Internet Search for Self Actualization

Confess.  Have you ever asked the internet a personal question?  In a weak moment, have you ever asked your friend Google, "Who am I?"  "Should I leave him?"  "What am I going to do?" Or, not a question at all:  "Please be quiet!" 

I'll assume by your silence that you are guilty.

While I am not considering leaving my spouse, it is possible I may have asked the internet god a question or two in a moment of desperation that would be more appropriately put to the good Lord himself or at very least a therapist. 

Maybe you refuse to confess, and that's fine.  If you insist that you are far too centered to resort to such silliness, it's no big deal.  I won't feel alone. 

And here's why.

Let's take a look at how often Dr. Internet is asked these existential questions in a single month:

• "Should I leave him?" 1600
• "What am I going to do?" 6,600
• "Why are we here?" 14,800
• "Who am I?"  ONE MILLION searches a month.

Only a 119 people a month ask the internet oracle to tell them how to stop yelling at their kids, so I guess I'm still not as normal as I'd hoped. 

It was in just such a moment of desperation that I was recently pondering the chaos of my life and wondering how to get my act together, get my house together--the noble thoughts of womanhood.  I resolved that I needed to get the kids back to helping out around the house after the pandemonium of the holidays.

So, I sat down to make a chore chart.  I was just about to ask Señor Internet for advice on the matter when something came back to me through the echoing, alzheimery corridors of my mind.  There was a site filled with all sorts of child slavery advice, complete with the chore charts I needed AND the cheerful fatalism I so enjoy.  In fact, it was written by someone I knew--in fact, someone I loved dearly, despised deeply and indulged greatly. 

Yes, it was the ghost of me past, who died a tragic death due to complications related to a stressful move, financial turmoil and becoming a working mother.  Now, as I prepare to resettle back into at-home motherhood, I'm in the amusing situation of having to turn to my old dead self to remember how to do things, like parent children.  That said, I'm actually more organized, responsible and tidy than she was, albeit much grumpier. 

Yet, as I read through the blatherings of this naïve woman, I realized that one, I miss her.  Two, I have a practical thing or two to learn from my old self, and three, I think the past two years have given me a little more insight into these things.  So, I decided to return and co-blog with my old, dead self.  Kind of like Natalie Cole. 

I'm hoping that in the process, I'll resurrect not just the blog, but some of the enthusiasm I once had and remind myself how hilarious raising children can be.  That way, maybe my future self, once she's also forgotten both how to parent and that she had a parenting blog, she'll stumble upon me, the long dead ghost of me present, and the three of us together will manage to hold on for more than one week the lessons of life. 

So, in the end, my very own forgotten piece of the internet solved some of my child rearing questions, and because my mind is a sieve and I can't remember squat, it's all fresh and new to me!

Which leads me to my next internet search, "Do I have alzheimers?"  Me and 91 other inquiring minds want to know.

Are you expecting?

I've had computer trouble, I apologize for disappearing. Plus, my propensity for amusement is in a lull right now. But hey, it's my house, so it's my rules. I hereby allow myself to be unamusing.

Let's talk about expectations. Here are some of mine:

• I expect that I'll have five minutes of peace on the computer to do bills while my children are in the same room.
• I expect that I'll complete a ridiculously-long to-do list each day.
• I expect that my (rather young) children will not act so immature.
• I expect that my worldly success is imminent.
• I expect that my diet success is imminent.
• I expect my husband will read my thoughts.
• I expect that I am simply on the bottom steps of a fabulous financial escalator (and not on one of the flat ones they have at the airport).
• I expect a day where nothing and no one will get in my way or make a mess or slow me down or undo my efforts.

What are you expecting?

A friend of mine recently explained her experience at a Buddhist temple, where the monk taught against any kind of hope, as it would always lead to disappointment.

In the zen spirit of being non-judgmental, may I say this is simply ridiculous.

Hope is essential to life. What I think she may have meant, in spirit, is to warn parishioners against the self-torture of expectation. Hope can motivate action, it keeps us moving forward, gives us the idea that unknown, maybe not understood, but valuable rewards in life can and will be found as we move along. We can trust that positive things will take place here and, for the lucky ones who have faith to go along with that hope, in the hereafter.

However, when I expect something, my expectations will be met, or not met. It is not my expectations that increase the likelihood of any specific outcome. Expecting things is just like placing bets. The cards will fall where they will, the marble will settle somewhere on the wheel, regardless of where I placed my bet. But, my fixation on one outcome determines whether I will jump in triumph or, the other 99.9% of the time, be disappointed with my experience.

We expect things of our day, of events, of plans, of our kids and husbands, of everyone around us, of ourselves. We also spend far more time lamenting the falling short from our expectations than we ever spend rejoicing in them being met.

At the same time, we are to hold high expectations for our kids. But I think this is a semantic issue, because setting a high standard of behavior for our kids is not the same as emotionally investing our pleasure or displeasure in their behavior because our expectations have been met or not. I would argue the first is appropriate, but not the latter.

I would also argue that aside from true grief and sorrow, almost all our negative feelings in life come from our expectations. I know this is true for me.

As a person of faith, I also wonder if constantly creating expectations isn't also a sign of weak faith and my weak trust in a Creator with a Plan. Instead of moving forward, working and having hope that the road ahead will give me something beneficial regardless of what it is and whether I understand it, I constantly interrogate my Maker, "Is this your plan? No? What about this? No, not that either?! Oh, NO! Is there a plan? Where is the plan? SHOW ME THE PLAN!"

Truly Zen folks argue against the analysis, via discussion, debate or even scripture, of this life experience. And I take issue with that, because all that has its place. But I wonder sometimes if my life has come to be completely circumscribed by rhetoric and analysis (and blogging), at the risk of not living a life at all, but instead, watching the highlights as a spectator via daily blogging or cell-phone recaps.

The Zen thing is about actively accepting and living in the present moment, putting aside the ego and self-consciousness and the constant judgment ("Is this person/experience living up to my expectations or not?). So, without being all orthodox zen and tossing out age-old wisdom, scripture and divine and earthly conversation/analysis, I see a need to add the actual act of living my own real life.

I feel like this actual living life part, and not just thinking, writing, wondering, worrying about living, has been a missing leg in the table of my life (which, to continue that metaphor, may account for my instability).

It's like I live my entire life approaching each day like a new, unopened box. First I decide what could be in the box, what should be in the box, and wonder what I want to have in the box, and, after all that, I look into the box and see what's in it. But, by that time, it's been spoiled anyway by all that expecting. It could have been a perfectly fabulous thing, but if it wasn't what it could, should, or I wanted it to have been, I won't see that.

What about going up to the box and seriously observing and appreciating what is in it before doing the "What's-in-the-box?" song and dance? Especially when that box is my life, my experiences, my time, my husband, and, most relevant here, my child?

I do want to teach and train my kids in the best path, but I also want to know them, to discover and observe them, to appreciate them. Not only them, but their stages and struggles and approaches to life. I want to respect them enough to listen to them and observe them rather than just direct and shape them. It is frankly a very big change from my current approach.

And I won't expect, but I will hope, that I will make this change.

The day I was forced to remove my children from the sofa-altar of the TV God

For the past three weeks our family has had something we never have heretofore had--static-free access to network and public television. This has been a wonderful discovery for me. Thanks to a magical thing called "PBS Kids" and our "we-just-moved-and-there's -only-7-more-weeks-of-school -so-why-bother" version of "home schooling" and a mild case of post-moving depression, I can now slothfully sleep until 9 a.m. And very often, I do.

If harassed loudly enough, I will put four granola bars and four apples in a large popcorn bowl and my three year old will bear it down to the parishioners so they may munch without losing a single second of quality educational programming. I lose only a few precious seconds of unconsciousness.

Then, my together, well-read alter-ego (who is now only given jurisdiction over me for about 15 minutes a day) had me reading this past week some academic religious material by a scholar who had attended rabbinical school before undertaking academic study of modern religions. He was explaining the Jewish law I always found rather odd (not being Jewish), that being the prohibition against creating any images of God's creations, as it leads inevitably to the worship of the image over the creation (idol worship).

He had me intrigued when he said, "Common to this sort of idol worship was an infatuation with the image of a thing rather than its reality . . . we could say that an obsession with unreality is at the heart of idolatry." I began to await his final blow when he said, "The graven and molten apparatuses that transmit these images we put up in our own houses as well as in houses set apart for that purpose. Upon these images we dote, preoccupied for hours at a time . . . we worship in the dark, heedless of one another. When a social need arises, we resent its intrusion. Our behavior towards one another is colored by what our images dictate."

Just as I was about to dispense with this line of un-American TV bashing as religious fanaticism, he pulls out the more powerful dogma of research science, particularly concerning in light of my children's new passtime:

"Recent studies, for example, amply document the abnormal effects of watching television. The images that our eyes see are stored permanently in our minds. There, they mingle with images of the real world . . . Watching television accustoms people to the sensational, the artificial, the novel, so that they begin to require a regular diet of these things to maintain their interest. . . Because their minds and hearts dull toward quiet, normal everyday happenings, reality appears drab and uninteresting."

Now, religion can be disregarded, and science can be ignored, but I have a problem with this one, because my own life could be a case study of this phenomenon. I used to tell myself that the hour-after-hour style of TV watching I did all during my childhood and adolescence apparently didn't hurt me all that much, what with my good grades and good jobs and passable intellectual functioning. Apparently, a constant daily after-school diet of M.A.S.H., Three's Company, Different Strokes and Benson was just fine for a 13-year-old after all.

But when I read this, that constant broken record of the song "Is that all there is?" that plays in my head every moment of every day, my perpetual dissatisfaction with everything real as opposed to imagined, and my chronic, two-decade ennui rose before me with a black, shiny, square face.

Sure, it could be I'm just an ungrateful baby naturally, with or without full months of my life having been spent bowing before the tube. But, I believed enough that there is something to this phenomenon in my life that the very next day I sent us back to our pre-decent antenna lifestyle and committed to, if not get out of bed earlier, make sure the books and games are unpacked and accessible.

We parents don't need to be told that TV is "the plug-in drug" because we use it exactly for that purpose. It stops the chaos, the fighting, the mess--it is instant quiet. It is the "only" way dinner can be made, bills can be paid, etc. But, if any inkling of that study is true, I cannot sentence my kids to the same blasse, non-plussed, constantly disappointed psyche that has plagued me my whole life.

So, to arm me against my next moment of weakness when my need to control my children brings me to the point I'm ready to set them on the sofa-altar and make them little, perpetually unamused idolaters, I'm going to read some highly recommended books on the subject. Feel free to join me.





Oh, and the book I was quoting here:
The Last Days: Types and Shadows from the Bible and the Book of Mormon

The Tuck In Panacea

There is very little within the spectrum of average parenting that can't be made up for with a high-quality tuck in.

The tuck in was an essential nightly ritual in my upbringing which, like my own children, I prolonged with a variety of elaborate efforts: the additional story, the drink, the extra hug and kiss, the need for more blankets, and of course, an onslaught of elaborate and irrelevant questions--all critical tools in the arsenal of extending that sweet moment of one-on-one parental attention.

Perhaps you will think it indicative of arrested development that this ritual continued as long as I lived in the house. But really it was just that I was an only child to a single parent--we both needed the nightly hugs. Still, I hope to use it to prolong the child-parent bedtime connection as long as my kids will allow it.

Now, at the end of an exhausting day where my parenting has been marginal to poor, it is tempting to forgo this procedure with a swift, "Everyone in BED!" and a token, speedy hug and "G'nite, love you." However, I am starting to see the wonderful redemption opportunity I am giving up when I do this. A few, focused moments at the bedside can leave me, and hopefully my child, ending the day feeling that some good-quality parenting is going on, and love is in the air to fuel sweet kid dreams. This is an illusion I am more than happy to weave.

In my house, perhaps one night in a week, the high-quality tuck in will require an apology for bad behavior on my part. I do try to apologize at the time when I make mistakes with my kids, but there really isn't an ending moment to my grumpy-mom performance that would make an apology anything but a ridiculous comma in the middle of it. Enter the tuck in, where we calm down with routines and prayer and inside jokes and rituals, and then, as I kneel quietly at the bedside, I can sincerely feel (and not just say) that I'm sorry, and they are in a much better position to forgive.

The tuck in has evolved differently with each of my four kids. With my oldest, I've found the
bunk bed is not helpful to this routine. We end up on my bed after I've said goodnight to all the others, chatting while my other little guy falls asleep on the lower bunk. He'll still let me sing to him and pet his hair.

I sincerely feel this daily touchstone of chatting can be the key to holding onto him through both tweendom and teendom. In fact, my Aunt Dede (three daughters) and Uncle John (three boys, three girls), each attested to the fact that this one thing was why they ended up with kids they stayed close to, and who all ended up on the right track in life.

My oldest daughter, now six, will let me fawn on her and dote and croon and sing all night if I wanted to. There must be butterfly kisses, eskimo kisses, endless kisses and cuddles. She was born with an insatiable craving for this kind of encompassing affection, and I'm sad to say she gets just about none of it most days outside of the tuck in. Without this nightly routine, one of her deepest, most urgent emotional needs would be left unmet.

My three-year old goes through the nightly routine of resisting the tuck in at first, because that means bed, "No! NO song! No mommy sing. Go away." But then he succumbs with all sorts of cuddly goodness. Of course there is the water getting and the request for a second dinner to be served in bed, which is rarely indulged, unless I served something truly gross for dinner which warranted his rejection. Then, he refuses a song as often as he begs for one. His favorite song for the past six months is "Pumpkin in the Straw" (sung to "Turkey in the Straw") which I made up last Halloween because he requested a pumpkin song. I didn't know I'd be singing it until he went to college.

Our routine often ends with a kiss, hug, and squeeze, in that order. Tonight I hugged him and, mildly distracted, went to leave. It was the highlight of my day to hear him say, "Mommy! A Fweeze! I need a fweeze!" No matter how many times I've been roped into coming back after trying to leave, who could deny that?

I'm just starting a routine with my little 21 month old, who has been babied far to long and put down asleep. Although it's just a song and kiss, she knows it means I love her and she's going to bed, like it or not. It's simple, but it's a basic foundation for all those late night chats I look forward to when she comes home from a date in 15 years.

I then can emerge from the kids' room like I would a confessional, feeling free of guilt and ready to try harder. Stephen Covey would say I've brought my children's emotional bank accounts current, especially on those days I've become severly overdrawn. And for the good days, I've got a little padding, in case grumpy mommy escapes again.

The simple bedtime tuck in--it covers a multitude of parental sins.

Hurry up and be patient!

My primary method of teaching my children patience is by impatiently demanding it. I combine this strategy with constantly modeling exactly what patience isn't (so they can tell the difference, you see). In addition to my quick-to-anger parenting, they also overhear me whining to my friends about life's circumstances not keeping pace with my expectations, and always extolling the benefits of tomorrow over the realities of today. Yet of course, I demand patience from them constantly, when I'm on the phone, when I'm handing out snacks, basically whenever they want anything.

My only redeeming feature in this area is that I'm a very patient driver. Well, not really, as I'm the perfect synergy of Captain Rush-Rush and Ms. Lane Expert, but I do tend to give other drivers the benefit of the doubt and am not a fist shaker. (In part because I know there is no inconvenience I can be caused that I haven't egregiously caused another driver myself, probably very recently.) I just smile and wave forgivingly, hoping it will bring me good karma so no one pulls out a gun and road rages the next time I make the same mistake.

Still, it is safe to say that impatience permeates our home on every level, from the top down. Today, because patience was yesterday a lively discussion topic at church, a dear friend sent me a link to a highly recommended speech on patience by Gandhi's grandson--which I couldn't finish because I was too impatient with how slowly he talked! (Don't worry Jen, I'll finish it tonight.) I'm so doomed.

Another clear indicator of my poor example is the fact that my two older children have already settled on having between 0-1 children themselves ("because kids are annoying"). Yikes! I'm not just losing my self-control, I'm losing my grandchildren!

Jane Nielsen in Positive Discipline states that we cannot make our children act better by making them feel worse. (This statement makes me feel bad, does that mean I won't act better either?) Yet, this has been my primary strategy for teaching my children, despite constant evidence to its ineffectiveness. Plus, I've only recently woken up to the fact that so much of my parenting behavior is completely selfish--I'm not trying to teach principles and form good habits so much as make the day go my way.

Patience is a form of acceptance, both of who we are right now, who are kids are right now, and the state of the world right now. It is not complacency, it's not resigned bitterness. Patience is trust and hope that things will work out with time and love rather than cajoling, guilt and manipulation. Sure it's hard for me to replace reactionary words with a deep breath, but at the same time, when I try on a little patience, it is so much more comfortable than the frustration and anxiety--I think, "Why don't I try this more often?"

In the lesson yesterday, a quote said, " Acceptance is taking our children for what they are right now, without comparing them to others or wishing they didn’t have their particular flaws. Acceptance is letting go of unrealistic or unfair expectations. It is understanding the seasons of our children’s lives."

Just today, as I actually made a conscious effort to accept my kids for who they are right now and show patience, I literally felt a knot in my chest unravel a bit. I had to talk myself through it a little, like I was role-playing, "Look, here I am being a patient mother." Sure, it felt awkward, but a little less like I might seriously have a heart attack.

Has a patient mother ever turned out low-quality children because they mistook her patience for consent of their mistakes? Highly unlikely.

But, has a patient mother ever taught her children patience by example, so they can be more able to diligently work through life's difficulties, including their own weaknesses? Without a doubt, probably thousands of them.

So, my assignment for tomorrow--less of the yap yap and more of the deep breathing.

PS: BTW: The computer goal for today was successful--it totally makes a difference!

Graduate-Level Parenting

I've decided that I will truly have graduated as a parent when I:

1. Spend as much time actually parenting my kids (and enjoying it) as I currently spend wondering, worrying and writing about it.
2. Consistently get out of bed early enough to get myself together mentally, spiritually and physically before the kids wake up.

No more would I be rudely awakened by someone screaming in anger or pain while someone else cackles and giggles wickedly. No more would I angrily come downstairs half-dressed and blind to squint and yell the same lecture at indistinguishable blobs I assume to be my jammied children who are rolling on a floor covered in Cheerios not watching the screaming television.

Instead, they would come down to a bowl of warm oatmeal and a happy mom with inner peace who took the time to exercise, pray and shower, and even dress herself. Armed with the grace of God, faith hope and charity, and the steel zen fortitude needed to face another day, I will literally beat them to the punch.

Imagine having the first thing I think about my sweet children each day being about feeding and nurturing and loving --not just the instant fury upon waking that someone has woken everyone up at this unholy hour and are about to wake the --oh, and just woke the baby. Did I mention we're talking about somewhere between 5:45 and 6:15 a.m. here? It's not like I'm lazing about, mad that they're up at 7 or something.

Getting up before the kids is the pinnacle I aspire to, even though it means 5 a.m. I know of mythical mothers who do it, and even some among my friends. They are evidence that it is possible.

It's just more of that self-mastery mountain that I've elected to mope at the bottom of for years rather than start climbing. And on that topic, my week of banning daytime computer use apparently starts tomorrow.

The Devil's in the Emails

Unlike children, we adults have the privilege of setting and enforcing our own household rules for ourselves. We can write our own chore list, and we can do it or not. As I'm still in need of strict and structured discipline, I fabricate methods to accomplish my own goals, from the basic (keeping myself from getting on file at Child Protective Services for sanitation reasons) to the more ambitious (unequivocal self-mastery).

Some tactics discussed on this site, like the habits of the mean broom, dinner's not over until the kitchen is clean, and the self-propelling Sunday chore chart meetings, I'm finding are really working.

After a vacation, the flu, and some family excitement, I looked around and realized the house was a mess. I remembered that I read on a website somewhere that kids should do chores, and then I remembered it was my website, and I went to find out what I said. (I have a short-term memory problem that is amusing and tragic.) I reinstituted the patterns swiftly and surprisingly painlessly--the kids complained less than I remembered them doing before all the upheaval. Things are well on their way back to tamed chaos.

But my chores weren't getting done. And I have no respect for the authority figure (me) and am full of sass when confronted with jobs. You can guess the culprit (besides sheer laziness)--it's the dumb computer. It has become clear that my lack of discipline regarding when and how long I use the computer is the main obstacle between me and achieving all my hopes and dreams in life.

This is new to no one. There are endless sites helplessly bemoaning the ignoring of children and household chores to email, blog, read and shop. If you have a question, for example, about Neustria, because you have some ancestor there in the 9th century and you need to know right now where it was and why it had that weird name and why it eventually was named France instead, you can drop everything and find out. Now. That is the coolest thing ever.

The computer dings and I run over to it like a salivating dog--Will it be a funny, irreverent forwarded email (or more likely a not-funny or sentimental one, or one that assumes my political leanings are just about the opposite of what they really are)? Maybe it will be a coupon from Enterprise car rental? Is it time for my daily love letter from Barack who always ends his sweet notes with trying to bum my money like a bad boyfriend?

You know the drill. Then there's some link in there that's interesting which reminds you of that other thing you've been meaning to look at and then you find yourself reading about a long lost medieval country on Wikipedia.

So it's time to lay down the law and make some guidelines.

If I'm honest with myself, I need to make sure my work is done before getting on the computer, and although I'd like that to mean just my chores, I've also tried to put parenting on my list of things to do. I have too many kids to have real down time during the day. So that means no computer until all kids are asleep, which also happens to be spouse time. Still, I'm going to make and follow this rule for one week, no computer before the kids are in bed, and I'll let you know how it goes.

My hypothesis is that my motivation to hang out with my beau will quickly decide for me how important all those emails are, and perhaps benefit you with less long-winded posts, too. I end with a favorite quote (although I always find it heart-pricking) written by John Wesley's mother. She said:

"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."
-- Susanna Wesley (Letter, June 8, 1725)

I consider my reason officially weakened, so it's off with the daytime email. Wish me luck!

Imperfect thoughts on perfectionism

A purist would say I could not be a perfectionist because my house is not clean and I have toddler snot on my shirt.

I don't have the good kind of perfectionism, the kind that makes you not only bring changes of clothes for your children when you go out, but an extra shirt for yourself in case of boogery hugs. That kind of person is probably vigilantly watching and catches any offending substance with a handy Kleenex before it could even happen anyway.

Yet I am a perfectionist, in that I believe if I can't do something perfectly, I shouldn't bother. I do it with housecleaning, dieting, and hey, let's just get it all out there, I do it with my parenting and even my bills.

I periodically get an email newsletter from a like-minded hippie lady, the Urban Homemaker, and today she addressed this topic in a way I found helpful, and I'd like to pass on what she said. She is an "I love Jesus," back-to-basics hippie lady, as I am and aspire to be, although she would not probably accept my brand of Jesus loving. So, it's a little sermony, I'm warning you now, but I really recommend her site.

If you have my little problem of sloppy perfectionism, or even the "good" kind of perfectionism, it makes a good read. She was reporting on a talk she gave about "What I Wished I Had Known;" she talked about sundry home management, baking, parenting things, but focused in part on her spiritual journey. Here are her words:

---

I talked about what I wished I'd known about ungodly perfectionism. What I know now, is that allowing perfectionism and comparisons to go on in our mind is quite a prevalent and insidious, maybe even rampant problem among Christian women.

Regardless of your personal struggles, I believe it is very hard for women to see that an effective tool in the enemy's arsenal is designed to keep our eyes off of God and on our circumstances.

This evil attack takes place in our minds and seeks to destroy us, our families, our joy, and our peace just through our thoughts.

Here is my working definition of Perfectionism:

• A sense of drivenness.
• Continued feelings of not being good enough.
• Deep underlying need to control one's life.
• Excessive striving after reward and recognition.
• Perpetual jealousy of others and a making of comparisons. Again, it is the idea that so and so has more money, better husband, nicer house, higher achieving kids, gorgeous clothes, great figure, she's a great cook and on and on it goes.
• It robs our peace, it can put us into a depression.

The thoughts go through our mind over and over, accusing us and discouraging us. These thoughts can literally make us sick.

[Click here if you are interested in reading the text of her presentation, What I Wish I'd Known]

--back to MamaMelodrama:

"I can't start, because I won't do it well enough" has been a wonderful way for the little red guy on my shoulder to get me to not do anything at all. To do my best and give God the rest (rhyme unintended) would take me a lot farther.

I don't know about you, but this is food for my brain to munch on tonight.

All the hip parents are doing it

I'm traveling, so I'm short on time, but for your amusement, I thought I'd share a real-life conversation that took place between me and my husband on Sunday, uncensored.

Him: Hey, I was thinking that since, you know, we've had four kids and stuff, that today, when we go to church, we could maybe take a diaper and some wipes in a purse or bag, so when the baby poops I don't have to drive home to change her.

Me: What? Who does that? That is crazy talk. Who am I, Martha Stewart?

Him: No, I'm just saying that last week I had to bring her all the way home in the middle of church, and, if we brought a diaper, you know, in a bag, then, when she poops, we can change her there, and it will take less time.

Me: I don't know about this . . .

Him: It's all the rage with parents these days, it's really "now."

Me: Well, okay, we'll try it, but just this once.

This may explain why, when my dear friend was excitedly explaining how she could get a new $150 diaper bag for only $50, I was left bewildered. I realized that not only am I required to go prepared with baby items when I leave the house, but using a plastic shopping bag from Target would not be acceptable for this purpose.

There must be some sort of government aid or compensation for people with this condition.

Quick and Easy Answers for Instant Parenting Success

Last night I came across some advice on askgramps.com which simultaneously inspired and annoyed me. The person asking advice wanted to know how to make their toddler behave in church. After a few words of understanding empathy, Gramps gave his simple parenting remedy:

Never raise your voice; never show anger; reward good behavior; treat bad behavior not with punishment, but with silence. Do not expect immediate compliance. When you give an instruction, however, expect it to be obeyed. Therefore, never give instructions that cannot be obeyed, either because of lack of ability or temporary lack of will.

And that's that. We're all better parents now. Now that I think of it, I guess I'll start eating right, exercising and drinking more water.

Don't get me wrong, I like Gramps. But my first thought is, "Who are these people asking Gramps these questions?" I mean, I understand inquiries on complicated Old Testament doctrines, like:

"How could Levi have been worthy to hold the priesthood when he was responsible for the murder of Shechem? "

But who is the moron asking

"Should I marry this great girl who is not all that good looking? "

My answer? No, you shouldn't, because then she'd have to marry a big fat loser.

It echoed in my mind all night: "Never raise your voice, never show anger." I frowned as I envisioned old Gramps, a father of an earlier era who didn't have to deal with poop bombs, after dinner floor carnage, being completely ignored three times with every request . . .! Plus there's that eerie sense of entitlement inborn to modern children (you know what I'm talking about, don't you?). He's so out of touch. So easy for him to say, all old and sans kids anywhere in sight. Gr. I'm already angry and ready to raise my voice.

What I resent is that he is implying it is simply a matter of free will, just a choice to not be mad. Doesn't he know my kids make me mad? Doesn't he know that their behavior causes me to raise my voice? He clearly doesn't understand that I have no choice in the matter, it's not my fault. If the kids don't want to be yelled at by a mad mom, then why don't they start behaving? The ball is clearly in their court, right?

Ah, the will is such a wild beast to tame. With a sigh, I set out this morning with earnest endeavor. I held on, white-knuckled to my glorious Free Will to see if indeed I could just choose not to raise my voice or show anger.

The first item is a little easier than the second. Volume control is a very concrete item. When I started getting frustrated, I practiced lowering my voice. Enormous effort being expended here, but success (for all but 90 seconds of my day, which I don't think should count against me because the boy clearly was NOT HEARING ME).

But that second one--not showing anger. Wow. How to do that? Paste a Hilary-style manic smile on my face? This was much harder, because I realize I use my anger as a tool to control my kids--I show them I'm mad because I think it will fix problems, despite daily evidence to the contrary, as the problems just continue. Ah, I wish there was money to be made in building unhappy childhoods. Or at least if all the wheel spinning I do as a parent could be more efficiently captured into an energy-storage device to power my house. Or more likely, my whole block.

The final forecast: Despite my weak gains in the not-showing-anger sector, I noticed declines in despair and self-loathing, and increases in the calmness and the hugging divisions. Free will indeed may have been taking a backseat in my parenting of late. Maybe Gramps isn't just old before he was wise.

I think I'll put him to the test and ask him how to clean up a poop bomb.

Mouthwash Magic - Benefits of the Silent Treatment

I inadvertently came across an effective parenting tool today and I thought I'd pass it along, since that's what this blog was originally all about.

It's mouthwash! It's not for your kid's potty-mouths, it's for me & you, the moms, and it works like a charm.

Case in point. I have been sick for forevever with a sinus infection, then a sinus infection combined with a horrific cold. Although I am a big hippie who avoids antibiotics unless I can actually see the bacteria myself they have grown so fat off me, I went ahead and coalesced to a round. No go. I'm nursing, so I'm limited in medication choices and can't take any sinus infection WMDs.

So, in true crazy hippie form, I turn to folk medicine. This Indian remedy actually seems to be working to dislodge the solid rock of grossness I've had in my face for almost a year, so that's exciting, but I understand it can take weeks or even months (seeing as how it's gotten really settled in there). So, this particular remedy involves twenty minutes of swishing stuff around in my mouth both morning and night. (More crazy hippie info here on my favorite folk medicine site.)

What I am getting at by this long explanation is that, even though I am more irritable and tired than ever and really becoming a true-life horrible mother, I have found that I am coincidentally obtaining 20 minutes of peaceful, yelling-free parenting every morning, and for a short moment, the house is a little less crazy.

Could it be that I actually contribute to the chaos which is my home? This study says yes. This reminds me of last year when my oldest son seriously put me into a nervous breakdown to the point that I couldn't talk to him at all. (Oh, I wish I was kidding here.) But the point is, things got better then, too. Takes two to tango.

Other benefits of not being able to talk include a limit on how loud you can be. Today I had to correct a child getting ready to throw items out the bathroom window onto our front porch with a firm, "mm-MM!!" and a headshake, yet you can only do so much volume-wise with your mouth shut.

Also, you are forced to decide if what you think needs to be said really needs to be said enough to risk slobbering on yourself. Surprisingly, the answer is typically no. I've also incidentally taught my kids some sign language, so those two full years taking it in college have clearly paid off BIG.

Apparently this is the only way I can be made to think before I speak, something I constantly have a problem with, especially as I lecture my son on how he needs to think before speaking.

I am seriously--no, I mean it, seriously--thinking about reading up on more healthy things I can swish around in my mouth (hint: this won't be the rat poison named Listerine). At the very least, when I'm feeling particularly barky with my kids, I can make a habit of reaching for something to swish. I can spend my day improving my both oral health and my parenting.

Happy swishing!