Yes, There's At Least One Wrong Answer

Today's Tammy's Tips topic, from the remarkable founder of We Love Messes (and I can attest that they really do, bless 'em):

There Are No Wrong Answers. Discuss.

Disagree. I respectfully submit that there's always one wrong answer: no answer at all.

You'd think this was a no-brainer. We know, intellectually, that silence equals assent, that not-to-decide-is-to-decide.

But the fear making a wrong decision plops us right into one of my favorite gutters: are you making your decisions from a place of joy or a place of fear?

Okay, fine question, but it's still in no-brainer territory, so let's take it one step further:

What happens when you're just so plain stinkin' wrung out that there's neither joy nor fear to spur a decision? What happens when you can't even pick up a pencil, let alone make a list of pros and cons?

I propose that the answer starts in your closet, which swiftly becomes a metaphor for Everything Else. As those in the know may know, I'm currently a little manic about capsule wardrobes.  (Promise, this becomes relevant in a few paragraphs.) I believe that assembling your personal rag, bone, and hank o' hair every day is an exercise in important and intimate decision-making.

Effective wardrobing, like so many things in life, starts with a cleanup. To make room for good, you must first release your ungood.  "I can't tell you," says the elegant proprietor of my favorite consignment store, "how many women take something out of the closet, look at it, say, 'Hmm, I just don't wear this,' or 'Gee, I've never really liked this,' and then put it back in the closet.

"I tell them," she continues, gracefully gesturing with an empty clothes hangar, "that you have to take it out of the closet in order to get anywhere with a wardrobe cleanup. You don't have to give it away. But you have to start by at least taking it out."

My sister has trammeled this territory more artfully than I ever could do, with a number of magnificent "letting go" posts, including, notably, this one.

So once you've let go, what comes next?

An answer comes next, that's what, even an incomplete, ill-conceived, semi-crappy one.

I've spent some time being rudderless. Not just "not sure what comes next," not just twentysomething confused, but entirely without direction, utterly adrift, curled up with my arms over my head out there where the Hakken-kraks howl.  I couldn't make any decisions from joy, nor from fear.

And on one spectacularly low day, I had even moved beyond "just going through the motions." Happily, I guess, my nadir occurred in a parking lot. I was in my car. I'd parked my car.  I'd been in my car for, um, a couple hours. I couldn't just stay in my car forever.

So I came up with one answer: I got out of the car and put one foot on the ground. Then I decided to put the other foot on the ground. Then I decided to make those feet into a step.

Sometimes one foot is all you can lift. Toward what? Doesn't matter. The motion itself is the answer. It may be the only answer you have for all those big horrible questions.
Ill-conceived answer?
Incomplete answer?
Semi-crappy answer?
Probably, yes, to all. But stasis . . . stasis is the wrong answer.

Resolved: Because stasis is the wrong answer, yes, wrong answers DO exist.

But not about shoes. You should always buy the shoes.

And then take one first step in them.

=====

A wardrobe coda:  We are houseguesting this weekend with He'en's grandparents.  He'en just appeared at my door in a brand-new-never-before-worn outfit, a gift from her grandmother. She almost minces around the corner, pausing partly for effect and partly for . . . well, just general eight-year-old radiance.

"Whoa!!!! Do you feel stunning? Because you look stunning," I tell her.

She grins and hunches her shoulders with a little delighted wiggle.

"I feel almost embarrassed that I'm this stunning," admits He'en.

My sweet little girl, please hold that thought tightly, tightly. And please feel so bright and beautiful, and, yes, stunning, for all your days to come.

=====

Spring Hopes Eternal

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

- Sara Teasdale

Today I broke ground on our long-planned butterfly garden.  The girls are out with their visiting grandparents.  The spouse is off working. For about forty whole incredible minutes, it's been just me, the dog, and the dirt.

"Set out wildflower seeds" has been on my phone's memo app for about two weeks. Snow, sun, sun, snow (perfect) and then surprise! head lice, business emergency, blizzard, work, school break, work, kid with a cough (not so perfect).  From deep in the Mommy-trenches, I kept missing the weather windows for my patient wildflowers.

Today I dutifully worked for several hours . . . post office . . . groceries . . . specialty lightbulbs . . . then ZOOM raced home from WalMart with one eye on the gathering clouds and a new hand-tiller jingling in the back of the car. I shoved my fresh pedicure into a pair of raggedy snowboots, whipped the wildflower seeds off their garage shelf, and frantically chawed up the island in the middle of our driveway with the store tags still flapping on the tiller.

Did it! Booyah! The seeds are all laid down, in the nick of time for a little snow that's due tonight!

I am so pleased. And I wish I had better words, or more time, to describe the soft smell of fresh-turned dirt, mingled with the plopping all around of a sassy spitty snow, offset by distant thunder-rumbles in the background. Because those are some of the best smells and sounds in the world.

I'm an earth sign, truer than true. It's been a long, dry, chilly season around here, but spring is on the way.  Again, forever and always.

Seattle. Because.

"But why? And why Seattle?"

"Because I've wanted to see it for a while, and this is the week I have."

"But it's cold."

"And?"

"It's winter. What will you do there?"

"The same things that the 600,000 people who live there do, I expect."

"Why not Florida? I'll fly down with the kids and we could meet up with my parents."

"Because that is not a vacation."

"Fine."

"Okay then."

[Pause.]

"So how about this. You take a few days for yourself, then I'll get your parents to watch the kids and I'll join you in Seattle for the weekend."

[ARGH.]

"Dear husband. I love you madly. I will be overjoyed to spend a romantic weekend getaway any time you want. But this is my week alone."

"Well, that's just it. Why would you want to spend all that time alone?"

[ ". . . for this queen you think you own . . . "]

"Because 51 weeks a year, I am on call 24/7. And I need a few days alone. All by myself. A-LONE."

"I don't get it." DH is irritably puzzled.

"You don't have to. Just say you will watch the girls for five days."

"Fine. Fine, I'll make it work."

Irritably puzzled as DH may be, every single grownup woman to whom I've spoken is head-over-heels about the idea:

"Seattle, my gosh, you'll have such a great time."

"Seattle? I have a friend who visited Seattle. Let me call her and find out all the best things to do!"

"Nobody's going with you at all?" (A wistful look, this from a mom with two clinging to her knees.)

"Any particular reason?" asks my dental hygienist.

"Because," I mumble around a wad of cotton, "with little kids you get so defined by everyone around you, that I'm not even sure I remember how to read a bus schedule or find my way out of the airport. I figure that once a year I have to practice. Or I'll just forget how to do it."

She's nodding away while she polishes a molar. "Totally."

As if that is not enough, contemplate these further allures from the Mom's Week Off Travel Brochure:

• A cave-dark hotel room, for sleeping without one ear a-prick for nightmare calls, potty attacks, or telltale burbling sound of the dog about to throw up again on the carpet.
• Hot showers of unlimited length.
• Free continental breakfast. Which is cooked by somebody else. Which you can take back to your room and eat while using the free wi-fi. Which doesn't cut out when the kids suck up all the bandwidth watching yet another episode of Odd Squad.  
• Using said free wi-fi write a whitepaper on whatever social or political issue matters to you, or (more likely) just to surf specimen plants on Dave's Garden for as long as you damn well please.
• And, oh! also using it to groom your "Yes, dear, I won't play that music in the house when the children are around" playlists on Spotify. Booyah.
• Earbudding said playlists on the way to the ice rink, by bus, every day. Peoplewatching! And Skating! Every! Day! Which may mean losing a pesky five pounds, another thing that's just too much trouble IRL.
• Eating a hot meal in a restaurant. I don't mean one that is served hot, whereupon somebody immediately has to be escorted to the potty. I mean a meal where every bite is hot, and I can have that second martini, because Uber is driving.
• Figuring out Uber, on which I am several years behind.

Okay, I realize these things could mostly take place in any suburban Super-8. I'm excited to see Seattle, too, don't get me wrong. Coffee everywhere, seafood everywhere, the original Starbucks, Pike's Place Market, miles of hilly urban hiking (at sea level!), the Impressionism exhibit at the art museum, water taxis, and all that. The whale-watching is out of season, but that's the only drawback.

And when I come home, after walking fast through the airport, feeling all competent and fancy with a single small bag and a spare hand for my coffee, I'll be all done being a hunter for this year.  I probably won't even mind when somebody wipes their nose on my shoulder during a hello-hug.

December 26-31, Mom's Week Off. Because.

P.S. - Hotel and airfare to Seattle in winter? Stupid cheap.

So Byooo-tiful

One of the little princesses has emerged as a sleep-until-noon princess, while the other is a pre-dawn-perky princess. I've gotten to see - albeit reluctantly - some very nice sunrises this fall.

And, of course, there are wonderful moments to compensate for the early reveille:

(the) Pitter pat patty patty pat pat pitty pat pat patty PAT! (of little feet)

"MAWMM!!!!" (high volume stage whisper)

"Mmf, eh?"

"You HAFF tah come wight NOW!"

Patty patty pat pat patty pat / flumpf flumph flumpf (that's me, not exactly pittypatting at 5:10 a.m.)

I am not fast enough. Never am. "Come and SEE!" she urges from the landing.

Down the stairs and patty-pat through the kitchen to the porch door we go. I blurrily note that the furnace has kicked off again.

"See! See da MOON!" she is literally hopping up and down with excitement, barefoot in the 65-degree house. Her little round toddler belly, now in its last months as she passes the 3-year mark, is pooching out her favorite pink sleepers with the donuts-and-sprinkles printed all over them.

Her hair looks like a dandelion in full blow, and her eyes are luminous as she splays both chubby starfish hands on the window and exhales, creating a little vapor-spot of delight.

I sit down next to her on the cold cold floor and she snuggles into my lap with great satisfaction. She is a sturdy warm pile of wiggles as her fluff-hair tickles my cheek.  We watch the early-morning crescent moon, flanked by Venus and Jupiter, sailing high and clean in the pale cerulean sky.

"Iss sooo byooo-tiful," she whispers, eyes on her perfect moon.

"Iss so beautiful," I whisper, eyes on my perfect daughter.

Teaching the Child to Pray

Driving home from ice skating this winter -- ah, ice skating, the subject of many blog notes on my phone, some of which may someday be turned into blog entries -- we pulled in behind an ambulance. Its rollers weren't on, but it was lit inside. And, in this tiny mobile theatre hurtling down the freeway, someone was lying on a stretcher and talking to the EMT.


We passed in a blink.  I thought He'en wouldn't notice, but she did. She said, "There is someone who is sick in there. I wish I could make it better." (Every time I am tempted to think she is a complete sociopath, she surprises me with a burst of empathy.)


So we talked about what she could do. And we talked about how, sometimes, there is nothing you can do. Well, we concluded, there is always one thing we can do. Always, we can pray.


Now, as previously established in this blog, my theology is shaky and my faith often equally so, although admittedly less so since the arrival of my offspring.


But I have undertaken to raise these children. There may come a time in their lives when they have nothing to hold onto except faith. Faith in something, faith in anything.  Despite my own misgivings in the religion area, I feel that I should give them some avenue for hope in case they need it down the line. Some, um, cross-denominational faith training.


So, shamelessly relying on my memory of the Cliff Notes on To Kill a Mockingbird, I told He'en that she could pray. She could pray for courage for the sick person, and pray for strength for the sick person and their family, and pray for wisdom for all the people helping the sick person so that they would know the best thing to do.


I explained that you don't just pray for things you want, because God doesn't work that way, but that you can pray for the ability to get through it all, on your own behalf or anyone else's, because God definitely works that way.


I tried hard to put it all in five-year-old language.  Then, feeling that I'd done the best I could, I shut up for a while and concentrated on driving while He'en chewed on my little homily.


She was very quiet for a while, and then,


"I blew him some kisses," she announced with calm assurance.


I nodded, my eyes welling up with Mom-tears, and told her that, yes, I was sure that would help. And I made a little prayer of my own, then, that her faith in something, anything, would always be exactly that strong.

Be Still, and Listen

The long winter nights this month have invited me to lie quietly in the morning, listening to the dog snore, watching the room gradually lighten . . . and grinding my molars in anticipation of Dragon Girl's first YOWL of the day.

She doesn't hold back, this second child of mine.  Dragon Girl is not the super-sleeper that her sister was at this age. She has a lot to get done in this lifetime, and nobody is going to slow her down, including the Mama. Accordingly, she wakes with the dawn, and usually a bit pre-dawn for good measure. If I am lolling about in bed and not getting a head start in the Good Morning race, that first wail generates a huge flack pattern on the Mom Radar. It also jolts my adrenaline production in unpleasant ways.

So here I am, waking up cranky and/or way too early, scheming and dreaming about getting that child to sleep longer, when I ran into these Midday Mussar notes from our rabbi.

Of course, I can't make it to the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . right . . . kids. But I think I might really need the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. So -- blessings on our clergy's technophilia -- I scrape the notes when I get a chance. They are just notes, but that's good, because then my mind can go a-wandering between the notes while I wipe the highchair tray and find the Roku remote yet again.

Reb Jamie has written about grieving, but -- as his comments on duality observe -- the very same mediations are deeply applicable to all the BUSY! NOISY! NEW! LIFE! in this house. The Jewish appreciation of duality is just so spot-on:

Our sages teach that during sleep we go through a (1/60) fractal of death. Thus every morning present[s an] . . . opportunity to practice the rouse ourselves from “mourning to an ecstatic dance…that chavod might sing you out [of bed] and may not be silent [like death].” (Psalm 30) With the words of this daily psalm, a melody, a tear, a cupped hand, or the mental image of a small cave, we can begin each day with a reminder to journey through the land of humility [chinah] to engage all life with chavod, beginning with your own.

-- Rabbi Benjamin "Jamie" Arnold

The "cupped hand" reference contemplates a discussion earlier in the same entry here.

Very little silence finds its way into my world of late. Stillness is not popular, either. And some days I am patently lacking in either humility or engagement. Some days it seems that everything around here is noisy, furry, drooly, squirmy, yelly, demanding, wanting, needing, messy, hungry, and/or some combination thereof, and that I am the one-woman service industry for all of it. Some days, I need to work really hard on being present in this parenting endeavor, and not just mentally checking out while I dice up yet another peanut butter sandwich.

Thus, when the factory whistle blows at 5:45 a.m. in the dead dark, I am trying to view that first baby cry as a new life that is "singing me out of bed." It helps. Sometimes it works. At the very least, it makes me feel guilty about being cranky and try hard to cheerfully greet the baby and do better for the rest of the day (my perfect synergy of humanistic Judaism and guilt-ridden Protestantism). 

Tonight, at my amazing adopted shul, Rabbi Jamie is leading a Winter Solstice service. Again, in his words:

The Service will feature simple melodies, rich silences, and subtle teaching to turn our hearts to the expansion of light that is coming, enabling us to align our inner cycles (of darkness and light) with the wondrous symmetry and balance of forces in nature -- sun, moon, earth, and soul.

A perfect way to enter the Winter break -- with Shabbat, and community.

 

 Shabbat Shalom

I won't go, of course, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. But I will try to honor the solstice by sleeping, waking, and celebrating on this day and this night. And maybe with a little stillness here and there.

Halloween. Is Over.

BWAAA-HAHAHA it's OVER! We are DONE!

For the last three blankety-blank months, every day on the way to school, the carseat has chirped, "Mooom? How yong until Haw-o-ween?"

And for the last three months, every day, I would calculate the countdown. My number would be met by a big sigh. "But dat is sooo yong!"

Not long enough for me, I would think but not dare to say.

This year, we had several parties and several changes of costume. "We" were, variously, (1) a figure skater, (2) a Really Scary Dragon, (3) a Vam-Pie-Uh, (4) a Wicked Witch (twice). I was prepared for this, and unlike Halloween 2012, I totally softballed the costumes this year. Mostly I just dug in the dress-up bin and applied eyeliner in creative ways.

We had a requisite number of meltdowns and a predictable amount of candy rationing. He'en and I went 'round about a haunted house at one party. ("But it's NOT scawwwy! Reawwy!" she protested from her hands and knees as she peered under the partitions. "I don't care. Mommy gets migranes in those things," I announced. Thus, we did not attend.)

But the spookiest, the scariest, the most-anticipated, and the most parentally horrifying, was the Great Pre-K Class Party. I am a Co- Room Mother this year -- the background on that whole deal is quite another entry -- and in conjunction with the other Co- Room Mother we had organized four crafts and a godawful pile of candy. Multiple emails were sent about the party. The teacher said there would be a song, a story, crafts, and treats, in that order.

On the Big Day, DH dropped He'en at school in costume. She could have flown her own broom, she was so excited. Dragon Girl was sick, so I stayed home as long as possible to let her sleep a little. Then I heartlessly bundled her up in a sweater, stuffed some Kleenex in my pocket, strapped her into the front-pack, and got to the school at 10:40,  for the 10:30 party start. I figured they would just be settling down to the craft tables and the real help would be needed about that time.

Boy, did I figure wrong. As I walked in, about 15 parents were just getting up from their seats.

Yes, right, seats.

The "story and song" apparently had been a "Halloween Program" and, crappity CRAP, I had just missed it.

A red-faced, teary little witch appeared at my knee with a deeply trembling lower lip: "Mooom! You are YATE. You missed the WHOLE SONG."

*%%$@__#.

And *&^^ too.

The last-minute run to the thrift store, the triumphant acquisition of the Just Right striped tights, the careful application of eyeliner makeup this morning, and even permission to bring a broom to school, all blown away. Gone. Vaporized in one great Mom Failure for which I will never ever be forgiven. Did I learn nothing from last year's Hanukkah escapade?

We were saved from total disaster when another (better-organized) mother tuned into this exchange at just the right time. She had taken a video of the program and gave her phone to He'en for sharing. He'en and I twice watched the video. Then she still clearly had not forgiven me, but she was mollified enough to decorate a cookie and make a treat bag at the craft tables.

We both made it through the rest of the party but I left the school at lunchtime wrung out and awash in Momguilt.  I shamelessly signed up Helen for Extended Day on my way out the door, figuring that for our hefty tuition dollars the afterparty sugar crash could be somebody else's problem for a couple hours.

When I picked up Helen in the late afternoon, she was notably more cheerful. But on the way home,

"Mom? I had a sad day." Sniff sniff.

"Oh, honey, I am so sorry." GuiltguiltguiltguiltGUILT.

"Yah. Dake teased me."

...eh? "Jake teased you? Oh, I am sorry to hear that."

"Dake teased me, but 'den I told him iff he could be nice den he could sit wiff' us at yunch. So he was a yiddle nicer 'den."

"Well, good for you, that is good to hear, that he was nice."

"So den' I wasn' sad anymore," she concluded.

Hmmmm. I could not resist asking --

"And was that the bad thing that happened today?"

"Yep."

Craftily and carefully -- "And your day was good after that? Nothing else bad happened?"

"Nope!" She swung her feet with cheerful emphasis as she contentedly bit into a candy corn.

Off the hook. Yessss.

This morning, I tossed a kid-sized costume onto the bannister for transport down to the playroom. Then another. Then a third. And I realized that I had been chanting, with each toss, "Done. Done. DONE."  So yes. Done. DONE, I tell you, for another blissful blessed year.

I'm off to go raid her candy.