Parenting Left of the Middle
Cream of wheat (lumpy)
Pumpkin spice (in a latte or oatmeal)
Stomping on crunchy leaves in the fall
Raspberry or cherry almond (anything)
Virgin America (and mini vacations)
The cool side of the pillow
Long sleeve cuffs that extend over my palms
Fleece hoodies
Caresses on the neck
The ability to keep certain thoughts and imaginings private
Wine
Migraine medication
Love
Today is Jack’s last day in daycare. He’s been with G for over two years (a miracle when you think back to all the daycare dramas early on in his life) and made some awesome little friends there. G’s house is basically Jack’s third house – there were many weeks there where he spent just as much time there as he did at my house or his dad’s. G feeds him and teaches him and celebrates his victories and birthdays. Jack was potty trained there before he was at home!
In the last 2+ years, G has taken only ONE unscheduled day off – for Jury Duty. One day, you guys! She is simply amazing.
I’m having a hard time walking away from this lady. She is one of the most reliable, dependable, trustworthy, and caring people I have ever known – it has been a BLESSING to be able to put Jack in her care.
I don’t think it’s hit Jack yet. He knows today is his last day and that he’ll have a goodbye party, but all he could say was that he was hoping for presents. 
We tried to tell him this isn’t the kind of thing you get presents for. In any case, he starts school Monday and I’m guessing somewhere in that week he’ll really start to miss G. I know I will!
I had a difficult time coming up with a gift that conveyed how much we love G. What we ended up with was this poem made into an artful poster by Etsy artist MySoulShines and matted/framed:
They Will Remember
by Eileen Koscho
I take care of your children.
I love them.
I teach them.
I clean them, and I feed them.
And when nighttime comes,
my heart worries about them
I take care of your children.
I see their first steps.
I hear their first words.
I share their happiness, and
I feel their hurts.
I take care of your children,
as if they were my own.
And when they are grown, and
no longer need me,
My love will be a part of them
deep within the heart of them.
They will know that I was there for them unconditionally.
And they will remember!
This morning it occurred to me that I should have had a coffee mug or something made with Jack’s artwork to give to her. Dang it! Maybe I’ll ship that to her…
Here is a picture of G with Jack on his birthday (she is so cool – she got him the alien space ship Legos):
Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for. (sorry, bad grammar)
This one is so easy. It’s Jack, of course.
Before Jack came along, I didn’t much care about proper living. I’ve had Depression for as long as I can remember and I was never very motivated to take care of it – I didn’t care enough about myself to get the treatment I really needed. I took anti-depressants on and off but those didn’t take care of my issues 100%.
When Jack came along, though, I HAD to take care of myself. I didn’t want him to have a ghost of a mother. I didn’t want him to learn my unhealthy thought patterns or be hurt by behaviors that I didn’t even notice I had. I didn’t want him to grow up without a mother, either, and although I hate to say it, that was a possibility if I didn’t get treatment.
So right before he turned 2, I got serious and put myself back on antidepressants, enrolled in a Managing Your Depression course with Kaiser, started attending regular therapy, attended a 9 month long intensive outpatient therapy program, and have been maintaining my mental health ever since with weekly appointments with my therapist. I’ve learned how to stay ahead of my depression for the most part. When I do get depressed, I don’t beat myself up nearly as much as I used to, and I try to ride it out. I know which parts of me are ME and which parts are the illness I’ve fought all my life. Knowing those things has made a huge difference.
I love my life. I love living. Before Jack, I could not have said that. Before Jack, the work wasn’t worth the return.
Image above by Sarahndipitea
Jack is…I don’t know how to explain it. He is like JACK. Or *****JACK*****!! He is more Jack than I thought Jack could be. One moment he is melting me by saying something amazingly adorable like “I certainly am feeling better” while tilting his head to the side; the next he is full out bawling because I told him he couldn’t climb on me like a mountain. “Mom, it hurts my feelings when you’re mad at me!” He is Jack*10, an emotional whirlwind of a kid turning 4 years old in four days. He radiates.
His memory is astounding. Last night David was recounting a conversation the two had in the car on the way home and Jack corrected him, “I didn’t say dinosaur, I said dragon!” Prior to going to Texas with his dad, I told him we would go see Toy Story 3 when he got back. Over a week later, I showed up at his dad’s and the first thing he asked was, “Are we going to see Toy Story?!?!?!” (Gone are the days where I can promise him anything and be lucky enough that he forgets about it completely…) He talks about his Aunt Holly and cousin Sabrina all the time and he hasn’t even seen them in 6 months!
I don’t know how this kid has the energy he does. He didn’t fall asleep until after 11pm last night and was bright and bouncy this morning. David insisted that he stay in bed when he awoke at 5:45am; thank goodness he fell back to sleep for a bit and bought us a few more Z’s. Still, the adults are dragging and Jack was racing me to the car on the way to daycare.
Jack wants to know everything. He is in the WHY stage. He doesn’t ask the same why question over and over, thankfully. I think we must be pretty good at flooding him with information in answer to his questions. I’ve had a difficult time explaining how the days of the week work, though. He thinks every day that the sun comes up is Sunday. I’ve attempted to explain that today is Friday because it comes after Thursday and that there is an order to the days in a week but…”NO mom, it’s SUNDAY! See the sun?!” Erm, okay. I think it’s time to put a calendar up in his room.
Until recently, Jack refused to sing or dance (and he threw a fit if I tried!). These days he is humming to himself constantly, telling himself stories while sitting on the potty, and asking to listen to Lady Gaga (yeah…I don’t know – he is also convinced that Rihanna is pretty and dances well even though he has only heard her on the radio. He is a big fan.). We dance around the house together without a care in the world. He is constantly acting out “movies” that are basically him acting like a Transformer or Buzz Lightyear. “Hey, mom, wanna watch THIS movie about gigantic aliens?? *pew* *pew* *pew*” This picture was taken in daycare where he staged a dinosaur attack:
It always astonishes me to see how much love surrounds Jack (even the people who don’t like kids love him!). He is a favorite everywhere he goes – to the point where I wonder if some people only acquaint themselves with me because of him (I’m serious – he has more adults coming to his birthday party than kids). He is the leader at daycare and all the other kids want what Jack has (even if it’s just a knit hat that he calls a Viking helmet). They will even try whatever veggie Jack devours – from bell pepper to asparagus. (He is convinced that these foods will help him fly, by the way.)
I can’t help but think back to when he was a baby. There were certainly elements of his personality there from the beginning but never could I have imagined that he would grow into the child he is now. I’m astounded by this kid and totally blessed to have him as my son. I adore him and my life is so much richer and more meaningful with him in it.
Tuesday is Happy Birth Day to us both.
Every Sunday morning this winter, I drove down to South San Francisco. I knocked on Joe’s door and waited to hear the high-pitched squeal of excitement from Jack. Sometimes he threw himself at me when the door opened and sometimes he stood at the top of the stairs and announced something like, “OF COURSE it’s my mom!” He would then spend 10 minutes or so showing off his most recent toy or Lego creation before shoving me out the door while declaring, “It’s time to go now!”
After pick-up, we drove down to Peet’s where Jack ordered “kid coffee” (aka hot cocoa) and I get the real stuff. This has become our Sunday ritual and Jack totally knows the drill now. He gets up on his tip toes to peer over the counter and orders for himself, “I want kid coffee please! And pumpkin bread!” The cashier gets clarification from me on what kid coffee means after chuckling. Then Jack leads me to a table where he stuffs over-sized bites of pumpkin bread in his mouth while I sip my mocha.
Joe’s work schedule changes again this week, so there will be no more Sunday pick-ups. Instead Jack and I will spend every weekend together until September. We’ll come up with a new ritual, like homemade hot cocoa and waffles or a walk to the donut shop on Saturday mornings. Who knows.
I enjoyed similar rituals with my mom growing up and it’s one of only a few things about my childhood that I am choosing to recreate for Jack. Before becoming a parent, I dreamed of sitting down with my child, focusing on his company, hearing about his latest adventures, and reconnecting with him. These are the moments when time stands still and I completely revel in being a mom.
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My therapist asked me recently about how I parent. I didn’t know how to answer at first. I had just explained that I didn’t have good examples of parenting growing up - I parented my mom and dad a lot more than they parented me and I spent much of my childhood trying to take care of and shield my siblings. The idea of *me* being taken care of is pretty much alien to me. I recognize this and acknowledge it and discuss it in therapy. So the therapist wondered how, if I don’t know how to be taken care of, did I figure out how to take care of others?
Communication in my family was difficult and not to be trusted most of the time. The grandmother who babysat us, fed us, clothed us, provided cable TV and video games – she is also the person who in my memory has never hugged us and had violent outbursts at unpredictable times. Never did we hear that she loved us, but many times we heard that she hated us. Any good thing she did for us was followed tenfold by something bad and I’ve always had the “audacity” to expect that life should be good enough to be worth living.
My parenting theory is based heavily off of the notion that I should do everything differently than my family did. My family kept secrets. They explained away the bad stuff or pretended it didn’t happen. So my theory is pretty simple, really. I don’t keep secrets. I try to acknowledge the bad stuff. I try to work on problems until they are fixed and I keep working to make sure they don’t return. Even if I know how to fix something, I don’t want to keep repairing the same issue over and over. I’d rather avoid it altogether if possible.
While I may not immediately know what goes on the list of “good parenting” many times, my compiled list of bad parenting decisions is massive. Even if I don’t know how to be good, I am extremely aware of how not to be bad.
Somehow my approach to parenting seems to be working for Jack (and also for me). We spend a lot of time talking about our days and I make sure that he knows that even if I can’t fix his problems, he doesn’t have to deal with them alone. A stomach ache is somehow easier to handle when you have someone to snuggle.
So when I was asked how I parent, the only thing I could think to say was, “I listen to my kid. He tells me what he needs. If I’m paying attention, if I’m attuned to what is going on with him, it’s not that complicated.” Listening to my kid and talking about things is a hell of a lot easier than listening to him screaming at me because he doesn’t understand why I won’t do XYZ. From the day he was born, his only agenda has been to live and learn and thrive. It’s my job as a parent to make sure he is supported in those endeavors. And you know what? If all I went through as a kid has brought me to a point where I can support my own child and help him thrive, then it was worth it.
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As much as I feel impatience when Jack and I go through the bedtime routine every night, I also cherish those special moments.
I love that, no matter what, we have time set aside each night to read books and talk about the stories.
I love that we will always say goodnight with a multitude of hugs and kisses. I love hearing him whisper, “I love you, mom” with a sigh.
I love discussing what he wants to dream about.
I love that when I tell him to close his eyes he replies, “I just want to close one eye.”
I love snuggling up to him, smelling his neck and nuzzling his skin while I hold his hand or caress his hair. It soothes me as well as him. It’s so soothing, in fact, that I have fallen asleep right next to him more often than not.
Even though I don’t love listening to him call for me over and over again when he should be drifting off to sleep, I love that he knows I will answer if he doesn’t give up calling.
I love that face. Photo by @Sarahndipitea
One of the things about the separation that I haven’t totally worked out is this: I will become responsible for both daycare pick-up and drop-off. At first I thought I could just work longer hours on Mondays and Tuesdays (Joe’s current days off, when he has Jack) but as of mid-September, Joe will have a different job and schedule that gives him Sundays and Mondays off. In order for me to get Jack to daycare and drop him off, that means I would have to cram an extra 2 hours onto Mondays to make up for the time I’m taking off the rest of the week. Daycare has strict hours and it takes me an hour to get to/from work. Also, Jack is currently enrolled 3 days a week, so I HOPE that they can take him on Tuesdays. Fingers crossed.
Somehow, I know it will work out. Things usually do. It’s just a bit anxiety-inducing in the mean time.
From the land of cute – last night as we were heading to bed, I told Jack to say goodnight to his grandma. “Nigh-night, Grandma!” Then he added, “I love you, Grandma!” Awwwww. Love those unprompted expressions of emotion!
