Posts from the ‘Letters to my son’ Category

May 6

Throwing in the Towel

Dear Loch,

How long do you wait before you throw in the towel? How dearly do you hold onto a dream before you accept it’s over and move onto something new? Is there a difference between making the “safe” choice and giving up?

Whether you want a spot on a team, acceptance at a specific University, the love of a particular person or tangible success at a chosen career, these questions will come up again and again. When you’re young it’s easier to move on, to shake it off and find a new dream, challenge or person when your first choice doesn’t work out. One of the beauties of youth is that the stakes are lower and more options are available as you discover who you are, but as you age, these questions become heavier because they refer to a finite and more important collection of things – the direction of your life, your career, your spouse. Not making the volleyball team, for example, will be replaced by rethinking how you’ll make a living, and though it’s possible you’ll succeed at everything you put your mind to, never having to deal with disappointment, it’s unlikely. There’s a chance you could choose a stable, clear cut career where hard work equals success but every day those jobs become less and less likely. Even doctors are struggling to make ends meet today. Realistically, I believe there’s a much stronger chance you’ll follow your heart into a career that speaks to you but has less than guaranteed results.

lumbertonpolitics.blogspot.com

As your mother I want you to be happy. I hope you follow your dreams and do what it is you want to do. I’m a firm believer in “do what you love and the money will follow” and “choose the career you want and it won’t feel like work” but I’m also a current student in the school of hard knocks and I know first hand how discouraging it feels to live on the periphery of your dreams, to be so close that you can look through the window at the buffet but be starving outside. Your father and I have a wonderful life but it’s not the one we imagine and every day we struggle to rise above the disappointment to hold on until our persistence and hard work finally pays off.

acelebrationofwomen.org

Your Dad is better at this than me. His optimistic attitude serves him well in the world of the arts. As you know, when we met we were both actors. I was part of a successful show moving from NYC to LA and he was a reoccurring role on Star Trek about to be cast as a lead in an ABC pilot. Our dreams were within our grasp. Our time was coming. When I was fired from my show and your Dad’s pilot wasn’t picked up we were disappointed but not discouraged. We understood the business. We were young, talented, hungry. We’d been down before. We’d be up again. There were opportunities ahead and every job brought us one step closer to our goals. When your Dad was cast as the lead in a CBS show just before our wedding it felt right, as if everything had lead up to this. Our life and our choices were finally falling into place. We enjoyed our honeymoon that much more knowing Sean had a full time gig when we got back. When we returned to LA to find his role had been recast by a celebrity it was a big blow to our projected bank account but also to my faith that everything would work out. Just like that we were back to square one and over the next six months I became very discouraged. I was married now. I was 30. I had certain expectations that came with those titles that didn’t match up with my reality. I didn’t want to be a bartender married to a cater waiter. It no longer felt exciting to be a struggling actress. My dream of making a career doing what I loved was drowned out by the noise of my own disappointment. I felt unhappy all the time. I became jealous (and bitter) of other’s opportunities and luck. I had no experience with failure and here I was at the beginning of new decade, the decidedly adult part of my life, unable to look at myself in the mirror without seeing a loser.

bestlifeministries.com

Your Dad on the other hand was able to let everything slide off his back. He never questioned his career. He was so confident that everything would work out that my uncertainty stood out in contrast. I realized if I was no longer sure of my inevitable success I was in the wrong line of work. Almost every sign in an artistic career points to “you’re not going to make it” and if you start buying into that, it’s the beginning of the end. I was no longer happy. I’d lost track of who I was. I didn’t recognize myself amidst my insecurity. I could have hung on but it wasn’t worth it. I needed a new dream.

Letting go of the idea of being an actress was like saying goodbye to the person I thought I’d be and opening my life to the person I might be. It was heartbreaking but not nearly as painful and difficult as I thought. I missed being happy I wanted to find it again. My biggest problem was I had no idea what to do. My life had been mapped out for years and suddenly I was sailing without direction. It was simultaneously frightening and freeing.

Not knowing what you’re going to do with your life is scary at any age but changing course as a full fledged adult is particularly unnerving. How do you choose wisely without being swayed by your desired lifestyle, your current bills or growing list of dependents? What if you choose poorly and have to start again AGAIN? How do you stack up against your friends? Your contemporaries? How do you not feel embarrassingly left behind? For a while I was able to hid my lack of plan in my pregnancy and early days with you. The value of a stay-at-home mom was legitimate enough to start rebuilding my self worth and temporarily negate the question of what I was doing with my life.

wittytitlehere.com

When I found my way into writing my life opened up. I finally understood what it meant to work with joy. I felt value in myself I hadn’t in years. I was able to use my skills again, my brain. I found I could write for hours without feeling the least bit burdened. Being an actress was wonderful but with hindsight I saw what I really loved was entertaining people, making them laugh, and I could do that as a writer without the same burdens I felt as an actress. It turned out I was better suited to my fallback career. I like being attractive but resented it as a job requirement. I’m committed to hours of hard work but like a flexible schedule. I want to be a present hands-on mom and I have a tendency to let people know exactly what I’m thinking – a detriment to a young actress but real worth to a writer. The take away being: had I not “failed” at my original plan I never would have discovered the thing that made me happier. That Plan B is ok, provided you aren’t choosing it out of fear.

Now, I threw in the towel and got a whole new life, your Dad refused to do the same yet still found his way to a new passion. Having no desire to give up acting, he realized he also was no longer happy simply trying to afford to keep up his dream. He had a family now and wanted to be a part of his life not just a visitor too busy to enjoy it. At a crossroads he took a leap of faith and opened a production company. Just as my bottom line was to entertain, his was to create, and he realized he needed to make his own opportunities rather than continue to passively wait for them to come along. Instead of abandoning his dream in search of another, he added to it. Which career takes off only time will tell.

kendrickshop.com

Lochlan, I believe your future, and the future of your peers, will be a less traditional route than the past. I think they’ll be less, “I’m going to be a lawyer” and more roundabout discoveries. I believe many of you will forge your own course and find yourself in careers and fields that have yet to be created, and in many ways, I believe your father and my irregular journeys may be of service to you as you navigate those uncertain waters. It won’t be easy but your Dad and I are firm believers that it’s ultimately a mistake to make the “safe” choice. Don’t choose the “sure thing” you don’t care about over the risky thing that would fulfill your dreams. I want you to be responsible, to protect yourself and your family but never feel you have to walk some predetermined path in order to be a success. You must do what fulfills you. You must follow your heart in all things. If you’re no longer happy or want or need things you can’t achieve on your current path, adjust, but never give up because holding on seems too hard. I changed courses and found something I love. Your father held tight to his dream but added to it. Either way we’re better people and parents for liking what we do.

mysignatureblog.com

The hardest part of an uncertain career is dealing with the disappointment of the wait. The pain of which is only counterbalanced by the happiness you surround yourself with. In our case: family, love, friends and you. If you work to secure all the important things when the rest comes it’ll be gravy. (Gravy your Dad and I are dying for like dried up turkeys, but gravy all the same.) The point is, create a happy life and success – financial or otherwise – will only add to it. Your father and I know plenty of “successful” people who are nowhere near as happy as us and we don’t want that for you, no matter how nice their houses might be. Follow your dreams without fear. Only by being true to yourself can you find real happiness without which success, in itself, is irrelevant.

I can only hope when you’re old enough to read this, our family’s prosperity will render the above advice prolific and inspiring…

Be happy. Make others happy. Carve your own path. Success will eventually follow. I’m counting on it.

Love you forever.

xo Mommy

Apr 15

9 Comments

Bossy Bossy Two Socks

Dear Loch,

Years ago I wrote a children’s book called Bossy Bossy Two Socks. It’s a book about a little girl who, with all best intentions, spends all her time telling people what to do until eventually she discovers she has no one left to play with. It was an autobiography of sorts, a love letter to the lessons an only child must learn. I started thinking about Bossy Bossy Two Socks again recently and wishing I’d had it published. A: because “author” is a pretty good answer to “What do you do?” and B: because I’d have the book to read to you right now. BB2S is a book you should be reading and having it would allow me a way into a discussion about appropriate behavior. I wouldn’t even tell you I wrote it. Frankly, I think it would mean less if I did.

You’re in a mode. A pressing every button, testing every established rule mode. You talk back and act up and push your luck and, if I hadn’t seen it before I’d be nervous about what was happening to you. The thing is, I have seen it before. Every year around your birthday something like this happens. Overnight you seem to morph from the boy I raised to some unknown, attitude coping child I’m unsure of. When you turned three you started ignoring me. You’d stare right at me as I told you not to do something and do it anyway. You pushed hard against my authority. You even tried to swat me once while I was plugging you into the carseat. I was freaking out. What happened to my perfectly behaved boy? Who was this ruffian with his embarrassingly willful behavior? I brought all my anxiety to your wonderfully and amazingly zen teacher Tammy. I didn’t know what to do. What had I done wrong? What made you think this behavior was ok? Teacher Tammy, in her infinite wisdom, told me not to worry, that this was a normal phase. You were growing up, testing your boundaries and seeing, now that you were older, if the rules still applied. You were looking to me for guidance. You wanted to know what being three meant and I should see it as good and normal behavior even if it appeared the complete opposite. Another mother who overheard our conversation told me when her son turned three he started spitting, everywhere, including on her. She was so appalled that – for the one and only time – she’d slapped his hand. She said she felt like “Where did my child go? Who is this kid?” and I totally understood. Teacher Tammy told us both to relax and accept our job was to calmly and firmly remind our children of the rules. To let them know they may be older but the expectations remained the same. She reminded us that even though it was a trying period, it was a short one that would be outgrown provided we stayed firm, and two weeks later just as predicted, the testing stopped and the boy I knew returned to me.

From this….

When you turned four the behavioral shift arrived in the form of attitude coping. “Mommy, you don’t know.” “Mommy, you got it wrong.” It was eye rolling/teeth gritting/don’t lose it behavior and just when I’d bent down to eye level to “calmly” talk to you more times than I thought I could possibly handle, overnight your sweet disposition came flooding back. Now, you’re five and transitioning again. This time your boundary pushing has arrived resembling what I would call snit fits. If you don’t get what you want, you pout, you badger, you talk my ear off with disappointment and blame and if you’re worked up enough you fall into full fledged, life’s unfair, crying dramatics. I honestly think you’re subconsciously seeing how far you can push me before I lose it. The other day I had to put you in a time out because you became so completely worked up looking at yourself in the mirror. It was as if the more you witnessed your own devastation, the more devastated you became. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so irritating. I understand things can be disappointing and it’s hard when we don’t get our way but life is like that and, if you don’t learn to handle it now, you’ll be more prone to breakdowns later, and there’s nothing worse than a grown man having a hissy.

Back to this.

The other issue five has kindly brought us is bossy, know-it-all behavior. I’m sure it’s partially the product of growing up an only child, though we’ve done our best not to let you run the roost. Your Dad and I make a big effort to encourage you to fall in, to play our game or use your second choice toy. It’s not because we care what placemat we’re using or what Ninjago we get, it’s because we don’t want you going through life expecting everyone to bow to your will. We’ve done you no favors if you think the world revolves around you and reality will be a crushing blow. We’re very sensitive you not grow up with an inflated image of yourself. We don’t want you to fall into a world of righteous entitlement. We want you to feel special. We don’t want you to feel SPECIAL. It’s important you understand everyone’s ideas have merit and just because you have a captive audience at home doesn’t mean the world will always stop to listen to you. Learning to be flexible, to defer to others, to know when to take the lead and when to give it away are important life skills and ones too often lacking in both children and adults.

Talks about behavior started early…

Up till now, you’ve been great at this kind of behavior. You’ve been a leader without being a dictator and I’ve secretly patted myself on the back for your excellent manners. So now that we’re returning to the post-birthday boundary check, these long established skills have been slipping and we need to reign them in. Recently you were playing at your BFF’s house and from the kitchen I could hear you screaming “No! You don’t do it like that!” “Stop playing until I say it’s time to start!” “NO! Wait for me to say ok!” And, when your friends ignored you and continued playing the way they wanted, you freaked out. “Stop! Stoooop!!!” I came in to find you standing at the side of the room just as livid as can be and I was floored. All your beautiful give and take, “please may I have?”, “that’s ok, I’ll play with it after” had been replaced by an unfamiliar, little tyrant yelling at his exasperated friends. When I asked you why you thought you were in charge you looked at me with irritation and disgust and said, “Because I’m the Director!”. Now, if you’d grown up on sets, or gone to work with your Dad, I might chalk this behavior up to remiss parenting and the need to extricate you from “the business” but you don’t even know what a Director is so the behavior was all you. What you really meant was you were the “Boss” and we needed to address it immediately.

…and has continued every year.

Driving home you explained you were frustrated because no one was playing the game “right” and when you tried to explain the rules no one was listening so you had to scream. I tried to impart parental wisdom by saying that unless a game comes with rules written down on paper, there is no “right” way to play and you have to learn to loosen up on the “rules” because everyone’s ideas were worth the same amount. I tried to explain if you kept telling everyone what to do, yelling that they were wrong and screaming when you didn’t get your way, pretty soon just like Bossy Bossy Two Socks, no one was going to want to play with you. I realize it’s a tough lesson but it’s one you have to understand. At this stage, having friends is infinitely more important than being in charge.

I love his face in this one. Normally it’s not caught on camera. Totally classic.

So, the battle continues. I hope the Post-Five adjustment ends sooner rather than later and I get my easy going boy back. Lochlan, I know you can’t stay the same forever. I know you’ll only continue to grow and change and each phase will test me in different ways. I can only hope I’m always able to rise to the challenge. I think children fail when parents get complacent and tired. Keeping up with the rules is exhausting. There are so many times when it would be easier just to say “eff it, I can’t deal with this” and let you do whatever you want, but high expectations require effort from both sides and we keep at it because we want the best for you. We want you to be the best you can be. We don’t want you to be that kid.

Most of all, we don’t want you to be that adult.

At the end of the day I’ll love you no matter what phase you’re in. Let’s just try and keep it an 80/20 split between my boy and that boy. Deal?

I love you always. Even when you’re a twit.

xo Mom

Mar 4

6 Comments

On the Occasion of your 5th Birthday

Dear Loch

You just turned five. You’re FIVE years old. Half a decade. No longer a baby. A full fledged kid. You don’t toddle or struggle for words. You make yourself and your feelings heard. You are loving and empathetic, kind, funny, popular and cheeky. I am honored to know you and am so proud of who you’re becoming. I adore you with all my heart.

People say it goes so fast. The years fly by and one day your child is grown and you wish you could do it all again. You wish you’d spent more time together, not sweated the small stuff, appreciated every minute. I’ve heard that every time I’m at the end of my rope I should try and transport myself to the future and see my life after Loch’s grown. I should take a look in my rearview mirror and see no carseat, no goldfish, no little face. I should imagine hearing no kid music or little voice talking from the backseat and that should give me the perspective to see all the monotonous activities morphing into lovely memories I’ll surely miss. Though I understand this as a noble exercise that could possibly grant me that extra scrap of patience when I’m steps away from losing it, the truth of the matter is I believe true perspective is only really possible in retrospect. We can enjoy the company of our children, appreciate the moments of love and affection, revel in our unconditional love for each other, we can kiss their sweet faces and pray over their little sleeping bodies, but we can’t truly appreciate the passage of time until it’s passed. It’s too much to expect of ourselves and just another thing to feel guilty about when we don’t succeed. You can’t see a forest if you’re tied to a tree and the rope only slackens up as our children age and gradually pull away on their own. It’s only with distance that we can see a bigger picture. Yes, childhood goes fast but in many ways it also goes slow. I stayed home with you. I’ve been with you every day of your life.* I was there when you walked and talked and sang and learned and grew. I committed to your well being, your education, your entertainment. I introduced you to everything from manners to live theatre and all the things in between. I’ve been your constant companion, champion, teacher and friend and I’ve loved almost every minute of it.

Being a parent is by far the best thing I’ve ever done. Being your parent is a gift from God I’m grateful for every day. I know I’ll look back on these baby years with longing but I’m also looking forward to the next step. I know there a lot of working parents who feel guilty they’ve missed some milestones but I don’t find myself in that position. I didn’t miss anything in your life. The things I missed were things that belonged to me. As a parent whichever way you choose you’re going to miss out on something. It’s impossible to do it all, be it all. have it all. Something has to give. If you’re at work you’re missing out on your kids. If you’re with your kids you’re missing out on your work. We do the best we can and live with the guilt however it comes.

I’ve been tired lately. Not of you but of me. I’ve been so caught up in the business of being a parent I find I’m less capable of experiencing the joy of being a parent. I watch your Dad play with you and I get down on myself for not being more like him. As you wrestle or play superheroes or legos I feel I should be able to handle more than an hour (or sometimes 15 minutes) of down-on-the-floor-playing but I can’t. I’d rather be out in the world experiencing something with you, or taking you somewhere, or getting some writing done or folding the damn laundry.

I fight to live in the moment when I have so many other things in my mind. On the flip side your Dad’s time with you is more spuratic, more fleeting. He’s able to give himself over to you completely because your time together is finite. Our time together is more extensive and fluid. We’ve experienced so much together. Played for hours at all ages. You’ve grown up in front of my eyes and I’ve decided not to get down on myself for being excited for the next phase. I’ll always treasure our days together but I look forward to having some time belong to me again. Time to find worth in my work and not just your behavior. Time to explore my own happiness and not just live vicariously through yours. You will always be my top priority, my first and most important job, your happiness will always come before mine, but as you grow, so again shall I.

I’ll miss these days. I’ll miss our time together. The concentrated, one-on-one Mommy/Lochie time. I’ll miss your unbridled affection, your devotion to me, your constant desire to be with me. You recently told me you didn’t want to turn 5. When I asked why you said it’s because 5 year olds have to go to kindergarden and you’d rather stay in preschool. You understood it. You liked it. You weren’t ready to move on. I get it. I have moments when I feel exactly the same, both for your life and mine, but I told you no matter what we do we can’t stop time from marching on. We have birthdays, we get older, we transition to the next phase and the best we can do is appreciate each one as it comes.

I have six months until you start kindergarden. Half a year to truly treasure these last days of your first phase before we start celebrating the beginning of the next. Every part of your life is important, every transition exciting, and even though each step will take you further from my side, each one only solidifies you in my heart. I love getting to know you Lochlan. I love the discovery of who you are and who you might be. I am not afraid of you getting older. I will look back on these days as glorious memories. I’m not sad. I’m excited and proud and I only hope I’m around for the many more phases to come.

Happy 5th Birthday Darling boy!!!

xoxox your mommy

Photo credit for all green pictures to the lovely geniuses at Hendershott Photography. We are so lucky they like to use our kid to play around. Yay Adam & Sylvia!

* Every day except nine. Three, weekend trips with your father and one three night trip to NYC when you were two

Feb 12

A Lesson in Love

Dear Loch,

Love is the most important thing in your life. It is now, when you’re small and dependent on your parents’ love and protection. It will be when you’re grown and find a home in the heart of another, and it will culminate in the love you’ll feel for your future children. But for this the season of cupids and cards, let’s put parental love aside and focus on romantic love which you will experience all varieties – obsession, heartbreak, ambivalence, lust, desire – throughout your life. Ultimately you should look to find yourself an equal, a partner who not only turns your head but fills your soul. Love, at it’s essence is acceptance. If it’s right you should feel supported for who you are and encouraged to become who you want to be. Love is not all passionate getaways and happily ever afters but at it’s heart, it has the ability to bring moments of true magic.

csmonitor.com

I’ve written about your father before, my love for him, the great blessing of finding such a partner, the struggles of marriage that befall any couple. I’ve spoken about dating and navigating your way through the discovery of love. But in the month of St. Valentine I want you to know that though love will be the most important thing in your life, you can’t make it your sole focus. I pray great love will find you but I want to encourage you to live your life and experience its many joys while you wait for it. Finding the right person is a blessing but before that person arrives there are bound to be some disappointments and it’s best if you are aware enough to handle them.

I can’t prepare you to deal with heartbreak. It’s something you just have to live through. All I can say is there’s life after heartbreak if you don’t let it to ruin you. Heartbreak, though painful, is a good sign. It means you committed. You put yourself out there and in doing so truly allowed yourself the best chance of success. It’s my belief that true love can only be attained from an open and unguarded heart. It’s hideously gut wrenching when it doesn’t work out but it’s better to be unsuccessful because you gave too much than to fail because you couldn’t give enough. People who guard their heart so tightly that they’re unable to truly commit or relax with another are the people I truly feel sorry for. You’ll get over heartbreak but you’ll never find true love if you aren’t willing to experience it.

weheartit.com

I’m can’t say for certain if boys and girls experience love the same way. I believe as we age men and women treat and see love in remarkably similar ways but I wonder, as you traverse the path of young love, if I can truly relate to you on your level. In my experience boys always seemed less invested in affairs of the heart. Not to say they weren’t committed or didn’t get hurt just that they seemed to have a stronger ability to disconnect, move on, or play the field. Male dating behavior seemed to involve a lot less crying and certainly less rehashing of minutia details. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps boys feel everything just as strongly but gender bias forces them into silence. I guess I’ll never really know until perhaps I watch you go through it.

sinisiamballs.wordpress.com

However it plays out I can tell you that when love takes hold it can control your behavior, your feelings, your choices, it can even change the person you become. People don’t start out bitter they get that way. Disappointment in love can cause great misery and if you experience it over and over it’s difficult not to allow past sorrows to dictate your future possibilities. The important thing is to keep the faith. Throughout my life of rather dismal dating experiences I never lost hope that there was someone out there for me. That hope didn’t prevent my suffering but it allowed me not to get trapped in it. For all the pain, I was never jaded.

Your younger years are full of unrequited love. It’s the way of the world. We all want what we can’t have. High School is tough. Certain people are considered the pinnacle of desire and others their pale comparison. You could navigate these waters without a hitch or struggle to keep up. The key is not to let it define you. Whether you’re the BMOC or the awkward guy trying to find his place, everything is fluid. Everything changes. Have confidence that becoming the best version of you will attract the right people for you. Don’t change to fit in. Don’t conform. Don’t become someone your not. Never do things you aren’t comfortable with to make someone love you. The greatest relationships I saw as a young person were not between the “coolest” people but the people who were coolest with themselves.

My lack of teen dating success can be boiled down to fear. I set my sights too high on older boys, or boys who only loved the beauties, and more often than not I allowed the opinions of others to dictate my choices. There were boys I could have gone out with, nice boys, boys I liked, but they couldn’t live up to the people I’d put on a pedestal or else my friend’s didn’t approve. Either way, I didn’t have a boyfriend till I was nineteen and the only person I have to blame for that is myself.

juliet’s balcony and statue in Verona.
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I wrote a boy’s name on the walls of Juliet’s house in Verona one summer when I was backpacking through Italy. I made it small and subtle and kissed the spot it was written. In those days I dreamed of love but I’d yet to experience it. I fantasized about boys who didn’t care about me and spent my time making out with boys I didn’t care about. I aspired to great love but settled for trivial attachments.

By University I was able to value myself more and compare myself less. I dated a lot, had a series of mediocre, short lived romances and one serious relationship that introduced me, for better or worse, to capital L, Love. I lost myself in that relationship and it wasn’t till it was over that I was able to pull myself out from under it. Loving someone can be the most powerful thing you do but it can break you and you have to be strong enough not to let it. You have to know who you are and have a clear enough sense of self worth that even if you lose yourself in a relationship for a while, you can walk away knowing you’ll never do it again. Problems start, not when you make mistakes, but when you repeat them.

Even the things that appear to be perfect can surprise you. I have a darling friend who had the most grown up, open, respectful relationship in High School. They were so well suited to each other, so in love, so devoted that no one questioned them ever breaking up. They made plans for the future and stayed together as we all went off to University. When he ended their five year relationship over the phone because he’d met someone else she was completely blindsided. Sadly, this happens. We change so much as we grow that ideal relationships from one phase of our life may not work in another. This happens with location as much as it does with time. You meet someone at camp or on vacation and it’s perfect, you try and make it work when you get home and it fails. The saddest thing about my friend is I think she believes she had her shot at great love and lost it. She’s never been as sure of herself, her gifts and talents as she was when we were kids. She’s never asked as much from a man again and, in a disturbingly self fulfilling way, no man since has been worthy of her. It breaks my heart she’s still alone. She’s so deserving of love. Life is hard but it’s so much harder by yourself.

fanpop.com

When I was in my mid-twenties a boy who’d always been pleasantly dismissive in my teens, looked at me across a pool and said, “I should have been nicer to you in High School”. It might have been a kind and aware thing to say – a young man suddenly realizing how superior he and his friends had been to all but a few of us – but what was really happening is he was hitting on me. He was saying, “Hey, you turned out way hotter than I thought you would and I should have laid some groundwork when I was younger because I don’t have as much of a chance now.” He wasn’t wrong.

Ironically, a lot of the boys I’d pined for seemed to return as I got older. It was as if they’d always been interested in me the person, but now that I looked differently they could commit to being interested in me the girl. Keeping this in mind, never judge potential partners on too narrow a list of requirements and try not to idolize. You can’t fight chemistry, you’re either attracted to someone or you’re not, but make sure you like the person inside the package. You’re convinced someone’s perfect for you? Make sure your perception matches the reality. Love a person not the ideal and understand people can grow in relationships, improve or degrade depending on the love, but ultimately you can’t change someone. We can be better versions of ourselves -clean up, learn new skills, get better looking – but at the end of the day we are who we are and deserve to be loved for that person first.

darrenhardy.success.com

You shouldn’t have to second guess love. I was never totally at ease with anyone before your Dad. I knew I only had a tenuous hold on most of them, they were only partially committed to me and no matter how much I cared it was never going to be right. When I met your Dad, I knew immediately. I always say, I could have told you I’d marry him on our first date, but if I was being truly honest, I think I knew the first time we made eye contact. There was something about that moment – a recognition, a stillness and I never questioned it. I may have a million terrible dating stories but I never doubted I deserved love or could make someone truly happy. I knew I was worthy of someone who would meet me at my level. Getting to know your Dad was like coming home and everything that came before had lead me there. I didn’t need to lower my standards or expect less. I didn’t have to pretend or settle. When we got engaged I knew in my heart it was the right decision and it took everything that came before to prepare me to recognize that.

Love to the fullest. Don’t guard yourself or hold back thinking it’s safe. You will experience hurt but it’s part of the journey. Things have a way of working themselves out.

Believe in love. Have faith in love. Respect love and in the end it will respect you.

Happy Valentines.

Love forever,

Your Mommy xo

The path to true love is never smooth.
indiaforums.com

Dec 2

4 Comments

The Me First Mentality

Dear Loch,

The world is not the same as it used to be. It’s harder, tougher, more self serving. People don’t take care of each other like they used to, or at least as I’ve heard they did in say, Grand Mimi’s time. Even when Granny was young it seems people were more willing to look out for one another. That’s not to say there aren’t twenty-first century people who give of themselves, but just that it seems they’re more the exception than the rule. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my generation never lived through a major coming together like a great war or depression. We’ve faced financial hardship and God knows there’s been enough blood shed for generations to come, but wars over oil or perceived nuclear threats are different from the Great Wars fought for ideology and losing your house because of loose banking regulations is less uniting than the dust bowl and the crash of the entire economy. Those times forced our country to band together to weather a storm. It was a time where people on the home front sacrificed and contributed and the war was the news of the day. These days it feels as if we’ve become complacent, leaving the wars to faceless soldiers halfway around the world, it barely registers in our daily lives. Our most recent conflicts didn’t even raise taxes. We’re paying for it with our hideous deficit, but it’s almost as if we thought we could get involved without really involving ourselves. We’ve become so used to looking out for the individual that we’ve created a culture that celebrates and rewards those who put themselves first.

underconsideration.com

Lochie, I’m sorry to say that you seem to be growing up in a “what’s best for me?” world. I’m not sure how to advise you to navigate it other than to say try and choose a higher path. It’s fair to wonder how you’ll be able to compete if you aren’t playing the same game as everyone else, but I’m confident it’s worth striving to rise above your most basic nature and attempt to be better than the lowest common denominator. Hold yourself to a higher standard than expected. Ask more of yourself and more of your friends. I often think of this idea when people are shocked by your manners. Fifty years ago, children were expected to behave. A child not saying please and thank you would have been a disappointment, an anomaly. Today, a child that doesn’t bowl you over is a delightful surprise. Often, when we’re with guests or at someone’s house and I correct you for doing something impolite (interrupting a conversation or climbing on the back of their couch) people will say, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s ok.” As if the mere fact that you’re not destroying their house is cause to be impressed. My answer to their kind overlooking of your behavior is always, “No, it’s not.” I hold you to a higher standard. I expect you be well behaved and follow the rules. It’s how you were raised and I hope it’s how you’ll continue.

chandelight.blogspot.com

Nowadays more and more people – adults, not just children – somehow feel the rules don’t apply to them. They’ve convinced themselves they are somehow exempt from the standards to which others are accountable. I recently witnessed this first hand waiting for a treatment room at my acupuncturist’s office. A girl came into the lobby with a big golden retriever. My acupuncturist sighed and I looked at him and said, “The dog?”. He nodded and went over to speak with her. The conversation played out like this:

Acupuncturist: I’m so sorry but we can’t have dogs in here. We treat a lot of people for allergies and the pet dander makes it a really tough environment for them.

(Her response should have been something along the lines of, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Of course.” and promptly removed her dog. What actually transpired was an illustration of a society that thinks it’s special)

Dog owner: (non-plussed) Oh. Really? Can’t I just keep him in here this time?

Acupuncturist: (long pause) Um, well…no…because he’s a really big dog with a lot of hair and we’re really trying to keep the office pet free.

Dog owner: But he doesn’t like being tied up.

Acupuncturist: You can leave him on the patio. It’s fenced in.

Dog owner: I’d rather just keep him in here.

(At this point I wanted to go over and say, “Hey! This place is no dogs. That includes YOUR dog. The rule applies to YOU. Take. The. Dog. Outside.” But I said nothing.)

Acupuncturist: Um, unfortunately, I really have to ask that you take him out.

Dog owner: What if he runs away?

(Seriously lady?!!!! Like that’s going to happen.)

Acupuncturist: I’m sorry. I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Dog owner: (much huffing and puffing) Fine.

Dan Goodsell illustration from rivetart.com

The whole interaction was both ridiculous and representative of everything that drives me crazy about the “Me First” culture we’ve morphed into. Rules are rules. They exist for a reason and you’re not exempt just because of a sense of entitlement or inflated self worth.

I was infuriated in traffic the other day sitting behind a woman making a left turn at an intersection clearly marked (multiple times) No Left Turn. She sat there completely unconcerned with the honking and waited the entire light to make her turn. As I cooled my heels through the next light I grumbled to myself about people who think they can do whatever they want. From the backseat you asked me what I was saying. After explaining the situation, I told you it’s important that you respect the rules that are laid out in life, and even more importantly respect other people. You don’t do something just because you want to. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Frankly, I think you got it, and even more so I think you agreed.

Lest it appear that your mother is simply a wuss to the rules – a cow tower if you will – I should stress I’ve always been an advocate of rocking the system and I think you should challenge authority if authority needs to be challenged. I’m simply of the opinion that you can’t go through your life under the assumption you are special which somehow qualifies you to live under a different set of guidelines. And, yes, I believe that also goes for celebrities who continue to skate their way out of situations the rest of us would be in jail for. If that’s not the worst message to society I don’t know what is. Other people should not have to clean up after you. You’re responsible for your own actions. Blatantly disregarding rules for your own betterment does not make you better, and as you navigate this world I hope you’ll remember that.

the100percentyou.com

Nothing brings this point home more succinctly than a recent altercation your Dad had at work. He was bartending a Laker’s game and a man (who’d already proved himself to be selfish and self serving) tried to remove one of the stools from the bar to put at his table. Your Dad informed him that, unfortunately, the bar’s policy was the stools had to remain where they were. They were for bar patrons only and could not be moved. Outrightly dismissing your father this patron continued to leave with the stool. Again, your Dad stopped him, telling him more firmly this time, he would not be taking the stool. The man proceeded to launch into an angry tirade about how his elderly mother needed a place to sit and what kind of *^#@ wouldn’t give a stool to an elderly woman. Your father suggested the man take his mother to their seats if she needed to sit, but reiterated the seating rules. About an hour later a regular arrived to have dinner with his daughter at the bar. At this point it was very crowded and he asked if there was stool he could sit on. Your Dad looked down and saw one stool was missing (there’s only 7 so it’s pretty easy to see). Knowing exactly where it was and who it was with, he asked his barback to retrieve it. When the barback returned shame faced without the stool your Dad asked what happened. Apparently the same man had told him the stool was needed for his one-armed son who was in the bathroom. The man had asked Dad’s barback if he really expected his disabled child to go without a seat. Your Dad lost it. He left the bar, found the guy and called him out for not having a “sick mother” or a “one-armed son”. Realizing he’d been busted, the guy gave up the stool, but made no apologies for his behavior. When your Dad got home five hours later he was still furious. He couldn’t believe someone would be so despicable as to fabricate a disabled child just to get what he wanted.

usmagazine.com

People can be disappointing and I wonder with our society’s current leaning towards the celebration of people’s base natures – reality television’s generated fame lathered on undeserving people to the greed of a wall street tycoon who takes a company into bankruptcy but feels it’s appropriate to collect a bonus – if things really have the opportunity to improve. I’m always touched when someone goes out of their way to help me or does something classy like hold a door or send a thank you note. It seems like a glimmer from a lost time, a bygone era, and I appreciate it all the more for it’s rareness. What I’d like to see is proper behavior being less uncommon and it’s my hope that we can find it in ourselves to overcome our grasping natures and remember we don’t live here, or do anything, completely on our own. At the end of the day we are all connected and though personal fulfillment and success are wonderful, collective success helps us all.

Take the extra step. Respect the rules. Use your manners. And unless you’re rushing to the hospital…don’t turn if it says don’t. Honestly, it’s just so ignorant.

I love you. I believe you have it in you to be better than anyone will ever expect you to be.

Anyone, except me.

xo your devoted and ever opinionated mama

coffee-reverie.blogspot.com

Nov 19

8 Comments

Being a Parent versus Parenting

Dear Lochlan,

I’m sorry. Sometimes I feel as if I’m failing you. My personal struggles have a way of seeping into our life together. I’m tired and frustrated and I don’t always have the energy to do all I should for you. No, that’s not fair. I do everything I should for you. What I don’t do is all you’d like me to, and if I’m being perfectly honest, only part of that is because I don’t have the energy. The other part is because I don’t really want to.

As I said before in Pre K, I’m kind of sucky at “playing”. Moving cars or trains around on the floor with no game plan makes me twitchy. I’m happy to engage in a board game. I dig building. I’ve made more inanimate objects talk than I can possibly count and I’ve embodied every bad guy from this planet and beyond for you to destroy and capture, but I can only do it in ten to thirty minute intervals before I start planning my escape. I love talking to you. I love going places with you. I love singing and visiting and hugging and snuggling, but playing, just random “play with me” moments, exhaust me. I’m not four. I’m not a boy. I have nowhere near the energy you do and there are so many other things I need (or would like) to be doing. I love to work. Love it. It makes me feel good. I like using my brain. I feel pride in a job well done. I aspire to do better, be better, than I am, not just as a parent but as a person. Despite the fact that my life closer resembles a 1950′s housewife than the millennium power player I thought I’d be, I still aspire for things to be different. I cook and clean and do laundry because it needs to be done. I research the best schools and camps because I want you to be happy and fulfilled. I take you from class to class and involve you in extracurricular, play dates and sports because that’s what a good mother does, but I’m not fulfilled by it. I’d love to be one of those women I see at preschool drop off in full Lulu Lemon on her way to spinning, but my finances can’t stretch to exercise classes, and I don’t have time to waste those two and a half hours on something as frivolous as me. I have to get home, attempt to be creative on cue, then return to my job as a full time mother.

pinterest.com

I love being your mom but being a parent is sometimes a tough pill to swallow. There are days, like recently, when you were furious at me for A: choosing “totally the wrong shorts”, B: having the audacity to take off your long sleeve shirt so you wouldn’t be hot, and C: “interrupting” you, all before I’d even had a chance to brush my teeth, when I just want to say, I’m out, and go catch a movie. I don’t want to be away from you for long, but sometimes I could use an afternoon, an evening, a day, when I wasn’t in charge. I think that’s not so much selfish as self preservation.

I recently read an article in the New York Magazine called All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting, that gave weight to some of the more complicated feelings surrounding parenthood and that ultimately, made me feel a bit better (and more justified) in my shortcomings.

The article points out that being a parent is something that most of us chose and when asked, would say we would be miserable without. I agree wholeheartedly with this as having you was an active choice that I can’t imagine living without. The article, however, goes on to say that most people assume having children will make them happier yet “a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not, in fact, happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so.” The article quotes a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winning behavioral economist who, after surveying 909 working Texas women found that “child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities.” * Preferred activities included cooking, exercising, TV, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, even cleaning. The article suggests that perhaps much of the problem may be attributed to the fact that raising children has fundamentally changed.

939kissfm.com

“Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”

Reading that resonated on many levels. I do see childhood as a privileged and protected time. You’re an adult with responsibilities for so long that I think having the opportunity to be a child without pressure is key, but I also want you to go as far as you can in life and with that hope comes a certain amount of stress. According to the article I’m not alone. Apparently middle and upper class families are particularly susceptible to unhappiness as they are more likely to “see their children as projects that need to be perfected”. Though your Dad and I try so hard to not put that anxiety on ourselves, or worse, on you, the fact of the matter is there’s so much competition, so much emphasis on making the “right” choices and choosing the “right” path that it becomes overwhelming. The article acknowledges that feeling saying, “middle-class parents spend much more time talking to children, answering questions with questions, and treating each child’s thought as a special contribution. And this is very tiring work.” Yet it appears that level of diligence is something few parents feel they can neglect “lest they put their children at risk by not giving them every advantage.” It’s a tough road to navigate and one that leaves very little energy left for for Ninjango, let alone doing something for yourself.

birthwithoutfearblog.com

According to research, all parents today, regardless of social status, seem to spend more time with their kids than (when I was born) in 1975. “Today’s married mothers have less leisure time (5.4 fewer hours per week), 71 % desire more time for themselves (as do 57% of married fathers), and yet 85% still think they don’t spend enough time with their children.”

The article reminds us a few generations ago “people weren’t stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them happy. Having children was simply what you did.” It goes on to say “We’re lucky today to have choices about these matters, but the abundance of choices—whether to have kids, when, how many—may be one of the reasons parents are less happy.”

It also matters what age you are when you have your kids: “When you become a parent later in life there’s a loss of freedom, a loss of autonomy. It’s totally different from going from your parents’ house to immediately having a baby. Now you know what you’re giving up.” There’s no more ”let’s meet up for dinner” or “wanna catch a movie?” Your freedom and autonomy no longer exist, you traded them for parenthood, and for the most part you also traded your disposable income and marriage first mentality.

It’s been said that you should always put your relationship first, that a happy marriage makes a happy family, but in real life that can prove quite difficult. Thomas Bradbury, father of two and professor of psychology at UCLA, says: “Being in a good relationship is a risk factor for becoming a parent.” Psychologists Lauren Papp and E. Mark Cummings asked 100 long-married couples to spend two weeks meticulously documenting their disagreements. Nearly 40 percent of them were about their kids. “And that 40 percent is merely the number that was explicitly about kids, many other arguments were ones couples were having because they were on a short fuse, tired, or stressed out.” According to Changing Rhythms of American Family Life one of the biggest problems with marriages with children ”is the amount of time married parents spend alone together each week: Nine hours today versus twelve in 1975.” Husbands and wives apparently spend less than 10 percent of their home time alone together. “And it’s mostly just two tired people staring at the TV.”

ivillage.ca

Lest you feel depressed my love, or feel I’m somehow saying having you was a drain on my happiness or a detriment to your father’s and my marriage, I will tell you that is unequivocally not the case. Your father and I are stronger as a couple because we are both so devoted to our family. If anything you have brought us closer together. Life, in itself is more of a strain, but statistics (and my heart) will confirm that “though parenting might make people unhappy, not parenting makes people feel worse.” That when we “take stock of our life, in the end, it isn’t by how much fun we had, but what we did with it.” Children give us a real sense of purpose and a point to our lives. It might not always be fun, but it’s exceptionally rewarding. Tom Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell highlighted the concept of “retrospective happiness”. The idea of looking back on our good times – the very things that in the moment might have felt like a complete drag – but later can become the “source of intense gratification, nostalgia and delight.”

I know this to be true. You’re only four and a half and I already feel it. It might be just a trip to Target or grocery shopping or brushing your teeth. Time we’re simply filling in, or errands that just have to be done – those ho hum, nothing special, moments between moments – but in retrospect those times are some of the best. It’s time just spent together, snippets of connected activity where I get to steal a kiss or two from your sweet skin and talk with you about everything and nothing. Days I know I’ll look back on with nostalgia and longing. I may miss my old life. I may have days when I desire my autonomy. Times when explaining why it’s not “unfair” that you can’t have a mall pretzel at 5:30pm is just too much, when the selfish takes over and I can’t bare to pick up another toy, or I just want to shut my door and be alone, but I wouldn’t give any of it up for the world. You are by far the best thing I’ve ever done, my most prized accomplishment. In my heart of hearts, I know even if I don’t get as far as I’d like in my professional life, looking at you makes me feel like a success. I love you. Your presence has blessed my life.

There are so many moments as a parent that make it worth it. Moments that melt your heart with joy and make you say things like, “God, we’re so lucky” and if you can accept that there will also be times of exhausting, overwhelming tedium, extended moments where you wonder where your life went, then you’re well on your way to being a happy and successful parent. Your Gigi tells a story about when your Dad and Uncle Matt were young and she would sneak out to the garage just to hide in the car and have a break. I always thought that was a hilarious image, but now that I’m a parent it’s starting to look like a pretty good idea.

Why do you think I have so many magazines in the bathroom?

I love you kiddo. Cut me a little slack will ya?

xoxo your loving Mom

cartoonstock.com

*all quotes from Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine, “Why Parents Hate Parenting” July 4, 2010

Oct 1

7 Comments

Baggage

Dear Loch,

When I talk about baggage I’m not talking about the Tumi 4 wheel luggage I wish I could afford, but about the metaphysical baggage we lug around that become part of our personality. I’m talking about issues, perceived wrongs and past experiences that weigh us down. I’m talking about things that happened in your past that go on to dictate your future, and I’m talking about it because it’s not a good thing.

Man I love this bag. Why it’s $1200, I’m not quite sure.

Metaphysical baggage needs to be checked. It needs to be put down and left, but unlike real baggage, it should never be collected again. Root through it, take what you can use (like wisdom and knowledge) and walk away.

Bad things happen, they do and it’s terrible, but it’s important that you’re able to move on. You can’t live a happy, fully functioning life while carrying the scars of your past traumas. Eventually they start dictating both your personality and decisions. Old wounds should not dictate new relationships. One person is not another, and just because something happened once doesn’t mean it will happen again. In fact, the more you fixate on history repeating itself, the more you move towards creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

Your Dad and I have a friend that was burned once by someone he trusted. It screwed him up to believe in someone whole heartedly and be betrayed. The problem is, he is unable to let it go, and that inability or unwillingness has made him a skittish person, quick to think the worst of people. In many ways he’s lost the ability to trust and for that everybody suffers. The actions of one person dictate how he sees all others. He’s so weighed down by his past that he’s become defensive at the slightest perceived slight. A past friend’s actions have made him guarded and overly sensitive to new friend’s behaviors and it’s a tough road to climb.

emotional baggage at positivetosuccess.com

Imagine your girlfriend cheated on you and you carry that fear into your next relationship. You become hyper vigilant and accusatory, convinced the same thing is going to happen again. The new girl has done nothing to deserve your lack of trust. It’s not her fault you were betrayed and it’s not her problem to deal with. Eventually you’ll drive that girl away with your fear and nerves. What you needed to do was learn from the first incident – ie. I could have spent less time at work, I could have paid more attention to her, I shouldn’t have dated a tramp, whatever the lesson is – chalked it up to life, and moved on. If you carry the baggage with you, you are not only unable to learn from it, because you have no distance to gain perspective, but you are unable to move on from it. You create a pattern in which all future relationships have to live up to or prove themselves against and it’s unfair and unreasonable to expect people to do that. People do not deserve to pay for the mistakes of others, and it’s on you to make sure they don’t.

If you’re hurt baby, I’m sorry. I know it can be devastating, but you must allow yourself to heal so you can get on with your life. Don’t expect to be burnt again. Take your lesson, store it, and leave the pain behind. Try to enter all new situations with an open heart. Trust people until they prove untrustworthy. Innocent until proven guilty isn’t just for the courts. It’s not naive to expect the best in people, it’s hopeful, and often people will rise to the occasion to justify your trust. If you expect the best from people you might find yourself disappointed but you won’t find yourself jaded. Disappointment you can move on from, jaded is a state of being, and not a particularly great one. Jaded people may be burned less, but they enjoy less. Jaded people, the one’s who refuse to “have the wool pulled over their eyes”, who protect themselves from hurt at all costs, are never able to fully relax, to truly enjoy. By not seeing the best in others they are unable to be the best versions of themselves. You have to put yourself out there in order to reap the greatest rewards.

Don’t be this gal from connectedbygrace.wordpress.com

I’ve been burned a number of times in my life but I’m very happy. No matter what’s happened to me, I’ve always believed things were going to work out. I believe that with my health, with my career and I believed that with my love life. For all the horror stories and ridiculousness that came before your father, I never lost hope. I never stopped believing I was going to find the right person, I never changed my mind or decided to settle (despite my mother’s suggestions). I fully committed to every new love whole heartedly, and though I was disappointed every time, I never gave up. My faith and hope was rewarded when I met your Dad. He loved me utterly and completely and, no matter what preceded him, I felt I deserved it and could trust him. It would have been easy for me to become apathetic when it came to love, to let the disappointments of my past build walls around me, but I never did and I’m convinced it was that openness that allowed the right person walk right up.

manafoods.blogspot.com

I’m a trusting person. I was fired by a man who more or less derailed my acting career and I went back to work for him again. Did I like him? No. Did I trust him? No. But I believed that I needed to take the chance because it was good for my career. What I did do, however, was take the lessons learned from our previous dealings and use them to protect myself. Iron clad contracts and defined creative control so there would be no confusion as to where the power lay. Unfortunately for me it didn’t work out again, but it wasn’t from lack of preparation or foresight. At the end of the day he’s just not someone who can trust other’s ideas might surpass his. It was his baggage that made it impossible to move forward not mine. I still got burnt (I spent almost a year creating a series of children’s books I had no rights to unless they were published, and I wouldn’t publish them unless they were something I was 100% behind) but I wasn’t afraid to try. I wasn’t unable to take a leap of faith. He, on the other hand was. His closed mindedness, and past baggage of not being in control, have made it impossible for him to collaborate or bend and he suffers for it. Walking away from that project, I was both frustrated and liberated. I’d taken a risk and it hadn’t paid off, but I’d also learned that no matter how good the deal, some people you just can’t work with no matter how hard you try.

My advice, no matter how painful sometimes, is to throw yourself into things every time. Don’t be a whiny suck living in the past. Leave the past where it belongs and move forward. You aren’t protecting yourself by carrying the hurt, and it’s not anyone else’s job to help shoulder your burden. Learn from your mistakes then wash your hands of it. There are always other opportunities, always other loves, always other jobs. Do the best you can and expect others will do the same. Will you be disappointed? Sure. Sometimes. But you’ll also give yourself the chance to be happy and that’s worth the risk.

I love you.

Just let it go.

xo Mommy

Strive to be like this guy at claricemota.com

Sep 17

8 Comments

Pre K

Dear Loch,

You started pre K this week. It’s your last year of preschool and the last year before you’re in school full time. Last week, your Dad and I went to a parent’s night at the school to meet your teachers and hear what to expect from the coming year. I was looking forward to the meeting. We’d had a wonderful summer between Canada, the cottage, camp and house guests, but I’d run out of things to keep you occupied and you’re ready to get back to your routine. Excited for it all to begin, I sat on the tiny chairs in room 4 while the teachers explained the main thing the parents should be focusing on this year is remaining calm. They went on to say they understood it was a particularly stressful year as we try to decide on what the next step is for all of you. Kinder/Not kinder. Private/Public. Private Acceptance/Rejection. It’s a lot to deal with, and your teachers wanted us to see the school as a stress free zone. If you were sent home to find things that began with the letter R and you came back with something that began with the letter W, don’t worry about it, they’ll make it work. If we forget to bring something in for you, no problem, they’ll figure it out. Your teachers were adamant we really try to enjoy the year, and I sincerely appreciate their concern. Then one of them said something that brought tears to my eyes. She said, “Right now you have a child who’s just out of toddlerhood, but by June of next year, you’ll have a school aged child. You’ll never get these baby years back, so enjoy them while you can because this is it.” I clearly wasn’t the only parent who looked crestfallen because she started to laugh and said, “I wasn’t trying to make you guys cry!”

What she said really affected me. I no longer felt as thrilled to have you back in school. I didn’t feel as enthusiastic to have our summer over, and I suddenly felt incredibly sentimental about the time we have left together – the time before you morph into a big kid and I lose my darling chicken to his room, and his friends, and his life. I understand it’s all part of growing up – for you and for me – but when your teacher said it out loud, I realized how close all of this is to being over and how very much I’m going to miss it. You are the love of my life Lochlan. We’re the best of pals and in some ways I think I’ve taken this time with just the two of us (and Daddy) for granted. I know I’m not the best at “playing”. I like to build and act and sing and dance but I’m weak when it comes to cars and trains and just getting down on the floor and engaging with them. God help me, I found that part mind numbing, and I’d often busied myself with laundry, dinner and other things that needed attention instead, and now I’m worried I could have done better. I’ve also struggled though your childhood trying to relaunch a career while still being a full time mother and, for the most part, I often feel I’m half assing both rather than mastering either. You’ve been plunked down in front of the television more than you probably should to give me a moment to “get things done” and though I would qualify myself as a very hands on mother, now that your starter years are coming to an end, I wonder if I couldn’t have given just a little more.

Looking back on your first four years however, perhaps I shouldn’t beat myself up. I did the best I could, and as long as I don’t compare myself to other mothers – the ones who don’t use TV as a baby sitter or who can make firetrucks talk to one another for more than five minutes without losing their minds – I can rest assured I’ve done right by you. We’ve had a wonderful time together. We’ve spent endless hours exploring the world. I had the opportunity to go to school with you for two whole years. I taught you the difference between right and wrong and the importance of manners. You’re self sufficient and confident and you talk a lot because I talk a lot. Overall, I believe your personality and enthusiasm were given a real chance to grow in the years we’ve had together, and at the very heart of it all we’ve had a marvelous time. I’m grateful for every year, so I thought it might be nice – at this, the beginning of the end, so to speak – to get a little reminiscent about what those years were like.

Year of the Baby – I’m not going to lie. It was a rough start. You had everything a baby could have to make him miserable – reflux, colic, constant barfing – and miserable you were. If you weren’t eating or sleeping, you were screaming. Screaming. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I was beside myself. I still look at babies with a slight tinge of anxiety. Holding them it’s like a flashback that gives me the shakes. If I could do it all over again, I know I’d enjoy it more because I’d know that everything would eventually pass. I’d be able to appreciate how wonderful it is to have a tiny baby rather than just thinking, “Dear God, I don’t know if I can do this”. Some friends of ours just had a new baby and for the first time since you out grew the screaming, I thought, yeah, I could do this again. For the record, everything after five months was so much better. Once you got on the solid foods you did a 180 on the crying. The baby I hoped was in there was able to emerge. Sadly, that time coinsided with my diagnosis, so I didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy it as much as I would have liked.

One Year Old – You learned to walk at 16 months, but more so, your personality really kicked in, and your personality strongly hinged on communication. You talked from the very beginning and were interested in everything, with a special focus on anything that moved (cars, trucks, trains, etc.) and girls with long hair. I even started to make an effort every day with my hair because it annoyed you so much if I didn’t. If I had the audacity to wear it in a bun or ponytail, you’d look at me sideways and say, “Mommy, no! Brush, brush!” . This was also the year that you showed yourself to be a real lover of affection, always asking for cuddles and hugs and kisses. I could never refuse you, even when I was supposed to be leaving your room.

Two Years Old – You became a little boy this year. Your personality only continued to bloom and we realized how very lucky we were to have such a funny, empathetic, polite and loving child. You developed a sense of right and wrong and continued your obsession with girls (and by girls I mean women age 19-35 as spending so much time with me, made you believe that mom’s and their ilk were your peer group). You creativity grew leaps and bounds (though not your skills in art – you just had zero interest) and you started instigating imagination games on your own. Although you developed a will of your own, and preferred to do everything yourself, I never felt the two’s were in the least bit terrible. In fact, as far as I was concerned, it just kept getting better. You also started school this year and you took to it like gang busters. Organized, structured activities at a table – eh. Free range social play with peers – couldn’t get enough.

Three Years Old - Oh man, I loved three. I’ll never be able to look back on three and four without getting weepy. We really became best pals this year. You’re such good company and we had such nice times together. You also started developing friends of your own this year as well as definite opinions of your likes (favorite game: family – always wants to be the “Daddy”) and dislikes (loud noises, watermelon, bed time). Despite all the new found independence you were still tightly connected to your mommy and I loved it. “When I get older I’ll marry a pretty girl?” “I’m sure you will Lochie.” “I think I’ll marry you Mommy.” “You think you’ll marry me?” “Yes.” “Well that would be lovely, but I think you’ll fall in love with someone else and want to marry them.” “No. I think I’ll just marry you.” Sigh.

Four Years Old – Are you kidding me with four?! I literally adore four. Yes, you’ve become far more willful and less malleable, exerting your “expertise” and opinions liberally, but you are a real companion now. You’re fun to hang out with. You make me laugh all the time. Sometimes deliberately. You also developed into a real BOY this year. Gone are the days of dressing in princess dresses and tutus, you’re now into superheros and legos and Star Wars. Despite the increased maturity in some ways you’ve also become more nervous. You’re constantly concerned about where I am, or where I’m going to be. It’s almost as if you understand the impermanance of the world and don’t feel secure unless you can visualize where I am and what I’m doing. We’re able to be quite flexible with your schedule now – though we try and get you to bed around the same time every night – and it’s opened our lives up a lot. It’s this age that I’m going to miss the most. I look at your adorable face in your baby pictures and I feel nostalgic, but it’s hanging out with you now that really makes me realize how fleeting this time is. You’re so enthusiastic, so positive, so happy. You delight in small things and want to be with us all the time. When you’re proud or excited your face just lights up. I do things all the time just to elicite that reaction and the beauty of this age is, I don’t have to do big things to make it happen. You’re not jaded yet. You’re not cool. You just want to be happy and loved and I’m devouring it. Every morning when you pad into my room and climb into bed for our cuddle, I’m aware it’s one less day you’ll be this sweet and adoring.

Lochie, I love your energy and your idealism. I love your manners and your sense of humor. I love how kind and loving you’ve grown up to be, and for so many reasons, I hope you are able to stay this way for a long time. I pray your grown up self never loses all these wonderful qualities you have as a child.

So, we press forward and await the changes that, inevitably, will come. I know you’ll always love me but I also know you’ll never love me as unconditionally as you do right now. At this moment we’re the center of each other’s universe and soon enough other things will take my place in yours. If I’m lucky, time will eventually give you back to me, but I’ll never have you as completely as I did when you were my baby. I will live on these memories and you will build your future on them.

I wish you great and marvelous things Lochlan. I wish you happiness and love. I wish you success and security. I wish you health and joy, and I only hope that I can give you everything the child you are deserves, and the man you deserve to be, needs.

I love you Loch. Thank you for filling my life with such purpose. No matter where you go, remember this is where you started and you can always come back.

xo Mommy

Sep 4

10 Comments

Stress

Dear Loch,

I do not handle stress well. Never really have. It’s a terrible trait that, ironically, I’m better at handling a situation if the stakes are really high, like an accident/life or death, than I am with basic, everyday stresses where I become a basket case of epic proportions. The other day we were driving in Shatzy (our car) to your friend’s birthday party – which like all other parties at cool and expensive destination locations, was ridiculously far away – and I was using the navigation system in the car. When the coolly polite voice informed us we’d arrived at our destination, you were the first to say what we were both thinking…that we definitely had not. That this, wherever the hell this was – random residential street with no desirable kids play factory anywhere in sight – was clearly not our journey’s end. Our technology had lead us astray. I checked the system and, for some unbeknownst reason, the address was totally wrong. Now, I hadn’t put it in wrong, but somewhere between my dashboard and my drive shaft the computer had decided to change De Soto Avenue to the unknown Arcola Avenue on which we were now sitting. I tried retyping in the address but without a zip code the system wouldn’t let me proceed, and every time I typed in the street number, the street name would disappear. I did this 5 times before I flipped out and decided to put the address into my phone instead. My iPhone however was hell bent on giving me directions to a place in De Soto, Arkansas that would take me 1 day, 2 hours or 1 day, 4 hours depending on the route I chose. I went back to the nav system and tried to use voice control, but De Soto apparently sounds like everything and anything other than De Soto. I tried spelling it letter by letter, but by now I was basically screaming at my steering wheel.

Me: D-E-space S-O-T…

Car: You are clearly having trouble. Here is a list of possible commands to give you a idea of what to say…

Me: Navigation. Street Address. 2333 De Soto Avenue, Woodland Hills…

Car: (showing 3 possible address all starting with the word La) Pick a line or say None of these.

Me: None of these!!!

Car: Spell the name of the street. You can say things like 1234 Smith Avenue…

Me. 2-3-3-3 D-E-S-O-T-O

Car: (showing 3 lines that, aside from starting with D, have nothing whatsoever in common with De Soto) Pick a line or say none of these.

Me: F*^# you you f*^#ing stupid piece of s#^*….none of those, none of those, none of those.

Car: (not even slightly ruffled by my torrid of profanity) You can say a command by looking at the screen for options.

Me: Cancel! (hitting the steering wheel) @#$%^&**&^%! Stupid, @#$^&*’…..

Little sob from the back seat.

Me: (Immediately getting a hold of myself and feeling like the worst parent on earth) Oh Lochie, I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’m not mad at you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m behaving so badly.

You: (Sniffy little voice) I want to go to the party.

Me: I know baby. Me too. But this stupid system won’t listen to me.

You: (sticking up for the car whom you often have conversations with where I do the car’s voice) It’s not stupid, It’s part of Shatzy.

gardian.co.uk

Now if I’m not the worst person ever at this moment, I sure feel like it. Turns out we were 4 blocks away. 4 blocks! And I had a fit. A true temper tantrum that you had to witness. Before we ended up driving (I finally got directions off my phone) I turned around and told you again how sorry I was. I let you know I handled the situation extremely poorly and admitted my way of dealing with stress was awful and that you should look to your Daddy on how to handle this kind of situation (ones that don’t go your way) and not to me.

Your Dad is like Zen Master calm and I’m like just add water anxiety.

Still I feel awful. I wish I wasn’t that way. I recognize how foolish it is and how I could be making a better choice and yet I find it almost impossible to stop myself. I hate that you witness it and I hate more that you might someday emulate it.

willsandestates.co.za

Your Granddad is an epic stresser. The daily loss of his keys is a crisis of Herculean proportions. The swallowing of a bug leads people to believe he’s having a heart attack. But like myself, my Dad handles vast amounts of stress quite well. It’s the little things that get to him. Perhaps it’s like that expression when you’re married and fighting and people say “its not about the dishes”. It basically means the fight you’re having may have started over something small (like the dishes) but it’s the underlying feelings that are feeding the argument. People like Granddad and myself may be handling our major crises silently but our internal stress levels are so elevated that if one insignificant thing goes awry we just lose it. It’s the proverbial straw. Perhaps if we both looked into handling our major stresses more appropriately we wouldn’t be so exercised sweating the small stuff. I’ve witnessed my Dad’s mini meltdowns and it’s simultaneously not pretty and like looking in a mirror.

This spring your Dad and I went to a parenting conference where one of the lectures I attended was “Nurturing your Child’s Brilliance” and the speaker said something that really affected me. His theory was that we work within two vastly different states of intelligence. A conscious intelligence which he referred to as our “brilliance” where we think freely and see problems laid out clearly, and a responsive pattern of reactions that we downshift to in periods of tension or stress that cloud or active brain forcing us to fall back on old habits. The speaker believed that in periods of stress our brilliance and problem solving skills were overtaken by these repetitive patterns that made it impossible for us to access our natural intelligence. He claimed that most adults live primarily in that repetitive response zone, repeating patterned behaviors, unable to get back to our higher levels of cognizant behavior.

msnbc.msn.com

Children on the other hand, work almost solely using their natural brilliance because in times of stress or anxiety they use a tool that we, as adults, are socialized not to use, which is our emotions. When a child is stressed they show it. They cry, they scream, they have tantrums, and in that release they are able to clear their minds and upshift back to their conscious, intelligent, natural brilliance. As we age we’re taught to see that kind of behavior as inappropriate. We curb and stifle it so as to better fit in to society’s expectations. According to this speaker we are ultimately teaching ourselves to turn off the one thing that could free us up. His theory was that if, in times of stress, it was socially acceptable to show our emotions, we would be able to get out of our heads, move away from our fallback behaviors, and re-access our highest cerebral functions. I thought the whole thing made a lot of sense and it also made me feel a bit better about my personal freak outs. I’d hazzard to say it’s a version of this theory at work in traditional talk therapy. When people are allowed a safe environment in which to express their emotions they unburden and unblock themselves often making it possible for them to access their intelligent mind and solve their own problems. It’s probably why therapists are so quiet. Allowing people their feelings creates space for the clarity that allows them to answer their own questions.

The doctor used the example of a real moment of grief in an adult’s life (such as the death of a parent) where society loosens their rules on public displays of emotion. After openly grieving and crying for days people have been known to say that they feel better than they have in a years. The release of emotions actually cleared their brains. I think people often do this kind of emotional purge with TV, movies and sometimes commercials. The medium itself is a catalyst to express our feelings in an appropriate environment. It’s a sad movie so we cry. Only part of that is for the movie. The rest might be for something else but the emotions appear in context so it seems less messy.

ahealth4U.blogspot.com

I’m messy a lot. People can almost always tell how I’m feeling as I’ve never been particularly gifted, or inclined, at hiding how I feel. I’ve been known to freak out my stiff upper lip WASP parents and peers with my gregarious displays of emotion, and it’s been everything from embarrassing (crying when you don’t want to) to unnecessary (the situation with my Nav system) but for the most part I think it’s for the best. I don’t carry a lot of emotional baggage and I’m not weighed down by hidden feelings. I feel what I feel when I feel it, and then it’s over.

Ultimately there’s no weakness in feeling what you feel, and in many ways there’s a strong argument for expressing it. Though my open displays have yet to unlock my inner Hawking, I am happier not being all bottled up. What I can learn is how to better handle the small stresses so I don’t give them power they don’t deserve. If you can stay calm at all times like Daddy, then all the power to you. If you find your self hot like me, just know that there are times and places to better express yourself so you can pop off and still fit in socially.

At the very least you can watch Hallmark Christmas commercials or join a football team or something.

xo Mom

Jul 9

11 Comments

Don’t be a Victim

Dear Lochie,

The other day I was talking with someone I know, someone I love and appreciate, but who drives me crazy with their behavior. When I hung up the phone I was so irritated I did something I don’t often do, I gave you a piece of advice that is, for all intents and purposes, completely worthless to you right now. I usually try and keep our conversations kid themed but this situation had crawled so far under my skin that I felt the need to explain it to you despite the fact it’s really a grown up piece of advice. I bent down, looked you right in the eyes, and said,

Me: “Loch, whatever you do, don’t be a victim.”

You: “What’s a victim?”

Me: “A victim is someone who chooses not to stand up for themselves. Someone who lets people walk over them and does nothing about it. It’s like when someone is bothering you, and doing something you don’t like, you can go sit all by yourself and feel sad or you can say, “Hey that’s bothering me. I don’t like it.”

You: “And then they’ll stop?”

Me: “They might or they might not, but the point is you stood up for yourself and spoke your mind.”

You: “Or I could just come and tell you.”

Me: “You could. But I would try and handle it yourself first. The worst thing you can do is nothing and then be upset about it.”

Yes, I had that conversation with the 4-year-old version of you, but I feel so strongly about this issue I felt it just couldn’t wait.

mixedmarriages.wordpress.com

I think I should clarify that when I say victim, I’m not talking about actual victims of real crimes. Those type of victims have (and deserve) the right to be angry, afraid, nervous, and hesitant. Nor am I speaking to people with mental diseases like clinical depression who need doctors or medications to help sort out their feelings. I’m talking about people who find themselves in a situation in which they are unhappy and shlump around doing nothing about it. “Whoa is me, the world is out to get me”, bulls*^#. The world is not out to get you. Bad things happen. They do. I’m living proof they do. It’s how you live that defines you, and my advice here is not to live like a victim. Stand up for yourself. Speak your mind. Confront problems head on. If you aren’t happy, do something about it.

I believe there are two kinds of victims:

happytoinspire.blogspot.com

Victim Type One: People who can find a problem with anything, who are always have something to complain about, who can make an issue out of nothing.

These are your classic “victim mentality” people. Those with a victim mentality can range from highly functioning successful people to sad sacks who accomplish nothing. The common thread between these people is the ability to find the negative in any situation and/or that things are always someone else’s fault.

You were invited to a party? Well, there was that other one you weren’t so….

You introduce two people and they get along great? Great, now, you’re the odd man out…

You were included in a dinner? It was just a cc so you were probably an afterthought…

You didn’t get that promotion? No one notices anything you do, what’s the point…

Your relationship isn’t working out? They’re probably bi-polar or having an affair….

You aren’t succeeding the way you want at work? The boss hates you, so what’s the point…

You never get the girl? No one gets me anyway so why take the chance….

Ugh! Get over yourself. Nothing ventured is nothing gained. If something good happens, enjoy it. Don’t look for the one bad thing to fixate on. If you aren’t happy with a situation, figure out what steps you can take to change it and then TAKE THEM! Transformation is impossible if you keep doing the same thing.

Man up. Stop the bitching and make a concerted effort to adjust your circumstances. Will everything work out? No, but at least you’re a player in your own destiny and not some hapless passenger waiting to see how it turns out and being miserable in the process.

dailypositivequotes.com

Victim Type Two: People who refuse to acknowledge their problems and for whom everything is always “fine”.

Look, everything is not always fine. I could be trite and quote the oft used phrase that fine really means: F*^#ed up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional but I think it’s simpler than that. People who say they’re fine are either A: avoiding their real feelings and caught in some self imposed safe zone where being “fine” means they don’t really have to deal. B: lying because they don’t want to get into it or C: truly neither good nor bad and fine is truly the best and most appropriate answer at the time.

For the most part though, it’s A: avoidance. In my opinion avoiders are victims because in their refusal to acknowledge their real situation, they remain sacrificed to it.

I hate my spouse but I don’t want a divorce so I’ll pretend I’m fine. For ever.

I hate my job but I don’t want to be unemployed so I’ll just keep doing it until they fire me.

I’ve made the wrong choices in my life but there’s nothing I can do about it now so I’ll just keep living with them.

One foot in front of the other stoicism doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to stop and see where you are in order to figure out which way to go. Only then can you keep walking.

Listen, life can be hard. It can be frustrating. People can be out to get you and change is difficult, but to function within a state you can’t tolerate, that makes you miserable and – let’s not kid ourselves – makes you miserable to be around? That’s not better. Dealing with things can be hard. It can be painful. It can be messy. But changing a circumstance you loathe, being your own advocate, there’s power in that, strength, worth. You’ll respect yourself more and other’s can’t help but concur.

erikadolnackova.com

You’re unhappy in your relationship? What changes can you make that might alter the situation? Deal with yourself first. What can you adjust? What can you make better? Still unhappy? Talk to your partner/friend/boss. Be honest. Be forthcoming. They can’t fix something they don’t know is broken. If you can’t do it alone, find an outside source to help – a councilor or a mediator. Listen and understand it’s never all one sided. It’s not all you and it’s not all them. Take the steps required to mend the situation. Put in the effort. Still unhappy? The good doesn’t outweigh the bad? End it. You’re not doing anyone any favors by hanging on.

Don’t like your job? Are you in the right industry? If you aren’t then change. You’ll never be happy if you don’t like what you do. If you’re in the right industry, do you like what you do? Would you like it if you moved up? Have you asked for a raise? Have you worked harder to get noticed? Have you gone above and beyond? Have you been a team player? Are you friends with people at work? Have you made your ambition known? If you have, be patient and wait for the opportunities, be vocal about your aspirations, and be focused on what you want. Still unhappy? The problem isn’t work. Something else is bothering you. Look into that.

blog.zerodean.com

Got yourself into a situation you don’t like? Made a series of bad choices and now feel stuck living with them? You’re not. Everything can change. For better or for worse, everything is fluid, but real change takes effort. You’re an addict? Admit it. Get help. Dedicate yourself to recovery. You’re overweight? Decide not to be. Chose to make smarter food and exercise choices. Commit to a being a better, stronger you. Every situation has an exit if you’re willing to take it. Do you necessarily want to do it? No. But if you’re unhappy or making others unhappy, then stop pretending it’s fine and adapt.

I’m not saying it’s simple, I’m saying it’s worth it. Bad things happen. It’s awful. My point is to not let it define you. Let’s say, God forbid, I die. It’ll take a major toll on you and your Dad, but I don’t want you to become the boy who’s mom died, or Dad to become the sad man who lost his wife. I want you to be Lochlan and Sean. You first, your circumstances second. If I die, I’m the victim. I don’t want you to be too.

Be the driver in your own life. Make the decisions. Make the calls. Don’t let life run you over. Don’t let people take advantage of you. Don’t let your circumstances define you. Look, I’m no saint, I can throw down when it comes to complaining. Some things aren’t fair, they suck, and you have to bitch. That’s life kiddo. My advice isn’t to power through everything. If you have to throw a pity party by all means throw it, just make it a short affair. Take the time to be upset, then pull it together. Make a plan to be happy and execute it. Handle your business. Don’t be powerless and wish you weren’t.

You hold the cards. You just have to decide how to play them.

xo Mommy

lovesicknotes.com

Posts from the ‘Letters to my son’ Category

Throwing in the Towel

On the Occasion of your 5th Birthday

A Lesson in Love

The Me First Mentality

Being a Parent versus Parenting

Baggage

Pre K

Stress

Don’t be a Victim

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