Labor of Love

Discipline, Love, and then Repeat

In recent weeks, I noticed a distinct shift in my daughter’s behavior.   She began to push back on well-established boundaries in our relationship.   Yesterday, she calmly fed herself breakfast, lunch and dinner; today, she won’t eat unless I put each morsel in her mouth and demand that she chew and swallow.  Yesterday, she wore a diaper; today she tears them off.  Yesterday, she said loving things to me; today she shouts “Go away” and seems to enjoy the hurt expression on my face.

My first reaction was awe (okay, maybe my first reaction was indignation, but awe did follow).  How could my 20-month old fearlessly challenge me—the bigger and stronger person(ality) in our relationship? And later, a new question arose:  How dare she just change the rules, without giving me fair notice?  But just as David found the courage to battle Goliath, and so too did Ayla.  And what choice did I have?  Either I could fight, or flee.

The plethora of parenting books means that parents are more educated than ever about the psychology and developmental stages of their children.  For example, we know that children are often aggressive when frustrated, rather than being inherently violent.  But I quickly realized that understanding your child’s behavior is entirely separate from modifying it.   I could spend hours getting to the root cause of her behavioral shifts.  Or I could do something about it.  I know many parents who have found sophisticated reasons for fleeing—parents who prefer to explain the why’s of their child’s behavior rather than getting their hands dirty trying to change it. 

After Ayla began to challenge me, I realized that it was not authentic for me to flee, nor would it be a good (short or long) term decision for Ayla.  Ayla is naturally independent, self-directed and fearless.  When children know how to assert themselves, their parents ought to teach them when and how to take a step back.  Besides, if I didn’t step in, Ayla would soon run the house, and my life.

So when my toddler began spitting out half-chewed mouthfuls of food, I acted decisively.  I spoke in a loud but calm voice and said, “We do not spit out food in our house.”  Then I proceeded to methodically shovel the half-chewed bits of food back into her mouth, until it was all gone.  She could tell by my eyes and my body language that I was serious, and that her behavior would not be tolerated.  Afterwards, I was sure to express love--to send the message that she wasn't bad and that my love for her was unconditional.

It was my first major lesson in disciplining my child—a word that seemed so simple and straightforward until I had to enact it.  Now the words feels like a fancy word for something much more crude.  Is discipline anything other than engaging in a power struggle with your child, and deciding which battles you will win, and which you will concede?

Although I tried to engage my mind in the process, I learned that disciplining was much more instinctive than cerebral.  Rather than calling forth directives from “Unconditional Parenting,” and “Becoming the Parent You Want to Be,” I found myself making decisions based on my extensive database of life experience.  There was no clear or succinct theory to describe what I considered acceptable and unacceptable.  Every woman knows the difference between flirtation and sexual harassment, and precisely when that line is crossed.  Similarly, I just know that it is (messy but) reasonable for Ayla to touch every object on my bedside table but that she mustn’t dump out the contents of her lunch bag.  I know these things not because my brain tells me the answer but by reading the sensations in my heart and gut.

Another surprise was the sheer volume of repetition involved in setting boundaries. Instead of languishing after her early defeat, my daughter rallied. She spit her food out at least ten times before she decided to stop; and even then, she occasionally decides to try her little trick again.  In other matters she is absolutely indefatigable; she won’t stop pushing the buttons on my laptop, no matter how many times I say no, or redirect her, or give her different choices.  As you may recall, David didn’t attack Goliath directly; he won by changing the game.  Ayla’s strength is her persistence.  Even if she doesn’t know it yet, eventually she’ll catch me at a moment of weakness and will get her way.  And then what? Will we have to start all over again?

I also learned that I have only two parenting styles in my repertoire—Calm (aka “well-rested”) parenting and Irritable/Short-Fused (aka “not well rested”) parenting.  Learning how to convert the latter into the former is the hardest part of all.  Where and how do I find the resources to speak firmly and calmly when I’m tired, frustrated or simply having a bad day?  This feels like the greatest personal challenge for me in the coming years. How can I both follow my instincts and control my emotions?

I know that this new phase in our household is inevitable and that it too will pass. I console myself with this thought on my bad days, even though I secretly know that it will be decades before Ayla stops pushing my boundaries—and my buttons.  I will have to “Discipline, Love, and then Repeat” ad nauseam, until Ayla finally learns how to successfully negotiate what she needs from the world. 

For now, I’ve taken to my bed each afternoon for a nap.  Because what I’ve also learned is that even a tough cookie like Goliath gets tired, and that sometimes he just needs to lie down…

(Un)Conditional Love

Last week, I wrote about my daughter’s all-out protest against winter and my half-hearted embrace of the coming deep freeze.   I described how awkward it was to have fallen out of rhythm with my child, after a year-and-a-half of keeping the same beat.   At the heart of my post was something so unsettling that I was afraid to think about it, let alone write about it.  But this week I feel brave enough to dig a little deeper, and stare one of my greatest (unspoken) fears in the eye. 

The first twenty weeks of pregnancy were the hardest for me.  I was afraid of miscarriage, I was nauseous and I could only eat Saltines in any great quantity (torture for a any foodie).   But I was also afraid that I was having a boy.   Instead of confronting my feelings, I decided to believe that I was having a boy  and dedicated a full 20 weeks to getting used to the idea (getting happy about it would have to come later).  When we had our first sonogram and discovered that our little babe was indeed a girl, my eyes leaked a steady stream of tears for 40 minutes straight.  A girl! A girl!  I no longer had to pretend that my firstborn’s gender didn’t matter.

After 41 weeks, Ayla came out of the womb exactly as I had hoped.  She was alert and beautiful and even at the age of 4 days, she had a smug little grin that made me laugh.  With every passing day, I had more cause to celebrate.  People constantly stopped me to compliment her perfect features and even temperament.  Someone suggested that she become a spokes-baby for diapers and pureed carrots in a jar (No thank you!).  She learned to crawl at 6 months, walk at 9 ½ months and was speaking and signing by 11 months (whether any of this is objectively miraculous is irrelevant; I thought my baby was tops).   Ayla didn’t appear to have any fears, she loved being outdoors, was naturally social and so on and so on.   She was everything I hoped she would be.  Or, more accurately, she was everything I would have wanted to be as a baby.

And then, the temperature dropped and I saw a different side of her.  Now I had to face the part of her that cringed when the wind blew (my fearless daughter, cowed by a brisk wind?) and that said “NO” to the prospect of wintry adventures.   After eighteen months of us jointly digging in the dirt, jumping in mud puddles and dancing in the rain, my daughter was becoming something different than I wanted, and had expected.

I’m ashamed of my unspoken and verbal responses to her completely reasonable decision to brave the winter indoors.  I engaged in name-calling (silently deciding she was a “wimp”) and threw minor tantrums (“What? You don’t want to go outside?  FINE.  We’ll stay in.)  My mind began to do what it does best—it began to attach conditions to my love for Ayla and to try to chip away at the bond that I felt was unbreakable.

It was my first experience of involuntary separation from my child—the first time that I was forced to acknowledge that although Ayla is my bosom buddy and my best friend, we’re different people and this will not be the last time that she takes a step away from me.  In fact, this is the first of many leaps she’ll make towards achieving her own identity, and with it, her independence (from me).

My job in all of this is to accept her, just as she is.  No matter that she’ll make decisions that I’ll disagree with, or even disrespect.   I have to remember that my role as a parent is not to form her, but to embrace her, as she evolves into herself.   My brain knows this to be true, but still, when faced the prospect of loosening the mother-child bond, I’m scared.  How will I ever let go of my one and only precious child? 

I remember seeing a play called Flesh and Blood (adapted from Michael Cunningham’s novel of the same name) at the New York Theater Workshop in 2002.   Near the end of the final act, the mother character, played by Cherry Jones, is confronted with yet another disappointment from her daughter (who later commits suicide).  For thirty years, she has comforted and supported her children through their decisions to love people who didn’t love them in return, to run away from their problems and to punish themselves instead of loving who they are.  With each revelation, she has never strayed from her unconditional love.  Then, finally, her daughter presents her with something that she thinks she cannot bear to accept (I won't say what; I don't want to spoil it for you).  Cherry pauses, and along with her, the entire audience holds it’s breath.  If a mother cannot love her child through everything, then what hope have we got for the future of the American family? 

Cherry looks up into the blackness, knowing she has a choice.  She can take her daughter in her arms and love her, but she has ample justification to turn around and walk out the door.

But ultimately, she is a mother.  And she cannot reject her child—not for being who she is.  The doors of her heart burst open.  The daughter begins to cry, because her mother’s acceptance is the deepest affirmation of herself...of her beautiful, fallible self.  

I didn’t quite understand the play until now.  Great art often takes years to reveal itself to us.  But now I get it.  I understand that my task is to remain open in the years and decades to come, as my child reveals herself to me, and to others.  My role as a parent is to accept her whole self, and if I'm strong enough, to appreciate every dab on the canvas as a small part of a great masterpiece. 

I Hate Winter but My Daughter Hates it More...

For the past week, my body has felt like an advance warning system for The Weather Network.  Last week, I developed a low-grade headache that won’t go away (seasonal drop in barometric pressure?), my joints began to ache (from the impending cold?) and my nose started dripping like a leaky garden hose—silently but incessantly (but with no cold/flu symptoms).  And then, two days ago, I woke up feeling like a thousand clothespins had been clipped onto my back, resulting in a pinching sensation so intense that I rolled from the bed onto a yoga mat, hoping to find just one position in which my back didn’t hurt (it turned out to be a standing side-bend combined with a half-hunch…impossible to maintain with a toddler in the house).  I have been sleeping in strange positions (head under the covers, toes poking out) since the temperature dropped.

I have one other symptom of the forthcoming deep freeze—I can’t get enough sleep; even when I wake up from a nap, I want another one right away.  We haven’t even had our first frost warning and my body is behaving like it is the middle of February.

Last Monday—Canadian Thanksgiving day—I was so cold that I began having fantasies about warm-sounding words (moomba, lamaya) and announced that I was going south (alone if I have to) to escape the cold (which hasn’t arrived yet…except in my bones).  My sister finally said, “Grow up.  It’s only been cold for a week.”  Of course, she was right.  I pursed my lips in frustration because I couldn’t think of a good comeback.  

As I shivered my way through our family’s Thanksgiving apple-picking expedition, I looked up at the sky and felt the urge to shake Mother Nature by the shoulders, asking Why? Why? WHY?  Why does it have to get cold?  Why must it snow? Why black ice and blizzards and frozen pipes and salt stains on our leather boots?  Why?

I wish I didn’t know the answer.  But I do.  We need winter to help us slow down.   As the Wheel of the Year turns, our energy shifts, enabling us to gain a new perspective, let go and change alongside the earth.   Winter is a gift; a time for the fields to lay fallow and for families to sit together, quietly, and reflect on what has passed and what is to come.

This morning, I woke up ready to embrace Mother Nature’s frosty gift to all living things.  At 6 a.m., I poked my head out from under the covers and didn’t complain about my aching joints and runny nose.  I rolled over, and began to drift back to sleep.  Then, I felt my daughter’s cold hand on my shoulder.  “Stroller?”  She wanted me to get out of bed and find her baby stroller so that she could give her teddy bear a ride.  Even though it was pitch black outside and frigid inside, she was ready to play.   She was completely indifferent to her wintry mama wrapped in blankets, sprawled across the bed.   When I didn’t get out of bed, she ripped through the house like a miniature Tazmanian devil, dumping out the contents of the kitchen drawers and over-turning any piece of furniture that she could tip.

And then finally it hit me.  What was bothering me was not that winter was on it’s way but that my daughter didn’t seem to notice.  Here I was, succumbing to the gradual inertia of the cold season while she was acting like it was mid-July.  I began to feel like I was at a junior high school dance where everyone is terminally incapable of moving to the same tempo, leading to a roomful of knocked knees and trodden-upon toes.  Only in my world, the dance doesn’t end until May.

It’s strange to be out of sync with your child.  And this season, Ayla and I seem to be occupying different corners of the universe.  I want to sleep and she wants to run around.  I want to eat and she’s lost her appetite.  When I feel hot and groggy from the effects of our heating system while Ayla is cold.  I love the feeling of cozy sweaters and coats; she seems happiest in an undershirt and diaper.  I like taking long walks when it gets cold; Ayla spends a few minutes outdoors and shouts “Cold, cold” and climbs into the stroller (I know she’s not cold because she’s wearing three layers on top, tights, warm boots and a snow jacket).  I can’t wake up without a hot cup of tea and she wants frozen smoothies for breakfast with chopped up tropical fruits.   Some days, I feel like I’m on the North Pole and she’s on the Equator and there is giant, un-crossable ocean between us.

Once I embraced the winter spirit, I longed to share it with her.  As much as I detest the cold, I am willing to brave sub-zero temperatures for the sheer joy of teaching Ayla to ski, skate and toboggan.  I remember how much I loved winter as a child; my sister and I would spend hours building snow forts, crashing our sleds into trees, tackling moguls on the ski slopes.  I especially loved the apres-ski—the hot chocolates, the warm fires, the hot baths.  Now that I’m no longer a child, I ache to share everything I’ve learned to love about winter with Ayla; I want us to hold hands and fall backwards into a soft snow bank and then carve snow angels and make snow balls and eat mouthfuls of snow.

Last winter, Ayla was still a baby.  We shared a lovely winter; but it was on my terms.  I strapped her into the Moby Wrap and zipped my winter coat around her and took her out into the cold.  This year, Ayla is a totally different being.  She has learned to express her individuality in words and deeds.  And from what I have seen thus far, she hates winter and wants nothing to do with it.  Even worse, she is in denial that it is getting cold and that it will only get colder.  Last night, she violently tossed the book, A Snowy Day across the room making it abundantly clear what she thinks of my attempts to celebrate winter.

Seasonal change is new to her and toddler-hood is new to me.  It’s anyone’s guess how we’ll fare this winter.  Perhaps she’ll bow to the snow gods and my winter fantasies will all come true.  Or maybe we’ll pack up and head south—where Ayla’s liable to develop heatstroke and want to go back home.   Or maybe, we’ll reach a compromise.  I’ll spend the winter on the balcony building a giant snow fort while Ayla will dance naked on the other side of the sliding doors, sipping a smoothie and waiting for spring...

The Anniversary Post--Labor of Love Just Turned One!

Roughly a year ago today, I launched my blog, Labor of Love.  One of Ayla’s caregivers—who herself had blogged and was “in-the-know” (whereas I knew almost nothing about blogging except that it was popular and happened on the Internet)—pointed me in the direction of mommy blogs I ought to read before starting.  I wanted to understand the medium and how good bloggers developed a loyal following.

Early on, I had plenty of misconceptions about blogging.  I thought people could still earn a living doing it (most can’t and won’t) and I thought it would be easier for readers to find me (there are literally millions of blogs; you have to work really hard at putting yourself out there).  Stylistically, I thought it was safer to write the way good bloggers did and cover issues that attracted mass audiences (Wrong! In my opinion, great blogs are personal and impassioned). 

And then, after a lengthy R&D phase, I tossed almost everything I had learned into the Trash Bin.  When I read through posts I had written with the goal of becoming a top blogger, I found my words dry and purposeless.  Why bother writing unless I had something real to say?  Why add another voice to the blogosphere if I was just mimicking what had worked instead of pushing the medium in new directions?

Shortly thereafter, I deleted all of my earlier posts and started writing from the heart, with absolutely no intention of earning a living or building an audience.  Writing Labor of Love was part-catharsis (I feel called to write and am off kilter when I don’t) and part-offering (I wanted my daughter Ayla to understand her profound impact on my life; I planned to have the posts bound one day and give them to her to read).  I started blogging a couple of times a week and then settled into a new rhythm of writing longer posts, less frequently. 

Gradually (and unexpectedly), I developed a theme.  I began blogging about the link between music and parenting.  I love music and was so often moved by the soundtrack to my life as a parent.  There were so many songs, lyrics and melodies that comforted me in those early weeks and months.  Music helped me loosen the grasp on my old life and enter the flow of my new life as a mother. I wanted my blog to pay homage to the extraordinary musicians who made it feel good and right to shift my focus from “out there in the world” to the “here and now.”  Music inspired me to find joy in my child, home, neighborhood and local community.

A few months into Labor of Love, my daughter Ayla began to sleep less and explore more and suddenly I didn’t have the time to write and research music.  Given the choice, I felt like I had to give up music; I simply didn’t have enough time to do justice to both. 

In the next phase of the blog, I dabbled in writing about neuroscience, spirituality and a variety of other micro-interests of mine and then inadvertently found myself writing consistently about one of my core beliefs—that children are our best teachers and that our progress as human beings depends more on our ability to learn than our ability to teach.  In many respects, this is how I define life and parenting and spirituality.  It’s all the same thing to me.  I’ve learned more from the homeless youth (whom I’m supposed to be helping) at the Reciprocity Foundation than I have from my formal education; and my infant child has amplified my life learning-curve tenfold—I can barely keep up with all the growth that Ayla inspires in my life. 

Other things have changed too.  On the advice of a friend who works in the media business, I added advertising to my site (via Google Ads).  She insisted that they would legitimize my blog and impress magazine editors at publications where I had hoped to pitch stories.  Last time I checked my account, I had amassed $0.01 in ad revenue.  I was secretly pleased that people were reading my words instead of getting distracted by an ad for organic diapers or nursing bras. 

In the beginning, I spent a few hours writing and another few hours seeding conversations at various parenting hubs on the Internet (Motherlode, Babble, Working Mother, Facebook, Twitter, Digg).  Then I settled on one or two places to post my writing (Motherlode, Intent, Facebook) and trusted that people would find my blog at the right time in their lives.  So far this approach seems to be working; one year later, I’ve had nearly 15,000 readers for my 61 posts.  I’ve received about 90 official comments, but many more of you email me personally to let me know what you like, and don’t.

I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this up.  Maybe one day the book publishing industry will rebound and I’ll start writing in long-form again.  Maybe I’ll run out of things to say next week.  Or maybe this will continue to be the most satisfying writing I’ve ever done and I’ll never, ever want to give it up.

The strange thing about my one-year anniversary is that I finally get it.  I understand why blogging has such mass appeal.  As a blog reader, I love that citizen journalism enables me to connect with the few (or many) who share my precise state of mind at any given time.  I never have to feel strange or alone or freakish anymore; a few clicks on Google and I can see that hundreds or thousands share my sentiments or experience.  I know it sounds trite but the Internet, and the blogosphere in particular, is awesome.

As a writer, I have never felt more connected to my readers, which makes for the most satisfying writing.  I love the immediate gratification of receiving comments in the minutes and hours after each post.  I love hearing how the blog has affected you, how it helped or healed, or if I enabled a perspective shift that was ripe in your life.  The comments I receive from you often move me to tears—sometimes, reading your words is more powerful than writing mine. 

And so, a year into this experiment, I want more than anything to say Thank You.  I am so grateful for this connection that I share with all of you.  Thank you for encouraging me to write honestly and for reading my posts (even the crap ones!)  Thank you for talking openly with me about your lives as parents and inspiring new posts.  Thank you for helping me finally achieve what I had always hoped for—the ability to do what I love (writing, parenting) and to feel loved for it.   After so much searching and striving in my career and personal life, it is nice to feel good about being here, now, with all of you.   Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sleepus Interruptus

Some things in life are constant.  For example, there is nothing that I enjoy more than a good night’s sleep.  I love every part of the process—the onset of sleepiness, bedding down under the duvet, the delicious fog of pre-REM sleep and then kicking off the covers in the morning and taking a few minutes to contemplate the world before I get up.  Before becoming a parent, I slept for 8 hours a night and often spent Saturday morning in bed, making up for any late or sleepless nights.  More than the physical rest, I loved the way the sleep changed my inner world:  a good sleep stole the heat from my anger and the despair from my worry.  When I woke up after a good night’s rest, I felt perfectly in balance—like Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree knowing that everything was exactly as it should be.      

So you can guess how I felt after I gave birth to Ayla and realized—firsthand—that one of the great losses of parenthood is sleep. I willingly gave up my privacy, my time, my ability to chew while eating.  But sleep.  Ah.  I struggled with that one.

My coping strategy early on was to go to bed at the same time as Ayla.  Since I was exhausted from the birth and since we were co-sleeping, it was easy enough to climb into bed at 8 or 9 p.m.  I much preferred sleep in long stretches rather than short bursts, but I wound up getting about 8 hours a night, and decided that I could sacrifice quality so long as the quantity was right.

But then, as Buddha calmly predicted, impermanence set in.  I eventually found myself wide awake at 8 p.m. and realized that my body no longer needed as much rest.  I spent evenings cleaning, cooking, emailing, writing, and doing anything else I fancied.  Sleep was good, but I was beginning to miss my adult life more.  I began to invite friends over for dinner or visited with family instead of catching extra zzz‘s.  For a time, that worked too.

But the winds of change swept through my bedroom once again. After a few months of sleeping at midnight and getting only 5 or 6 (constantly interrupted) hours a night, I morphed into a different person.  More than the grogginess and irritation, I hated the sleep headaches and the mental chatter that accompanied them.  The chatter was always negative and combative, and endlessly repeated itself.  A typical dialogue sounded like this:

“You wouldn’t have this headache if you had gone to bed earlier,” my Left Brain would scold. 

“But I can’t fall asleep at 9 p.m. anymore,” my Right Brain would answer. 

“Just look at you—you’re a mess.  You’re not going to get anything done today,” Left Brain would snicker. 

“But I’ll drink coffee,” Right Brain would plead.

Left brain would persist, always wanting to have the last word. “Drink a whole pot and you’ll still feel like crap.  Good luck parenting a newborn today!”

And with those words, my right brain would cower, and back down, knowing that I would struggle to think straight and that at some point, I would lose my cool.  I would go through the day alternately wishing I had gone to bed earlier and counting down the minutes until I could go to sleep again.  And that night, Ayla would wake up 9 times instead of 5, and the next day I would feel even worse.

I reached my breaking point around the ten-month mark and called in for reinforcement. I didn’t recognize myself anymore.  I needed to sleep “properly” again. Some friends of mine called Dr. Sleep or Nurse Sleepytime who promised children would sleep through the night and parents would achieve “pre-child” sleep quality.  Others visited places like Whisper Cottage and 40 Winks.   I called my dad.  During a family trip to Florida, he night-weaned Ayla without forcing her to cry herself to sleep or to face the struggle alone.  A week later, Ayla was sleeping through the night in her own room, and I was sleeping in long stretches again, feeling invincible in the mornings and forgoing coffee altogether.  Sleep was heaven.  And I was grateful that I had been given back my wings.

For three weeks, I slept soundly, feebly clinging to the belief that it would stay like this forever.  But one night, I found myself unable to fall asleep, and later, to stay asleep.  I didn’t know what was happening or why everything had changed.  As the clock ticked on and on, I recalled a persistent memory of my father. 

As a teenager, every time I took the car and went out for the night, I would return home to the same sounds—my father’s footsteps plodding to the bathroom, the toilet flushing and then the sound of him getting into bed.  We didn’t talk about it but it was clear that my father couldn’t sleep until he knew that I had safely returned from my outing.  This pattern continued for decades, and finally, when I was in my early thirties and visiting from New York for the weekend, I said, “You can go to sleep now.  I’m not going to drink too much or drive too fast.  I care about my life as much as you do.”  And my dad’s response was to pat my shoulder, lovingly and knowingly, as if to say, when you’re a parent you’ll understand.

After Ayla began sleeping through the night and I found myself unable to sleep through the night, I finally understood. In contrast to the promises of the Dr. Sleeps of the world, I am drawn to my father’s ways, whom I lovingly call “Dr. No-Sleep.”  Now that I’m a parent, I too sleep with one eye open and when I hear or sense Ayla’s discomfort, I am instantly awake—my blood coursing with adrenaline—racing out of my room to be at Ayla’s side.  I don’t want to achieve “pre-child sleep patterns” because what I want more than sleep is to be available to my child.  And now that I no longer crave the way things were, I am pleasantly surprised that Sleepus Interuptus doesn’t bother me anymore. 

Two years ago, I would have thought that I’d be Dr. Sleep’s top client.  Today, I couldn’t be less interested in turning back the hands of time.  Last night, Ayla woke up at 1:40 a.m. shouting “Shovel! Shovel!”—and I wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or a play-mare.  I patted her back to sleep and then went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and lay awake for another hour, listening to the wind.  My Left Brain and Right Brain were quiet.  I wasn’t angry to be awake or desperately counting minutes of lost sleep.  Eventually, I fell asleep and when I woke up, Ayla was at my bedside scrambling to get into my bed to nurse.  And that’s when I realized that my love of sleep wasn't a constant in my life.  Now I value a good wake-up call more than a good night’s rest…

An Eye for an Eye...

Before giving birth to Ayla, I was well aware of some of the unpleasant aspects of parenthood—the explosive poops, the pre-dawn cries for milk, the tantrums and the impossibility of adult conversation in fragments longer than 90 seconds.  But the violence—nobody mentioned that.

I’m not talking about being beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat.  But violence is a spectrum.  Yes, Ayla’s “violence” towards myself and others is mild in comparison to a stabbing.  But even still, I was taken aback when my child began exploring her physical strength and the idea of cause-and-effect by hitting, biting and pinching.  I know parents who have been punched by their child; a mom friend of mine had to endure months of painful hair-pulling before that phase finally passed.

The truth is most of us are unfamiliar with physical aggressiveness before having children.  The closest I’ve come to violence in recent decades is an uncomfortable shove on the subway during my morning commute.   Thankfully, I’ve never been mugged and or been in a physically abusive relationship.

That’s why I found myself so taken aback when Ayla looked me in the eye and bit down on my thumb as hard as she could.  I remember tears springing to my eyes; I recall feeling emotionally wounded too, as though I had been wronged.  

Fear & Love

A couple of weeks ago, a small tragedy hit our community.  An acquaintance of mine lost her son; baby Nolan choked to death on a piece of apple at the zoo.  As I read her short note detailing his death, it slowly dawned on me that my father was taking Ayla to the zoo that day and that in Ayla’s bag, I had packed apple slices.  I know I should have been racked with grief for my friend’s loss, but instead I grabbed the phone trying to decide whether to tell my father to come home, and whether to insist that he toss the apples out of the car window.

Fear is a strange emotion, and one of our most common.  We literally live in fear all the time.  Before we cross the road, take a bite of food, or step out of the tub, our brains are assessing the risk of death and deciding whether we ought to stop in our tracks or forge ahead.  And even if you weren’t very afraid as an adult, having a child supplies new intimacy with fear.  I used to jaywalk in New York City, unafraid of speeding taxis and SUVs with New Jersey plates.  They’ll stop in time, I’d assure myself.  And they did, every day, for six years.   But now that I have a child, I don’t jaywalk.  When I’m in New York City, I hold Ayla to my chest while crossing the street.  Even at small intersections, I’m waving to cars and taxis to slow down, so that Ayla and I can safely pass. 

As it turned out, I did call my father that morning.  And although I didn’t insist that he bring Ayla home, I did forbid him from feeding her apples…ever.  But it was another moment in which to reflect on the questions:  “How much fear is enough?”  and “Should I be more or less afraid for my child’s life?”

Two Dead Canaries and a Handful of Stars...

Like coal miners, parents plunge deep into dark and untrammeled spaces, searching for nuggets of goodness and truth along the way.   And sometimes, like coalminers, we get lost.  We hit a dead end.  And the canary chirping happily in it’s swinging cage, goes silent.

This summer, I lost my way as a parent.  Between moving and leading a top-to-bottom renovation of our new apartment, between writing grant applications and taking care of legal issues related to my nonprofit, I took a few wrong turns, caught up in the To Do’s and Didn’t Do’s scratched onto my notepad. Thankfully I have not one, but two canaries on my shoulders.  When they stopped tweeting, I knew it was time to pause and reevaluate.

The first canary is this blog.  When I write, I nourish a small patch of my soul.  I often dismiss it as insignificant; I say, “So what if I didn’t scribble down a few thoughts this week?”  But reflecting on and writing about my life enables me to keep one of my canaries alive and singing.  It seems a like a small thing, but I know better than to dismiss the “little things;” a quiet cup of coffee in the morning or a late evening stroll can mean the difference between a contented person and a frustrated one.  Blogging matters to me.  I need to do it every week.  My last post preceded our move in early July, an absence which I felt in my bones, on the surface of my skin, and in the joints that hold me together.

The second canary is my relationship with Ayla.  When we’re in a good place, I feel that I can surmount any obstacle that hurtles down our path.  But in recent weeks, we’ve strayed into strange territory.  Instead of hugs and kisses, I’ve been getting whacked on the head by my child.  Ayla’s been thunking me with toys, books and sippy cups.  She’s also bitten my shoulder, my knee and my thigh on more than one occasion.  I tried to pass it off as her “hitting and biting” phase but that was fiction, not fact.  The truth was that Ayla was reacting to the distance between us, the distance that made it possible for me to spend the summer multi-tasking instead of parenting.  As I efficiently checked things off my To Do list, I was killing off my second canary. 

Then it all came to a head earlier this week.  On Sunday, Ayla led a poop-and-smear fiasco in our beautiful new apartment (I’ll spare you the details on this one).  When I looked at what she had done, I flew into a rage.  I took hold of Ayla by the shoulders and yelled.  All the while, I knew it had nothing to do with her—I was unleashing my personal frustration about the never-ending renovation and the overbearing weight of my workload on my innocent child.  Ayla looked at me with a mixture of shock, fear, and… disappointment.  Even still, I finished my angry rant.  Then Ayla burst into tears. [If the day ever comes when Ayla’s eyes harden in response to my anger, I’ll know I’ve lost her.]  After that, I stormed around cleaning up the poop and then I too burst into tears.  That when I knew my second canary had asphyxiated.  My relationship with Ayla had taken a turn for the worse.

Last night I was able to bring much-needed oxygen into our relationship. Ayla and I attended a swim party and BBQ with friends and neighbors.  I shook off my list of incomplete tasks and focused my attention on Ayla.  In the pool, Ayla immediately responded to my shift in energy.  She laughed and kicked and splashed joyfully; and then, without notice, she let go of my hands and began to explore the pool on her own, buoyed only by a pair of shark-shaped floaties.  It was astounding to see Ayla take this developmental leap so effortlessly, so quickly after I re-entered our relationship.

After playing with our friends and eating a succulent meal right off the grill, Ayla and I retired on a lounge chair set upon a small patch of grass.  I held her in my arms and she nursed quietly, as a handful of stars appeared in the sky and peered down at us.  She fell asleep in my arms, both of us bathed in starlight. 

I felt like a coal miner again, as though I had raced through the miles of dirt and rock and finally reached the center of it all—the place where the energy of all life throbs and pulses through the walls.  In that place, I reconnected to Ayla.  Even though I was afraid, I took a giant leap towards her, allowing myself to touch the raging current of love that connects us as parent and child.  When we got home, I couldn’t bear to let either of us sleep alone, so she curled up beside me and we cuddled and nursed through the night.  In the morning, Ayla woke me up, not with her usual cries for milk but with kisses, planted on my face, my shoulders and on the tip of my nose.

Now comes the hard part.  Figuring out how to move forward while keeping my two canaries alive and singing.  Maybe I need to take a leave of absence from work—the maternity leave I couldn’t, or didn’t, take after Ayla’s birth.  Maybe there are other projects that can survive a delay, or rescheduling so that I can spend more time with Ayla.  She’ll be starting preschool next year; this fall may be our last chance to savor long days and nights of play and exploration together.

I’ve already forgiven myself for getting lost.  I know it won’t be the last time this happens to me as a parent.  But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I must heed the ebb and flow of the canary’s song.  When it falls silent, it’s time to step back and gain some perspective; when it sings, I know that I’m moving in time to the rhythm of life.

The Little Things

When I was in my twenties, my gaze was always focused on the big things—finding the “perfect” partner, the “to-die-for” job, the “huge” book deal, or getting into the “best” graduate school.  Little things didn’t matter much; they were unnecessary distractions that I treated as rounding errors.  I either ignored them or focused on what came before or after.  Looking back, I can see that how deeply I was affected by films and operas.  I was always waiting for the sweeping climax that would bring resolution, on a grand scale, to my life.  I was young and eager to fit together the largest pieces of the puzzle of life, foolishly believing that the remaining bits didn’t matter.

But now that I’m well into my thirties, my view has switched. It’s as though someone pulled the telescope out of my hands and replaced it with a microscope.  Now my life is all about the small things.  My emotional landscape hinges on soft washes of color applied with the finest brushes. Faint details can render me feeling exalted or defeated. One stroke can make or break the image that I call my life.

This week was no different: The small things figured most prominently.  My daughter Ayla learned to say “Up a tree,” her first three-word sentence used in the right context.  She says it in our secret language—everyone else hears “Uh-tee” but I know she’s telling me that the chipmunk (“mah”) went up that tree.  Ayla also learned how to wash her body in the bath.  She waits for me to pour some baby wash into her hand and then scrubs her belly in large, rough circles.  Tiny things, right?  Nope.  Only a parent knows that it’s northing short of a miracle when your child’s brain, muscles and synapses work in unison toward a common goal. 

Reverse-Entropy

Entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, is a central principle in the study of science.  I learned about it in high school and then studied it more closely in university-level physics classes.  Entropy explains that in closed systems, the amount of energy available to “do work” usually decreases.  It sounds pretty innocuous until you look at its implications on a macro level—many physicists speculate that the universe is gradually unraveling and is fated to something called “heat death.”

Learning about entropy was a highlight of my brief career in science.  It was a Eureka moment for me—a light-bulb popped in my cranium and illuminated entropic transfers taking place all around me: bodies aging, cars burning up fuel, glaciers melting. I was now privy to one of the secrets of the universe and that put a bounce in my step for weeks.

But the concept also cast a gloomy shadow over my world.  Unlike creative energy, entropy was about disorder, chaos and eventual death.  Entropy was a reason to have another drink, skip class or lay on the sofa all day—the universe and human beings were doomed anyway.

After giving birth to Ayla—pregnancy is one of the few examples of negative entropy in the universe—everything that came afterwards felt entropic.  I was a frazzled mess, the house had gone to the dogs and anything that Ayla got her hands on ended up smushed, tossed, dumped, splattered or otherwise destroyed.  As Ayla became mobile, I spent my days running after her, collecting upturned boxes of stuff and putting them back in place.  I fantasized about days when Ayla might actually build something, or an even more potent hallucination, the moment when she’d learn to tidy up. 

Then, last week, the tide finally turned.  I was in my usual cleaning posture—on my knees, hunched over, with rag in hand—when the house fell silent.  Where was my cackling, bemused little mischief-maker, I wondered? What sort of devilish act of entropy had occurred now?

You can imagine my surprise when I saw Ayla carefully piling two large blocks on top of each other, instead of knocking them down.  Later that day, she fed baby Owen Cheerios—rather than dumping out the container of O’s onto the floor.  In the bath that evening, she snapped the lid onto a container. 

There are critical inflection points in your child’s life.  Walking, talking, and sleeping through the night are probably the most anticipated milestones for parent and child. But for me and my aching joints, the moment when Ayla put something together, rather than tearing it apart, was sheer bliss.

Sure I was eager for Ayla to learn to tidy up.  But there was more.  Human life is defined by our ability to create.  My peak experiences were always linked to creation: writing books, making art, building an organization, cleaning up a polluted river, and, of course, conceiving Ayla.  Those were the moments when I forgot all about entropy and was certain that the universe was hurtling towards equilibrium, not apocalypse.

I stayed frozen on my hands and knees watching Ayla create, feeling strangely triumphant.  I couldn't put my finger on the source of my joy until later in the day.  That's when I realized that my child had broken free of entropy and was now capable of making the world a better place.