Camp, general awesomeness, AROMO

Since we returned from the beach, I've tried to see one friend each day; I'm not at 100%, but overall my hit rate is terrific, and it's been such a treat. This is yet another way that I'm working to better balance life, making time for leisure in addition to work, prioritizing myself in addition to my family and responsibilities.

This week has been really good for me and for the boys. Their longer hours away are just enough that I can get things done and take a load off and feel rejuvenated when they return. It's reminding me that balance, for all of us, is good and wise. Speaking from my experience as a stay-at-home mom (others have their own challenges!), it's so easy to get into a groove that shouldn't be and/or put others before self, to struggle with maintaining an identity and passions separate from those within Mom. I hear this refrain from many others, friends and readers, too. That I have another three weeks of this schedule feels very luxurious, and I am realizing anew the value in trusting my maternal instincts.

As I alluded to on Monday, I initially registered them for this day camp without hesitation. It receives rave reviews, and I loved the idea of them being immersed in nature, outside all day. I wanted them to get dirty, meet a whole bunch of new friends, play with farm animals and be far, far away from electronics. Most basically, I wanted to push them just enough in ways I knew they could be pushed, to expand their comfort zones and senses of what they can do. The confidence and independence and new experiences they're amassing right now are invaluable, and I can see, every day, how good it all is for them.

When I spy them rounding the bus aisle and heading down its stairs, they look tired in the great, healthy way one does after spending hours playing and sweating and learning outside. They are filthy too, their bodies, clothes, lunchboxes and water bottles coated in all manner of earthy detritus. They sing silly ditties and prideful anthems-  164! The bus you can't ignore!- and I find myself recalling the summer camp tunes I once sang with equal enthusiasm. They talk about new pals, new games, new knowledge, shared laughs. They are really, really happy.

Several people seemed flabbergasted that I'd signed 5-year-old Ol up for this camp because of its long hours, bus ride and so forth. But I think I felt him ready and this to be the sort of experience he'd cotton to immediately. Though I didn't take them as judgments or anything, these reactions did give me pause -had I misjudged? erred? was he too young?- and I believe that hesitation constituted half of my nervousness Monday morning.

Balancing your own and others' senses of what kids can/can't/should be able to do or handle can be a really challenging part of parenthood. When should they start eating solids? What type? When should they be potty-trained/talking/reading/writing? Questions about diet, bedtime, manners, habits can seem very fraught and you realize just how personal, in some respects, they are.

At the end of the day, most of us just try to make the best decisions we can based on who we know our children to be and how best we believe our family will function. And that's why it's so important for us to trust ourselves. To seek advice when we don't know and to act confidently when we think we do. I am so incredibly thrilled for the boys right now; both say they want to go back all summer next year. And frankly, I'm really thrilled for me too.

During the hours I've spent making jam this week (made my apricot-peach almond yesterday; it is TO DIE FOR; now's the time, folks!), I've thought about the concept of having "a room of one's own." Virginia Woolf was talking specifically about the space a woman needs if she wishes to be a writer, but the brilliance behind her idea was how encompassing it is for most everything women need in order to feel fulfilled, as women and all else they are.

I recalled that a friend once joked about the playhouse in our yard that the boys never use, "You should turn that into your own spot." This "playhouse" is a seriously top-shelf playhouse. I know because I paid for it myself -it's flipping cedar and came from Canada- and built it with Tom. It took a week, a hot sweaty, middle-of-August-in-DC-which-was-built-on-a-swamp-and-boy-can-you-tell week. We were beyond excited to show the kids, and two years in, I think they've gone in there about 8 times.

www.em-i-lis.com

So, without informing the munchkins, I have, over the past several days reclaimed the little house as A Room of My Own. I've moved everything out, swept it clean, put in a portable air conditioner and an old chair. A small, cheap desk is on order, and I might spring for a little rug too. Sure, it feels vaguely doll-house meets Alice in Wonderland, but it will be my spot when I need one, a literal delineation of the figurative one I often crave: to write, to think, to remember that my needs are as important as theirs and T's and the pets and so forth. Cool, huh!?

One of those days

Readers, I am having one of those days.

One of those days where I feel flat as matzoh (I know that's not the expression, but really, pancakes fluff in a way matzoh does not; hello leavening agents!). One of those days where I wonder if what I'm doing is what I should be doing and/or if it matters in the slightest. One of those days in which "is this what it's all about?" flutters through my mind frequently with a "don't answer that!" following close on its heels.

With about a 90% chance of accuracy, I can probably blame said malaise on some shitty hormones in concert with the 4-day holiday being good but long. Too many early wake-ups/unread everythings/half-finished conversations/too-quickly done whatevers. And, it didn't end today like it was supposed to.  

Jack stayed home from camp today, sick with a croupy cough, though his fever has stayed at bay since Friday night. I cooked dinner for the Grands while he took one hour to write/draw a thank you note (it is spectacular but that pace leaves a tad to be desired in the efficiency department, yes?). A little Harry Potter here, some of a new puzzle there, to the Grands', to pick up Ol...I am hoping for a return to regularity tomorrow, but I kinda suspect it'll be Camp Mommy again.

All day I was hounded by a sense of insufficiency. That's not totally right, but it gets at part of what I felt. Here's what I know: I cannot just be Mom; I must, however (because I want to), be a stay-at-home mom. So, how to negotiate this?! And yes, I am fully aware that this is a luxurious, 1%er type of dilemma, but you know what? It's real, and hard, and painful, regardless of who is struggling with it.

I want very much to be the primary person raising my children, but I also want to honor and pursue and stay connected to the woman I have become and now am. I want to model for my children that mothers are multidimensional beings with lives and interests that both evolve from and are completely unrelated to them. Plus, we have friends and spouses and jobs and such. But I digress.

The point is, it's really fucking hard to balance it all and sometimes, I feel like I'm the one getting the short end of the stick despite my very best efforts pretty much all.the.time.

I've written about this dilemma so many times before yet I've never arrived at an answer that is either sufficient or reasonable, not least both. This evening, my constellation of disgruntled queries found focus in a questioning of Em-i-lis. Now approaching its 2½-year anniversary, I love writing it each and every day but it what does it mean, and to whom, and why? Is it a worthy undertaking if the audience is relatively small?

To me it is I think because I receive kind notes of "thanks" and "yes" and "I love what you write" on a regularly regular basis. But I'm not The Pioneer Woman or Smitten Kitchen or any of those other behemoths and I don't know if I could be or would want it.

~~~~ Pause... ~~~~

At precisely that point, Jack started wailing from his room, refused medicine, asked for tea and then had some cockamamie idea about making cookies. I acquiesced, asked him to read me the recipe (as a result we now have a teaspoon more of salt than called for but so be it), and got those puppies in the oven. He doesn't want them anymore.

~~~~

So now I'm back, cookies all over, knowing that tomorrow will be another Camp Mommy, somewhat dreading the revisit to the pediatricians' office, somewhat inordinately thankful it can be me there with J. And I'm again left hanging in the balance between two often-competing identities of import.

Some form of whiplash

Well, the boys are definitely back! The energy in our house has changed dramatically, and while I'm so happy to have them home, I realize how "on" I feel when they are. That pressure doesn't come from within, or at least it doesn't now. It is a direct response to two very bright, extremely talkative, whirling dervishes who spin constantly, whirring out questions, comments, narration, ideas, requests, demands, pleas, negotiations and so forth in every direction. I feel like one of those cartoon characters with oversized ears who is trying to catch 85 different falling objects as they plummet towards him. In the cartoons of course, the character uses feet, hands, head, whatever, and always seems to catch most everything. In real life, you just get by as best you can without the aid of magic limbs. Jesus, I'm tired already.

It's like a slight form of whiplash, emotional whiplash, and sometimes these feelings really make me feel like a sub-par mom. I just do not want to be on all the time. I was so desperate to see them yesterday, but I'm so shocked by how amped up and, simultaneously, tired I felt by lunchtime today. And then I realized there are three weeks of summer left, and I wish so desperately that part of me didn't dread that time, but some part of me does. It was so nice to have time this past week to not rush, to not hurry, to not stress about fitting everything in, to be able to stay up late without the horrible knowledge hanging over me that that was a dumb, dumb decision because the early wake-up the next morning was coming so soon, to think and read, and hear my own thoughts, to finish sentences and conversations without interruption. All of that is infinitely harder when the kids are here. That's parenting I guess, but I still wonder when it might seem more balanced, a bit less intense. Will it? When? I guess I just need to get back into the groove.