~There's a mom somewhere in there~

All the ideas I came into motherhood with, have, one by one left the nest. Reality ushered in a different scope, one that required humility to participate. I remember when Randi (grown up in pic) was a baby; when a cold virus collapsed the roof on me as a mom… Oh, god, the crying of the helpless~ (Yeah, I’m talking about me here) It’s such a painful, hopeless feeling, forcing me to do what I was sure I would never do, (self proclaimed atheist at the time) to eek out that beckoning prayer (“God, have mercy and take over”) while dialing the phone for my own mother.

Yes, you guess it. She knew exactly what to do. (She must have got the manual with her babies).

Being a mother teaches me who I am undercover, forcing me to interpret and respond from a place of love to situations where only fear seems available to me. I am astonished by the miracle I witness…

I just spent a grown-up-girl week with my sister Lyn in her yummy Lyn world of wisdom and freedom, motherhood and family, meaningful conversation on walks and sit-ins and movies and teenagers. (more about this visit with pics later)

She sent this marvelous presentation which I have posted below for you to share with me. From a mother’s stand point, it’s absolutely complete… enjoy…

From Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author:

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in

disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three

almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three

people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid

of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell

vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor

blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors

closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip

up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves.

Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at

its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible

except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me

now. Pene lope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on

sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood

education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and

Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But

I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like

memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on

the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they

taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then

becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that

it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds

well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a

stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his

sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on

his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time

my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of

research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-

shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you

must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I

remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful

books on child development, in which he describes three different

sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-

quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there

something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong

with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically

challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he

goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes

were made. T hey have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When- Mom-

Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad

language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The

times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover.

The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling

out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I

responded, "What did you get wrong?". (She insisted I include that.)

The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and

then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all

insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons

for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while

doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly

clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.

There is one picture of the three of them , sitting in the grass on a

quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and

1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about,

and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing:

dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little

more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and

what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought

someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now

I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they

demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The

books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I

was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound

up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more

than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books

never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.