Jumping off the High Dive

I remember (quite viscerally) the way I felt as a kid as I prepared to jump off the high dive. I had to shore up my nerve, get my head in the right mental space, and then prepare my body for the impact -- all before I could step off the end (sometimes before I could even climb the ladder).

Today I realized that I go through a similar exercise with our daughter when I need her to comply with something that I know she'll resist: changing her diaper, putting on clothing (unless it's her hooded fleece jacket), sitting at the table to eat ... if you have or have had a toddler approaching two, I imagine you fully understand.

Each time, I have to take a few moments to resolve that I'm really going through with the activity in question and then rely on my assertiveness training (I used to teach women's self defense on the side) to pull myself through with active listening ("I hear that you don't like this") and broken record statements ("We have to do this if you want to play. We have to do this if you want to play. We have to do this if you want to play."). Sometimes I put my physical self defense training to the test as I dodge a wildly flailing leg or two, particularly when it comes to changing diapers.

If I don't go through this mental preparation, I find that the situation quickly spirals out of control, so I'm learning that I need to pull myself together sooner rather than later and muster up both the courage and energy to take the jump into the core of parenting: sticking it out when it seems easier to just give in -- while at times finding a compromise between the two.

I'm OK if She's OK?

Does it make me a good parent or a bad parent if I let our 19-month old daughter choose her sleep attire tonight?

When I was putting on her post-bath diaper, she picked up a hooded fleece jacket that was on her changing table and insisted on wearing it. We still had story time and her bedtime snack awaiting us, so I figured that there was no harm in letting her wear the jacket for a bit.

But at bedtime a short while later, she refused to take off the jacket. Nor would she let me put on any bottoms over her diaper. This is not all that unusual for her; she often resists getting into her pajamas, but until now I've always found a way to eventually get her into them. Tonight, though, I didn't have it in me to battle over it, so I let her wear the jacket without anything on her legs and waited until she was groggy enough for me to slip on a lightweight sleep sack over her ensemble.

Now I'm sitting here worrying that she'll be uncomfortable ... that my husband will think less of me for giving in ... that giving in allowed her to push the limits, which will lead to discipline issues every night ... that everyone else I know seems so much more comfortable parenting than I ... AARGH!

Would I question myself this much if I were the one staying home? Would I actually question myself more since I would have more decisions to make more regularly? Hmmm.

Duck, Duck, Gray Duck

My daughter won't play Duck, Duck, Gray Duck (nope, I did not mean Duck, Duck, Goose). She won't appreciate Target and 3M in the way that I do. She won't call that place where you park cars on multiple floors a "parking ramp." She won't experience the thrill of thunderstorms and tornadoes. She won't (thank goodness) eat "hot dish" or (again, thank goodness) have to endure endless winters.

If these statements make any sense to you, then you and I are from the same state.

I'm trying to come to terms with raising my daughter in a state that often feels like a foreign country to me in contrast to my roots. Funny thing is, my (OK, I'll say it) Minnesota roots aren't really roots at all: my parents both grew up on the East coast. They didn't sound like everyone else. We weren't Lutheran (in fact, my father is an Episcopal priest). We weren't Scandinavian. Our last name didn't end in "-son."

In many ways, I felt like an outcast and didn't even know there was such a thing as hot dish until I moved out of state as a young adult (I had eaten it in various forms at potlucks I suppose, but didn't know of this generic label). But now, after nearly 15 years away, my sense of belonging there is startlingly strong.

At the same time, I can't imagine a life different from the one we live. My work is exceptionally fulfilling (most of the time), not to mention that I have fantastic benefits. Sure, I often wish that I were the one staying at home with our daughter ... but that's getting a bit off topic.

What I can imagine is not living in the urban grit of the city; as much as I enjoy many aspects of city living, it's starting to wear me down: the traffic, fires (we've had two major fires in the houses surrounding us; one just a few weeks ago and one a few years ago), the shootings (yes, we've had a number of those uncomfortably close to where we live), the smell of urine, the sounds of sirens racing by along with the deafening roar of noise-enhanced motorcycles ...

So we're working on relocating to another part of the city, preferably to a neighborhood with a greater sense of safety and community -- and a thriving soul -- characteristics that mark the neighborhood in which I grew up but that I didn't appreciate fully until I had a child of my own.

We've considered moving back to that very neighborhood with its tree-lined streets (now less dramatic, however, after a Dutch Elm disease epidemic years ago), my life-long friends, family, and safe schools. But something is keeping us here -- and, while I could blame my husband for this, the truth is that this city we now live in claimed me long ago during a visit when I was 12 and lured me back 15 years later.

What I've come to realize is that I'm capable of feeling a sense of belonging in more than one place -- and that no place feels "just right," in the words of Goldilocks. In many ways, the slight edge I feel here keeps me focused on continual self-improvement; I've always worried that going "home" would cause me to regress, whereas staying here promises professional and personal opportunity.

I think I can be at peace with the goose.

Goodbye Mama

My daughter (now 19 months old) dismissed me tonight. And I felt loved.

We had done our usual routine: a few books in the living room while she ate crackers and sipped her bottle followed by brushing her teeth ... then said goodnight to da-da and sat down in her room to nurse, sing, and sleep (yes, we're still nursing/rocking to sleep ... which I know raises a lot of eyebrows -- risking the health of her teeth, for one, not to mention delaying or preventing the development of normal sleep habits ... but it's what we've settled into doing for now, for better or for worse -- clearly, though, I worry about it).

Anyway, as we sat down, I noted to her that I probably didn't have a lot of mama mo to give her (she had nursed quite thoroughly when she woke up from her nap only a few hours earlier and mama mo was still trying to catch up). Because I've been working on weaning, I bring a bottle in at bedtime and offer it to her partly to aid with the weaning process and partly to make sure she gets enough milk so that she doesn't repeatedly wake up. Sometimes she takes the bottle willingly; sometimes I sneak it in after she's drifted off but still attempting to nurse.

Tonight, when I had finished the third lullaby, she stopped nursing, looked me in the eye (OK, it was dark, so I'm exercising a little artistic license here), said in a cheery voice, "bye bye mama!" then "keeeeeess" while kissing me on the cheek and giving me a giant bear hug ... and then asked for "da-da." Then she did it all over again in case I wasn't getting the message (until tonight, by the way, I have never heard her say "kiss" but she's heard us say it thousands of times: you know, "kiss grandma goodbye," etc.). I asked if she would take the bottle from me, but, no, she wanted da-da, yet she kept hugging me as if to assure me of her love.

There was a time when her preference for my husband would have sent me into hysterics. I would have felt rejected. A failure. Unloved. Ready to quit working so that I could be with her every minute of every day to prove my worth, even if it meant living on government assistance.

But tonight was different. Rather than screaming for da-da as she has done from time to time in the past, my daughter expressed herself in an astoundingly emotionally eloquent way -- and I was able to hear her.

We're both growing up.