Lonely Mommy, or, One About Friends

Just a quick note to let subscribers know that my most recent blog post is up over at Girlfriendcircles.com, a website run by a dear and brilliant friend that helps match women who want local friends. In many ways, motherhood seemed like the ticket to a whole new world of community and belonging, but I found it difficult to make truly deep friendships with other moms and have floundered a bit while figuring out how to make friendship a priority and something I want to model for Lily. Here's the full post.

Longing for Home

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” -Maya Angelou

Our "city girl" just around the corner from our flat.

Lately Lily is very into pretend play. One of her favorite questions is to ask me where I live, and she’s not looking for the straight answer. She mastered the fact that we live in a city called “San Francisco” months ago. No, she wants an exotic location.

“Machu Picchu,” I’ll answer (or some other fun destination).

“Is it faraway or close by?”

“Far away.”

“You have to take a bus there?

“Oh yes—or maybe even an airplane.”

“Are there babies there? And girls? And kittens?” That’s the ticket for her—babies to comfort? Girls and kittens to play with? She’s definitely going to visit me.

This game is just as fun for her in reverse, and the names she makes up for where she lives are so exotic I sometimes have a hard time repeating them. Lewis Carroll would have been in awe.

I’ve actually been playing a similar game in my own head lately. Lily’s criteria for what makes a place a good one to live—babies, girls, and kittens—might not be quite what mine are, but it turns out I’ve got my own criteria for the where-will-our-family-really-settle-our-roots game.

I’m finding this game hard and not much fun.

No question, the city by the bay has been good to us.Here’s my challenge: I love living in San Francisco. There is much about this city that has energized and nurtured me the past seven years that I’ve called it home. There’s a vibe, an energy that I resonate with here—it’s an openness to ideas, a commitment to authenticity, and an acceptance of people. And, really dang good food. Just around the corner.

I recently read an article by an SF traveler who was told by several people on a trip to India that he was lucky to live in the “spiritual center of the earth.” This idea surprised him, as San Francisco is often described as quite secular, but as he asked around, he was told repeatedly that yes, for hundreds of years the spiritual center of the world was India, but now it’s San Francisco. The “spiritual center of the earth" was defined by a teacher as “the place where new ideas meet the least resistance.”

That is definitely the sense I have living here—this town is one place where you can try any idea, be anything you want. It’s liberating to know people will respect you for trying. I know I wouldn’t be producing a documentary about the identity challenge faced by gay and lesbian Seventh-day Adventists if I didn’t live in this city. And, living here, I don’t have to worry about someone defacing my Obama bumper sticker on our car like a woman did at a trailhead on our last trip to San Diego.

But I have grown increasingly anxious when I think about our future here. It’s not at all about the challenges of raising a child in the city. Lily runs in the Presidio woods just around the corner from us almost every day finding banana slugs, watching the resident heron, and occasionally spotting a great-horned owl. We have five parks within easy walking distance, several favorite cafes a few blocks away for afternoon hot chocolate treats, and world-class destinations like the Academy of Sciences, De Young Museum, and the splendor of Golden Gate Park just a bike ride away. Lily not only has easy access to nature, she has cultural opportunities that I never had in my idyllic country upbringing. And she’s growing up in a diverse environment. She won’t likely scream in terror at the sight of an African man as I apparently did at age two in the small town we lived in at the time in Walla Walla, Washington.

But, here’s the thing: I’m a tree by nature. I’m someone who wants to foster and gather community around me, sinking my roots in deep. And I am finding it hard to imagine ever owning a home in this city or even affording a rental big enough to host Saturday suppers, book clubs, and the sorts of playtime with neighboring families that helps kids actually grow up friends.

I’ve been too busy lately to admit this growing angst to myself and even a little ashamed. I don’t want to be this shallow. I want to be a bigger person about materialistic things. I don’t want to grumble every time I have to circle to find parking. I don’t want to be the type of person who would move for in-unit laundry. I don’t want to be the type of person who looks enviously at the big, warm yards of my wealthier mom friends whose homes I bring Lily to play at. I don’t want to be the cliché family that moves out of the city when it’s time to think about schools.

I’ve been Googling things like, “Great places to live with a family outside San Francisco” and checking out home prices, but I’ve been doing it late at night when the rest of the house is asleep.

That is a nice big yard...Part of the problem is that I don’t know where else we would live. I had a moment of bliss yesterday in the warmth of Larkspur, but housing prices there pose the same problem. I’ve been having strange fantasies about Vermont. And I’m pretty sure I’ve been imaging a home garden scene straight out of The Bernenstain Bears. If only my criteria were as easy as babies, girls, and kittens…I think we could manage those. (I’d add easier and more affordable babysitting to my list. Being near family does have one mighty big perk in this department.)

But I want to feel this same sort of energy and openness that I love about San Francisco in a place with decent home prices, vibrant schools, great walkability, and good weather, and, while I’m dreaming, my friends and family nearby. What I’m talking about at some level is a spiritual issue. I’m feeling like I haven’t quite found my tribe, or, possibly, that I’ve found them, but I don’t have the personal energy and space to find true community with them.

Part of this challenge must come from the fact that I was raised in an almost utopian environment, at least from a kids’ perspective. My dad taught at a private boarding school in the country, and we grew up running wild in the hills, riding horses for hours on end, and having close friends all living in the same neighborhood whose houses we ran in and out of as if they were our own. Everyone was the same religion—Seventh-day Adventist—so there was a shared culture, language, and worldview that could be assumed. We were a tribe.

But that world is no longer open to me (mainly by my choosing), and I couldn’t actually do what my parents did, even though it was a fabulous life for my sister and me. It feels like such a big responsibility to pick home for Lily, to pick the place that will mean (I hope) comfort and love, the place that she'll always carry a small piece of in her heart. Of course where I/we are happy, she is most likely to be happy and at peace, but I'm finding it a lot harder to imagine home in the realm of the real.

I’ve promised myself not to do anything drastic for now. I’m trying just to sit with this, to observe myself. Given the intensely cold and foggy summer we’ve had in the Richmond district this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if my mood changes considerably with more sunshine. I forgive the city a host of ills on beautiful days.

I napped with Lily yesterday. When we stirred two hours later, she was laying on her side, facing me, still in the final clutches of sleep. She reached over, touched my face, said, “Hi Mommy,” and then simply held my hand for a full five minutes. We lay there in a dreamlike space, and I felt myself relax at a core level.

This must be what if feels like to be at home wherever we find ourselves. 

Having What I Have: Another Piece on Gratitude

I don’t know what it says about my parenting that for the past two Mother’s Days, I’ve ended up requesting time without my child to just rest and recharge. Last year I ended up asking Stephen to take Lily without me to the family BBQ while I just had a day alone (see "Being Selfish for Mother's Day"), and this year my mother-in-law generously agreed to watch Lily for the weekend so my husband and I could rest and enjoy some couple time. When you parent together and work together, it can be easy to have the illusion of time spent together when in reality we’re sometimes living in close proximity, taking care of the business of running the house, working on the film, and watching Lily without actually interacting with each other in a quality manner, especially while feeling rested and relaxed. 

One gift that comes to me when I rest and have some alone time is the chance to reflect. You can tell how often this happens by how often I manage to blog! This really is a space I’ve come to value as a chance to process, reflect, and witness the journey.

This weekend, especially after a long nap, what keeps coming up for me is a phrase I heard a few weeks ago at a talk at our JCC by Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food, and God and Lost and Found. She and her husband lost their life savings in the Bernie Madoff scam, and she had to do a lot of hard thinking about a pretty taboo topic: money. Even though she really did have true financial worries, she also realized that even prior to finding out that Madoff was a fraud she'd never appreciated what she had (and it was a very comfortable amount). She's always worried about what could go wrong. She was insatiable.

She talked about the “trance of depravation” that we frequently find ourselves in, unable to actually “have what we have.” We keep waiting to feel grateful until we get “there,” but we don’t define what “there” means for us or question the assumptions and beliefs behind where we’ve gotten our ideas about the value of “there.”

I wondered if she could read my mind. I have often found myself in a cycle of depravation—the moment something I’ve been worrying about or wanting to have happen gets resolved, I hardly pause for a breath before I move on to the next big want or worry. Even when things go really, really well, I can easily think of what might go wrong or the next angst-ridden issue rattling around in my head keeping my mind occupied on what I don’t have instead of resting in the gratitude of what I do have.

Lately the “what I do have” column is pretty amazing. Not only is our film starting to take shape after two years of work, but the post-production funding is starting to come in. We live next door to an incredibly beautiful forest, even though we also live within walking distance of city amenities (like great eateries, parks, and libraries).

And Lily is just bursting with personality.

Life with Lilybird is filled with a lot of chatter (seriously, this child is incredibly out-going and can talk most anyone in circles), imaginary play, and joyful moments of pure being. The imaginary play is especially fun to watch and encourage. She has a host of imaginary friends who have been coming to visit lately (some live in our tree and fly in through the breakfast window for tea or hot chocolate, some want to play in the bathtub, others visit randomly). And she likes to pretend to be a doctor or patient several times a day. She tells me to “lay down on your special pad,” (she got this from a friend), and then she’ll listen to my heart, check my eyes, ears, and teeth, and even re-attach my fingers (she thought of this one morning playfully). She even likes to play “Monster” right now. She either pretends to be a monster about to steal my food, or she’ll want Stephen or me to pretend to steal her food (she prefers playing monsters with Stephen, probably because he’ll really chase her around the house). So far she tells me that the monsters are nice, but I have tried to preempt scary monsters by saying you can get rid of monsters by tickling them. We’ll see how that works.

Of course we have some classic two-year-old moments too—there is some high drama, especially around transitions and sharing (and especially if she’s tired). But really, toddlers are incredible teachers about how to live in the moment. Sometimes that’s a moment of utter anguish, but it’s often total, unfettered joy—it’s where they want to live, and it’s where Lily naturally lands, especially if she’s rested (I could learn something here….).

A highlight for me right now is dancing in the kitchen after a meal. Lily has always loved rhythm and music, and one of her favorite things to do is listen to music and dance. Here’s how it often goes:

“Mommy, play some music on your computer.”

“What’s that magic word that Mama likes to hear when you want something?” I asked pointedly.

“Pleeeease play some music!”

“Oh, of course! Thank you for asking so nicely.”

Sometimes she has a particular request (she likes big, grand pieces right now—and I mean grand, as in The Hallelujah Chorus). If I choose, I put on something fun to move to like The Macarena or Papa Loves Mambo. She starts dancing and quickly wants company.

“Mommy, dance with me,” she’ll command, while holding out her hands. Soon she’ll get Stephen into the action too if he’s home.

“Come Daddy! Dance with us!” And she’ll hold out a hand. So there we’ll all be, dancing in our little kitchen. Her face is absolutely lit up in utter joy—and she seriously can bust some fun dance moves. For me, having been raised a good Adventist who didn’t dance or dwell on the pleasures of the body, it’s liberating and healing to move with abandon, enjoying my body and the positive group energy that comes from our little family kitchen dance.

It’s bliss, really. And getting an opportunity to rest and reflect this weekend helps me recognize that bliss and have what I have without worrying about what comes next. 

Another Seder Story, or, Choosing to Believe in Love

Close-up of Klimt's Mother and ChildToday at my church we celebrated Seder together. We've done this every year for the past several, and it's always a very profound experience for me because between the prayers and short talks, you eat various types of food that really bring home the message of that segment. I appreciate rituals that help me get into the physicality of an experience since I can be tempted to stay in my head. There’s nothing quite like a bit of horseradish on matzo to bring the shock and sting of grief into full focus. I felt like a small explosion had gone off in my sinuses! And I like thinking of the generations upon generations that have participated in these rituals before me.

We focused a lot this time on how these Jewish rituals give space and language to the journey of grief. Christianity has a great language of hope and of a life to come, but it's Judaism that gives much more space to the grieving process and really admits that there is much pain in life, and it's okay to embrace the tears. In fact, eat this parsley dipped in saltwater to remind yourself of the tears.

It was a day when I especially need to acknowledge tears and grief. Two weeks ago today, our infant niece, Gabriella, died after just an hour of life. I still well up with tears when I think about that precious little bundle with long feet, a sweet and peaceful smile, and soft, soft skin. Her parents were gracious enough to let us meet her, even knowing that they didn’t have much time with her. Even Lily met her cousin. It’s her first real experience of death. Of course she doesn’t fully understand what it means (who does?), but she clearly knows that it makes the adults in her life sad.

This whole month at my church we've been talking about the inherent duality of life and spirituality, the pain and the joy that are part and parcel of our human experience. When I looked back at this blog to see what I’d written about Seder before, I see that it was also in April two years ago that we were trying to process another round of loss.

The Lilybird is an expert angst-away-chaser!As the poets say, April is the cruelest month. I hope you don’t mind, but it seemed an entry that was worth re-posting. These are still questions that I struggle with, but I will now say that on most days having the cheery soundtrack of a vivacious two-year-old filling the house helps me carry these questions as well-known (if not comforting) traveling companions, and I don’t feel quite as much angst in the unknowingness of it all.

Originally published on Friday, April 10, 2009

…………………………………………………….................

“Of Death, Bitter Herbs, Teeth, and Harry Potter”

I’ve had a hard time dealing with death lately.

While I was pregnant with Lily, I realized that death scared me much more than I had ever previously acknowledged. Death and birth, as our bookends on this human experience, are closely related, so I think it’s natural that being pregnant stirs up thoughts of death (and for most of human history giving birth has been such a risky undertaking for women that they very justly feared that the start of their child’s life might be the end of their own).

Bringing new life into the world also naturally requires reflection on what values and beliefs we want to pass on to our children. I didn’t just want to give birth to a child; I wanted—want—to help imbue her life with meaning and purpose, which brings me back to the Big Questions: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? All of these questions deal with death both explicitly and implicitly.

In a previous post, I talked about how some work I did with a hypnotherapist while I was pregnant helped me recognize that one of my deepest fears about birth and motherhood was that the hope I had been raised with—the hope that death, as John Donne penned, is just “one short sleep past” before “we wake eternally”—might simply be wishful thinking, a way to deal with the randomness, pain, and injustices of this life.

These past few weeks have made me face this fear anew. The three families, seven adults and seven children, who died in that tragic Montana plane crash you’ve likely read about were alumni of my alma mater, and my husband went to high school with one of the fathers. This news has been especially hard to fathom now that I have a child. The loss of so many young lives—all of the children were under 10—is truly unfathomable to me. And I can’t imagine how my parents would cope if they ever faced such a loss of their children and grandchildren (two of the mothers were sisters; five of the children were cousins).

And this week, one of my former colleagues died of lung cancer. She had never smoked even one cigarette. It feels so colossally unfair. She was only 52 with two children in high school. We taught English composition together for two years when I was still quite green. Not only did she welcome me (and my dog) to her office anytime, but she also opened all of her files, gave me copies of her syllabi, and mentored me through my first challenging semesters.

The last time I saw her was in the lab of a local hospital. She was getting her blood drawn to try to figure out why she couldn’t shake a persistent chest cold. I was getting my blood drawn to make sure we were all set to start trying to get pregnant.

She was on her way to a lung cancer diagnosis. I was on my way to meet Lily. Life and loss don’t ever seem to be too far from each other.

This juxtaposition of life and loss was really emphasized for me this past weekend when the small church/spiritual community that we go to celebrated a Seder meal together as a way to respect, appreciate and enter into this important Jewish holiday. The 15-part meal, in the words of a rabbi, represents the journey of liberation and transformation. As one of my pastors put it, “It’s 15 parts because transformation takes a long time—it’s the work of a lifetime.”

One of the steps, Maror, the eating of bitter herbs, really affected me. I was holding Lily during the meal, doing the new mama sway to keep her peacefully sleeping in her sling. I carefully ate the mixture of horseradish on lettuce, trying not to spill on her (wouldn’t that be a great introduction to solids!).  The horseradish is actually mixed with the Charoset, a sweet walnut and apple paste which symbolizes the mortar that the Jews used as slaves to keep the bricks together while building Pharoah’s many projects. My other pastor, who had actually made the dishes, pointed out that the Charoset, the sweetest part of the whole meal, also had wine or grape juice mixed in to symbolize that everything, even the sweet and easy times, has at least a little pain that is inherent. We ate the bitter herbs twice. The second time they were inside a Matzah “sandwich,” symbolizing the mix of bitter and sweet isn’t only external; it’s also within.

As a metaphor for life, the eating of bitter herbs teaches me that life and loss really are inextricably woven together. I’m speaking as a novice—and a non-Jewish one at that—but my takeaway was that the whole experience is a reminder that life is often bitter, we will be slaves in Egypt for far too long, but we carry with us the hope and possibility of liberation and transformation.

I told the group after the meal that Maror had reminded me of how difficult the previous week had been because Lily had started teething. The pain she felt cutting her teeth was excruciating for Stephen and me to witness (she added a new scream to her repertoire that gives new meaning to the term "blood-curdling"). And many of our efforts to help her were very poorly received by her. There’s just no way to explain to a baby that suctioning her nose with a saline spray and one of those horrible bulb aspirators is actually going to make her feel better. However, from my vantage point as an adult (with teeth), I know that teeth are important and quite nice for both eating and biting off hang nails. I can now see two little teeth starting to emerge, but boy is that emergence a big pain in the gums (and ears, and nose, apparently).

All I can hope is that from the vantage point of the divine, our pain and loss that seems so unfair, so random is like cutting teeth in the big scheme of things. And I desperately hope there is a scheme of things.

Those close to me laugh at how often I see applicable truth and insight in the Harry Potter series, but I’m realizing while writing this post that besides the clever plot and engaging characters, I love these books because they are all about death, the temptation of immortality, the power of self-sacrificing love, and, above all, the hope that there is a big scheme of things.

J.K. Rowling has said that her mother’s slow demise from multiple sclerosis was a big part of her motivation to write the series. She struggles mightily with her faith in the books—this is no easy allegorical tale. Like me, her doubts are big, her questions real. The tombstone on the grave of Harry’s parents points to her hope. She quotes 1 Corinthians 15:26: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” That is ultimately the thesis statement of the series.

Rowling knows that her hints of transcendence, her gestures at something beyond can only be that—gestures and not road signs. Faith, after all, is the substance of things hoped for. When Harry meets Dumbledore in the afterlife—well, really the chamber to the afterlife—and learns the answers to most of his questions, he asks Dumbledore if their conversation was real or if it was just in his head. Dumbledore’s answer is one of my favorite explanations of faith: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

I have no idea how to incorporate Dumbledore's wisdom, or the lessons of Maror, or even my hopes and fears into my parenting of Lily. But maybe in a small way just deciding to have her is in itself a gesture, a prayer for the substance of things hoped for.

Note:

Shortly after I posted this, I read a chapter in Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith about Easter and Good Friday that completely hit home. She was visiting a friend in Utah who was dying of cancer (she died a month after the trip), and, in addition to skiing, they celebrated Easter together. Lamott's description of Good Friday felt so true, that I just have to add it as a follow-up to this post:

We celebrated Good Friday that night, a week late. It's a sad day, of loss and cruelty, and all you have to go on is faith that the light shines in the darkness, and nothing, not death, not disease, not even the government, can overcome it. I hate that you can't prove the beliefs of my faith. If I were God, I'd have the answers at the end of the workbook, so you could check as you went along, to see if you're on the right track. But nooooooo. Darkness is our context, and Easter's context: without it, you couldn't see the light. Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.

How Lilybird Got Her Name

“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” J.K. Rowling

When people ask how it is that Lily got the nickname Lilybird, I usually pause or deflect the question because it’s a long answer. Lately that nickname has taken on even new meaning for me, so I feel like diving in (warning: I can't figure out how to make this a short post). I have to backup first though. I have to explain how we arrived at Lily in the first place.

By the time Stephen and I found out that we were having a girl, we’d already decided that our “girl name” would be Lillian. We weren't sure if we'd stick to Lillian or go right to Lily, but we loved the many layers around the name that spoke to us. Conveniently enough, it’s a family name on both sides. Stephen’s great-grandmother was Lillian, and I had a great-aunt Lily. Neither of us knew these women, but I am drawn to names that have ancestral significance.

I’m also fond of the Lillith tales in mystical Judaism that tell of a first wife of Adam—Lillith. She was headstrong and unwilling to be subservient to Adam, so Adam asked God for a more compliant wife, which is where Eve came into the picture. (I probably won’t tell these stories to Lily for a very long time!). And, of course, the lily flower is beautiful. I actually carried lilies in my wedding bouquet, and I love all of the wild lilies that grow all over the Presidio that we walk by regularly.

But the most compelling reason why we loved the name Lily actually comes from the Harry Potter series. I first started reading the series as an 8th grade language arts teacher at a private Christian school. One day I noticed several students sitting through all of their breaks—including their lunch breaks—reading the same book. I asked what could possibly be keeping them in the classroom over break, and, voilà, I met Harry and quickly became a fan. At first I thought they were just good fun, but as the series unfolded, I began to think of them as great literature in addition to great stories. (Bonus read: Here's a piece I wrote once about my nostalgia for Harry with my take on the series' deep religious symbolism along with the trouble I got into allowing my students at a Christian school to read them.)

Eventually I talked Stephen into reading them with me. Well, we actually listened to the entire series (twice) on tape over two years when we had a long commute together (hands down the best audio tapes around—the narrator is fantastic). We listened to the final book on tape the summer that we lived in Paris on a home exchange. The memory of walking around Paris at all hours of the night listening to the book with tandem earbuds on my iPod, totally jet-lagged and yet enthralled in the final saga of Harry Potter, is still one of my dearest memories. We talked about the themes of the book for weeks over chocolate croissants and café.

When I encounter a story that taps into my need for myth and meaning in a powerful way like Harry Potter did, I find myself able to interpret the world around me in a much more compassionate way, and I see people more generously. One of the enduring themes of the series is that love, self-sacrificing love, is ultimately the most powerful force in the universe. Dumbledore, the great professor and father figure (some argue God figure), continually teaches Harry that Voldemort’s greatest weakness is that he underestimates love because he only values power.

The character in the series who begins this theme of entirely selfless love is Harry’s mother, Lily Potter, who sacrifices her life for Harry, but in that act of love, she also imparts a powerful and protective charm that sustains Harry through many close encounters.

In a strange—even magical—way, reading that book series together prepared Stephen and me to be parents (of course, J.K. Rowling herself has said, “I believe in God, not magic”). We felt that we were ready to embark on the next journey of adulthood and learn more about what it means to love another more than self. We were ready to be parents. And naming our daughter after the character who inspired us to really embrace self-sacrificing love as the most powerful force in the universe seemed the least that we could do to give her a meaningful name.

But now to the “Lilybird” nickname. Around week 32 of my pregnancy, our midwife told us that Lily was breech. An ultrasound confirmed what her experienced hands already knew, and I started to panic in a very major way.

You see, not only did I not want a c-section (which, unfortunately in this country is the automatic answer for breech babes and mamas), but I had been planning a natural birth at home. I wanted the full experience, and I was utterly terrified of a surgical birth. I started having nightmares about a large knife cutting open my belly.

I had been a breech baby, and my mother had had a c-section (and since VBACS weren’t a remote possibility then, she’d had a second c-section with my sister). Both of her surgeries and recoveries had been very difficult, and she had a hard time breastfeeding either of us. With my sister, she’d had too much anesthesia and barely woke up for three days, and when she did she was sure that my sister was dead because she’d come out totally silent, also a result from too much anesthesia.

Even typing the word “c-section” in an email made me weep. In fact, just typing this now, I’m noticing quite a bit of discomfort and some anxiety. I was committed to doing everything possible to avoid a c-section. If you’ve heard of a remedy to turn babies (handstands in water, moxibustion, acupuncture, chiropractic, abdominal massage, music/talking, tilts, external version, etc., etc.), I tried it. A breech baby had been a complication that I’d known about because I have a funky uterus, or, in more positive language, “a two-bedroom special”, as Stephen likes to call it. Most babies are naturally more comfortable head-down in the average uterus, but mine is unique (bicornuate is the technical term), and Lily was standing on her toes in there, a double footling breech.

As a last resort, I tried hypnosis, which has actually been shown to have better luck than external versions at getting breech babies to turn down in several respected studies. My prenatal yoga teacher was also a hypnotherapist (and a doula), and I saw her for several sessions. Having grown up a good Adventist girl, I had a lot of reservations about hypnosis, but my fear of a c-section was far greater! Luckily, it didn’t turn out to be anything like the movies. (I called Stephen afterwards to assure him that I remembered everything and that there were no swinging chains involved.) My therapist just practiced deep relaxation and guided visualization. The point was to help me get in touch with my feelings around motherhood, parenting, and birth to see if I was subconsciously giving Lily a message that it wasn’t safe to get ready for birth.

What came out utterly surprised me. I’m a very wordy person (witness the length of this post), and I can talk my way in and out of a lot of rationales. So often the best way for me to get in touch with my authentic self is through external practices that provide a framework for me to go deeper. What I've found is that when I can recognize truth on a spirit level, I instantly know it; I don't have to talk my way into or around it.

This is what happened for me with hypnosis. I came headlong into my own fear and recognized it instantly as a deep, core fear that was underneath many aspects of my life.  I discovered that I was profoundly terrified of bringing an innocent life into this world because I didn’t know how to explain the suffering and pain in life. I desperately wanted to believe in a bigger purpose, a higher power, and that love and beauty eventually are greater than evil, but I was scared that I simply wanted those things to be true so badly that I was clinging to my stories (both the ones found in sacred literature and Harry Potter).

Of course I didn’t find a quick and easy answer—the problem of suffering and pain has been with us always, confounding the best thinkers—but it was incredibly helpful to tap into that fear.

And in a moment of visualizing a safe space where I could communicate love, acceptance, and safety to Lily, I found myself suddenly seeing Lily as a bird, alighting in the nest that I had made for her. She seemed part spirit, still drenched in the light.

I explained this sense later to Stephen—you know—a typical expectant parent conversation: “Hey honey—I felt the spirit of our unborn daughter come to me in a vision, and her spirit is a bird.” Luckily he didn’t freak out; instead he christened our yet-to-be little girl, “Lilybird.” Now that we’ve met her, I can confidently say that it fits well.

And now that we’ve learned more about each other (parenting is a grueling but effective way to strip yourself and your mate down to core essence!), this name feels like a perfect fit of our two selves blended into a new creature—I’m grounded, of the earth; Stephen loves to fly and explore broad expanses. 

It’s a lot of fun watching our Lilybird becoming herself. So far I’d say she has my love of people and place and her dad’s sense of adventure. And I sincerely hope that we’re all learning more every day about loving each other and the world outside our nest unselfishly.

Sorry—long tale, I know. But there you have it. 

Update on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 12:22AM by Daneen Akers

Someone asked me on Facebook (where this blog feeds), what ever happened with the hypnosis and Lily's breech position, and I realized that I never did share the ending of that portion of the story! I guess it must show that I've reached some peace with it two years later. She never turned despite many, many attempts, and it was actually in my final hypnosis session that I was able to accept that she had tried, but that she really needed to be a belly birth. So I had a c-section. I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and I hope never to have another, but I was able to bring intentionality, empowerment, and even peace even to a surgical birth. All was well in the end, especially the first time my eyes met hers.

A Belated Christmas Post

Lily at two.Two years ago on Christmas day we brought our Lilybird home from the hospital. We were in the land of newly born—new baby, new parents. And we both were learning what this new chapter was about. The utter exhaustion I felt was only overpowered by the utter bliss that kept washing over me every time I locked eyes with this new little being that seemed too beautiful, too innocent, too sacred to have actually chosen our little nest to grow up in.

I remember walking around in those first few weeks and months—that is, after I could move without dissolving into tears from the pain (I’d had a c-section, but that’s a story for another post)—and being fascinated by grandmas on the bus or on the sidewalk. And I looked at them with new eyes because I suddenly felt a kinship with every woman who had ever given birth and fallen in love with her baby; she knew what it felt like to have your heart expand to fill your entire chest, quivering with a new purpose and protective instinct. I had entered into the stream that all of my ancestors before me had been baptized into as well.

Seriously--where did the time go? Two years later, I sometimes feel incredibly cliché as I marvel about where the time went. Can I really have a toddler? Have Stephen and I somehow managed to parent together for two years? (How our marriage survived is also a topic for another post—do you know, dear reader, that within three years of the birth of a child 66 percent of American couples are divorced or headed there in a hurry?)

Lily seems to do and say new things on a daily basis now. Today, for the first time, I heard her sing a really long and loud note with intention—toddler Pavarotti style. Rather than an aria, it was a rousing end to her the song that currently is her obsession: B-I-N-G-O. (It is a rather catchy tune.) Still, it was quite a moment for her enraptured audience of grandparents, parents, aunt, uncle, and, the slightly-less-enthusiastic taxi driver.

We’ve also seen her sense of humor start to emerge in a much more defined way lately. Earlier this week she was eating yogurt rather messily and gave her dad a very yogurty kiss. He made a funny face and made a big deal about it, and she started laughing big belly laughs.

“More yogurt kisses?” she kept asking amid big belly laughs.

“Well, okay.” Stephen would respond with mock delay, loving every moment.

She’s been repeating that trick every other day this week, and we haven’t tired of it yet either. It’s these sorts of moments that have us exchanging a lot of glances and comments like, “Can you believe we have such a sweet daughter?”

Of course, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say that we’re also understanding more of what the legendary “terrible twos” are about. We do see more assertions of her will, and these episodes do occasionally get quite dramatic, but we’re learning to manage the toddler twos much in the same way we learned to care for a newborn—some things are instinctual, but the good stuff I pick up from watching those who are more experienced than I am (sometimes this is from a book, but I really glean a lot from watching other parents).

I also have an entirely new appreciation for free will these days—gone are the times of just plopping my baby down where I want her to be and going about a task (e.g. changing a diaper). She has definite opinions now about where she wants to be, what she wants to wear/eat/do, and I find that figuring out how we can collaborate is a far easier use of energy than trying to force my way. She’s definitely her own person, and when I remember to slow down and just appreciate her emerging personality, we all get along much better.

When I reflect back on what two years as a parent has been like for me, I think I’m most impressed by what motherhood has done for finally getting me to think about someone else before myself. I am no longer the most important person in my world—and that’s actually been a really freeing experience.

This is actually what I think is the true miracle of the Christmas story. When I put aside the aspects of the central Christian story that I don’t understand or don’t know where my thinking has really landed (things like atonement theories/theology), I’m struck that the Christmas story is ultimately about love, the sort of self-sacrificing love that all of the worlds great religions teach about. It’s the path of this sort of love that conquers ego. And, whether it’s literally true or just true in the way that metaphor gestures towards the very best that we know and aspire to, it’s dangerous and radical.

The greatest message that Christianity offers the world (when it’s at its best, which is far too rare these days), is that the divine force in this universe actually values every human life so much that she/he incarnated in order to show us what real love looks like. The stories about Jesus show a radical love that embraces the marginalized, subverts the power structures of his time, fights for the oppressed, and makes us whole in its unconditional and complete acceptance. (I've recently been reading about how this was actually an extension of the teachings of Rabbi Hillel, who was hugely influential when Jesus was coming of age.) Naturally, that sort of thinking got Jesus in trouble with the authorities—where was all the judgment? Where was all of the separating people into acceptable and unacceptable categories that makes us feel superior to others?

That’s a love that motherhood is just starting to teach me about. I’m not someone who thinks that you need to be a parent to truly fulfill your destiny as a human being, but I now realize that parenthood was a very direct way for me to expand my heart, move beyond myself, and put my foot on the path that so many have trod before me. It’s a path that moves me beyond my ego and into the heart of the divine. For me, if we can teach Lily about that sort of love when we celebrate Christmas—heck, if I can learn how to even model a teensy amount of that sort of love, we’ll have done our job well.

How I Found My Gratitude

Meister Eckhart, the 13^th century Christian mystic and philosopher famously said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you’, that will suffice.”

As simple as that sounds, I still find myself having a hard time cultivating an attitude of gratitude, even though this is the time of year when we're all supposed to feel thankful. For at least the better part of a day, we all try to focus on what we're thankful for before we dive headlong into the holiday shopping frenzy. And, if you’re like me, this time of year is treacherous for gratitude.

Shopping for presents is a sure way to add a lot of items to the “I want (no need!) that for me too” list. I don’t even know how deprived I am of material possessions until I step into Macy’s amidst a crowd of well-dressed women who all seem to have not only a better wardrobe but better hairstyles, shoes, and especially eyebrows than I do.

This is also the time of year when Christmas cards start arriving, and try as I might to resist, I still end up comparing myself, not so much to others but to some mysterious sense I get from cultural, familial, and personal expectations (often that I don’t even know are buried deep down in there) of where I’m supposed to be at this time in my life. There’s a voice in my head that gets really shrill this time of year as it starts reminding me about all of my inadequacies (which this Voice knows very, very well).

The Voice says things like, “You don’t own a house yet. In fact, you don’t even have a guest room or an extra bathroom. And you’re not likely to for a very, very long time, especially on this salary.”

This is not a recipe for a grateful and thankful heart. It’s more in line with the great villains of the season—Grinch and Scrooge.

Of course this isn’t a part of myself that I’m proud of. I know it’s childish and represents my baser instincts. But I’ve also learned recently that it’s actually physically unhealthy. Not only is gratitude a good spiritual practice (all of the major world religions teach gratitude as a primary tool)—it’s a good health practice.

Lily likes to give this statue a hug when we ride by.

This weekend we spent a lot of time talking about the benefits of gratitude and the science behind why gratitude is so good for our health at my small, progressive church in San Francisco. According to the Wall Street Journal, there’s a whole host of good things associated with gratitude—more energy, a more optimistic outlook on life, more friends, less stress, and a greater resistance to infections. Sounds like a gratitude shot along with my flu shot is in order this year.

One of the exercises we did was write a gratitude list with 30 entries. What helped me was a suggestion someone shared about how she got through a particularly rough time when she and her family were living in a cheap rental without even money for heating oil. She had a personal mantra that “Little things make me happy”—and she looked for the very specific, small things that brought her joy.

So instead of the biggies that I’m usually tempted to put on a list like this in some strange attempt to be weighty and ponderous (you know, “life” or “the Divine”), I just put down little things. I promise not to share all 30, but here are seven:

I'm grateful for this tree to look at every day.

1. The tall, glorious tree outside our kitchen window that we can see from miles away and chart a course home.
2. The way Lily runs across the apartment when I’m leaving for work or class with her arms outstretched yelling, “Hugs! Hugs!”
3. Morning family snuggles in bed.
4. Bike rides through Golden Gate Park with Lily perched in her bright green iBert seat (I love that she wants to give the statue of Goethe and Schiller a hug every time we ride by).
5. Cups of hot Milo (anyone else know about this delicious Ovaltine-like drink?) on the couch with Stephen after Lily is asleep.
6. My newly organized pantry.
7. The world’s sweetest dog who teaches me daily about unconditional love (especially putting up with a toddler’s often overly-enthusiastic affections).

Maybe not surprisingly, the exercise worked.

I got out of my attitude of scarcity and found my gratitude. The warmth I felt while focusing on what was right instead of what was wrong lasted all day. I was a more patient mom, a more affectionate wife. And it probably would have lasted through this morning had we not woken up to a very cranky almost-two-year-old who was suffering a serious letdown after almost five days straight of cousins, aunts, and uncles to play with. I can see why a daily gratitude practice—probably especially through this season—would be good for my health.

I’m trying to think of ways to incorporate a gratitude practice into our day so that Lily can learn about thankfulness in the same way that she knows about stories before bedtime; it will just be routine. Any ideas? We do a short grace before meals, and I’ve read in many parenting books that this is a good way to cultivate gratitude even for families who don’t have religious affiliations.

Maybe a habit of sharing one good thing that happened that day while we’re eating supper? (Bedtime already stretches too long these days!). If anyone else has some good suggestions for what you do or what you’d like to do to cultivate an ongoing attitude of gratitude in your home, I’d love to hear them.

A Woman’s Place is in the House…

When I was elected 8^th grade-class president, my mother gave me a pink t-shirt that declared in large letters:

            A woman’s place is in the house…

And then on the back it added the kicker:

            And the Senate.

I loved that shirt, and I loved that my mom, who was mostly a stay-at-home-mom extraordinaire, gave it to me. In retrospect, I also think it sums up perfectly the modern motherhood identity challenge that I’ve faced.

Figuring out my identity as a mother has been one of my most challenging tasks, an obstacle that I still struggle with on an almost daily basis. And this challenge surprised me. I was prepared—at least intellectually—for a lot of the big new parent themes: sleep deprivation, exhaustion, marital strife due largely to sleep deprivation and exhaustion (not to mention added financial and “we-need-to-be-the-adults-now” stress), and even the utter bliss and immediate massive heart expansion that happens the moment your nose first inhales that intoxicatingly beautiful smell of your new baby’s downy head. But I wasn’t prepared for the mommy-identity angst.

Let me try to explain this identity dilemma a little better. It often hits me at one of our neighborhood parks when someone—usually a well-meaning mom or nanny just trying to explore common ground—asks a simple question, “So, do you still work?”

This question is asked often of mothers with young children at parks, sometimes with more tact—I’ve never worked harder in my life than I have in the past 20 months, I’m just not compensated for my work with traditional monetary rewards—and it is never easy for me to answer. I usually fumble around with an answer about sharing childcare duties with my husband while producing and directing films with him, finishing up one last grad class, and doing some writing on the side (a blog counts, right??). And while all of this is true, I always wonder why I feel these competing interests. Why can't I decide what I want with more clarity?

Truth: I want to be at home with her. I love her recent interest in books, and I try not to swell with too much English-major pride when she “reads” through one of her favorites (Goodnight Moon and Good Dog Carl are big hits right now). I love how verbal she is and how she's learning to sing. I usually even love cooking and enjoying meals together now that she’s a lot less inclined to fling her food.

Most days I’m grateful for flexible work that allows me to watch this little life develop. Most days I can remember that I’m lucky to have a healthy child with an outgoing and easy-going temperament and an involved husband who has chosen work that lets him participate far more than many dads on a daily basis (see my yet-to-be-written “Time or Money—Pick One” on how I’m learning to accept that involved parenting often means work choices that bring home a lot less bacon).

But even within my gratitude, there’s also an underlying angst that I’m trying to figure out. I think the roots of this angst lie in the identity crisis that comes with modern motherhood that none of the pregnancy and infant care books talk about.

Also Truth: I go crazy in a shockingly rapid fashion when I’m home alone with her for long. I need and want to do work that counts as work outside of the endless work mothers (and some fathers) put in round-the-clock.

When I manage to have a conversation about this with other moms, I’ve found that I’m not alone in this struggle. Most of us are figuring out how to find space for ourselves within motherhood. And we’re figuring out what we even want that space to look like.

Of course, it’s been very hard to even have those conversations. They’re rare and often happen when the children aren’t actually around so we have a chance to develop a conversation thread for more than 60-second stretches (again, very rare).

That t-shirt my mom gave me back in 8^th grade is pretty spot on, actually. I wore it as a proud young feminist when I was 14, but now I see the inherent identity challenge it captures so succinctly. I do want hearth and home, but I want the senate too. And I had no idea just how much in conflict these two sides of the shirt are engaged in.

Women my age were brought up in a world that (thankfully) told us we could do anything and be anything, and we’ve been trained well. We’re smart, competent, and self-confident in any workplace endeavor we choose. But nobody told us how difficult it is to integrate our working selves with our mothering selves (and our biological clocks time this so these worlds collide quite dramatically in our 30s). No one told that our babies need us in an intense way far beyond our usually anemic maternity leaves.

And we want them too. As desperately as we want to wear something other than stained yoga paints and a nursing bra and have adult conversations, we want our babies—even our toddlers. As a work-outside-the-home mom friend told me recently when we were discussing the latest study that showed that working moms of young children don’t need to feel guilty, daycare-babies are fine, “It’s not that I feel guilty leaving [her son] at daycare—it’s a great daycare— but I want to spend more time with him.”

Of course we can choose part-time and flexible work, which is what I’ve done. In some ways it’s both the best and worst of both worlds—I get to spend a lot more time with Lily than I would in a traditional job, but I get paid far less and have no benefits whatsoever. And it’ surprising to me how often I still come up against the either/or choice when I’m asked to identify myself.  I was very shocked when a local, very popular moms’ group asked me to check (for playdate scheduling purposes) one of two boxes: “stay-at-home mom” or “working mom.” Where’s my “both” checkbox?

And then there’s the whole issue of women losing out on a huge scale when it comes to compensation if/when we choose part-time work, or even when we’re working full-time. (See “Do Working Moms Deserve to Earn Less?”)

Of course none of this addresses the men in this equation. Our culture doesn’t typically allow men the flexibility to be both involved parents and successful professionals too, and Stephen has felt some of these challenges as acutely as I have. But he doesn’t have the same level of angst that I have, even if he is the only man pushing a toddler on a swing that he usually sees at the park. I think the roots of this likely lie in our culture assuming that women should and do bear the brunt of childcare. I don’t think he’s ever been asked how he juggles work and fatherhood, but I get asked this frequently.

I’m still figuring out the answer. But I can tell you part of the answer lately has involved a fantastic local nanny share that Lily is a part of three afternoons a week for a few hours at a neighbor’s house. It’s been such a great solution for all of us. Lily adores the three-year-old little boy and the lovely nanny she plays with and comes back joyous, and I am insanely productive for those three-hour windows. I think I get more done in three hours than I used to working in my corporate cubicle for eight or nine hours straight; time has become one of my most precious commodities, and I use it wisely. Of course I still have to work at other hours (usually at night), but those nine hours a week feel a lifeline.

Finding a little bit of balance has been so mentally restorative for me that I think all of us are firmly committed to keeping the family size at three plus a dog for a good bit longer. I’ve just started finding a sense of myself again, and my work with both Lily and the film is demanding and fulfilling—it’s a little bit of both the house and the senate that my mom’s t-shirt gift promised back in 8^th grade. But boy does it continue to be a challenge figuring out how to fit both of those promises on the same stage.

Travels With Lily Part II, or, The Power of Mirror Neurons

We’re back from another major round of travel for the film. This time we flew rather than drove, and while we certainly got around to more places, I swear that those 10,000 miles in the car for our trip last fall were easier on me than the many airports I’ve checked out in the past two months.

Airplanes and toddlers aren’t typically a great mix—modern air travel is rather dehumanizing for all of us even when we do understand the rules—but we actually ended up finding a routine that worked well. Lily’s appetite for adventure and outgoing personality certainly helped—she quickly charmed those near us, even if they had looked annoyed at having lucked out with a seat next to a lap child.

The winning ticket for us was traveling around naptime, running and playing in the airport before take-off as much as possible (“Lily exercising,” she’d tell me), sitting next to a window, watching Dora on my iPhone (I swore we’d be a no-TV household…now I bless that little bilingual explorer and her pet monkey), nursing to sleep, having fun stickers to play with when even Lily has had enough of Mama’s iPhone, and saving the best beloved freeze-dried strawberries snack from Trader Joe’s for the last 30 minutes of the flight when everyone is antsy. Oh—and not lamenting the “good ‘ol days” when a plane ride meant a chance to read a book, watch a movie, or just zone out.

We had one flight without Lily—a Saturday night red eye to New York and then D.C. I think it demonstrates just how desperate parents can get for a little private time when we sort of thought of that red eye as a date.

While I don’t think personality and temperament can be overlooked, I do think that one of the reasons why Lily has turned out to be such a good traveler involves mirror neurons.

Let me back up.

Last fall, when we were leaving on our three-month production road trip, I was fretting a lot about whether or not the whole thing was just going to be too much for Lily. She was just nine months old, and we were not only proposing a lot of driving but that an entire quarter of her first year of life would be spent on the road. We were in between apartments and living with my parents temporarily (it’s how we could afford the trip), and we didn’t actually have a home except for the 19-foot-fittingly-named-Nomad trailer we were pulling behind us. (Good thing we weren’t in France or Sarkozy might have had us deported as gypsies!)

My mom, sensing my worry, gave me one of the best pieces of parenting advice that I’ve ever received. She said, “Just remember that if you’re okay, she’ll be okay.”

That seems so simple, but I’ve discovered that its simplicity is also part of its profound importance.

What my mom was talking about on a biological level is a rather recent discovery that many scientists consider revolutionary: mirror neurons.

The idea is simply that when we see others do something, our minds react as if we were doing the same action or feeling the same emotion. Here’s how David Dobbs described mirror neurons for Scientific American Mind:

The discovery of this mechanism, made about a decade ago, suggests that everything we watch someone else do, we do as well, on a mental scale. At its most basic, this means we mentally rehearse or imitate every action we observe, whether a somersault or a subtle smile. It explains much about how we learn to smile, walk, talk, or play tennis. At a deeper scale, it suggests a common neurobiologic dynamic for our understanding of others, the complex exchange of ideas we call culture, and psychosocial dysfunctions ranging from lack of empathy to autism. It makes sense of why yawns are contagious — to why, watching Olivier fall to his knees, we feel Hamlet’s grief for Ophelia.

From my perspective as a mother, this is a hugely important parenting tool. And I’ve seen it working. When I get upset, annoyed, or just plain grouchy, I notice little miss mirroring my mood. Similarly, when I take time to really be in a moment and enjoy simple things like eating an especially good cherry tomato or petting Pali with her, I can see the results quickly in bigger smiles, sustained laughs, and just a more settled presence.

We talked about mirror neurons last week in our church as part of a series on fear and the brain, and I shared that one of the reasons why I still enjoy nursing Lily is that our time together (almost always in bed now) is a quiet space, a time when I have to consciously quiet my mind and project what I hope is relaxing, sleep-inducing energy. I sing softly to her, chat about her day, stoke her hair, and sometimes consciously think about calmness and peace as I breathe next to her. It helps me to calm down too—this is probably why I still nap with her more often than I plan to. I’ve gotten so good at convincing her through my words and body language that it’s a good time to go to sleep that I talk myself into it as well!

Now that I have some scientific language to frame the “if-you’re-okay-she’ll-be-okay” phenomenon, I realize that it’s really something most of us know at a basic level. It’s what I knew as a teenager who spent many hours a day riding my horse; if I acted scared of something (say a dog barking ferociously at us), my horse would be much more likely to bolt or misbehave. It’s what I knew as a young high school English teacher who noticed that the good or bad energy of one influential student could instantly change the tone of the classroom. And it’s what my midwife told me when I was struggling in the first early days and weeks of breastfeeding. She kept reassuring me that the most important breastfeeding tip was to “send her love the whole time, even if it hurts.”

All of this has really convinced me that one of the more important things I can do as a mother is take care of myself—it’s back to the idea that there is a good way to be “selfish.” If Lily is reflecting my moods and mirroring how I am in the world, it’s important that I do my own inner work so that I’m being the model I want to be. She’s going to be watching. She can’t help it—it’s what her brain is designed to do.

In other more appropriate words given how many airplanes we’ve been on these past two months, “Make sure you put on your own oxygen mask first.”

Maybe We Should Just Have One…

Life with Lilybird is good. In fact, it’s so good that I’ve been lobbying to seriously consider just having one. Things feel manageable, I’m being productive in domains beyond my breasts, and Lily is just one seriously sweet kid.

A big part of this is the talking—she talks and a lot. Not only can she makes her needs and desires known quite plainly; she converses. Here’s what I woke up to this morning at 6:30. (Keep in mind that we still co-sleep, her snug in the middle, us forming the banks.)

“Mommy?”

Her voice still sounds sleepy. My back is to her, and I grunt softly, half-acknowledging her, half hoping she’ll decide to go back to sleep for a bit longer. She pulls herself up on my shoulder and leans over close to my face.

“Mommy sleeping?” The question is asked right in my ear and in such a sweet tone that I can’t pretend not to hear.

“Good morning beautiful. Mama’s here.”

“Mama. More nummies,” she states in a firm voice.

“Don’t forget please,” I say, rolling over. Somehow being woken up at first light by a little human who wants to drink milk from my body is easier with please. It really is a magic word, especially in an adorable toddler voice.

“Peeease.” She adds quickly.

I pull her in close to my body, and she nurses for several minutes as I drift in and out, still in the clutches of sleep.

“Mama. Book!” This is usually a sign that she’s really up (as opposed to the very occasional times when a belly full of warm milk will coax her back to sleep).

“You want to read a book?” I ask.

“Yup,” she responds (seriously—toddlers using slang is remarkably cute). “Cawrl.” I dutifully reach for Good Dog Carl, the favorite book of the past two days.

“No, Daddy read.” Now Stephen starts to make motions towards waking.

“Daddy kiss,” Lily says as she puckers up and reaches towards him. Daddy gets kissed.

"Now Mommy kiss." And then I get kissed. And then we both get hugs.

“Pali kiss.” At this point Lily looks towards the door for Pali. We all call for Pali to join us, and soon we’re four to the bed. Pretty soon Lily’s playing a game of “hiding,” and while this is the sort of repetitive game that I grew weary of in my few babysitting attempts prior to motherhood, somehow I now find it almost as amusing as she does. I think it’s because her squeals of laughter are so completely genuine when we say in earnest tones, “Where could Lily be? Is she hiding?” (Of course, she simply has her blanket over her head, hiding in plain sight.)

When she tires of that, it’s on to particulars. 

“Pee pee diaper. Daddy change it.” I love it when she specifically asks for Stephen to change her diaper (which he normally does anyway first thing), as somehow actually getting up out of bed still seems beyond my abilities.

After she gets a clean diaper, we read about the adventures of Carl and the baby—Lily begins jumping up and down on the bed chanting “jumping” along with the merry-making pair. 

This non-stop observational commentary and direct requests continues throughout the day, and it really has made taking care of her needs much easier. We seem to have very few incidents of frustration, and it's really quite fun to know at least a part of what she's thinking throughout the day.

Of course we have some moments when I realize this is actually—at least according to one of the childcare books that I no longer have time to read—the height of those dreaded “terrible twos.” Yesterday she hit a friend; today she kicked Pali. We’re starting to use time-outs (which Lily so far accepts so cheerfully that she tells me when she needs one—great except when I was pretending to ignore something!).

My point is simply that the 18-19 month stage has seemed like a turning point. I am starting to carve out more work time for myself, which feels good. I do find myself conflicted by my desires to be both a rooted, nurturing presence in Lily’s life and to contribute to the world in ways that remind me that I still have a mind beyond Good Dog Carl (and a desire to use it in more traditionally productive ways).  This topic itself is its own post, but it’s the biggest underlying angst-producing issue that I wasn’t prepared for. Women of my generation were told we could do anything, be anything, and still be mothers. I believe that. I have to believe that. But I don’t think I was prepared for how difficult the logistics would be, and how conflicted I’d be trying to prioritize between these two identities continually on an hourly basis.

All of which brings me to my question about family size.

I’ve always assumed that having kids meant, well, kids. Two kid families are definitely the norm, and I love, love my younger sister. Isn’t it the least you can do as a parent to give your child a sibling, something who knows your family’s particular dysfunction and history? 

But things seem so good right now, why risk change? Lily is thriving, I’m starting to think there might be room for me in my own life again, and Stephen and I are starting to remember that we’re spouses and not just parents—we finally had a date night on Monday night, babysitter and all (we found that we’d almost forgotten how to have a lengthy, coherent conversation). Who knows if your children will get along? Why can’t one be enough?

Funnily enough, I’m not the only one thinking about this. Just days after I allowed myself to even voice this thought I saw that Time had a cover feature on families with only children—the recession is prompting many families to realize they can’t afford more.  And apparently the widely-entrenched myths that only children are lonely, maladjusted, and selfish got started by one psychologist decades ago, and the truth is quite the opposite. In actuality, only children thrive on having the undivided resources of the family focused on them.

Stephen is not remotely thrilled by this conversation. In fact, I’ve had to fight to simply allow it to be an open question. At the very least he realizes that my questioning adding to our cozy nest means that I’m definitely not ready to start that process anytime soon. I'm just not in a space to expend any more energy without doing harm to myself or my marriage.

In talking about this question with my girlfriends, I realized that one of my patterns is trying to find a place where things feel right and then freeze them there. I'd totally bottle this moment in time if I could. I resist change and try to hold on to moments of tranquility and stability. I was starting to apologize for this, to see this tendency as a flaw.

But my dear friend, in true bosom friend fashion, reminded me that after a hectic year filled with many miles on the road and too many moves, I deserve a little calm. I have earned my stasis.

And so I’ll just sit here with my happy Lily, my blossoming toddler, and enjoy her.

Maybe this will be the last time I nurse a 19-month old.

Maybe we won’t have to upgrade to a bigger bed to hold us all.

Maybe us three is what it will be.

Maybe.

 ................................

*I just want to note that all of the photos in this post we taken by my insanely talented friend and child portrait photographer, Janine Wagner. If you're lucky enough to live near her in the Bend, OR area, here's her website.

Update on Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 12:04PM by Daneen Akers

Goodness gracious she's adorable right now! This morning, in addition to trying out the new words/phrases she learned yesterday ("arboretum" and "okay-dokey"), so also told me that breastmilk was "good." Here's how it went. She was nursing and stopped to talk to me (this happens a lot now). 

"Mama nummies. Yummy," she patted my breast gently.

"Mmmmmmmmmmm," she added enthusiastically. Of course we giggled at this. Nummies must be very yummy indeed. Then she added, "Nummies good." That was the first time I'd heard her use "good"--and of course it seems a perfect use.

This reminds me of the story my grandma tells of her attachment to nursing (her word for nursing was "keekee". Right about Lily's age, a neighbor came over and saw my grandma nursing from my great-grandmother (isn't it amazing to think of this line of women who have nurtured and nourished their babies?). The neighbor, Mrs. Varney, apparently thought my grandmother was a little too old to still be nursing and said something to that effect. According to family lore, my grandma responded:

"Go away Varney. Keekee good!"