The first rule of getting along with other people after you become a parent is don’t brag about your child all the time. Or ever, actually. I break that rule every day. I’m one of those annoying moms – always trotting out the latest cute or amazing thing that my gorgeous little girl did. If I wasn’t your mom, I’d nauseate you. Actually, I’m sure your tweener, teen, and early adult years will be consumed by me nauseating you. It’s in the job description. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
So here I am, a mommy blogger, discussing rules about how parents shouldn’t brag about their kids all the time. But, again, it’s in the job description. I mean, really, if your mom isn’t utterly amazed by you, over the moon about you, if your mom doesn’t brag about you… who will? I don’t want to follow this train of thought too far, because the sad truth is that some kids don’t, for whatever reason, have someone who really goes to bat for them. Part of me wonders if this is the reason for the previously mentioned rule, but I know better. This rule rests on a much more shallow foundation.
The truth is, bragging moms are annoying.
On the other hand, if there is one place on earth I should be allowed to brag about my darling daughter, it should be on my own blog, in a letter directly to her. Prepare to be annoyed.
To lighten things up a bit, I’m going to limit this letter to bragging about about the adorable things you do imperfectly.
There is nothing that makes my heart smile quite like watching you put your green Hello Kitty rain boots on the wrong feet and dancing around the living room.
You pronounce applesauce and princess exactly the same way (“sausaus”).
I didn’t think you knew any numbers above ten, but last night we were looking at a book, and when we got to page 25, you said “five-twent.” I was sure I heard that wrong, but you turned the page and then said “six-twent.”
At the store the other day we were looking at stuffed animals, and you picked up the rhinoceros and called it a triceratops. How does a 2 year old store a four syllable word about a dinosaur with horn on it’s nose, and retrieve it at the appropriate time? I don’t care if you were wrong about the rhinoceros, I’m just blown away that you were wrong in such a cool way. I could never tell the dinosaurs apart (in fact, I had to go online and look it up), but from now on, I will always remember that the triceratops has a horn like a rhinoceros. See, parents learn things from their kids all the time.
I hope this doesn’t make you feel like you’ve been made fun of. Perfect is boring. It’s also an illusion. You can spend your life chasing perfection, but when it comes down to it, when you take stock of what you really love about someone, what makes your heart swell, generally the imperfections weigh in pretty heavily. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try your best, or try to improve. It means don’t be afraid to fail; don’t be afraid to try something because you won’t be perfect the first time. It means don’t let your stumbles paralyze you. Pick yourself up, and keep dancing, even if your boots are on the wrong feet.
Imperfections make us unique, approachable, and lovable. And you, my darling daughter, are infinitely lovable.
I’m running away for the weekend; leaving Seattle in my wake.
Let’s just pretend that I don’t have 30 pounds of text books packed in my suitcase.
I’m headed off for a weekend of girl talk, yoga, beach combing and chick flicks with my ‘cancer girls,’ as my husband calls them. He always uses the possessive pronoun, your, as in your cancer girls. I’ve started thinking in those terms too: my cancer girls. It’s amazing, the bond you build when you go through a traumatic experience like cancer together. Maybe he’s right. I think, in a way, maybe we do belong to each other. I can’t imagine getting through cancer, or this time post-cancer (it’s never really in the past) without them.
I like to think of myself as having superpowers. My favorite superpower is the ability to make things go away by not believing they are true. I’ve had a lot of practice using this superpower; I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer while I was still breastfeeding my baby.
That was practice using this superpower, but no success.
One of the first things that hits you over the head with a cancer diagnosis, after confronting your mortality, is the understanding that you are not in control. Control is an illusion. This is a very difficult concept around which to wrap your brain.
We’re constantly bombarded with messages about how we are in control. Make a plan and execute it. Just do it. We are the product of our own choices. Metaphors abound: in the drivers seat, steer the ship, drive to success, master of your domain (giggle, snort – if you got this Seinfeld reference, you’re old like me).
There is a lot of truth in these ideas. We are the product of our own choices – to an extent. But there is so much we can not control. The child with neuroblastoma did nothing to deserve that disease. They did not earn it. Neither did I.
For all this time we spend juggling – super-moms with all their balls in the air at the same time – we also live with this fear that one dropped ball will bring them all down. If we miss a ball, a deadline, a dental appointment, 50,000-mile maintenance check, the world will keep on spinning whether we pick up the peices and run to rejoin the party, or throw our hands up in the air in defeat.
Some of the balls are going to drop.
I worried so much after my diagnosis: How am I going to effectively parent my child, keep up the house, finish my degree, and battle this disease? I realized that I could not keep all those balls in the air. I made a choice. I decided that parenting and health were my priorities, housekeeping would get attention as I had any to spare, and I took a leave of absence from school. A year later my daughter is happy and healthy as she enters her twos, I’m nearly done with treatment though still battling fatigue, my hair is starting to grow back, and in January I returned to school full time. But, my house is still a mess.
I’m still making choices about my priorities. My house still isn’t winning.
Martha Stewart has a large staff of well paid employees that help her pull off all that magic. I don’t have to be Martha Stewart, and most of us have no hope of having a large, well paid staff to make us look good. What you see is what you get. It’s just me, Baby. Lovable. Imperfect. Flawed. With mutant genes running amok.
I am letting go of the illusion of control
I don’t want to give you the impression that I’ve got this fatalist attitude where there’s not much sense in trying because there is no hope of success. I don’t believe that at all. I try. I work my butt off. I pour blood, sweat, and tears into motherhood, and everything else I do. But I’m learning to distinguish between the things I can control, and the things I can’t.
I can control whether I provide a quiet time and space for my daughter to take a nap
I can not control whether she goes to sleep
I can control the amount and quality of the food that I eat, and I can control the amount and quality of my exercize.
I can not control my weight
I can control my own reactions to my toddler’s behavior, and I can control whether she has been fed, and provided ample opportunity to play and rest.
I can not control whether she has a meltdown in public
I can provide sufficient towels and a bath mat
I can not control whether my husband soaks the bathroom floor when he gets out of the shower
I can fight like hell, do everything prescribed, and more
I can not control whether this cancer comes back
Life got so much easier when I stopped trying to unbelieve what I didn’t want to be true. I can’t control whether or not I have cancer, I can only control my reaction to that fact. A huge burden lifted when I stopped trying to control things over which I had no control. I can’t control everything. I don’t need to control everything. The fact that I don’t control everything doesn’t make me less of a person, less of a woman, less of a mother. It makes me human. It makes me vulnerable. It makes me brave and scared at the same time. It makes me real. And it makes me more empathetic to everyone else around me.
Sometimes, the best things in life are unplanned. Usually, the worst things in life are unplanned. Either way, survival, thriving, requires the ability to adapt. In order to incorporate this new reality into my life, I’ve got to accept it. The more time I spend thinking it just can’t be true, trying to control the uncontrollable, the longer it takes to find a way to make the best of the situation.
I used to work for a cruise/tour company that was smaller, and a bit more intimate than most. This gave us the flexibility to chase rabbit trails, and make impromptu itinerary changes to take advantage of opportunities as mother nature provided. The director used to say “we have an itinerary so we have something from which to deviate.” That’s a little closer to the way I live my life these days. I make plans and set goals, I work towards them, but I try to stay flexible enough to change as necessary. That helps with crisis management; it also makes it possible to savor rainbows, and jump on opportunities as they arise as well.
.
This week, the girls at SITS are discussing perfection and the art of letting go. Join the conversation (Linky included). We’re also using #SITSLettingGo on Twitter.
This is my first Ultimate Blog Party with 5 Minutes for Mom, and I’m excited about it. I’d love to meet more bloggers. I love the interaction and sense of community that comes with blogging.
I’m a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed a year ago, just before my baby’s first birthday. A little over a year later and she’s almost two, and I’m almost done with treatment, but cancer is still part of my every day life. If you want to know what this blog is about, that’s a good start.
Why is it so difficult to take a self portrait where you don’t look stoned? Or is it just me with that problem?
Before breast cancer, this was a mommy blog.
Before I got pregnant, I swore I’d never let my blog turn in to a mommy blog. It’s still a mommy blog, but cancer, and parenting with cancer weighs in as well.
What’s wrong with having a mommy blog, anyway? I write about what I’m passionate about. I write about my husband, too. But most of that passion is left off the page. No worries. This blog is mostly PG. But I can be snarky at times. Or sarcastic. Sometimes both at the same time.
I’m also a full time college student trying to finish up a degree in Social Sciences while my husband finishes up his Master’s Degree in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. That means, with cancer, and a toddler, that I’m really, really busy. I don’t post every day. Sometimes not even every week. But when I do post, I hope it’s interesting, or makes you think, or even better, smile.
I get so tired of New Age Gurus and other “Experts” telling me I have to focus on the present. My memories are a great source of joy; they also contain the lessons I’ve learned that make me who I am today. The future is my goal, it’s why I endure today.
Because, let’s face it: sometimes NOW sucks. Sometimes it’s downright unbearable.
If I focused only on the present, I wouldn’t endure the hives that come with exercise. If now was all that mattered, I’d eat chocolate all day. I wouldn’t be taking classes required for graduation in subjects that don’t interest me. I wouldn’t have the goal of graduating. I’d never take the potential hangover into consideration when opening, or finishing, a bottle of wine. I’d spend my rent money on airfare to Hawaii, or France, or Greece.
If I lived only for the moment, I wouldn’t have gone through chemotherapy.
If I lived my life in the now, I likely wouldn’t have a family. My marriage started with the idea of the two of us spending the rest of our lives together. You have to look ahead to make those kinds of dreams. I would also be repeating the same mistakes over and over, because learning from those mistakes requires looking back.
I realize that there may be a time at the end of life when now is all I have. I’ll take that when I get there. Until then, I will continue to enjoy my memories, and reach for my goals.
I’m not opposed to embracing the moment. I’ve written about how my daughter gave me the gift of now. It’s important to live in the present, but it has it’s time and place. We need a balance. Each moment of our lives must be informed by our past, and driven by our dreams and goals for the future. Otherwise we’re just stagnant hedonists, and that’s just pathetic.
Today is the one year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. This is actually a big day for me. It’s the anniversary of the day my life was turned inside out, and it has put me on a wild emotional roller coaster ride. Thinking about this cancerversary has eaten up all my energy and focus lately – right in the middle of midterms for my school and due dates for my other writing projects, as well as finals for daddy’s school, and his preparation for teaching classes next quarter, and all the other urgencies and emergencies we tackle day after day. Here we are less than two weeks away from your second birthday, and I’m just now getting around to writing this letter for your 23rd month. I haven’t even started planning your birthday party.
Don’t go thinking you are being neglected. You are by far the best part of my day – the one I will drop everything for, no matter what.
But it’s important to know that there are times when life is like this. There are times when everything seems to be coming at you from all different directions, right while you’re dealing with an emotionally heavy load, and you just can’t seem to get anything done. Forget everything, it’s hard to accomplish even one thing. It’s hard to focus; when you react to one urgency, 3 more show up right away from other arenas. You bounce from crisis to crisis, putting out fires without ever touching those all important items on your to do list…
Yup, everybody has days like that. It’s part of the human condition.
That is the most important thing to know about this situation. That when you are overwhelmed like this, you are not alone. Everyone else has been there, they know what it feels like. The details may differ, but the everything-all-at-once-ness of it is universal.
Lately, you’ve taken to holding your little hand up, palm out, and telling me to “Stop” when things aren’t going quite the way you think they should. I’m not quite sure where you got that from, it’s not something that I do, but that idea might be right where you need to start in order to get through a situation like this. Well, without the hand gesture. Most grownups don’t respond very well to that particular gesture. But take a minute. Stop everything. You might even need to tell people that unless someone is bleeding or on fire, you need 5, or 10, or 50 uninterrupted minutes to sort things out. Lock yourself in a closet if you have to, and take some time for yourself.
Taking a long walk is also a great option, if you’re in a place where you can do that. An outdoors walk is best. Yoga is also a great option for releasing nervous energy and helping you regain focus.
Then once you’ve expended a good bit of that nervous energy, come back and pull out a notepad and start writing. Write whatever. Anything and everything that comes into your head. Just dump it all. Let it all out. I call this the brain dump. I got the idea from the Artist’s Way, where you start each day with writing time. The idea is that all these little stressful bits and pieces of everything that you’re carrying around with you are keeping you from connecting with your creativity. While I don’t necessarily do pages every day in the morning, I do agree with the general idea. I find that all that crap floating around in my brain gets in the way of my productivity as well. So just empty your brain onto the page. Shred the pages when you’re done if you like, this is for you and no one else. You’re just clearing your head of all the noise and static.
Now you can start writing your to do list and prioritizing items. This whole process could be done in half an hour or less, but would likely be more effective if you invested a little more time.
Of course this wont make all those emergencies go away. But it will help you dodge, parry, duck, or deal with all the crap that comes flying at you.
I went through that process myself today, and as a result, I’ve decided that your birthday party is not going to happen in March. And since I have a conference and finals in April, it might even be later. I suppose we could just cancel the party altogether, but I do love getting all our friends and family together, and it doesn’t happen very often. I have also been looking forward to using your birthday party as an opportunity to say thank you to all the people who have been so supportive of us through this entire cancer ordeal (and I can’t bear the thought of missing one of your birthday parties). I still don’t know what I’m going to do as far as that is concerned. I just know I’m not going to put the time and energy into a party for this month.
I have already started rounding up and just telling people you are two years old. There’s a part of me that resists this still, but you are behaving like a two year old. Yes, the temper tantrums, and the back arching, and the constant testing of boundaries, but also a more sophisticated sense of humor, you can count to ten, know all of the letters, and draw these amazing little smiley faces.
We’ve had a rough, and very busy month. You even had your first Emergency Room visit with a significant fever and cold. But we got through it all, and we had a lot of laughs, too.
You bring so much joy to our lives. I’ve had a very difficult year, but there has not been one day since you were born where you did not brighten and improve my day.
CoffeeJitters is an affiliate to a number of sites and services. I do not endorse products I don't love. I may receive compensation if you purchase items from links on this website.
