Sigh. Sometimes it's easier to mother when your child is really in a rough state.

My son has been mildly sick for over a week, just sick enough that he's been unable to go to school. And I've been unable to work. It's been a delight to see him fully immersed in play by himself, to have three meals a day with him, and to see him grow developmentally -- like actually being interested in creating representational art instead of scribbles. And, at the same time, it's also been incredibly frustrating to not have any time to focus on anything either in my head (writing, volunteer work for Holistic Moms) or in my body (meditating, doing yoga, focusing on the baby in my belly). I have really been impatient for him to hurry up and get well!

The weekend offered some respite, but it was not as restful as the boy needed. Though I do appreciate his dad taking him out to Home Depot to buy garden supplies and then involving the boy while he worked, clearly the activity (and the insane wind!) tired both of them out such that sick one needed another day home on Monday to recoup. I was not pleased and felt sorry for myself.

He declared himself "still sick" and not well enough to go to school, and I decided not to push it. He's never had Tylenol or any other drug, and I'm not one to just push him through because I don't think that is going to do him any favors in the long run. But this letting the body heal approach sure takes time! It seemed like he needed a transition day to warm to the idea of getting back out in the world. He's a very social kid and is always saying he wants to see friends, but I think he got pretty used to being home all day when he could rub his face on his mama's growing belly at his leisure (well, not really, but it sure was more accessible than when we're apart!)

After a very low-key morning, we had an afternoon visit from a friend who was dropping off some pregnancy and baby items now that she's had her son. All day, E was asking, "When is Liz coming over?" He hasn't even played with her daughters in months, but he really wanted company.

And yet, while we were at the park, he started to melt. He didn't know what to do with himself. He was hungry but wouldn't eat the apple I cut up when we got back. I ended up having to kick out my friends because he was just crying like a baby. Reminder: he's four. I couldn't believe what I had on my hands.

Fortunately, the dinner was mostly made, so we ate just after 5:00. "I want to go to bed," he whined, and I complied as soon as I felt his belly was full enough. "I guess Daddy's going to have to celebrate his birthday by himself," he sighed, then offering with a little glint of possibility, "Or maybe we can celebrate in the morning."

Although he was more stable by the time we got upstairs, I had seen him really hit bottom, and out came my fierce unconditional love tools. I wanted only for him to feel better in his body, mind, and spirit and to know that everything was going to be okay by seeing me not lose it (and nourish myself -- I was not going up there on an empty stomach, either!)

So I held him like a baby while looking through my homeopathy books to see if Pulsatilla was the best choice. I chose four Bach flower remedies I thought might help: Mimulus, Aspen, Larch, and Gentian. At dinner, I made sure he finished his broth from a gelatin-rich batch of stock I made and added apple juice to water with a little electrolyte powder so he'd be sure to hydrate. Once upstairs, I wiped his face and feet with a wet washcloth with lavender oil and then gave him a foot massage before we put on clean socks.

After reading two stories, I felt compelled to sing to him -- to make him some kind of offering--, but he declined the offer of a serenade. So I told him how, when he was in my belly, I sang to him every morning and that after he was born, his dad and I sang to him while he held one of each of our fingers. With the storytelling preamble, he let me sing "You Are My Sunshine," somehow ignoring how my voice broke and noticing (or saying) only after I was done, "You're crying!" I smiled and told him it was because I loved him so much.

He climbed into bed and fell asleep while I closed rocked in the chair. I left at 6 p.m.

But then he woke three more times in the next few hours. I took one of these shifts and just laid next to him and let him feel as close to me as he needed to. His dad handled the other two wakings, and when the boy came into our bed after going potty sometime in the night, he slept soundly and woke at 6:15 a.m. talking about how he remembered one time Caillou got sick and had to stay home. Before I knew it, he was jumping on the bed, and two hours later, I was handing him over to his teacher, who seemed very happy to have him back!

It will take a while to crawl out from under all the backlog I have to get to the place I expected to be mid-week last week: shifting my focus to my baby and my body. But I'm confident that some of these steps along the way -- the bonding with my son, the benefits I got when I found a craniosacral therapist who would work on both of us, the memory of how powerful it is to nourish and nurture another being who is seemingly helpless-- were all important in their own way.

A nice afternoon, but not perfect

Yesterday I finally got to see the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit at the Phillips Collection before its final weekend. However, although it was a lovely afternoon out in the city, it didn't quite hit all the sweet spots I was looking for after a week of staying home with a sick son.

Read my post -- "Mom's afternoon out thwarted" -- at DC Metro Moms Blog to learn more.

Tired and missing my kid

It feels good to look forward to seeing your son. Lately I've felt so swamped -- and especially after all that snow with no break -- I haven't exactly loved all my many minutes with my boy.

Today I went to the National Institutes of Health for a conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), which I hope to write about in more depth later. But the experience of the day was something in and of itself. Getting dressed in real-people clothes, taking my boy to a friend's so she could drive him to school and pick him up, getting on a crowded Metro during rush hour, and then listening to a lot of doctors talk about best outcomes for moms and babies... Well, it was intense. Especially considering that I'm 4 months pregnant and hoping for a home VBAC (HBAC) with baby #2.

I knew E would probably be okay, but I also knew it was a long day for both of us. We were both exhausted when I picked him up from the park. I could not wait to trade my button-down and blazer for a sweatshirt and just sit on the couch hugging and talking to him. If we weren't both hungry with dinner nowhere in sight, I would have happily sat there for an hour. It felt good for that to feel so good.

For someone always looking at her watch and struggling to just be in the moment when I really want to be writing or researching or exercising, that uncomplicated couch time was a true delight.

Generosity of Peers

Tell people that you might need help, and they come through!

This has nothing to do with my last post about mood blues, which aimed to say that no one can help me but me. No, I'm talking about offers from other mamas to help out with my son this summer, when I'm expecting baby #2 in early August.

I wrote a post on DC Metro Moms blog the other day about missing out on sending my son to summer (day) camp with the two friends he went with last year. Since I wrote that piece, one mom has agreed to send her child to camp with mine for four weeks of the summer, and at least five moms have come forward to offer to have my son over for playdates while they or their babysitters watch him - before or after the baby. Truthfully, they admit, it would be good for their kids, too, because they are not going to have as much social time in the summer. Who can afford a nanny and camp when school is so expensive and there is a second child who can't go anywhere yet? But still, the generosity has been inspiring. This just might help me learn to take people up on their offers to help. What a concept!

Read "Dissed for Summer Camp," the original post on DC Metro Moms Blog.

What is a snowstorm good for?

Just what all does one do during a snowed-in weekend like we've had here in the DC area? I got an email this morning telling me that DC Metro Moms Blog was low on posts, so I imagine I’m not the only one who did not use the time to catch up on writing. (I hope that’s not for lack of electricity, but there are still some outages, I hear. We got lucky [knock on wood] and clocked in at only 18 inches, a low for the region!)

Over these past three days, I have let the computer collect some dust. I took an unplanned two-day hiatus from even opening the email box for the nonprofit group chapter I run. (That’s going to have to end soon. Just as soon as I get up this post!) I was already behind from just general life and from last Wednesday’s thoroughly unnecessary snow day with no preschool.

Since the snow began to fall on Friday, I have avoided finishing a freelance assignment and replying to long overdue personal notes, taking the time only to delete emails from lists I should get off of and from yoga studios telling me they are closed. Oh, and I took photos of the snow and sent links to my family. That’s about it. It’s kind of revolutionary to see the lid of my laptop closed and my phone quiet.

The only real thing I’ve wanted to do is clean the house... Read the rest of this post at DC Metro Moms Blog.

My apologies to my sister DCMM writers who I found out after writing this post have been -- and in some cases still are -- without power!

I'll take a village. Please.

Originally posted at DC Metro Moms.

After a week home with a son who was just sick enough to have to stay home from preschool, followed by a weekend of the biggest December snow ever in D.C., I was ready to get out o’ town on Christmas Eve. The cab that took us to the airport for a week with family was driven by a man who explained that his youngest son, too ill to go out in the snow, was kept busy by his two older brothers. He gestured to my almost-four-year-old son, “He needs a brother or sister.” Ahem.

Nosy, but right. I don’t really love the dynamic the three of us have going on at home these days. Life was very different (read: much more fun) with the two other toddler cousins, their parents, and grandparents around the first half of our holiday visit. It kind of sucks that this happens only once or twice a year.

Managing three kids under four in one unfamiliar house was challenging and requiring of some adult supervision, sure. But my son was playing, all the time, and it usually didn’t involve me. This was a major bonus. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I actually took a nap. Twice. I might as well have been fed grapes by a golden-chested god . Three cheers for cousins!

...

Read the rest of this post at DC Metro Moms.

Sleep + run - child = better mood

My poor kid. He can't do anything right these days as far as I'm concerned. I have been working with a very short wick, even though I'm sure it's completely developmentally appropriate that he whine all the time, fall into tears when the mango isn't ready and rush to assure me "I'm not tired anymore" when I suggest rest to his whine of "I'm tired!" (Just in case it's a bigger issue, I got him a craniosacral session yesterday.)

I just can't put up with all this 3.5-year stuff very well because I just cannot get a break from him. Days that start at 6:30 and end at 7:30 with no nap or other help are just too much for this partially-introverted and wanna-be working-at-home mama.

Waldorf school starts next week. I'm counting the minutes. That sounds terrible, but with each passing day I feel more and more secure that I could never handle it as a homeschooler. I really hope it all goes well and that he transitions without incident from the big morning program to the small afternoon program where, I hope, he might actually learn to rest and recharge, which he has clearly not learned from me.

Thankfully, today I have him with a sitter so I can address some Holistic Moms work and so many other things I haven't been able to get to unless I use the dreaded TV (which I think is awful for his brain, but clearly is not the reason he stopped napping a year ago because he didn't even know TV existed back then. I cannot believe it has been a year since I could not count on naps. No wonder I'm fried).

Last night, my husband had to work late again, so I was on bedtime duty, which is normally a daddy thing. I had a flashback to earlier days: I fell asleep while putting my son to bed. I woke up at 7:40 in a pretty grumpy mood, not at all geared up for the chat my husband and I had actually (amazingly!) scheduled to talk about marriage stuff. So I called my husband, who was still 15 min. away and told him I was going to bed. Before 8:00.

I didn't drift off immediately, but close enough. I slept through the night, and you'd think I'd have popped up at 5 a.m. But instead I was still wanting to doze when little E crawled into our bed and started trying to feel me up. Without my post-bed checking in on work and friends the previous night, I felt like in fact I'd had no break from my son.

But the sleep did do me a lot of good, and it worked out that my husband could drive the boy to the babysitter for my one day of help (watch the minutes tick by while I write!). With the extra time, I felt like I could really go running. On a cool fall morning. It was fabulous. Then I came home and juiced and meditated. What a day before 10 a.m.

Now it's time to head back to other pressing matters on the computer, but I feel a lot better and hope that after a day with other kids (and quiet time, if we're lucky) my son will be happy and refreshed ... and that after a day without him, I'll be able to handle it even if he's not.

Just at home with my boy

You've got to be kidding.
My sitter had to cancel today because her son was sick.
I lost childcare two weeks ago because of the snow.
Last week I spent the entire week holding and nursing my sick son.
Today I was supposed to have four hours with the sitter and my son's friend here, a gentle re-entry back to the land of the living while I would be around and available.
But, like I said, she canceled. We went to plan B and got in with an earlier appointment for him to see an acupuncturist, who used some tools to work on his meridians. Then we stopped at the other sitter's house to get the spoon and fork we left there three weeks ago when she still had room for us. I helped out a little now that she has her 3-yr-old, her 4-month-old, a 3-month-old and a 14-month-old. Then we went home and had lunch after which my son nursed to sleep and took a 2+ hour nap. So I finally got some work done, got a crock pot stew made for dinner, had time to walk to a neighbor's and then make gluten-free sugar cookies for tomorrow's parent-child class at the Waldorf school.
The husband put the boy to bed and I even got two blog posts written. I need to stop complaining!

ISO Waldorf Education Rhythmic Boot Camp

I just started reading Beyond the Rainbow Bridge and quickly remembered why I put it down the first time I picked it up. The author is all warm and fuzzy recalling her wonderful mother's influence. Barbara Patterson notes how great her mom was at establishing rhythm and routine in the family's life; she turned her "everyday tasks into works of art. Even her laundry line looked like a painting: all the socks o the line matched, then came all the men's shirts hanging neatly side-by-side, then all the colorful kitchen towels flapping in the breeze." This is page one. I feel hopeless already.

Part of why I'm drawn to Waldorf education is in the hope of cultivating more of this intentionality into my life. Patterson says that she knew if it was Monday, it was wash day. When I was a kid, I knew it was Saturday night because Love Boat was on at 9:00. The rest of the summer went by in a blur; I usually went to bed and got up after 10. And I had a heck of a time sleeping (all that Pepsi in my system maybe, or just shot adrenals from early days of no breastfeeding and eating a crappy diet with an as-yet-unknown celiac body). There was not much sense of purpose or drive or quiet reverence for beauty unless it came from within me and in spite of my home life.

That's a little on the harsh side, but mostly true. So when I read this lovely description of Patterson's childhood, I feel like I need to sign up for immersion Waldorf parenting school: I want to experience what this feels like for myself. Patterson specifically says, "I did not have to learn to bring rhythm and good habits to my own children's lives and to the children of my classrooms. I already had them, inside. I had grown up with them." Yes, I've made it all the way to page two. Now can I take Bill and Ted's time machine back to Little House on the Prairie please, or will someone start a reality TV show that truly does advocate the simple life. (Of course all the cameras would need to be hidden -- the obvious presence of media would blow the whole experiment).

But seriously, what if you haven't grown up with these habits or well-tuned internal clocks? I guess you read the book, if you can stomach it, and you try to learn as much from your parent-child class if your Waldorf school has one. I probably would have made more progress if I'd done more reading now that we are almost halfway through the year. I did read the articles for parent meetings, even tracking one down online when I left the paper copy in the bathroom at school! I would benefit from more study, but I'm also trying not to force anything and just to trust that I will move at the pace I will move.

When my son stopped napping, I started thinking that next year I would have him do the afternoon program at the school, extending his day from something like 8:30-noon for three days a week in the three-day kindergarten preschool to 3:00 for two of those days (or maybe all three). At least then he'd have more of a model of calm and a group think nap/rest complete with lavender oil. And maybe if I had more time -- and more consistent count-on-able time -- to myself and for work, maybe I could better manage my household in a consistent way.

These past few days on holiday vacation have been nice, and I have found more time to stay in the moment, but I'm also waking annoyed because our son is waking early and wanting to nurse several times in the morning (Rudolph Steiner might not exactly approve of extended breastfeeding -- see this article from Waldorf Without Walls). I am impatient that my son is still so revved up and, well, impatient. But we were gone from home for a week in very different environments, so I should cut the boy some slack. He's not even three yet.

Anyway, I decided to log in to technology instead of read more. For now.

Breastfeeding and the 2008 Election: Will they really end soon?

Well, that's a first.

My son got up and went out into the world today without nursing.

Is this the same kid I had yesterday?

Since he had a mild cold a few weeks ago, we've regressed with the night waking. When he asked to nurse in the night then, I indulged him but whispered the rule change even in the darkness of his room at 3 a.m.: "Okay, because you're sick and I want you to get healthy." Now, a few weeks later, he's still waking once or twice during the night instead of sleeping through as he was doing before. We help him get back to sleep without anyone lifting a shirt before 5:00 a.m. After that, if he wakes and asks to nurse, I typically go into his room, nurse him, and then fall back asleep for a bit longer.

This morning, he called out "Mama" at 6:30 and didn't whine or come charging down the hallway into the bathroom when I said I'd be there after I peed. I should have known something was up then. He was taking it in stride, standing up when I entered his room. He explained in the clearest prose you could imagine from a 31-month-old that he needed to get off his pajamas and put on new clothes because he'd peed. His jammies were dry, but the diaper was super wet (which I hope is a sign that we're ready to move to tackling #1 on the potty. For #2, he has mostly left the diapers behind, so to speak).

Still groggy and looking for a slower start to the day, I gestured toward the bed. "Well, do you want to snuggle? Or just get up?" "Just get up!" he declared and proceeded to tell me about how he had to get ready to go to his sometimes-babysitter and her grandson's house where he knew he was headed today.

Okay. But really?

The morning continued down the path of its smooth start. We read The Peace Book while his dad tried to drag himself out of bed. Then I made breakfast while my son played well, having nary a pre-food meltdown when I tell him to get out of the refrigerator. What is going on, I thought?

Should I point out that we'd forgotten part of our routine? "Don't offer, don't refuse," my La Leche League books say as one pre-weaning strategy. I've pushed off his requests before, sure. I've also refrained from offering other times even though I knew he might get upset when the easy window had gone by leaving him instead to beg for mama milk just as we needed to get out the door. My husband said the other night, after I left for a tutoring job without a just-before-dinner or just-before-bed final nursing (though a plenty long one at 4:00 p.m., thank you very much), my son realized his chance was gone. His eyes got big as the lightbulb went off with a poof and sad, with a sad frown, "I wanted to nurse!"

But today, on this Election Day where I'm already holding my breath, I didn't say a word about what my son was missing.

Neither did he.