Parenting Superpowers

I believe the spiritual specialists when they talk up the power gratitude has in enhancing our lives.  Overall, I’m a grateful woman.  I am grateful for my family, my friends, my health, my home, Sephora, Bravo, etc.  Every night I write down (okay, think of) at least three things for which I am grateful.  And when I’m really on top of my gratitude game, I’m even capable of feeling it during a nighttime vomit clean-up.  I remember a woman on Oprah discussing how she treats laundry as an opportunity to meditate about her family members.  Fold little Jimmy’s shirt while feeling grateful for little Jimmy, etc.  What a lovely approach.  My record on laundry gratitude is about 1 in 83.  For every one load I fold with love in my heart, there are 83 I fold with a palpable undercurrent of hostility.  Soooo, I’m human.  

This time of year, it’s easy to feel extra human.  We are all in the throes of groundhog-day-season.  Lots of sameness, lots of work, lots of cold.  The kids are practicing the things they practice and we are rushing around talking ourselves out of an adult tantrum because the kids won’t put their shoes in the shoe basket.  As we wonder if we also need a gallon of milk, we chant, “They are only shoes, not proof my children hate me, they are only shoes…be grateful, be grateful….remember what that lady at the grocery store told you, it goes by so fast”.  

This week, somewhere between asking my kids why there were chewed crayons in the dog bowl and getting plowed under the chin by my youngest, who employed the age old “jump up with the force of a wrecking ball while Mommy bends down” technique, I started to laugh.  This is ridiculous.  I’m grateful for these youngsters and this experience, but this is ridiculous.  And hilarious.  If you or your significant other have ever considered wearing a protective cup around the house, you can relate to the fact that what we do as parents is often utterly, hilariously ridiculous.  And, I’m pretty sure, proof that parenting is a superpower.  Here is a perfect example:  

A few years ago on a beautiful, sunny day in late fall, my nursing sister decided to treat herself to a bit of fresh air.  Holding her swaddled, newborn baby girl, she began her journey down the porch steps, sunshine warming her face.  Grateful sigh.  But then…”Wait.  Is that a bee?  That’s a bee.  That’s totally a bee.  That bee is flying so fast…right…into….my……I am going to get stung by that bee….I am going to have to stand here, holding my newborn, and take this sting like an electric shock treatment to the middle of my chin and not drop this sweet baby girl.”    

I am relieved to report she did not drop the baby.  Ella is both an accomplished soccer player and an excellent student.  My sister did look like Jay Leno for a week, though.  Once I ascertained that my sister and my niece survived the episode, I obviously laughed my head off.  Still do.  The inappropriate humor of someone enduring discomfort for the sake of circumstance is always a favorite.  More than anything, this story captures how our instinct (superpower) to protect our young overrides the natural urge to scream like a twelve-year-old girl at a concert as we flip around the yard to avoid a bee sting. 

Side note: I also think it has great potential as a reality show.   We’d call the show Don’t Drop the Baby!   It could go something like this:   Couples looking to start a family would gather from across the land to try their hand at completing specially designed obstacles and feats of strength all while holding babies (heavy dolls, to be safe).  First, the contestants would be deprived of sleep for 72 hours and then continually punched in the face and groin as they simulate helping a toddler put on their shoes.  Don’t drop the baby!  Next, they would be required to repeat mundane demands for several hours (Wash your hands!  Don’t lick your sister!  Say thank you!) until their voices were hoarse, all while preparing a meal the whole family could enjoy.  Don’t drop the baby!  For the finale, finalists would be subjected to the original challenge:  A bee sting straight on the chin while holding a baby on the stairs.  Don’t drop the baby!  

Would you watch it? I think it may be TV gold.  I’ll keep you posted on whether or not I pitch it to NBC.

Perhaps the weirdest part of all this parenting ridiculousness is that I think each of us would agree that every strange moment is totally, unequivocally worth it.   One of the things we can be grateful for is the (super)power within us that allows us to carry on.  We work, we clean, we hold our families together, WE GET STUNG BY BEES AND DON’T DROP THE BABY!  We are killing it out there even if it feels like boring winter ground-hog-day sameness.  

This is the good stuff.  This is what it’s all about.  Be grateful.  Remember the old lady at the grocery store: It goes fast.  Now get out there and head to Costco with gratitude in your heart!  

Get some Egyptian Magic while you’re there.  Your skin will thank you.

Keely

Aging....Well

For better or worse, my head rarely allows an unexamined thought.  Lately (as in the past 10 years), the topic of aging has been on my mind.  Not constantly.  Not a full-on panic.  Just enough to really, really listen when someone is whispering about a new cream their dermatologist recommends or a smoothie ingredient someone feels is “doing the trick”.  

What I know for sure is I would like to age “well”.  As a result, my brain has been engaged in a full-on exploration of what exactly “aging well” means for me.  For example, do I want to take an artsy, heavily-beaded, flow-y-clothes, yoga-pose, love-my-wrinkles approach?  Or, do I want to throw money at it and turn my Nordstrom bill into a plastic surgery bill?  (Do they give you general anesthesia for lip injections?)  Am I relegated to turning my daily activity into one giant workout, supported by a few well-timed carrots if I’m interested in maintaining my physique?  Is caring about my physique a sign that I have missed the boat on internal beauty and what’s really important in life?   It’s hard to overcome the societal message that if we have wrinkles more extensive than “cute laugh lines”, we have somehow failed as a woman.  Culturally speaking, it would appear women are much more relevant if we’re also super hot, right?  Barf.  But let’s say I give into that idea a little bit and get injections and procedures, does that automatically disqualify me as someone who’s allowed to meditate?  Round and round my head goes.

At some point, no matter how much you have your internal world in order, these conflicting feelings about what it means to age are something that all women are called to reconcile.  For me, I have loved the process of getting older.  So far.  The years I spent watching Oprah with the intensity of a PhD student did not go to waste.  Oprah taught me to approach my life as one big learning opportunity.  As a result, for pretty much any experience in which I find myself, there is a post game analysis, a thoughtful revision or two and then I'm on to the next.   I surprise myself (in a bad way) when I occasionally wander to the part of me that’s shallowly interested in cultivating hotness when I’m 60, 75 and 93.  My love of all creams and potions is well documented.  I mean, at what age will I encounter what Mrs. Schumer so perfectly discusses in her (adult language) sketch?!:

Because the universe sends us help when we ask, I came across Christiane Northrup’s book, Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being.  The mind-body connection has been a topic of interest to me since the time talking about a mind-body connection was considered on par with dancing in a field with unicorns.  Thankfully, I feel a lot more normal now that these ideas are making their way into the mainstream.  I have been a longtime fan of her books on all things female, and this particular one felt like a gift since it illuminates the very topic that has been on my mind:  aging (or, as she would say, getting older) as a female.  

Christiane Northrup is a conventionally trained OB-GYN who began noticing that there was a connection between her patient’s emotional lives and their physical concerns.  She realized that there was a connection between what we believe about ourselves and what shows up in our lives, whether that be a physical ailment or difficult circumstance.  With an easily digestible writing style, Christiane has some valuable and convincing insights into how much of what we believe about getting older creates our experience of getting older.  It’s really interesting to chew on the idea of how our beliefs about aging show up in our lives.  Are you someone who just thinks your body just falls apart at 40?  Has it?

This book has brought me some new thought patterns to consider in my approach to getting older.  It’s like giving yourself the gift of good news on a topic that is usually filled with fear and aches and general dred.  Like anything else, you won’t read it and immediately have aging solved, but it will give you some tools to help you when you catch yourself buying into someone else’s Halloween-esque version of aging.  Check it out!

Keely

Book Recommendations

There was a time when my book club actually discussed books.  Once everyone started having babies, books set in India were replaced by “I Swear This Actually Happens to Your Body, Gross, Right?” pregnancy books.  Once the babies arrived, most of us entered a kind of intellectual walk in the wilderness.  It takes all you’ve got to read the relevant chapter of “Sleep, Child, Sleep For the Love of God, Sleep."  "The Goldfinch" is simply not possible after you’ve only pieced together 4 broken hours of sleep over the last 48 hours.  This is when many new mothers, myself included, fall prey to celebrity gossip.  Look!  Shiny magazine!  Pretty people!  Short paragraphs!  Wait, what day is it again? 

I look back on my celebrity gossip phase with a dash of shame, yet I also recognize it kept me company during some dark nights.  I knew my brain was coming back to life when I actually started feeling sorry for the celebrities because they were not able to go to Walgreens without an audience.  Going to Walgreens without makeup or brushed hair is a right that should not be denied anyone.  I decided it would suck to be famous.  In an effort to do my part to restore their privacy, I stopped paying attention to celebrity gossip.  Don’t worry, somehow I’m still aware of every move the Kardasians make.  Full disclosure, I continue to look at pretty pictures of my famous favorites in cute clothes, so long as they are in fashion-oriented magazines.  It’s like checking in with an old friend on Facebook.  Sure, there was a time we were a lot closer, but you look well, friend, you look well. 

So, I’m back on the books.  I’ve had a long sequence of non-fiction (parenting, biographies, etc.). Recently, I jumped back into fiction and it was like putting on an old pair of comfy yoga pants.  Yessssssss.  As many of us head to warmer parts of our great nation over the next couple of months, the following books are everything you want in a satisfying beach read:  well written, clever insights into human behavior and a little bit of mystery and intrigue.  All were written by an Austrailian author named Liane Moriarty.  Disclaimer:  I think at least one of these books was popular a few years ago.  I’m sorry if they are old news, but they have been trapped in my Kindle and I only re-discovered them recently!

 Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

If you’ve ever found yourself at preschool pickup, this book will delight you.  Moriarty absolutely nails the personality types and the subtleties of human, particularly parent, interaction.  It’s clever and funny.  The book begins with a mysterious death at the school fund raiser and goes back in time to the events leading up to the incident.  Well crafted story.  A page turner.  They are also making a movie about this with Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and a host of other fancy pants actors I would have stalked in the celebrity gossip years.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Super cool premise.  Alice bumps her head during a spin class and forgets the past 10 years.  She finds that the life that she has built over the last 10 years is not necessarily the one she wanted or expected to have 10 years ago.  This one is also a page turner as Moriarty reveals aspects of Alice’s past little by little.  It’s fun to think about what’s happened in your life over the past 10 years and think if it would surprise your younger self.  More good human behavior insights.

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

I found myself doing a lot of “what would I do?” type daydreaming while reading this book.  There is some heavy material, but Moriarty’s clever writing style toggles between light and and dark.    

Maybe there's hope for my book club yet!  Happy Reading!

Keely 

Color Me Happy

If I’m looking for cheap thrills (as most of us are in January), nothing (other than a quick trip to Sephora and pinching my husband) brings me a thrill like…

….a new journal with a fresh pen.  A sharp pencil with a virgin eraser can do the trick as well.  They bring me joy, peace, enthusiasm and comfort all at once.  Add some fresh markers to the mix? I’m smiling from ear to ear with a little shiver.

Perhaps my irrational joy has it’s origins in my childhood.  My parents fully embraced the 1970’s “they’ll be fine” style of parenting, which, I guess had it merits based on how many Facebook articles I read about it.  Rode our bikes all day and all that.  The ugly, practical side is I feel like I spent my childhood looking for a fresh piece of paper and a pencil longer than 2 inches with a serviceable eraser, often to no avail.  My pleas for said items were met with a detached “maybe if I get around to it”.  It’s possible they wanted me to create the items from tree bark or dirt during my seemingly endless outdoor time. 

As you can imagine, I fell in love with my first corporate job based primarily on the fact employees had open access to the supply closet.  Pens, fresh pens, oh the sweet, sweet sight of hundreds of pens and pencils.  And notebooks!  It probably goes without saying I overcorrected with my own children and rank fresh writing implements and paper only slightly below buying food on the scale of importance.

When “adult coloring books” entered my awareness, I felt like I was staring at my future.  The books claim to reduce stress, and I could feel the stress melting away as I pictured myself knee deep in an intricate flower design.  Thanks to Amazon, two days later I had two glorious coloring books and some fresh fine point markers, at the sight of which my 8 year old self would have passed out cold.

Imagine my surprise when I sat down to reduce some holiday stress with my markers and my coloring book and found myself…..more stressed.  Wait, whuut?  I kept coloring, believing the stress was bound to go away.  Nope, still stressed.  Actually, even more stressed.  It turns out, the reality of 10,000 tiny coloring nooks on one sheet of paper brings up the same feelings as laundry; a suffocation like it will never end and I will never have enough time.   

I made a vow when I started this website that I would only put positive things into the world.  With that in mind, I don’t want to leave you with a negative review.  I’m happy to report that there is an upside to grown-up coloring books that make them worthwhile!  While coloring in them alone made me feel hostile, when I colored with my kids we engaged in some super meaty conversations.  The kind that come with a feeling of connection you also read lots of Facebook articles about.  There’s nothing like a great talk with your child to make you feel like a parenting genius, right?  In summary, I am all for adult coloring books WITH your kids.  

Although, there is one type of coloring book that I may still try, given my affection for swear words:

Hope you're experiencing all the cheap thrills you can handle this January!

Keely