This Is What They Don't Tell You.

They don't tell you, when they tell you to pursue your dreams, that your students will look up at you like puppy dogs and ask, "Why are you leaving?" And you say that you are tired, and those stories you tell about your children staying awake too late and getting up too early and sometimes waking up in the middle of the night are all true stories. And they say, "But you're my favorite teacher!"

And you will feel sad and wish you hadn't decided to follow your bliss.

And then you will go pick up the kids, and one will fall down while he's running on the meadow, and his favorite shirt and favorite skirt will get all muddy, and you'll scoop him up (all 40 pounds) and say, "I know. It's not fun falling down."

Before the fall, you will ignore the 5-year-old girl who asks your son, every time he wears a skirt, why he is wearing a skirt. You will resist the urge to ask girls you don't know why they're wearing pants. No matter how cool you think it is that your boy loves skirts, you will feel violently, painfully protective of him, even though it doesn't seem to bother him that other kids ask him why he's wearing skirts and dresses.

After the tears stop, you'll go to your kids' favorite museum, because they've been wanting to go for two days, even though the thing they really want to climb on there will be wet and slippery and not at all fun. So you'll go back inside and do the same favorite things you've done all winter.

On the way there, you'll pull over in the same place you pull over every single Thursday, to let one child pee along the side of the road. Even though you know it will happen every single Thursday, you will find it frustrating and annoying beyond belief. Even if he's just four years old and more interested in playing and running and holding his baby doll than thinking about his bodily functions, the same functions which have consumed astonishing amounts of your energy, focus, and time since the moment of his birth. You might swear, quietly, under your breath.

Nobody tells you that parenting is a constant renegotiation and reconsideration of codes and rules that you'd never known existed. You'll sometimes tune out the children's conversation while you're driving to ponder why the dress code requires 3 and 4 and 5-year-old kids to wear shorts under their skirts, especially when shorts and a skirt and underpants are really just too many layers in the summertime.

You're going to feel like you won the lottery when the kid who never wants to pee anywhere but home agrees to go to the bathroom because he so obviously can't hold it anymore.

When the pee doesn't make a sound, it's because it is slowly soaking your kid's underpants. And the shorts under his skirt. But not the skirt. Thank god. Not the skirt. Nobody warns you that letting your kid go commando in a skirt at a children's museum produces an astonishing amount of anxiety—what rules are you breaking; who will ask you why your boy doesn't have any underpants on; and always the need to justify your choices to everyone else.

And when you finally get home, to the sanctum where anything goes, and you notice a tick on a scrotum (thank goodness we are not so strict about pants in our house), and you have to listen to an hour-long tantrum over the two-second extraction, nobody has warned you about how intense it is, to know that you have to do this unpleasant thing that every time feels like a violation of the secret covenant between you and your child: I will not hurt you. Because he doesn't understand right now that getting that tick out *is* not hurting him. That the fretting and worrying and watching for fever and rashes that starts every time we find another tick has good reason.

When the kids are finally in bed after fifty rounds of back-rubbing and leaking water cups and cries of "mommy, mommmmmmy!" you will lie in the dark with them and soak in the sound of their breathing, the touch of their toes under your body, their warm hands wrapped around your arm. You will lie there in the dark with tears streaming down your face. You will cry silently, feeling conflicted about crying over what wasn't really such a bad day, considering all the things that are awful in the world. And then you might, possibly, go write a blog post about it. In case someone else was wondering: how was your day? Consider yourselves warned.

My Kind of Morning

It was 19 degrees outside this morning when I went out to walk with a friend. We had a nice chat; we always do. And now I'm home in my toasty kitchen, enjoying the sounds of everyone sleeping—the silence and the snores. My coffee is warm and creamy. The day ahead will be long, possibly stressful. But this moment of solitude is perfect.

In This Moment

Some days are hard. Sometimes, it's hard to be at peace in the moment. Some days, there's one meltdown after another. Some days, I'm exhausted and just want everyone to be quiet. 

Eno River

So often, in the grind of work and tending little ones and tending to a home and adults who need feeding, too, it's easy to get caught up in what isn't going right—no nap, not enough time for yourself, not enough time to do everything, no way to do anything with two cranky three-year-olds. And then there are other days, days when even though one kid doesn't nap and it's hot and I'm tired we somehow manage to putter along happily all afternoon. Those days, I'm living as much in the moment as my kids are. I'm able to feel contented with this moment, with this life, with this place. 

What happens when he's having a hard time sleeping.

Usually, that feeling of ease emerges when we're able to spend the afternoon oscillating between backyard and kitchen, when I'm able to accomplish something I need to do, but not under pressure to do it all. When I'm able to pay attention to what the boys need, able to be unruffled. The backyard is a naturally peaceful place, full of birds chirping, soothing breezes and an unending variety of creepy-crawly life. 

Checking out some worms.

I have a master plan to plant a bunch of stuff in the yard, which is at this moment a total blank slate. But a knee injury has had me sidelined since February, and while I'm almost all healed, I'm still not up for digging a bunch of grass up for hours every week. 

Yep. The whole yard looks just like this.

Still, dirt is good. Soil on your hands is grounding (ahem). I want to say something profound about how slowing down and working with the earth and watching plants grow makes me a better mom and a better person. But I've kind of said that already, before kids. So, I found a few pots at garage sales, and spray-painted an old file cabinet that our neighbor was giving away. The afternoons that we've spent loading dirt into pots, planting, and watering have been absolute bliss.

Not shown: sleeping brother.

We dug together, planted together, and now I look outside and can enjoy the sight of things growing.

Gardening with my kids is much less stressful than cooking with them. No matter how patient I try to be, I can only cook with the boys about once a week before I get frustrated with the legos in the batter and the hands in the raw meat. Outside, there isn't much harm they can do aside from too-vigorously separating root balls or overwatering. Outside, where nothing can break or spoil, not really, is heaven. 

Maybe it's their wonder at the green and growing world.

I am happy to make the shift from grass to garden one day at a time, to stretch out the hours my boys and I spend digging and patting and tending and exploring. I miss our old garden, but this new space gives us the infinite promise of tomorrow's work. We have plenty to do. 

It's Working.

I am not perfectly good at all the stuff I am constantly advocating for—mindful, positive parenting, being patient with my toddlers' dawdling, not getting upset when they do something I think is wrong, like hit each other. But I practice and practice and practice (thankfully we have a lot of chances to practice around here!).

This is something I say over and over: "You're disappointed/frustrated/upset. It's ok to let your feelings out. When you're done, we can talk about it. I'm right here. I will listen to you."

We've been struggling with naps for about 8 months now. Nick needs a nap; Dash sometimes doesn't—he tells me he's "having a hard time sleeping" and refuses to lie down, much less sleep. One of the pieces of advice we've gotten is that when the nap doesn't happen (or even if the kid in question doesn't hold the "quiet time" quietly), whatever outing we were planning on after nap can't happen. This is partly because the non-napper inevitably falls asleep in the car, thus creating havoc at bedtime and making for a very cranky kid when I wake him up after a 5-minute snooze. So we mostly stay at home or just go places where we can walk on days when naps don't happen.

What gets us through no-nap time? Smoothie and markers for D, coffee for me.

The other day, we were planning to go to the library after nap. I told Dash that if he didn't nap, we wouldn't be able to go because he'd fall asleep in the car and would be too cranky. He didn't nap. When Nick woke up from his nap, Dash asked if we were going to the library. Of course, I said, "no, you didn't nap." And he was furious. But I held the line, listened to his feelings, gave him space. He likes to stomp off into another room and cry in there; after months of trying to get him to let me hold him, I've learned to just go check in on him periodically. So I let him do his thing for a while. And then I checked in with him. He wasn't ready to talk. I checked in again. He said, "I'm crying right now." I checked in again. This time, our conversation went like this:

Me: How are you feeling now, Dashie?
Dash: I'm all done crying now. We didn't go to the library because I didn't nap.
Me: You feel better now?
Dash: Yes.
Me: We'll go to the library tomorrow.
Dash: Ye-eah! I want to play with trucks now!

It is so hard to listen to our kids cry when they don't get what they want. It is so worth it.

And yes, we went to the library the next day.

Rituals

People have been writing about how family dinners are Very Important for quite a while. And lots of my friends have family meals every night with their kids. I'm sure we will one day, too.

But for now, our dinners at home go something like this:

Offspring 1: I don't *like* this soup.

Me: You don't have to eat it. You can eat your bread.

Offspring 2: I don't *like* bread.

Offspring 2: [makes gagging noises]

Me: Can you just chew it up? I don't want you to spit it in my hand.

Offspring 1: I'm all done!

Me [after consuming a total of three bites of food]: Ok, let's wash your hands!

Sigh. Our dinners out are much better; our kids have always enjoyed restaurants in moderation and only rarely have we wished we hadn't gone out to eat. But at home, none of us are quite so patient.

So no family dinners yet; the fellas eat at their little table, usually with several trucks. We often eat with them, but aren't trying to have a proper meal. 

Anyway, this isn't really a post about dinner. It's about what we do to connect instead of having family dinner for now. As most of you know, practicing gratitude is really good for kids (and adults), just like family dinners are. 

Back in December, our kids brought home these groovy, gnomy gifts for us from school:

We decided to light the candles after dinner, before bedtime. And we just never stopped. On the second night, we started asking, in the manner of Rabbit's Bedtime, "What was good about your day?" We all go around, each taking turns. The boys sometimes remember to ask each of us or each other and sometimes ask themselves. If they don't remember, then we ask.

And now Candle Time is sacred. I can't imagine a night without it. We offer some bedtime snacks (usually fruit and cheese), and sit around all enjoying each other's company. No one is fighting. No one is doing something else. We're just listening and hanging out. 

Here's a list of some things my kids have been grateful for over the last few days:

one time, I picked up this orange digger and digged in the snow.
I played with Dashie.
Daddy took me park.
Mommy, you came and picked me up after nap I was sad at naptime said where's my mommy and then you picked me up after nap.
We went out to dinner! and had burgers!
[in late December] We woke up and the stockings were ALL FULL!
[after a particularly tough day] I don't have anything.

I love hearing what they have to say. 

I love the neatness of the transition—we have to make the house relatively dark for the magic to take hold, and we just don't turn up the lights afterward. Everyone knows what comes next. 

We blow out the candle and do a little chant, raising one arm with the smoke: Up. Up! UP! WAY UP there!!

And just like that, it's bedtime. And that's its own set of rituals, equally sacred. 

Play 'Gether

This post is for the parents of multiples whose kids are still under two. This is for the mom who sent this link to the twins club. Excerpt:

Things will never get back to “normal”—as you defined normal when you were single—when you were childless. Never.

This is true. We're deluding ourselves if we think that we can add any other human being to our family lives and still be the same person, the same normal that we were before. Never mind adding two at once! The thing to do, then, is to focus not on how you've lost your true self, but to see what's still the same, what's left at the core. And to nurture that. So maybe you don't go to yoga five days a week anymore. Maybe you have to redefine what "doing yoga" means—a deep breath is yoga.

But I digress. Let us back on track:

It changes. You get better. You grow. Learn. And that little squealer—that awesome toddler—that slightly evil three-year-old—he grows. Learns. Changes. It gets better. When you learn and change and grow and all that—it all gets better.

It does get better: now when the boys are fighting over a toy, I often hear one of them declare "play 'gether!" And they do.

This is what change, what better looks like: I spent an hour bored on the couch while my boys played a trashcan game. Pictured above: clearing out the bins in order to dump more trash.

More better: An outing to the park during which I spent 40 minutes "punching tickets" with my phone while the boys went for a "train ride."

This is a train. I believe they're dismounting...

D is collecting more tickets to punch. N seems to be meditating.

Not everything is photo-worthy, but also nice are the small daily kindnesses I see these two bestow on each other. Almost every skirmish over a toy ends with a "Here, Dashie!" or "Nicky's turn!"—unprompted by me. The ones that don't end that way end with words like "Dashie sad. Dashie cry." (often followed by "Here, Dashie!").

Most better: I was too tired to carry anyone from car to house, so I suggested that they find another way. Dash tried to get Nick to pick him up; Nick had a different idea.

Good idea, Nick!

How can we make holding hands even more fun?

Well, we could climb stairs while holding hands.

Almost two-and-a-half is tiring and frustrating in many, many ways. But it's still much easier than  juggling two newborns.

Talking to Kids

I'm thinking a lot today about how we speak to people, and even more, how we speak to kids. Now, I'm certainly no saint in this regard—my whole life, I've been told (mostly by my parents) that my tone of voice gives away my true feelings. But I'm working hard especially with my kids to be aware of what I say, why, and how I say it. The book Simplicity Parenting offers a lovely set of guidelines to consider before speaking:

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

Not everything I say in my children's presence meets all three of these criteria (and certainly not when I'm eye-rolling to a friend about the woman I saw telling her 2.5 year-old to "use your core!" when lifting a heavy toy). But I do try to keep them in mind when I'm speaking to my kids. Why? In my experience, our kids understand everything we say, and internalize the messages we send with our tone and our body language, even if they don't actually know what all the words mean. 

Here's the gist of what it means to communicate with your kids (from Janet Lansbury's lovely post explaining the basics of RIE):

Be clear. Be honest. That's what our kids really need.

There's a world of difference between being frustrated and taking out your frustration on your kids. And learning to be kind and clear is hard, especially when you're trying to help your two toddlers brush their teeth and go to bed. Sometimes, you catch yourself turning into the Monster Mommy (you know, growly and cranky), and you have to stop and go in another room and take a breath. Or five breaths. And then you sit down with that toddler and listen, really listen to what he has to say (even if all he has to say is screaming).

Every day is another chance to practice.

No Time?

Kinds of blue

I have writer friends who say they don't have time to write. Yet they have time to post on Facebook about not having time to write, time to post Instagram photos of the food they're eating in restaurants, time to eat in restaurants. Time is something much on my mind these days. I can see hints in my toddlers' movements of the little boys they will become. Sometimes, in the right light, I can see the men they will one day be.

Let's check out the "yocks" over there!

Time moves too fast, so often. Here's something I want to tell my friend (and my students!) about time and about writing: I don't have time to write, either. I need that time to delight in the amazingness that is two growing boys. I need that time to grade papers, to buy groceries, to run, to do yoga. Whole weeks, months sometimes, go by without my sitting down for an hour or two to compose my thoughts. But I still think of myself as a writer. Eventually, some of the ideas I jot down here and there will get refined, between the laundry and bedtime, between the papers and prepping, between the breaths. This is what it means to me to be a writer. If I waited until I had time to write, I'd never write a single word.

My job takes up most of my non-toddler time. I can't seem to find the focus or space I need in order to grade at home—there's the possibility that someone will wake up at naptime, or at night I zone out by mindlessly surfing Facebook or watching Tremé. So I go to a café near the UC Berkeley campus that stays open late. Two rooms of tables are packed with folks mostly working, heads bent over laptops, textbooks, or stacks of papers. I walk in, and I'm transported back to my days as a graduate student, when I could count on running into my friends at our favorite coffee shop or the library's café. We'd grade companionably, or read for seminars while gossipping. I loved the texts I was studying in school, but even more than that, I loved those long days and nights spent sipping coffee and working, the sense that we all belonged to the peculiar tribe of people who spend Saturday nights grading papers and reading books. Now, I hurry home by 9:30 instead of staying out until the library closes and heading out to dance afterward. But the café gives me the illusion for those two hours that I have turned the clock back, that I am back with my tribe. 

I am editing this piece while the boys nap. It's risky. I suppose that I could also be doing something else—watching a show, reading yet another parenting book, working on college recommendation letters. And all of those things will be done in time too. But right now I have more interest in wringing these thoughts out, so I can move on and think of something else. I choose to write. Maybe my friends who say they don't have time to write simply choose to do something else.

Spending some time watching paint dry. Literally.

Waking Up

My class read an excerpt from the opening of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past for today's discussion. As a prelude to the discussion, we're writing about waking up. Here's my contribution:

I am startled out of my dream. I still see the waves closing over a spit of sand, the tide coming in. I was on an island, desperately trying to preserve some books (from what? I'm not sure) by slinging reusable grocery bags over my shoulders. I was holding the hand of someone tall, lanky, and blond. The waves rolled over us; we were underwater. I surfaced, with bags but no books. Climbed to the town on higher ground, still seeking the weighty load that had vanished under the sea. Darkness. Then I notice the edges of the curtains and the glow of the light outside. I swim out from the sea into my room. I am warm, sweating. My husband slumbers and snores next to me. I hear the BART train whoosh by with its ghostlike howl. What woke me up? The children are silent. It is four fifty-five, the glow of my clock tells me. For a week we've been waking up at four fifty-five. But no one is crying this time. I want to pull the covers over my head, go back to sleep, not start the day just yet. I roll over, hoping to find the waves, the shore, the books again.

Having It All

By now, everyone has read Anne-Marie Slaughter's article in The Atlantic—if you haven't, the gist is that even (or especially) women who have accomplished great things in their professional lives find the demands joys of parenthood to be a significant challenge to their ability to continue on the paths they've chosen. She argues that her generation of feminists has been telling women that they can "have it all" (career, family, self-fulfillment) if they just work hard enough, long enough, but that this message is deceptive and untrue. There are thousands of responses I'll never read (if I did read them all, I'd never write this post; this is a good one whose excellent points I won't directly address here). But I want to mention a couple of the ideas that came up for me as I was reading Slaughter's piece and a couple other pieces.

First, it goes without saying that I'm hardly in the category of "alpha leaders." High school English teachers don't exactly run the world, important as our jobs may be.  And I don't want to run the world. I want to garden, do yoga, and watch my boys grow up. I've made compromises already, scaled back my ambitions for the next ten or more years, as Dana Shell Smith asserts one must do even in an "insanely demanding job." Teaching is an insanely demanding job, even without the ambitions I have put on hold. Being a parent who is present as much at home as at work requires somehow fitting that insanely demanding job into very little time. But would it have made such an impression if, as a friend said to me, an English teacher had written 13,000 words about how hard it is to balance work, life, and ambition? Another friend pointed out that it's not just women with children who find balancing work and life difficult. She's right: some of the most over-worked people I know are childless men. Clearly, the system we live with isn't fair or pleasant for many (most?) of us. Indeed, people without kids often feel (whether correctly or not) that they're unduly burdened with expectations that do not fall on the shoulders of those with young children. I know I felt that way in the past.

And Slaughter herself admits that she's hardly the spokesperson for all women or all people—she has incredible privilege; after all, she left DC to go back to work as a tenured professor at Princeton. But her privilege does give her the opportunity to be heard. The part of her point that I felt most resonance with is that for many women the definitions of happiness and balance change when kids come along, and we're left with trying to choose among the things we love; the idea that this is in any way a choice for  women is a fallacy, according to Slaughter. Slaughter quotes Senator Jeanne Shaheen:

“There’s really no choice.” She wasn’t referring to social expectations, but to a maternal imperative felt so deeply that the “choice” is reflexive.

Children trump all—whether that means putting career plans on hold or working extra jobs to provide for their needs. Given my recent experience with just trying to tread water in my own career and life, never mind feeling fulfilled on all fronts, I'd have to agree with her.

After an adult life spent defining myself by all the things that I do, the shift to the so-called mommy track is hard.  I love the interactions with my students, the stimulation of the reading and thinking and talking that goes on in the classroom. I love the energy of adolescence, the perspective I'm gaining on learning as I watch my children grow. And I miss being the go-to gal for a presentation on integrating digital tools into the classroom. I miss feeling satisfied with hours spent in the garden. I miss calling my mom just to chat in the middle of the afternoon. I miss having friends at work chat with me about movies or books or TV; during the school year, I miss having friends.

But I'm home with the boys for the summer, and I'm quite relieved not to switch roles twice a day. I can just be a mom. It's so much more work than being at work. I'm not doing as much prepping for the school year as I should be doing. But I'm taking Sunday mornings off to go to yoga. I'm swimming once a week. I'm taking a dance class. I'm watching TV with my husband after the kids go to bed. No, I'm not gardening, but it's only a matter of time. I'm cooking a little, here and there. I'm making friends who are moms and meeting up with friends who aren't moms, too. For these eight weeks, I have just about enough.

"theory always comes after practice"

So says Brother Jack to Invisible Man's narrator (359). While the context is very different from the context in which I'm writing today, it does seem an appropriate idea to share. Every time I think something will work in my classroom, I don't know for sure until I've practiced it. Sometimes my theories work. Often, they don't. Of course, that makes the working theories so much the sweeter. And then again, the same idea may not work with a different group of students. I'm seeing that firsthand in my use of a ning in my classes: with one class, it created a sense of community and communication. In a different class, it feels like a dusty corner of the room that people only visit under compulsion. Much less organic, and much less productive.

You never know until you try.

Changes

So, I just realized that it has been months since I last posted. Here are the things that have happened since November:

1. We bought a house.
2. The love of my life got a new job.
   
3. I started an Anusara yoga immersion, chock-full of insights into my practice.
   
4. I found a Dream Job, at an excellent school in San Francisco. I'm excited about the new school, but sad to be leaving the old one, particularly about leaving my advisees.
   
5. I went on a weekend-long retreat for teens as an adult helper.
   

I've been busy.



All this busy-ness has been good in some ways. The teen retreat in particular gave me time to reflect on the many changes that have recently taken place.

The house is great. The man's new job is OK, though it takes him away from home for 3 days every week right now, which leaves me feeling somewhat unmoored; on the other had, I do get to do things like spend an evening at Spirit Rock, like I did last night. That's a good thing. About the immersion: I'm psyched to be working on my yoga practice in a new, deeper way. In many ways, deepening my yoga and meditation practices couldn't have happened at a better moment.

A story from my practice: three weeks ago, the night before a day-long interview at the Dream School, my teacher asked me to demo a handstand assist. I have a long and painful history with adho mukha vrksasana -- despite my ecstatic moments with it last fall, I have deep mistrust of my body's ability to hold itself up. And fear of falling/failing, of course. I initially balked at demoing the pose. I've done a couple of demos in class before, but never a pose I've had such a hard time with. But some voice in me said to just get out there & do it. So I told her I'd give it a try. And I felt strong and supported and safe and all those good things that come from practicing in a warm, wonderful space, with a wonderful teacher. I took from that class a sense of confidence and awe that I then carried into my interview; I don't think I would have felt so confident and open during the interview if I hadn't had to push myself beyond my yogic edge that night.

I tell that story because my teacher told it to the class tonight (I was both honored and embarrassed), in the context of a lesson on stepping into life with your practice in your heart. Not necessarily written on your sleeve, though my yoga practice is known to anyone who speaks with me for more than 30 minutes. But living from the heart, and generating all of your actions from the heart, is living your yoga -- carrying the practice off the mat.

My feelings about having stepped into that pose in front of a room of people reminded me of what I think is most important about developing as a teacher and as a human being: there is never a perfect pose; there is only true, genuine, honest intention. Everything we do can be done better, but should be done with honesty. That's another post..