top of one another. About Rudolph and presents, and the Grinch (and how did he steel Christmas again?). One boy pointed out that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birthday. Many talked about having a tree, and I asked if any of them would dance around it. No one did. Then I told them that where I come from, for more than a hundred years, people have brought a tree into the house, decorating it much like people do here. But unlike most people here, people dance and sing around the juletre (Yule tree) on julaften (Yule eve) and at several tree parties thereafter.

home is where we light a candle: on homesickness at Christmas

Digging through Christmas decorations, I recently came across a printout of a chapel talk I gave as a college professor at St. Olaf College ten years ago for a Norwegian Christmas service. Christmas is sort of unavoidably in the air these days, so I thought I'd share it with you all for sentimental reasons. Those of you who know me, will understand that this issue of 'homesickness' is complex to me, to say the least. And you'll know that to me it's all about jól and not Krist-messe (Christ-mass).

I suspect everyone feels homesick at Christmas. Even those who're "at home" experience, I think,  a sense of homesickness; a yearning for Christmas as it "once was."

It is a bittersweet sense of loss and nostalgia. On the one hand, it is a recognition that we can never go back to this "once was." On the other hand, it is a nurturing of this "once was." Finally, it is a suspicion that it never really existed, and that it fares better in our emotional and imaginative world.

now ... give your uncle a kiss

I found this post at The Current Conscience quite poignant in light of the holiday season and the heightened attention to child sex abuse. Excerpt:

How often, especially during the holidays, are children confronted with moments like this one: a relative comes to visit and the child’s parents say something like, “Now, give your uncle a hug and kiss.”

And when the child refuses to provide physical affection, or hesitates at the request, they sometimes hear things like, “You’re hurting your uncle’s feelings. It’s not polite. Now, go give him a hug and kiss.”

Some of us even remember our relatives asking us (some may say pleading or begging) for affection, “Aren’t you going to give me a hug and kiss? Please?!”

I think this insisting and cajoling of a child into showing physical affection towards an adult is incredibly dangerous. Whether it’s a relationship between a child and his/her relatives or one between a kid and an adult who is an acquaintance, family friend, mentor, this type of behavior, in which children are expected to show physical affection as a sign of respect, is something I think we all need to be careful about.

For me, it’s about the issue of when a child gives us the sense that they don’t want to be physically affectionate with someone, and our tendency to encourage the child, at that particular moment, to abandon their intuition and instinct. It’s a small step towards the erosion of that child’s sense of self-trust.

At that moment, we are telling them, “Forget about how you feel. Do something that makes you feel uncertain and uncomfortable, so that someone else (an adult) can feel acknowledged and respected.”
Read more at The Current Conscience >>

women with "wrong" bodies and attempts at healing

Lilly and I: May she never be
told her body is "wrong."

Women are constantly bombarded with imageries that tell them there's somehow something wrong with their bodies; that they don't measure up. But this post is not about those kind of "wrong" bodies. This post is about when Western medicine tells women their bodies don't function right; that they're "wrong."

I got this message from an early age. Feeling unsafe at home, I suffered from insomnia from an early age. I had headaches, frequent colds, and in general a poor constitution. There were concerns I would go deaf when I grew up because my hearing was "poor" (I think it was selective). And they wanted to test me for diabetes since I was "too thirsty" all the time (see, I've always been a swiller.)

The real problems started when I "failed" to get my period. I maybe had a little spotting at some point late in middle school, but it never developed into anything. When I was 18, this was cause for alarm. There were frequent hormone tests and attempts at jumpstarting my period with strong birth control pills; pills that were later taken off the market because of near fatal side effects.

on the soothing powers of friendship and pumpkin patches

Thanks to MEA, I had a lovely day that gave me much reprieve from dealing with the age of spite. I know I was so looking forward to having Lilly in preschool for three hours each morning, giving me much craved time to write. But the thing is, it's not much time. And at 11:30, I get to pick up a very tired and hungry child (think that's fun?). Then there's the testing, testing, testing (of limits) before we finally read books. Then the pre-nap ordeals before a nap that never feels long enough. Before she's up again, yet again famished and groggy, still not quite awake. This is when I pop in a DVD for her to watch while I exhaustedly juggle serving her food and otherwise catering to her needs (and desperately still attempting to hold down those limits), as I also try to finish up some work on my laptop, tidy up the house, and make dinner.

By the time Leighton's home by six, I'm in shutdown mode.

See, mornings are for all the fun stuff (as well as those necessary errands that I now find myself cramming to get done). Mornings are for play-dates and hanging out with friends. Mornings are for the rock mamas who know how to make the best of each morning.

Afternoons are no fun. Afternoons are tired. From lunch through nap to dinner, the long afternoon hours have me sinking down into a murky swamp where I find myself barely holding on.

And afternoons are lonely. Tied to the house, settling in for nap or recovering from one, preparing, cleaning up or yet again preparing a meal, they are impossible for scheduled play-dates or other fun things.

age of spite

In the US, we talk about the "terrible twos" but in my native Norway we talk about "the age of spite," and it begins at three (trassalderen). We are so dealing with that right now. Which is why I broke into tears reading the book that arrived as our monthly free gift from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library this week: Old Bear and His Cub.

Old Bear loved his Little Cub with all his heart.
Little Cub loved Old Bear with all his heart.
Every morning they ate breakfast together.
"Eat all your porridge, Little Cub," said Old Bear.
"No, I won't," said Little Cub.
"Yes, you will," said Old Bear.
"No, I won't," said Little Cub.

Old Bear stared hard at Little Cub.
Little Cub ate his porridge.
All of it.

The book takes us along their day through more exchanges of obstinent spitefulness and persistent determinedness.

I giggled my way through the pages until I got to the end.

sex & conception: the heartaches of calculated pregnancies

Me and Lilly, June 2008

We've been trying to have another baby. We've been trying for more than two years. Granted, I did only get my period back this past spring, a couple of months before she turned three and she told me there was no more left.

I was overjoyed when my period returned in April. I have hated it whenever it's since paid its monthly visit.

It always bothered me I never knew when we actually conceived Lilly. Back then, we were newly married and could act like rabbits. Sex wasn't something we planned or decided to do; it just happened. Often. It was sweet.

Things are a little a lot more complicated now. I'm a fan of the quicky; weekend "naps" are great. When they happen, that is. As far as I can remember, Lilly has always resisted naps, and especially during the weekend when she has both parents around. By the time Lilly's in bed at night, we're all exhausted.