Turn off the radio in your mind.

Tonight, I taught my son (WHO TURNED FIVE TODAY, I MIGHT ADD, WHAT??!) a visualization which I do quite often myself, and which I thought I'd share.

We were snuggling in his bed reading a book at bedtime, and I could just tell, because I'm the mom, that his brain was going a thousand miles an hour; his body wasn't far behind -- feet rubbing together, fidgeting fingers, and when I asked if he felt like his body was very busy right now, too, he thought for a second and said, "No," while twirling both hands through his hair.

I used my Calming Voice and asked him to still his body, starting with his feet, then his legs, now his hands and arms, and then I asked him to listen to his thoughts for a moment, to see if he heard any. "What kinds of thoughts?" he asked. "Oh, any kinds of thoughts," I answered, and explained that we think a lot, and that sometimes, you have so many thoughts playing in your head that it gets very loud and distracting in there, and makes it hard to focus on the thoughts you want to focus on. So I asked him again if he heard any thoughts in his mind, and he said, "Yeah. A lot."

We talked a little bit about how the thoughts come from us, so we can learn to control them if we want to -- if we're having thoughts we don't like, we can get rid of them and think different thoughts. And if our thoughts get too loud and distracting, we can quiet them.

"Imagine," I told him, still using my Calming Voice, "that all these thoughts you're hearing are coming out of a radio. Are all your thoughts coming out of the radio now?" "Yeah," he said, and I could already see his mind stilling. "Now," I said, "imagine yourself reaching out to the radio, and turning the volume down." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Are your thoughts quieter now?" "Yeah," he whispered back.

"Now," I said, "imagine yourself reaching over to the radio, turning it down alllll the way, and then switching it off." He reached out into nothingness with his skinny little 5-year-old hands, and mimicked this. I grinned, and told him that he can imagine doing it, in his mind, without even having to move your body. "Now, your radio's off. Your thoughts are quiet. You can't hear any more thoughts. It's quiet inside."

"My radio turned back on," he said.

"That's okay," I told him. "Mine does a lot, too. But you know what? It's your radio, with your thoughts, in your mind. You can reach over and turn it off again."

"I think I have a hundred radios," he told me. I replied, "Well, that's no problem. It's your imagination. If you want to, you can imagine a remote control that can turn off all the radios at once." "All at the same time??" "Yep." I saw him imagine this. "Now it's quiet. Now we're calm," I said.

Three minutes later, he was snoring, and I kissed his birthday-forehead goodnight, and quietly left the room.

This radio visualization? I use it all the time, when I catch myself getting too caught up in my own thoughts to notice anything in the world around me. It's faster for me now -- just a quick flash of my radio, and my hand turning the knob all the way down to Off. It may only last for three seconds, but that's a pretty calm three seconds.

Try this sometime, and let me know how it works for you :).

I'm curious, too -- what does your mental radio look like? Mine looks like the old-fashioned radio used before TV was invented -- the type the family listened to Little Orphan Annie on in A Christmas Story. The little guy said his was green. What's yours?

The ice cream truck.

Ever since the last time we were able to catch the ice cream truck ages ago, Raiden has been asking when he'll be coming again. The other night while we were reading before bed, I heard it dinging! After a pause and a second "ding-ding" of confirmation, I dropped the book and told Raiden, "RUN!!", grabbed the husband's bank off his dresser and RAN outside myself... just as the ice cream truck was passing our house. I yelled, "WAIT!! WAAIIIIT!" and Raiden joined in screaming it behind me and the dude, who wasn't even one driveway away, did. not. hear us. I bolted for the next yard over still yelling for him and Raiden followed suit and still, nothing. He immediately started crying, out of sheer disappointment. I heard the ice cream truck turning down the street behind us and told Raiden, "Run to the back yard! Quick!" and we did, and again as he passed by on the opposite street we yelled and again, nothing, and again, Raiden started crying.

It's not a spoiled cry because he didn't get his way. He was really looking forward to the ice cream truck coming back, for weeks, and it finally came and we almost got it but missed it! Total disheartening, especially for a four year old when catching the ice cream truck is the adult equivalent of winning the lottery.

In about a split second, my Mommy brain weighed the options of going back in the house with a disappointed, crying child and dropping the boring old "we'll try next time" crap that wouldn't do any good, or... running for it. I chose running for it. Reaching for Raiden's hand I told him, "Let's run. Let's try to catch him," and we took off down the street, hoping that I could cut him off while he was weaving through, catching him at the end of one of the roads as he was turning.

I didn't realize until we were three houses away that I was barefoot, and it dawned on me, too, that the white on Raiden's feet I had registered as shoes, were actually socks.

Oh well.

We kept running.

Raiden was crying all the way down the street, and part of the time after we reached the sidewalk at the corner. Another house or two down that street I told him, "We're trying, bud. We're doing our best." Another half-a-block later, he was laughing and saying, "This is fun!"

We totally lost the ice cream truck. Didn't hear him anywhere, but in my mind, I was thinking, okay, we'll go around the block the other direction to try and cut him off if he went to the next subdivision. I forgot that the way we were going didn't have any other cross streets for a while... they are all "avenue ends" from the other direction. But turning back meant admitting defeat, and my Mommy Brain said we had to at least try.

We didn't hear any more "ding-dings," but halfway through our escapade Raiden started explaining that the rocks we were stepping on were asteroids and started telling me all about asteroids, and that he had bat ears and the ice cream truck's bell would echo into his bat ears and he'd hear it. Around that point I realized that 1) it was very dark outside, and 2) the husband was due home any time. I could just see him getting to the house with the door left open, us gone, my phone on the counter...

Luckily, we made it home before he did. And when Daddy got home from Kung Fu shortly after, Raiden, instead of being disappointed, was excited to tell Daddy all about his adventure in chasing the ice cream truck, and that "We lost him, but we tried our best!"

And really, that was my goal.

(We also promised him that from now on, we'll leave a window open in the evening so we will hear the ice cream truck sooner, and be able to make it out in time. I also plan on keeping shoes by the front door.)

I'm so glad to see my son having experiences like this, at this age. How many adults get so attached to a specific outcome that they totally miss the fun along the way? In my mind, being barefoot and walking on asteroids is way better than getting ice cream.

Packet-free.

Oh, man. My world is full of changes right now. Good changes! Just changes, in the middle of which is a busy schedule, so though things are fabulous right now -- really! -- I still find myself looking forward to August when all the dust settles and the changes can become routine. I've been discovering recently that I do better with routines, and when they're thrown off, so am I.

(If you're curious: I started two new jobs, the little one started preschool, the husband is out of town for training, and next week I will be out of town being a hippie at the Great Lakes Retreat in Michigan.)

And none of that has anything to do with what I actually wanted to jot down today.

Today, I am doing just a little more to do just one more little thing to help us eat a little healthier and save a little money.

My son -- I love him -- asked to make "that bean soup I like" (and I like that I have a 4 year old who specifically asks for bean soup), so I promised him I'd look at the recipe, make sure we have everything we need for it, and that we would make it tonight. I knew we had all the beans, but I knew we did not have the packets of taco seasoning or ranch mix. And I also knew I didn't want to buy them; the reason we don't make the bean soup more often anyway is that I don't like all the chemical ingredients in the packets of seasonings, not to mention that they're $1-2 for basically 3tbsp of cheap spices plus all the crap added in.

So today I decided that instead of going to the store and cringing at myself as I bought more maltodextrin- and MSG-ridden flavoring packets, that I would look up homemade recipes for them myself.

I have done this. I've emailed myself a few versions of each recipe just in case we want to experiment and see which one we all like better. Also, I'll admit it, I specifically picked one of two of the combinations to save because I knew we already had all the ingredients for those at home and I wouldn't have to stop and buy anything else. This may sound like a money-saving adventure, and sure, I guess, it is, but really? I just don't want to have to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work.

Have you ever done that? Everyone stops at the grocery store after work. It takes at least three times more time than I'd normally spend just running to grab something at the store, when I go there after work, and I'm hot and I'm tired and the people make me overstimulated and I feel like I have to rush even more to get out of there relatively quickly and that makes me stressed and forgetful and frankly? It's not worth it.

So now I don't gotta. I'm saving us the MSG and fake ingredients, I'm saving us a few dollars, I'm saving the trash I'd throw away from using a packet of seasonings, and I'm saving myself the hassle of stopping at the grocery store.

Hey, motivation is motivation, right?

In the mean time, I'm learning to be less dependent on one more unnecessary convenience. And my kid will get his bean soup.

It'll be fun next time.

Sometimes, having coaching skills is awesome when you're a mommy.

Admittedly sometimes I feel like That Mom when I talk about this... mostly when my coaching school, iPEC Coaching, will post something on facebook asking something along the lines of, "When was the last time you used X coaching skill?" and I'll chime in, "Yesterday, with my 4 year old!" But I did. Because it's awesome. I'm teaching my pre-K things that I've seen adults have a hard time figuring out; then again, adults have to re-learn and break existing thought habits, while my 4yo is just now forming those thought habits himself.

For example: We were at the park one day playing on the big-kid equipment after fattening up some of the geese nearby, and the pole. Oh, that pole. It was out to get him. He'd worked with Daddy the time before, learning how to reach out and grab it, then jump and wrap his legs around to slide down. It was scary, but with Daddy's help, he was brave and went down the pole by himself! Once. And then he remembered that it was scary, which is what carried over for him during this visit. The pole is scary. He was scared. I tried cheering him on but frankly, I'm not Daddy, and Mommy cheering never has quite the same effect as Daddy cheering (just like Daddy's bedtime songs aren't quite as good as Mommy's).

Several minutes were filled with a back-and-forth of "I'm too scared!" and "You can do it! Just count to three and jump!" before we finally decided that it was okay, we would try again next time.

As we started walking home, the 4yo was repeating to himself, "I was just too scared. That was so scary. The pole was too scary. I was really scared." So I told him, "Raiden, what you're doing right now is called psyching yourself out. Do you know what that means?" Of course he didn't. "Psyching yourself out means that you're telling yourself that it's scary so much that you're making it even scarier for yourself. The more you tell yourself 'it's too scary!' the more you'll believe it!" I think he said something along the lines of, "Oh." I went on, "But, did you know that you have the power to change your own thoughts?" "I do?" "Yes, you do! You can choose to stop saying it's too scary, and start saying that you can do it! Can you say, 'It'll be fun next time'?" If there were a way to articulate a whiny tone through text, I would do it, but since I can't particularly think of one, I will simply tell you that in a whiny tone and with a slouchy stance, my child did, in fact, repeat, "It'll be fun next time..."

Still, I cheered him on. "There you go! The more you say it the more you'll believe it! Can you say it again?" With a similar whine and slouch, he repeated, "It'll be fun next time..." I cheered him on some more, and after a dozen or so more times (because what four year old doesn't love to repeat himself and repeat himself and repeat himself and repeat himself and...), it became enthusiastic.

So the next time we went to the park, do you think he was able to go down the pole? Well, no. It was still scary. Because, let's face it, he's four, and that's a big jump for a 4yo. But he also did not stand there telling himself how scary it was. He tried, he just couldn't do it, and he told himself, "It'll be fun next time."

Since then, he has asked me a couple of times in similar situations, "Am I psyching myself out?" If I confirm that yes, he is (and comment that it was very big of him to recognize that), he'll stop and change his phrasing to how fun it might be next time. And that's way better than sliding down a pole.

Disciplining your inner four year old.

Part of being a mom is figuring out what method of discipline works best for your kids. Every kid is different (and I know I will learn this even more clearly if/when there is a #2). Things that work for some kids don't work for other kids. Things that work for your kid might not work for your kid next week. Things that work for your kid may not work for you. It's a constant act of trial and error, assessment, reassessment, giving up for a while and just hoping they'll be good no matter what, realizing no matter how well you're handling things they might still just be a holy terror for a while, wondering if their recent diet of grilled cheese and popsicles may be a factor, and trial and error again.

The same can be said for ourselves. I know I'm grumpy when I have too many pastries.

While I was rearranging the 4 year old's star chart recently, the thought occurred to me: if I were parenting my own inner 4 year old, what would I put on my star chart?

This of course led to tangent thoughts: What reward would I want to earn with my stars? What if it weren't just about a star chart and I were constantly parenting my inner child?

When our kids ask us for, say, an extra cookie, or another new toy even though he just got a new toy (because Daddy really wanted the new toy, too), when is the answer yes, and when is the answer no? How do you explain to your kid why this time it's okay, but next time it may not be? And, what occurred to me this morning, when your kid yells at you and demands that extra cookie or new toy, do you give into his demands or do you dig your heels in and demand right back that he ask nicely for things or he Does Not Get Them?

I'm a dig-my-heels-in, I'm-just-as-stubborn-as-you-are mom, personally.

So why, then, when my inner child demands I WANT THAT PASTRY RIGHT NOW BECAUSE, UM, BECAUSE IT'S THERE AND I WANT IT, do I say, "Oh, okay Inner Child! Here's your pastry!"? How could I handle that, instead?

If I were talking to my kid (and having a Good Mommy day, and this wasn't the 50millionth time I had to answer this question), I would explain that eating sweets without eating something healthy is bad for your body, and I know it tastes good, but later with lunch we can have some strawberries instead. So, what would it be like if I were to catch my inner child's demands, realize them for what they are, and explain things in the same way? "Okay, Self, I know you'll like that cherry tart, but you're gluten intolerant, remember? And remember that you're trying not to eat processed sugar? Is that pastry worth getting a headache and being grumpy? You have gluten free cookies made with organic sugar at home! Let's wait until we get home, okay?"

Honestly? My inner child would throw a temper tantrum and say BUT I WANT IT NOW, THOSE COOKIES AREN'T THE SAAAMMMMEE AS A CHERRY TART.

And then I would tell my inner child that it's being rude and now it absolutely can't have it because of how it's acting.

So just as parenting your own actual child requires a lot of trial and error, bargaining, and explanation of consequences, what would it be like if you were to put that kind of effort into "parenting" yourself?

Getting a taste.

Just recently I was commenting that I didn't really know how to be home with my son by myself all day, even though I've always wanted to be a stay- (or work-) at-home-mom. For years I've been saying that web pages (what I've done professionally for the past 11 years) just aren't my thing anymore. A year ago I bought the domain name for my would-be coaching business, and promptly created a placeholder that has remained there ever since. Ever since the windows were installed in our house just after we bought it five and a half years ago, I've been thinking to myself that I really ought to finish painting the trim.

What do all these things have in common?

I found out almost two weeks ago that in three months, my position will be eliminated.

It wasn't that great of a shock; we've been warned of budget cuts for the past two years. In this round of cuts we knew our department would be losing two positions. Since my position was merged into this department, it had never really been the most important service being provided in the eyes of those deciding things like what services will be provided, so I sort of figured that my position would be one of the cuts. Finding out for sure, though, makes it real. That's different than probably.

So now, glance back at the first paragraph and guess how many of those things have either moved up on the priority list, or have become sudden real possibilities?

The house has been on the market for nearly three years and still I'd always put off all the little things like painting the window trim, little things that I felt like we needed to hide when we'd leave the house for someone to view it, which would end with the curtains being drawn and the house feeling dark. Along the same lines as the bathroom shelf I mentioned recently, it didn't take that long to paint the window trim; I open the curtains constantly now and it feels so much brighter in here, not to mention the good feeling that comes with being able to show off more of the house rather than feeling like I have to hide it.

I have a gazillion sick days saved up that I'll lose at the end of my job, so instead of cramming doctor's appointments into lunch hours, I'm taking half-days (we can't take sick leave hourly) and using the remaining time to clean up the house or just take some me time. (I played a video game the other day. By myself. For as long as I wanted.)

My father-in-law has been sick, and since my in-laws watch the little one during the day, that left me without childcare today... which, by the way, also counts as a sick day. I spent today with my son in a totally different mindset than the last time -- what could this be like if it were an everyday thing? Would I make breakfast every day, or cook up extra sausage and muffins early in the week to reheat later? Oh look, I can look through a cook book and toss something in the crock pot to be ready for dinner with absolutely no rushing around after work! I can do laundry! I can wash dishes as I go, because I'm not hurried! Oh, and since my father-in-law is still sick, I get to learn even more about what it's like to stay home with my kid and take care of my house all over again tomorrow! And I can already see the bottom of the laundry hamper! Well, one of them.

I've been crocheting more, as I realized I'd stopped making fingerless gloves that I was making so many of for a while, simply because people stopped asking. And then I felt stressed out and trapped and like I needed to do something but didn't know what, until I figured out that, oh yeah, that whole crochet thing was totally my creative outlet. Now I'm figuring I can build up a stock and sell them at the hippie store around the corner, and/or craft shows, and/or on etsy, and bring in an extra few dollars occasionally (in case that few dollars makes a difference).

I realized that after saying so many times "I am so done with websites!" that this time, I am so done with websites! I don't ever have to do them again if I don't want to when this job ends. I love me some barter so I'll keep up the ones I love doing, or love what I'm getting in exchange, but I am done being a webmaster. I actually started giggling when I realized that. I'm free! Now it's all on my own terms.

Like my own. That domain name I bought a year ago for my would-be coaching business? The one I kept telling myself I really ought to build a website for? The coaching I kept telling myself I really ought to start building a clientele for? Now that I finally got my kick-in-the-butt from the Universe telling me, "Okay! I'm giving you all these things now! You figure out what to do with them!" it took me a week to build the website from the ground up. And I love it.

And here it is: Life Spiraling Forward

Please, take a peek, and you know anyone who you feel that would resonate with (including yourself!) please feel free to shamelessly promote me as much as you want! I even have a sweet "hey, my new website is up!" price special going on for the first five folks to sign up. And if I find out they came from you, you might get a present. Just sayin'.

I've been having conversations with the Universe about this house attracting its new owner this month, and after a long dry spell we've seen a huge increase in traffic, which is pretty rewarding and says to me that the Universe listens. So I'ma keep talkin'!

You know, I didn't used to be this way. I used to be a worrymonger (which I would occasionally worry about). This "new" way of being, the way of seeing opportunities, feels so much brighter. (And hey, if you'd like to learn to do the same thing, there's a link up there for a life coach...)

Thoughts as a medicine cabinet.

Our house has been up for sale for quite some time now, and though we really haven't had any activity recently, we've become restless with the state of limbo we've been in. Our new house, which belonged to my husband's late grandparents, is just sitting there waiting on us. We've put some work into it here and there -- refinished the hardwood floor we discovered under the living room carpet, started painting what will be Raiden's bedroom -- and have moved some of our extra stuff over in various spurts, but we have finally grown restless with the restlessness. We're moving there. For real.

Though at times it feels like this process is really dragging out (and, let's face it, after almost-three years, it really is) we're lucky, in a way, that we get to take our time with it. There's no mad flurry of WE HAVE TO PACK RIGHT NOW OR ELSE and that allows us a little space to really go through what we have while we're packing it. Keep; yard sale or donate; trash. We've had several moments of "I forgot that even existed" and "So that's where that went! How did it get in there?!"

The most significant for me, so far, came yesterday afternoon. Raiden had become a holy terror and it was very obvious that it was because he was tired (though he refused to admit this, of course), so after getting him down for a nap, which pretty much never happens anymore, Rich and I were able to get some packing done without having to 1) stop a million times to entertain a three year old, or 2) feel guilty ignoring our three year old. Rich took to the bedroom; I stationed myself in the bathroom.

My first stop: the medicine cabinet above the washer. Storage tub in front of me and trash can to my side, I started going through all the stuff we had piled in our bulging-at-the-seams cabinet, deciding what to keep at the house we're still living in, what to go ahead and take over to the other house, and what to get rid of entirely. My being a pseudo-hippie came in two-fold in this scenario: 1) I had at least a couple dozen bottles of Standard Process supplements in the cabinet that have been there for who knows how long and for who knows what purpose, and 2) this made me think. It occurred to me, especially after a recent conversation with my fabulous coach (her website, her blog), that it was an analogy for thoughts.

I had all this stuff stored in my cabinet and though I knew vaguely that it was there and that I wasn't using it, I hadn't taken the time before then to really look at what the stuff was, how it was serving me by staying in my cabinet, when I picked it up in the first place, when it outlived its usefulness, or if I would ever use it again.

What about thoughts? What thoughts do I have sitting in the back of my mind that I know are there but don't really pay any attention to? How can these thoughts be serving me (or even "serving" me by allowing me the freedom to stay stagnant when moving forward is scary)? Where did they come from? Do I still need them? Will I ever need them again? Could someone else I care about benefit from me keeping them around?

I recently discovered the power in letting a thought go and replacing it with another, and even the power in realizing I could let it go.

What was funny to realize while cleaning out my cabinet was that if something was full, I had a hard time throwing it away. It was taking up a lot of space and I knew I would never use it again, but the thought of getting rid of something that hadn't really been utilized still bothered me. It made me wonder what big, full, useless thoughts may be occupying my mind, keeping me from replacing them with something I felt better about.

---

Later in the adventures of bathroom tidying, we removed a shelf we had never liked. There had been a built-in cabinet when we first bought the house, and I don't remember when we removed it or why, but the section of wall behind where it had been was painted a different color than the rest of the wall. We even color-matched the paint and picked up a quart a while back, but never painted it. Instead, we got an ugly shelf and decided that hopefully the clutter on it would cover up the ugly wall. It was functional, but it's always bugged me.

After the shelf was out, the wall was painted and the new shelf was in, I wondered aloud, "Why didn't do do this when it was for us??"

One of my favorite questions on my new-coaching-client questionnaire is, "What are you tolerating?" I was reminded again that I ought to ask it of myself occasionally, too. And then move on it. It didn't take that long to move the shelf or paint the section of wall. There was no reason to let it sit there bothering me for however many months or years it has been that way, when an afternoon took care of fixing it.

What else am I tolerating? How much energy am I giving the annoyance it's causing me, compared to how much energy it would take to do something about it and then be happier with it?

---

So what about you? What's hanging out in your brain's medicine cabinet? What is your unpainted bathroom wall that you're hiding with clutter on an ugly shelf? And when will you do something to change it?

Routines.

I never meant to be a working mom. Still, I have dreams of being a stay/work at home mom if/when there's ever a child number two. But something occured to me this morning.

My mother-in-law, who watches my son during the day, is sick today. So am I - in fact, I'd already had serious thoughts of calling in sick today, even before she called in sick herself and solidified that decision for me. I laid in bed with the little one to help him sleep longer while I read a bit until he woke up, later than usual. And he immediately hurt my feelings, saying that he didn't want to spend the day with me, he wanted to spend the day with Mamo.

It had upset his routine. He's three. I get that.

We played a bit in bed before I was absolutely starving and got up to make breakfast. While I was cooking, after we ate, and in the rest of the day since, I realized that my routine has been upset as well.

That was a pretty startling realization, actually, because what it showed me was that, since taking care of my son, by myself, all day long, during a weekday, is not my routine, I'm really not sure how to do it. What do you do with a three year old all day long? I know how to parent in the two hours or so between getting home from work and getting him ready for bed, and I know how to parent on the weekends in the rush of getting chores caught up from the busy week preceding, but apparently, I realized, I have no idea how to be a stay at home mom for just a single day.

This is where the justifications kicked in, all the reasons that couldn't really be it and that today was an exception, not an indication of a lack of parenting skills.

I'm sick today, and it's harder to be an involved parent when your head aches, your chest tickles when you breathe, and your nose is stuffy and raw. Anyone's patience is thinner when they're not feeling well, so of course the constant sound that accompanies a verbose three year old is getting on my nerves; I wouldn't always want him to be quieter, it's just that I'm sick. I'm only extra busy with chores today because it's so rare to have time during the week to do any of them; I wouldn't be ignoring my kid(s) for chores every day if I were home with them every day.

This just isn't our routine.

And perhaps staying home with Mommy during the day wouldn't be such a novelty to him, either, if it were an everyday thing. Maybe he would want some space instead of taking advantage of the ability to have constant Mommy attention.

It just makes me wonder what kind of a relationship I would have with my son if things had worked out differently. It bothers me, as a mommy, to realize that taking care of my son is out of my routine.

Dont' get me on my soapbox about how America is the only civilized country whose mothers are ripped away from their babies at 6 weeks or 3 months after birth, because the productivity and the status quo and the almighty dollar are given more importance than family. Or the tangent soapbox about how 6-12 weeks of maternity leave don't really give American babies the chance to breastfeed for as long as the WHO recommends. Or the other tangent soapbox about my disappointment that it is normal in our society for someone else to be raising our children for us, save for the few hours after work and busy weekends. Or the seemingly-opposite soapbox about how parents aren't given realistic expectations as to what it will be like to take care of a new baby or raise a child, that they are told it should be happy all the time and they should be able to do it themselves when really, parenting can be very frustrating and the more help you can find, the better!

Because I have a lot of those soapboxes.

And a lot of them would just lead me back to being very sad at realizing that I really wasn't sure what to do with my son, for one whole day at home together, because it's outside of both our routines.

Medical impossibility.

I was digging through the cabinet last night, scrounging for something to eat, as I was feeling unusually picky last night when normally I couldn't care less, but that's really irrelevant. Raiden came in the kitchen with me and started looking through the cabinet as well. He saw the bear-shaped honey container and asked, "Is this for Weston?" (Mel's baby.) I told him no, that's for us.

"Daddy and me and you and me?"

I chuckled and said, yes, Daddy and me and you and me.

He thought it was silly that I repeated it that way and expanded it, something like, "Daddy and me and you and me and Daddy and you and Daddy and me and you and Daddy and me?"

I laughed and replied with something fairly similar.

He asked, "What about the rest of us."

I said, "That's all of us. You and me and Daddy."

He asked, "Can you get a baby in your tummy sometimes?" (He almost always says "sometimes" rather than "sometime.")

I asked something like, "You want me to, huh?" and he said that yes, he does, and that when he's older, he'll have a baby in his tummy. I told him that only girls can have babies in their tummies, so he'd have to help a girl get a baby in her tummy. AND THEN QUICKLY MODIFIED that only grown-up bodies can do that. Then I chuckled a little and told him to go tell Daddy what he'd asked me.

(As an aside: my son knows probably more than most 12 year olds are comfortable with about the whole Where Babies Come From process. He doesn't know the specifics, but he asks questions and I give him real, age-appropriate answers. Over several talks about this he knows that it takes a mommy and a daddy to make a baby, that the daddy helps put the baby in the mommy's tummy, that it's a different part of the tummy than where your food goes [which was clarified when he informed me that "When I was a little baby, I was in your tummy, and you ate me!"], and that then the baby has to grow until it's healthy enough to live outside of the mommy's tummy, and it comes out a special kind of baby door that only women have, and that babies are supposed to come through the door head-first, and when he was in my tummy, he turned around and had his feet at the door, so the doctors had to cut open my tummy to get him out instead. To this he said, "NO!!!" and I said, "Yeah, I wasn't thrilled about that either, kid.")

He ran in the living room excitedly and asked, "Daddy! Can you help Mommy get a baby in her tummy sometimes?" He smiled and asked him a few questions about if he'd like having a baby around, and if he wanted a boy baby or a girl baby. He said he wanted a boy, and Rich asked, "What if it's a girl?" Raiden said NO, he wants a boy. I yelled in and told him to explain that we don't get to choose, which I then heard him do, and he re-asked if it would be okay if it was a girl baby, and Raiden said yes, it was.

Several minutes later when I was back in the living room, having finished eaten the bowl of cereal I settled for as dinner, Raiden came to sit on my lap, and I asked him again if he'd like a little brother or sister, if he'd prefer a girl or a boy.

He replied *drumroll*:

"Can it be a robot?"

...

*laugh*

I told him that no, it couldn't be a robot, that humans grow human babies. He said, "NO!! Please please PLEEEEAAAASE can it be a robot?"

I said, "You want the baby to be a robot." It wasn't a question. It was an eyebrow-raised statement.

"Yes! Like THIS BIG!!" he said with his hands held high above his head.

I yelled into the kitchen, where the husband was foraging for grapes, that Raiden has now requested that the baby be a robot. "A BIG robot!" Raiden clarified.

We finally settled on: Okay, we'll try to grow you a robot brother, but, you know, no promises.

More better.

We've been very busy this week -- the husband and I both took an extra couple of days off over the holiday, and spent some family time together, doing extra fun things with the little guy. (We really like our kid.) There was a theme park involved, and a discovery that we really need to take two loaves of bread to the park when we go feed the geese instead of one.

Point being, all the extra quality family time didn't lend much "work on the last project I need to finish to get my life coach certification" time. And I'm actually okay with that rather than feeling guilty. I needed the extra little guy time, and every second of every nap I took with him. Family naps are awesome.

And though I wasn't thrilled about coming back to work, even for just two days this week, I had a realization yesterday at work, too. You know those moments where you realize something completely perception-altering that is so simple you can't believe you never realized it before? It was one of those. I know I haven't written much about my job, but what I typically mention is an obvious inequality and Us vs. Them dynamic. What I realized yesterday was, I am better than this. I've been articulating things lately around that idea -- that I don't feel they're using me to my full potential, that I have a lot more to offer than they're taking advantage of, etc. -- but it's always been more of a negative phrasing of it; like, the feeling of resentment surrounding that I'm wasting away here. It dawned on me yesterday that a lot of what bothers me about it is that I know I'm better than this. Which is actually pretty huge. Instead of feeling like I'm not worth valuing, I know I am valuable and that they just don't see it. That's their loss. "What they think of me is none of my business." Along with this realization came another: keeping my productivity low due to being disgruntled is just proving them right. If I don't like my job because I'm better than it, rather than not good enough for it, it means I can kick my to-do list's butt instead of pretending it's not there until 4:15 every day and skirting by with as little as possible. It's not that I'm out to prove them wrong; it's more, I just feel dirty being a slacker, because I'm better than that. This whole concept has shifted me from being angry that I'm not getting praise for hard work, to feeling self-motivated to be my best just because I can.

I kind of kick butt, and I forget that sometimes in situations where I'm not reminded occasionally.

So on that note, in an effort to continue being "better than this" and (grammar aside) even more better in general, I restarted my Mindbloom life tree with more appropriate goals in mind. Okay, so part of my want to restart my tree had to do with a glitch in my account that gave me an extra 18,000 seeds (points) that I didn't have to earn, which took the fun out of completing tasks or reaching goals, so starting over gave me motivation to earn seeds correctly again, too. With better goals. On this tree, I added a "Spirituality" branch, and started small with the two actions, 1) Take a few minutes for a relaxing meditation, and 2) Reflect on your spiritual health by journaling on paper. I scheduled the items for every day. I'm hoping my love of check marks (I do love me some check marks) and earning points correctly again will kick my butt into actually taking those few minutes for myself, which I've always seemed to have a hard time doing. Check marks are highly motivating. (You should see my work to-do list. It has boxes for check marks. And is color coded by day. And then I count the check marks and log them into daytum.com so I can keep track of my check marks and work toward a higher average.)

(Side story about spirituality, really more about my kid: Since my grandpa died last November, I've been working with Raiden on understanding death. I explained that Grandpa died because he got very sick, and instead of his body getting better the way Raiden's does when he gets sick, it couldn't get better and it stopped working. That took several explanations before he got it, and then I realized I'd left out the spiritual component and explained to him that when you die and your body stops working, your spirit -- the part inside you that thinks and learns -- goes back to the spirit world for a while, and when it's ready, it goes into a new little baby's body in their mommy's tummy, and comes back for another life in that body. We're still working on this one, understanding that it doesn't go back into the same body again and that the person doesn't really come back as the same person. But he's getting there. So the real part I was getting at is this -- when he was playing with a little boy (about 10 I guess) at Kung Fu last night, he would pretend-hit the other kid with a "sword" (a foam bat), the kid would fall over and play dead, and after checking his pulse the way Obi Wan does Luke when the Sand People knock him out, he asked him, "Is your spirit still in there? Are you dead? Does your spirit need a new body?" I chuckled to myself and just hoped that no one in class was anti-reincarnation... )

Anyway, where was I? Right; using check marks to encourage myself to remember that it's okay to take time for myself. Because I'd sure hate to have to mark those a red X instead of a green check mark. My real goal on that? Is to prove to myself that the world will not, in fact, crash into rubble around me if I take 10 whole minutes for myself once a day, rather than feeling like I have to keep its weight on my shoulders. That will be an excellent thing for me to learn.

The Great Lakes Retreat

In three days and ten minutes from now, I will be leaving for Michigan for six days, to make my grand return to The Great Lakes Retreat, after a three-year absence. Last year I was unable to attend due to an already-high travel budget and already-busy travel schedule for iPEC coach training. The year before that, I had a 15 month old, who I was still somewhat nursing and was not ready to leave for a week. The year before that, I had a 3 month old, so apply the previous reason and multiply it by seventeen. The year before that, my husband went to Retreat with me, and our son was conceived. The year before that was only my second year there, and the year before that was, obviously, my first.

My first year there, I already felt like I'd found a new family and had discovered the happiest place on Earth. It's a spiritual retreat, full of all levels of psychics and healers and numerologists and (literal) tree huggers, and I freaking loved it. In normal life, I'm just far enough into hippie and outside of normal that I feel just a little bit odd and like it's best to dial myself down. There? I almost feel out of place being so low-level odd. There, it's "normal" to be really, really far out there, which is a totally different mindset, and one I enjoy adopting. There, everyone has different spiritual beliefs, and can direct their "prayers" or "energy" or what have you toward God, Goddess, Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Jesus, their Higher Self, the Creator, or Whomever They Choose and everyone else is simply okay with that. There's discussion about what others believe and why, that is discussion and not argument, brought forth from genuine curiosity rather than skepticism or an intention to convert or ridicule. In short: it is so happy there, with such a feeling of love all around you at (almost)* all times that it makes you want to cry with happy at the end of the week because it is the very manifestation of "can't we all just get along?" and you see that yes, actually, we can, so why can't we?

*(I mean, there is the occasional Odd Duck who is really, really odd whom you kind of want to avoid if you can. But then, sometimes, those Odd Ducks are the folks you end up learning a lot about yourself from by the end of the week. Usually about judgment from calling them Odd Ducks and then watching them have a life-altering realization and transforming themselves by the end of the week, when you'd written them off at the beginning. Or seeing someone you thought was closed off and negative be incredibly loving and positive. You just never know, and sometimes it's good to be reminded of that.)

I'm going to miss my family like crazy. My husband, though, is looking forward to some Daddy Time while Mommy's away, to catch up with the little guy a bit while we're not in default Mommy Just Handles Everything mode. I'm sure that popcorn and pizza will be consumed in abundant quantities. I also figure that tents will be built, and sleeping on the living room floor will be done. My husband, I have to say, turns into Superdad when I'm away, and while sometimes I lament that it'd be nice if he were Superdad while I'm here, too, it's good to know that they'll have a great time together while I'm gone.

The little things that I'm looking forward to:

• Morning meditation -- something I keep meaning to do for myself at home, but which never seems to happen.
• Having three meals per day provided for me without the "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?" conversation taking long enough that there's no more time to cook.
• The healing center -- even if you take a total skeptical point of view about energy-type healing, you'd still have to admit that going to a relaxing room where you have the full attention of someone only intending good for you, is a good thing.
• Taking the same seat at the morning and evening lectures that I've taken every other year I've been there, just because.
• Having real, thought-provoking discussions that give me a chance to explain and challenge my ways of thinking.
• Popcorn, and bad karaoke.

I just hope I remember to pack pictures of my kid.

Reading!

My kid.

This weekend, he started reading.

Words.

Last weekend, I realized that, since he knows his letters (we're still working on lower case, but he knows most of them), he could help me read the words "I" and "a".

Well, this weekend, I decided to try him out with two-letter words. The first one, "Oh," was easy enough, I figured. Two letters, one sound, the sound being that of the first letter. Not much different than "I" or "a". It was easy for him, so I asked if he wanted to learn another word, and he did. We went with "We." And from there we just kept adding more words, either when I felt like he was ready to, or when he would ask to learn a new word.

The grand total: I, a, oh, we, so, my, no, me, you, and, go. We tried "is" but he had a hard time with that one for some reason.

I am so proud of him! And he's proud of himself, too. Anytime he'd remember a new word, he would turn his head up at me and smile and we'd hug and it was fabulous. My son, my barely three-year-old son, is learning to read! Words! It makes me pretty much not wanna do anything else with him, lol. I definitely want to keep this up, as I know if I don't, it could be lost really easily. And if I do? He'll be reading One Fish Two Fish to me by the end of this year.

I'm thinking we can add in The Cat in the Hat, too, since there's much more word repetition in that book. One Fish Two Fish is pretty random.

And then I can make sight word flash cards and make a matching game with words and pictures and my child, he is fabulous.

It's so fun. It takes forever to get through a book, so we've had to adjust to only reading half a book or so at bedtimes, but it is so. fun. Reading through a book, pointing at the words as I'm reading them, stopping on the words he knows and letting him read them. The phrase, "Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, me! Oh, my!" he can read all of, all by himself.

Proud mommy, right here.

How it happens.

I discovered a couple of new blogs the other day. One, a blog where anyone can submit their "drive-by meddling" stories of well-meaning strangers offering them unsolicited parenting advice -- That Baby Looks Cold! -- and another, found via a story posted on the former, generally relating the funny things that happen when you're raising small children -- Parenting Ad Absurdum.

The post that particularly caught my eye was this: How I was totally judgmental before I had kids.

In short, the author relates that before you have kids, you judge parents you see out in public, based on the small glimpse you're given of their day, their kids, and the way they handle them; yet once you have kids of your own, you start understanding how the frazzled parent who snapped at their youngster for something seemingly small, or the parent blatantly ignoring their child asking them questions, or the parent with the clearly-underdressed-for-the-weather child could have gotten to that point.

I had a friend tell me recently that his wife -- they are childless, I might add -- couldn't believe some of the parenting she'd seen going on while she was out one day. One example was of a child screaming at his mother in the restroom that he didn't want to go potty and you can't make me etc., and the mom just sort of ignoring it and dragging him along, anyway. I will admit, even having a child of my own, I judged the mom being described -- if the kid doesn't have to pee, don't make him pee, and why are you letting him scream at you like that??

Fast forward a couple of weeks, to the Friday after my father-in-law's birthday. We were to have a family dinner at a buffet place nearby -- myself, my husband, my parents-in-law, my brother-in-law, and my grandmother-in-law, along with, of course, my three year old son, who, I found out early during dinner conversation, had refused to take a nap that day. (Note: my parents-in-law watch my son during the day.)

"I wanna go with Mommy!" *clings to Mommy's leg; Mommy and he go to get a plate of food*

"NO I wanna go find Papa!" *yanks hand out from Mommy's grip, runs into a crowd of people, shrieks when Mommy calls his name to Come Back Here Right Now*

"NO I WANT PAPA TO DO IT!" *sees Papa, runs to him, Papa says he'll take care of it*

Back at the table, the plate Papa filled for him is in front of his chair, which he refuses to sit in. "I wanna sit with Papa!" Fine. "I don't wanna take a bite!" Fine. What do you want? "I don't want ANYTHING! I'm full! I'm all done! I want down!" Well, we're all still eating, please sit at the table until everyone is finished, and then we'll go. "No I want cake!" You'll have to eat some healthy food before we get cake. You have fish and green beans on your plate, let's take a few bites. "No I'm full! I want cake!" You can have cake, after you eat some healthy food first. "I'm full! I want down!" Please stay in your chair.

Daddy goes for seconds, and then Papa, while Mommy here still has the same food on her plate from Round One, with about 4 bites taken, total.

"I wanna go with Daddy!" Sorry buddy, Daddy already walked too far away, we'll let him know next time. "No I'll go find Daddy!" There are too many people around and I don't want you to get lost; please wait here for Daddy. "I wanna go with Papa!" Heavy sigh. I take bite number five.

After having generally everything argued with, I stopped responding except for occasionally reaching over to grab his arm and hold him in place in his chair, which would, of course, make him scream. Finally realizing that nothing he was doing was getting the desired response, he pulled out his golden ticket: "I need to peepee!"

I put down my fork, because I am that mom on A Christmas Story who doesn't get to eat her own hot meal, I grimace at my husband because of course there's no notion that anyone other than Mommy could take a child to the bathroom, he smiles apologetically while eating his second plate of food while my first is less than 1/4 eaten so far, I grab my son and we walk nicely to the restroom. On the opposite end of the restaurant.

Before we even make it to the restroom, I'm already hearing protests of "No I don't want to peepee!" which I ignore. We walk into the bathroom (of a buffet joint. on the low-income end of town. in which the floor is sticky.) and my son is doing his damnedest to pull out of my grip, screaming at me "No! I don't want to peepee! I don't want to peepee!"

And suddenly I am reminded of both the blog post I stumbled across, and the mother witnessed by my friend's wife.

I am that mom.

I turn to the lady in the restroom who is washing her hands and pretending to ignore us and tell her flatly, "This is after he insisted that he needed to go." She smiled an "I'm a mom, too, I get it" smile and left, thankfully leaving the entire restroom empty so that I could beat my child within an inch of his life and have no witnesses.

Kidding.

Instead, he got a very stern talking to about how I listened to him and he told me he had to peepee, I was trying to be a good responsible Mommy and take care of him by getting him to a potty, and it was not nice to tell me he needed to peepee and then yell at me for taking him. He stopped screaming and used the potty. We washed hands, used the air blower to dry them (which he loves), and I thought to myself, Good, we have an understanding now.

Which, of course, we didn't.

We got halfway back to the table before he was pulling out of my hand again and running away into crowds of people again and yelling at me for asking him to stop again and demanding to sit with Papa and not eat any of his food again and proclaiming that he needed cake again and finally, after e-freaking-nough of that, and after he started just plain screaming rather than even screaming words at me, I proclaimed myself Done.

I stood up, grabbed my purse, grabbed my screaming child, left my 2/3-full plate of food on the table, and walked out of the restaurant.

He was, would you believe, screaming at me the entire walk out to the car. I was not responding to him in the slightest because I knew if I did, I would freaking lose it on him. My primary concern at that moment was simply making it to the car instead of throwing him in front of one.

Kidding, again.

We got to the car, I jostled him around but did not put him down, no freaking way to dig through my purse-that-eats-car-keys to get the car keys, unlocked the car, put him straight into the car seat, battled flailing arms and legs to buckle him in, moved to the front seat, and planned to sit there for as long as it took for my husband to come out with us but I was not talking to him anymore. Scream away, kid, Mommy's checked out. Mommy's sitting in the front seat in her happy place where there are no screaming children and she gets to finish a meal without being asked to wipe anyone's nose.

My husband wasn't too far behind us -- had apparently just taken enough time to apologize for our son's behavior -- and once he started sternly talking to our child about What He Had Just Done and Why That Was Not Okay, with information comprehensible by a 3-year-old such as "That was Papa's birthday and you made Papa SAD and made Mommy and Daddy MAD by screaming, fighting, and not listening!" The child argued back, "I wasn't all done yet! I'm still hungry!" and uh oh, he said the wrong thing, and my MadMommy floodgate was broken.

I wasn't all done yet either and I'm still hungry too and I just wanted to eat dinner and have a nice boy and Papa just wanted to have dinner with his family and you were NOT A NICE BOY and you made us SAD AND MAD and YOU SAID YOU WERE ALL DONE AND DIDN'T TAKE BITES AND YOU WEREN'T SITTING IN YOUR CHAIR AND... well, etc.

By the end of the 10-minute drive home, he had fallen asleep.

Well, that explains it. Tired, plus the fact that his argumentative side comes out in an exponential factor correlating with however many adult authority figures are around for him to see if they really mean it.

And that, folks, is why that mom was dragging her kid into the bathroom even though he was screaming that he didn't want to go, and why she wasn't responding to it at that point to try and get him to stop screaming.

At that point, putting a jacket on him for a short walk to the car in chilly weather is just a battle not worth fighting today.

Has anybody seen my baby?

He used to look like this:



But now all I can find is this big kid.

---

He can recognize all the capital letters and the numbers 0-9. He can count to 18 unassisted. He can sing ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star all by himself, and a lot more songs along with someone. He makes up his own songs sometimes. And he asks me to sing William Tell Overture, by name. He knows 15 states on the US map, and can point out the stigma, style, petals, anther and filament on a tiger lily. If I don't know the answer to something he asks me, he says, "Let's look it up!" and sits on my lap with the laptop so we can find it out.

He's currently in love with Toy Story (both 1 and 2), and for his birthday he kept asking for "the Woody with a string that talks, because my Woody doesn't have a string." He got him, and has barely put him down since his party yesterday; they're currently taking a nap together in MommyDaddy's bed. I love that he was happy with the Toy Story books the Easter Bunny left him this morning, too.

He also has a fondness for The Incredibles (though we've pared down his watching time on that one, due to his obsession with guns), and due to a certain youtube video he often tells us, "I ate too much, I can't put my belt on." He also hasn't let the lack of a "red suit" stop him from putting on an imaginary red suit, complete with imaginary gloves, mask, and boots, several times a day, and announcing, "I'm a superhero!"

Speaking of movies, he can turn on the TV, put a DVD in the DVD player, and turn it on, all by himself. He can also take out the DVD, and turn everything off. He's shown both of his grandmas and two of our friends how it all works, when they didn't know.

My favorite things about him right now, are that he likes to wake me up by caressing my face and saying, "Mommy, open your eyes," and that he often asks in the morning or when we get home from work, "You're happy to see me?" He's very aware of others' feelings, and is good about expressing his own. Last night I turned off the water before he was done washing hands, and he told me "You hurt my feelings, I wasn't done yet."

He's a good eater - eats plenty of healthy foods, with his favorites including stir fried broccoli, apples and peanut butter, and "cold toast" (a.k.a. bread). He'll try anything new, and has loved a lot of the vegan recipes we've made recently. Sure, he loves hot dogs and mac & cheese like any other kid, but he definitely doesn't limit himself to them. The other night I asked what he wanted for dinner, and he answered, "Miso soup, and sushi, and rice, and broccoli." He stuffs himself silly at the Indian buffet. And candy? He'll take a few bites, then proclaim himself "All done."

He still doesn't sleep all night, but I'm used to it and have become fond of it. It won't be that many more years he'll want to snuggle Mommy at night, and I think I'd miss it if he stopped asking. Daddy, I'm sure, feels differently :). He does fall asleep in his own bed by himself now, though, and that's a huge improvement.

I brag about him often.

I really, really love this kid, and I'm glad he chose me to be his mommy.

Happy third birthday, buddy.