Decide, Declare, Act

Recently I was looking at some baby pictures of Charlie, and I remembered how much he made me laugh even if he was being challenging. In my reverie I also remembered how difficult it could be to realize I needed to take care of myself. It usually seemed that I had to be at my wit’s end to recognize what it was that I needed.

When my toddlers were at their wit’s end, I had to get the focus back onto myself and what I felt I needed, otherwise I was no good to my children in any way, shape or form.

It’s much easier to see in hindsight, of course: Realizing that I needed to stop talking and act. It wasn’t talking that they responded to anyway. It was my vibe, my certainty. If I didn’t attend to my needs of hunger or fatigue I couldn’t function well as a caretaker. I’ve come to believe that I couldn’t ruin my childen’s life by having my own needs, or by being ”imperfect” or even by sometimes losing my temper. I’ve come to realize that I had to be real, and being real included all the gory details of being an imperfect human being. I do remember sometimes babbling at a fussy, twisty-turny baby - I’m sorry, I love you to death, but I am at the end of my rope here and my patience has run out…I’m sorry I yelled – that’s what happens to everybody sometimes…You will survive this – You are so loved…I’m sorry that you are distressed…I am here and I love you, I just need to remove myself from you for a little while to regroup and rest…we both need to take a little nap… and we’ll see each other after that… I love you…

Then I had to stop talking and act, and KNOW that everything was okay and they were okay. The further I was from my own self-care, the harder it could be to decide, declare and act. But it usually was the absolutely best thing for them and me!

Movies and “the Boys”

The Yes Child › Create New Post — WordPress

Our sons, Max and Charlie, who inspired the writing of The Yes Child, available April ’09,  just returned from an early summer “walkabout” to northern Montana where one of their favorite cousins was getting married. They made a bit of an adventure out of the trip visiting friends and family enroute and seeing a number of wonderful parts of our country; Chicago, Milwaukee, Badlands National Park, Glacier National Park and having a pretty great time of it at the wedding and in their travels.

They got back to our home in DC for a late dinner on Wednesday and Friday we all went out to the movies to see “The Dark Night.” This proved to be a bit of a bitter sweet treat for me as I remembered how many movies we’d seen together as a family and how long it had been since the four of us had done just that. There is no mistaking that “the boys” are really no longer boys at all but are young men with girlfriends and plans for their futures in the making; Max is looking into teaching positions in DC and Charlie will be entering his second year at Grinnell College in Iowa.

In our book I write a bit about the decision Marcy and I made when our sons were very young to turn off the TV…actually we unplugged the cable but kept the TV for monitoring movies at home. Neither of us has ever had reason to doubt that this was a remarkably fortuitous decision; Max recently graduated from the University of Virginia College of Music with Highest honors and Charlie was on the Dean’s List for his first year at Grinnell. I’m not sure that they wouldn’t have been equally high achievers had we left the cable on, but I like to think that the decision lead to them reading more and developing a genuine love of reading, watching things that we could monitor and not spending endless hours in front of a television with “539 channels and nothing on” as the Boss once remarked. In other words, they both possess attention spans that are greater than a fruit fly’s.

“The Dark Knight.” Max loved it, Charlie felt it was confusing in places and Marcy and I both felt that Heath Ledger stole the show and that Gary Oldman was tremendously under challenged and under utilized. But it was still a great night to be in a theater as a family as the previews conclude and the feature starts…just magical.