We got our six-year-old a butterfly habitat for her birthday. Essentially, it’s a mesh enclosure that comes with a gift certificate for caterpillars.
The caterpillars were quiet at first, but after a few days, they got active and started spinning themselves into their cocoons.
Ten days later, butterflies emerged.
So we took them to the park to give them their freedom.
We unzipped the lid to free them, and waited for them to fly away.
And waited.
But they seemed quite content to hang out in their little habitat sipping orange juice.
Eventually, one flew away, and then another. But the remaining two were just hanging out on an apple core, giving no indication that they were thinking of going anywhere anytime soon.
After a while, I reached in and nudged the apple core a bit to see if the would move.
Nothing.
So I picked it up, and they both just continued sitting there. Since it was already in my hand, I lifted the applecore that held the two butterflies out of the enclosure and gently placed it on the grass. They just sat there. So my daughter decided to share a flower with them.
These butterflies showed no indication that they even noticed our existence. They only had eyes for each other.
They were really into each other.
Could this be a mating thing? The directions that came with the caterpillars did warn us not to wait more than a couple days before releasing the butterflies, or we would end up with a bunch of very hungry caterpillars that we would need to figure out how to feed.
These poor butterflies get no dignity, with all the detail of their first date broadcast across the internets. Also, they should get a room.
But it did give us a good opportunity to discuss the birds and bees a bit.
After a while one of them takes an interest in the flower Gem was holding out for them.
Oh, but then they discover each other again. This time a hookup in the grass.
And, done.
She (or he) heads out on a stroll through the grass, while the other one watched her walk away.
I’m supposed to be on vacation right now. Actually, I AM on vacation right now, hidden away on a cabin on an island with a few close friends, but I just had to share something.
I recently did something brave and scary: I worked up the nerve to audition for Listen To Your Mother.
What is Listen to Your Mother?
LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER features live readings by local writers on the beauty, the beast, and the barely-rested of motherhood, in celebration of Mother’s Day. Born of the creative work of mothers who publish on-line, each production is directed, produced, and performed by local communities, for local communities.
I’m so glad I took a chance and did the scary thing.
Stay tuned, you’ll be hearing more about this soon. I will be sure to let you know when tickets go on sale, but save the date for May 9, 2015. I’d love to see my friends in the audience.
Update: Bios are posted. Check out these amazing writers with whom I will be sharing the stage on May 9.
My kid says some funny stuff, and every year I post a round-up of some of her best lines.
enjoy.
Ambition
G: I can be anything I want when I grow up?
Me: Sure, what do you want to be?
G: A unicorn
Me: wanna watch a movie?
G: No. I must rule the world.
Me: you talk about being a princess a lot. do you ever think about being an engineer or a teacher?
G: Princesses never lie to their mommies
thus endeth the career counseling session
g: “I’m gonna be a kid for a long time?”
me: “yep, you are going to be a kid for a long time.”
g: “I love being a kid! Grownups work while kids play.”
G: Do you know what my superpower is?
Me: What is it?
G: writing… and thinking. oh, and snoring.
G has decided that now that she is a kid instead of a baby, we are going to have to change the nicknames by which we refer to her. The list is long and I won’t go through them all, but Baby is out, Sweetpea is still ok, and on and on.
So what do you really want me to call you? I asked.
Genevieve. Or you can call me the Judge.
That’s my girl!
G, on the way to the party last night: “I’m bringing the party with me, I carry it in my heart.”
G, fists in the air: “Even though I small on the outside, I big and powerful on the inside!”
this is the space alien that lives in the space volcano. they are not monsters, they are just not from here. I learn new things from my little one every day.
“I want to keep doing this mischief thing forever”
G’s word of the day: Accigently – when you make a mistake, but do it carefully
card shark
G: DADDY! daddy DADDY! daddy
Me: Genevieve! Daddy’s office is not a yelling place
G: I was trying to find him using echo location
“when I see a baby, the love goes right into my heart and then I sing it out”
what? your living room doesn’t have ann applause sign? she hung this sign a couple days ago when we failed to perceive that her dancing was a performance. sign says: if you like my dance, clap.
Me: when you wake up tomorrow, it will be your last day of being 4
G: Oh, good, I’m REALLY tired of being 4
she arranged the stools into a train, and she has her trusty atlas. the library thinks its time to close, but we are on a train, on our way to denmark to see a pig
G, to another kid at the playground: “That’s my mom and dad over there, and they both love me and I both love them.”
“it’s a good day for dancing”
it took some doing, but she finally climbed up on that boulder – then she stood up and started in on yoga poses #invincible
Very angry little girl in time out: I’m just going to take a sharp saw and cut off my room from the rest of the house and sail away.
apparently she likes to travel in style: with dress-up clothes, fancy bed, and toys.
I told her about Get Smart, and the shoe phone…
G: what does BFF mean?
Me: that means Best Friends Forever
G: like you and me?
my girl packed us a picnic
G, clinging to my back: “Can you turn your head around and look at me?”
Me: “no, my head only goes side to side, it doesn’t go to the back”
G, grabbing head: “I can fix that”
Just one of the many things that my kid says that would totally creep me out if it was anyone else
G: I would be happy to trade my computer for your computer
Me: my computer isn’t working very well right now.
G: Then I will trade this lego figure for your computer
G: close your eyes and I will sing you a lullaby so you can sleep better tonight
Me: awww, that’s sweet
G: ♫ Old McDonald Had a Farm… ♩ ♬
For the love of books
waiting for the library to open
riveted
G: I want to give these books to other kids who don’t have any books.
Me: That’s a very nice thing to do.
G: Well, these books are bad
Me: why are they bad?
G: Well it’s not nice to hop on people, its not nice to mess up people’s houses, and kids should never cross the street without holding a grownup’s hand
G picked up an English/Russian dictionary and tried to read it. After a few frustrated minutes, she throws it down, stomps away, and pouts with her arms folded across her chest…
I ask her about it…
G: “that book is for a different day”
attempts reading while walking. at least mom was there to pay attention to boring details like stairs
“when you learn about light, that’s called light reading”
G just told me she is writing a book. The title: The world of make believe is real… ly cool
People just don’t measure up to animals
G, reading a book about different kinds of birds: “not all birds lay eggs”
Me: “sure they do, all different kinds of birds lay eggs”
G: “the boys don’t”
#facepalm
Awwwww. it’s a cute little baby butterfly
the kid is campaigning for a pet at our new place, so I asked her what kind of pet she wants
me: do you want a pet rhinoceros?
G: no that’s to big
me: how about a pet whale?
G: no that would splash too much and get everything wet
me: how about a pet orangutan?
G: no that would throw poop everywhere.
We’re running out of options here
you might think those look like toy trucks, but you’d be wrong. they’re pigs, and shes a pig farmer
“Butterfly to the rescue!”
rescuing worms from the sidewalk
The parenting books didn’t warn me about this
G: Why wont you make another baby so I can have a sister?
Me: my body has too much trouble making babies
G: you just need to practice more
G just informed us that the guards at her office called and they really need her to come in to work right now.
most creative attempt at getting out of bedtime yet
I was enjoying G brushing my hair till Aaron walked by and suggested she use a real brush. Me: why? what is she using?
“Mommy, how do you spell body parts?”
– she was searching for something to watch on Netflix
“ok, mama, I’ll be good, but just to make you happy”
Me: tell you what, I will let you watch one tv show before you go have some quiet play time in your room
G: if you can decide to let me watch one show, you can decide to let me watch two
G, deadpan, to me: were you there when the Earth was still flat?
G: You’re not my real mom!
Me: Is that so? Who is?
G: Maleficent
G informed me that last night she had the best dream ever. she dreamed that she was Snow White. I asked her if she cooked and cleaned for the dwarves, and she said yes. I asked her if she was going to clean up her mess in the living room… “Mom! It was just a dream!”
Just trying to make her dreams come true
“I’m serious, Mom. I’m as serious as a first grader.”
“my little tooth is so excited to get out of my mouth”
My little chef
G, at dinner: have you made this before?
me: yes
G: and you made it again anyway?
G: I want to make Daddy a cherry pie for his birthday
Me: I just bought ingredients for coconut cream pie, because it’s his favorite
G: I think Daddy wants cherry
Me: did you ask him
G: Daddy, do you want a surprise?
G: Mommy I’m going to watch over you forever
ME: that’s sweet
G: I’m going to watch to make sure you never make this food again
G: I’m so hungry I don’t care what you give me – except if you give me something I don’t like.
G, to me: When I grow up and have a restaurant, you can be one of my chefs
Me: what about Daddy?
G: he can clean and eat
ice cream is deliciouser than ants on a log
G: when I grow up and have a restaurant it will have a special room with comfy chairs for sick people, and I will give them special tea to make them feel better, and daddy will play guitar.
The Fashionista
G: “I don’t even know who St. Patrick is. Why does he get to pick what color I wear?”
nothing bashful about the pink she’s wearing today
favorite mode of transportation: dancing
G, to Aaron: too bad you don’t have my glorious hair
oh how I love these outfits she puts together
Ready for Kindergarten
she wanted to practice wearing her new backpack today so she would be ready for kindergarten
breakfast picnic: she wanted to test her new lunchbox to make sure it works. kindergarten countdown: 8 days
G: Every time I look outside, it’s still dark out
Me: Because it’s still night time
G: But how will I know when to wake up for school? I don’t think morning will ever come
first day of kindergarten
the end of the first day of kindergarten
dancing on the way to school
kindergarten school picture
I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next year.
There have been times, oh so many times, when the thought of compiling a list of things for which to be grateful was a little more than I could bear. Those are moments when gratitude is difficult.
Life can be difficult. Excruciating, even.
Sometimes, getting through one hour after another, means holding your breath till you remember that you are supposed to inhale and exhale. Then, those repeated steps become your occupation until you think of something else to get you through the next block of time. I’ll just hold on till the end of this show, or till Mom gets here, or till Aaron gets home, or till the baby wakes up. Then you make another deal to get through the next time span.
What is your touchpoint?
I remember those days during chemotherapy, when my stomach churned and my head spun, but the worst part was the unbelievable pain from the bone marrow stimulating shots that I had to give myself the day after each chemo. My shins ached and burned; they felt like the bone would split open, and no pain reliever would touch it.
My husband would place one of his palms on each shin and somehow found just the right amount of pressure. The combination of the heat of his hand and the pressure lifted the pain just enough. The first time he did that, I let out a sob. He stopped and quickly pulled his hands away, afraid that he had hurt me. I struggled to find the words to tell him that the sob was relief. Please, please, put your hands back.
As long as he held his hands there, the pain was held at bay, but it returned when he pulled them away. So we sat like that; his hands on my shins, my hands holding them there. Sometimes we talked, and sometimes we just sat there holding each other. These were the moments I could let my guard down.
Those hands. I am so grateful for my husband’s hands.
Start with just one thing
Even in those worst moments, you can look around and find that one thing that is getting you through to the next moment. What is your touchstone right now? Find something, anything, that you can focus on, that you can appreciate. Is it the chair you’re sitting in? Your favorite pillow? The grain pattern running through your wood floor? A quiet moment? A distraction? A cup of coffee?
Now, really appreciate it.
Focus on it.
Embrace it.
Allow yourself to lean on it.
Vulnerability isn’t easy
I felt so guilty about not having the strength to take care of my baby, unassisted. I’d just had a mastectomy and was going through chemotherapy, and later, radiation, yet I managed to heap guilt on myself for being an inadequate mother to my 1-year-old daughter.
It took me a while to see how blessed I was to have my mother and my friends there to help me care for my daughter. I could not bring myself to ask for help, but they showed up anyway. They sat with me and the baby, keeping us both company, just there to help with the heavy lifting, especially in those days when I was not even allowed to pick her up.
My baby was happy, and healthy, and well cared for, whether it was me lifting her out of the crib, or one of my helpers. I felt relief immediately, but it took a bit to fully embrace the feelings of gratitude. It took an attitude shift to appreciate the fact accepting that help was not a signal that I was failing as a mother, but just the opposite. I was doing what my child needed most for her own safety. With my helpers there, I was free to nap as needed and regain my strength, so I could stay awake to watch her another day.
I will forever be grateful to those amazing women who not only showed up without being asked, but gracefully and tactfully allowed me to work through my depression and feelings of guilt without taking it personally.
Sometimes gratitude requires an attitude shift
That change from thinking I am supposed to be super-mom, to acknowledging that I’m only human was difficult.
I had to redefine for myself what it meant to be a mom. I’ve always been a proponent of the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, and I had to accept my own hypocrisy, and then allow my village to participate in raising my child.
Ultimately, I also had a learn to have a little compassion for myself. By asking what I would want my daughter to do in this situation, the answer became easy. It was easier to be compassionate with myself, after experiencing a little compassion for my daughter in a hypothetically similar situation.
The process of shifting my attitude towards gratitude allowed me to have a little more compassion for myself and ultimately, it made me a better mother, because I was able to fully embrace putting my daughter’s well-being ahead of any feelings of guilt.
I am so thankful that I was challenged in that way, because I am a better mom now as a result, and I am much more likely to remember that I need to take care of my own needs in order to have the strength to take care my daughter’s needs.
I also understand, even more as she gets older, that I don’t need to be, nor should I be, her everything.
Sometimes, gratitude is difficult because it means accepting that we have weaknesses.
Sometimes, gratitude is difficult simply because we lack the creativity, or the will, to think up a list.
It’s easier to hold on to what’s wrong, because there’s more energy in that.
There are times, especially when I’m really enjoying wallowing in a good funk, that I don’t want to do the whole gratitude thing because I know it will mess up my funk, and I’m quite comfortable there.
The power of repetition
This emotional morass we experience through life doesn’t always adhere to logic.
It does, however, respond to repetition.
Thought patterns become habitual.
Emotional patterns become habitual.
So, whether the habit is wallowing in a funk or in gratitude, that becomes the default. But, that default is pretty easy to change, in either direction.
Gratitude Journal
I’ve maintained a gratitude journal for a little while now. It’s nothing complicated, I just try to think of 5 specific and timely things for which I am grateful and write them down at the end of the day. It takes less than 5 minutes.
One day, a particularly bad day, I opened my journal with the intent of unloading everything that was wrong with the world. But while I was thinking through my plans of everything I was going to whine about, my hand, completely out of habit, wrote the word “Gratitude” at the top of the page. So, I decided to go ahead and do the gratitude list first, and whine later. By the time I finished the short list of five items, my mood had completely changed and I lost the desire to whine.
It’s not always that simple and easy and straightforward, but it usually is.
Over time, I have come to realize that gratitude is not just a means of cheering myself up, or engaging in the socially acceptable practice of being thankful.
Gratitude is a coping mechanism, and on those bad days, it’s one of the things that helps me get from one time span to the next.
On April 15, 2013, terrorists detonated two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed, and many others were seriously wounded.
There have been several occasions in my life where chaos and violence shifted my perception of time, even if I was physically far from the event. Time slows down, speeds up, sometimes feels like its hiccuping or repeating itself as we hit refresh over and over and over again on the browser, or the same scenes are replayed by each of the major networks. But these aberrations in my sense of time, and in my sense of safety, never stopped the sun from going down at the end of the day – and never stopped the sun from rising the next morning.
A new day, with a new set of challenges, including the challenge of wrapping my head around yet another wave of violence. But that fresh start is also an opportunity for a fresh perspective, for evolving the way I look at the situation, and the world.
This morning, it was the sunrise that woke me up. Our bed is on the west side of our home, but for a brief minute the rising sun lasered it’s way through the balcony, through our living room, down the hall, and across my bed on the far side of our bedroom. The precision required to get the light across that space is remarkable, with maybe an inch of leeway. I know the light did not have a will of it’s own, but it sure felt like it was trying to get my attention.
The sun always rises
The sun always rises. But it’s not really rising, is it? The sun stays in the same place, and we revolve around it. It’s our changing perspective, in the physical sense, that brings the sun back into our little corner of the world each morning.
In the moments when the world seems dark and evil, it’s a change in my perspective that shifts my attention to the light.
As a child, I was taught that all people are evil at their core, but I no longer believe that is true. I believe most people don’t want to hurt anyone. In fact, I believe most people would go out of their way to avoid causing physical harm to another person. I believe most people want to be helpful. I believe most people want to do good. I believe that right this minute, people from all over the world are praying for Boston, and for the victims and their family members. I believe that when I small handful of people do something evil, a much larger group of ordinary people rise up and perform heroic tasks without even realizing it. They do it because they are there, and it’s the right thing to do. There’s no time to think about whether or not their good actions will be recognized.
Nature always seeks a balance
Yes, there are evil people in this world, and one way or another, they’ll get what’s coming to them. I want them stopped, to prevent another tragedy, but I refuse to invest any of my own limited life in thoughts of revenge. Karma will get them, even if no one else does. Nature always seeks a balance.
In the meantime, I choose to focus on the people healing, and the people doing good. These stories keep reminding me that despite the presence of evil, there is so much hope for the human race.
Patton Oswalt put it beautifully, and again I marvel at how our comedians can cut right to the heart of the matter – Modern day court jesters who speak the truth others are too fearful to say.
To the bad guys: “the good outnumber you, and we always will.” Patton Oswalt
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