One-on-one time, in a family of five

Today we set it up so that all three kids got some one-on-one time with one of us. Given that there are three kids, and that the younger two are twins, this is something that virtually never happens. I remember taking Joanna to a medical appointment a couple of years ago and realizing that it was possibly the first time in her life I’d ever spent more than five minutes with her, just the two of us. It’s something that we’ve wanted to do, but has felt challenging to actually accomplish. Today we did it. Hazel got time with her daddy, and Emily and Joanna each got time with me.

It was so wonderful, both in the moment and later. The twins were both more affectionate with me throughout the day, and I felt that our connection was reinforced and refreshed, updated and newly prioritized by the time together, even though it was short, only an hour and a half in each case.

This week Hazel has been home from school for spring break, and it has been a difficult week in some regards. I really have a hard time with lots of simultaneous input from multiple sources, and having three kids around instead of two pushes my limits at times. And I also fell into the trap of having expectations about how the time was going to go, and even more unproductively, how I was going to feel about it. And then the week got fairly complicated in other ways, and my attention was split, and I started to feel guilty about not having the sort of week I had expected to have, and then it got harder to handle, and well, if you have children you likely know that cycle.

Nonetheless, there have been many positives as well as difficulties. Among other things, both the positives and the negatives provide opportunities to learn. And I appreciated today’s opportunities to revel in the simplicity of one child, one conversation, the sweetness of a pair, and the wonderful individuality of my children.

Favorite moments include: Emily snuggled up with me inside my bathrobe; Joanna asking me to repeat the sound effect I made as she ran her hand along a chain-link fence; the fort built in the living room by Ted and Hazel, and all of them sitting under it as he read a book to them; and Ted and I doing a good job both of setting expectations about bedtime (we’re trying to get back on track) and also flexing together where necessary when realizing that insisting on absolute adherence was going to get us nowhere good.

I am so grateful for my family.

Practicing cello, x-rays, conversations with various people, the nature of top-down heirarchy

I am gradually becoming more disciplined, I think as a result of getting more sleep and getting my daily balance/routine working better. So yesterday morning when my student was late rather than pulling out my phone and playing Scrabble or surfing the web, I got my cello out to work on the last movement of the Beethoven quarter, which goes pretty wickedly fast, and so is amenable to being worked on in small chunks. I only got about ten minutes in, but it was productive.

After that lesson I called up the bike shop and made our down payment for all the work we’re going to have done on the Madsen. That was an enjoyable conversation, including a discussion of lighting on the bike, and what sort of basket we can get on the front.

Then I took Joanna to get her hips x-rayed. Apparently babies born breach can sometimes have their hips out of whack, and so it’s something we just wanted to check out in the category of crossing t’s and dotting i’s. She didn’t enjoy the x-ray at all, but liked the fishy decorations at the place. I loved spending that time just with Joanna, with no other kid to jump in. She gestures a lot more than she talks, and having a chance to communicate with her in her way and at her speed helped me to feel closer to her. It confirmed something I’ve been feeling for a while, which is that I need and want to make individual time for the twins in my weekly routine. Joanna has a sweetness that brings tears to my eyes, and I want to experience the gift of that interaction now, not just when they’re in pre-school and I can send them different days.

After that I talked to my friend R who’s in jail. We’d been missing each other for about three weeks, as I can’t call him and he can only try to guess the right time for calling me. We talked about how the fancies and fears that people can develop in prison are like those that sometimes occur in the middle of the night, when you find yourself creating entire frightening narratives about something that might be happening, which are then dissipated by light of day. In jail, there is, in some sense, never any light of day, and it’s possible to get totally out of balance, having lost your perspective entirely. It was very good to talk, one of the best conversations we’ve had. I was glad to be able to make the time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how hierarchy is a structure in which a certain amount of distrust, anger, and a sense of betrayal is developed, and how antithetical it is to the family life I want to cultivate. I’ve been thinking about my OB’s reaction to my desire to give birth at home, and that she said I had betrayed her by not talking to her about it. She was unable to see beyond her mental box. And I think that has to do with the top-down approach so often found in the world of medicine. I view my health-care practitioners as members of my health-care team, but I am the person whose choice and agency ultimately matters most. It is a collaboration, or should be. That’s one of the things I love about naturpathic care: in that world it’s more likely that you’ll find partners in such a process.

I want each member of my family to learn how to think about each person’s needs, and the need to balance those needs. Ultimately, of course, Ted and I are responsible for our kids’ well-being, and that requires establishing boundaries and making some rules. But I think we’ve been working too hard, doing too much, and that we need to cede some of the work and responsibility to Hazel, include her in conversations in which we’re figuring out what to do for the day, for example, and in deciding how much work everyone’s going to do in the maintenance of the house.

Otherwise, we merely make her wait, telling her to be quiet as we figure out what’s going to happen. That doesn’t really work for her or for us.

Obviously, not every family decision is up for discussion by committee. But I think more of them are than we’ve been allowing.

Then, last night after I taught I went to get my hair cut and colored. The building in which the studio rents space was purchased last year by people who then attempted to kick out all the residents with 20 days notice, some of whom had been living there for decades. It’s all about money. They were prevented from carrying out that maneuver, but they’ve still won, making everyone leave so they can fancy up the building and charge triple or quadruple what was being charged before. I think it’s unethical. A longer but more humane process would have been to gradually renovate and increase prices after tenants had left. I also think that every building owner should be required to include 25% of the apartments or condos as low-income. Our societal segregation is one of the things that leads to lack of understanding and compassion, as well as to extreme injustice.

Despite the heavy conversation, it was nice to have my hair done, to sit in a chair and relax, to be responsible for no one but myself for an hour and a half.

Then when I got home Ted and I continued our ongoing conversation about how things are going in our family, and what we want to try next. I think I want to put up a sign in the kitchen as a reminder to me that, “Not Every Moment Should Be A Teachable Moment.” Not everything has to be fixed right then and there. In fact, not everything has to be fixed.

Hard to remember in the heat of the moment as Hazel assiduously sabotages what feels like every parenting move I try to make with the twins. Hard to remember, but important to remember.

A day of work and play

Today was productive, varied, and enjoyable. I practiced, I got to the gym, I relaxed in a comfy chair with Jasmine during the twins’ nap and Hazel’s quiet time (after I did the dishes), I got our veggie boxes in, I steamed and baked various vegetables, and I took Hazel to her piano lesson. I got Ted and the kids going on dinner, and then I went to the coffee-house to write. After struggling a bit with resistance, I took some notes and then got a good start on a scene. Tonight I talked with my sister, and in a bit Ted and I will have some time to talk too, before we hit the sack. And when I came home from writing there was a container of gluten-free chicken nuggets left over from dinner, so I got a snack, too. A good day.

This afternoon I got out the butcher paper and covered the kitchen table. The kids painted with water colors while I cooked. All I had to do was remind Hazel a couple of times that her sisters could do what they wanted (she has a tendency to micro-manage them), and to prevent Emily from drinking (all of) the paint-water.

This evening, Ted got a yummy chicken & spinach dish cooked, so we actually have a good start on our week’s food. Dinner was a bit unorthodox, as it consisted of a smoothie (made from a whole box of strawberries, a whole bunch of kale, and coconut milk and cinnamon,) followed by the chicken nuggets. When I was preparing the smoothie, I caught myself before saying, “No,” to Hazel’s request for a kale leaf. I told her she needed to wash her hands first. When she came back she eagerly took the kale and shared it with her sisters. I did a little internal victory dance. You have to cherish those moments.

Oh, adding the tag, “sisters” reminded me that Emily is now saying the word sister. It started as “shuh-shuh”, and has gradually modified so that now it’s “shi-shuhr” or something like that. Very exciting. When Hazel and I came back from her preschool, Emily pointed at the door and said, “Mamma!” and “Shi-shuhr!”

Joanna has started to say, “Yeah!”, “buh-buh” (for bubble), and “moeh” (for more).

critique meeting, gardening with tots, rebalancing of our family schedule

This morning while Ted took the kids to a friend’s birthday party, I went to my monthly writing critique meeting, where my ineluctable prose succeeded in grossing out my friends. Victory! (I am writing a paranormal YA novel, after all.) I read three excerpts, to which they were generous to listen all the way through, as that was a lot of content. One was one of the pivotal scenes in the book, something I’d been avoiding for a while. I think I have at least some of the important elements now. I am sure it will change a lot in revision, but the feeling is there.

I currently have too many characters running around in the book, and will have to reduce its population at some point soon. Also, too many of them have names starting with “M”. I will keep one and change the other two names.

It was also good to see everyone (minus one person, who couldn’t make it today) and hear news and stories. Writing has greatly expanded my social horizons, as well as providing me with an important new creative outlet.

This afternoon we went over to visit friends who wanted to include Hazel in the planting of some potatoes and carrots. The dirt hills they had proved to be immensely appealing, as well as the watering can, though she did enjoy the planting, too. Kids are like cats: you can’t be sure that they won’t prefer the box to the toy inside it. We brought some food, and Hazel took it upon herself to serve us all with bowls of fruit. That put a smile on my face.

Tonight I cooked up the last of this week’s veggies and made some pesto meatballs. This afternoon during nap Ted and I had a good life balance/scheduling talk. We keep going to bed too late, because we keep wanting to have an actual evening after we put the kids down. We brainstormed some ideas for how we can change bedtime, how we can change what we’re doing in the evenings so it’s not always tasks, and how we can get more family time into the schedule. It was a productive conversation, and I think we’re going to move in a better direction. In the fall I am going to tweak my teaching schedule so that I get one more evening with my family, because as it is I am not with them for at least chunks if not all of four out of the five weekend evenings. That’s feeling like too much. Life is a constant re-balancing, we find.

Critique group, house rearrangements

This morning my critique group met. It was all of us for the first time in a while. We spent a while catching up on each other’s lives, and then my friend K and I read excerpts to the group. I am psyched. The diary entry method I’ve been using has been working. There was a very positive response to the pieces I read. I am finding my main character’s voice, at long last. My friends suggested I start writing the book in the way I have been writing the diary entries, but in scenes with the necessary elements of paragraphs, dialogue, etc. I am so happy to be making progress. I find I am much more connected to my main character now, that I feel real sadness for her, real anger on her behalf. I am feeling inspired to write more, to find out more about her and her world. I am even starting to believe that if I keep this up I might actually finish the first draft, incredible as that seems, and as impossible as it has felt at times.

This afternoon after Ted and I got the kids down for their nap we had a very productive conversation about our schedule and our life, and how to make things work better so we each get more of what we want. It suddenly occurred to me in the middle of the conversation that we could leverage the fact that right now we don’t have the social life we used to, and won’t for at least a few more years. Instead of Ted taking his time off during the day on Saturday, which squeezes us for time as a family, he can take it in the evening, when we’re not going anywhere anyway. Voila! He gets more time off and can stay out late if he wants to, and we get a whole long day together as a family. It’s a win-win. We were both pleased with that plan. Of course, it will change again, many times. But for now, that is when we can find the time in a way that won’t negatively impact our family unit as a whole. It’s so great when it’s possible to come up with solutions like that.

After the kids’ nap, our nanny arrived. We had plans to clean the whole house, but we got involved, instead, in rearranging the front two rooms. The house has been really driving me a bit bonkers, and when we had those many, many people in it yesterday it became apparent that it’s too blocked up, and that we’re depriving ourselves of the one patch of sunshine that actually comes into the house anywhere (it’s in the dining room). Since we can’t afford to remodel our house, we have to use what we currently have. So, we swapped things around so that the living room and dining room are much more open, and now there’s a reading nook in the dining room that will take advantage of that afternoon light. It looks and feels like a different house. It’s so appealing. I feel lighter just looking through those two rooms. We took all the leaves out of the table, and it fits perfectly in its new spot, and will be easy to expand when necessary. In the meantime, it will be a good place for puzzles and other games that Hazel wants to play that aren’t toddler-friendly. And the new layout also makes it easier to spend time in the living room with the twins, so we don’t have to be bottled up in the playroom all the time. Another win-win-win-win-win! I’m glad that Ted was willing to take the time to move the furniture around with me, rather than doing the laundry and dishes that had been our plan. We’ll finish the taxes tomorrow night. Let’s hear it for collaboration.

In the middle of all this, he asked me if when I was growing up my parents had moved the furniture around all the time. I said no, that this was just me, that it couldn’t be blamed on my folks. Heh.

Then Ted left to take his time off (that he didn’t get yesterday as it was Hazel’s birthday). The kids and I had a nice evening. Hazel drew with the twins while I finished off the arranging of things and solved the last problem (having to do with the placement of a floor mirror). Then I ate some dinner, and we did our bedtime prep, and then moved upstairs to read books together. It was late enough that the twins were quite tired, and they fell asleep while nursing, and didn’t wake up when I took them off and rolled them onto the bed. Score!

So here I am with an apple cider and the pleasurable feeling of having accomplished something that will make my days better this week. It is good.

sleep training success, spousal birthday

Yesterday our sleep consultant said that she wanted us to try laying the babies down and then either leaving the room or just hanging out away from their bed for a while, to see if they could get to sleep on their own. With a certain amount of fear and trembling, we did so. And they went to sleep! Emily only whimpered once, and was out in five minutes. Joanna cried and was comforted once, and was out in fifteen minutes. Tonight we took the same approach. There was more crying, but still, they were out in 10 to fifteen minutes. It is amazing to have time after the kids are asleep to do dishes, to talk, to play games.

Today was Ted’s birthday. Other than singing to him this morning, and doing the dishes for him tonight (he’s usually been doing that chore), I’m afraid we haven’t done anything of note to celebrate it. But Friday we’ll go out for brunch. And we’ll find a time to go out with friends, too. And there were all the Facebook birthday wishes. Oh, and Hazel made him a card. That was sweet. And in a few days my belatedly ordered presents will arrive. So his birthday celebrations will be low-key but drawn out. I feel sort of embarrassed that we’re not doing more, but right now there is so much going on! And going out with all three kids isn’t something we want to do that often or anywhere even remotely fancy. But after the studio deadline is past, and we don’t have to spend all our childcare hours working on the house, we’ll have time for dinner and a movie or some such, and we can celebrate all sorts of things then.