SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

I Always Feel Like I Am Compromising

If I focus on writing, working, I feel the lack (dreadfully) in what I am as a mother.
If I focus on being Mommy, making a home, I feel something in my soul begin to scream. Too long at that, it grows silent and still. Too still. In-the-throes-of-death silent (though, now that I think of it, "throes" don't seem that silent).

Joe comes home and asks, "How was your day?" and I laugh a crazy little laugh of desperation and answer: "Oh, great, you know, changing diapers, doing laundry, the usual. Yours?"
And I have nothing else to say.

Average or Exceptional

I listened to a podcast yesterday and in it this is what caught me, this small instruction: Read the rest of this entry »

The sound of the dishwasher, whirring louder than it has to,
The coffeemaker, burbling and brewing and needing to be cleaned out,
Overwhelm the t.v. evening update of disaster; she lets them,
Unstirring, eyes sliding down to a semi-glaze.
Blue chair, feet up, work done,
Until another eight hours go by, then
The same messes, mouths, dirty fingers, footprints,
Asking voices.
Oh can we Oh will you Oh why Oh watch.
Her head reels, end of day, with the drain of information, life-blood lost...
She needs a refilling but this litany, ode to the awfulness of the world, fills no reservoir.
She becomes the mother grasping, gasping for air while the reporter makes sympathetic faces.

She gets her decaf, stirs the cream in,
Takes slow sips in the silence she craved at
7 o'clock when they woke up too early, at
10 o'clock when the baby wouldn't nap, at
12 o'clock when there was no peanut butter, at
3 o'clock when the questions were endless, at
6 o'clock when he was home, dearly come home, and
They smiled at each other across the roar of life.
Now peace, the roar tucked into various beds with blankets, kisses, promises, and
She sits beside him.
It is too much, after all that, to watch the tragedy of a child
Lost, wounded, silenced.

She clicks the button, erases the concerned serious faces,
Pushes away the guilt of not hearing, the
Dread of her own possible losses, the
Fear of being too lucky, too long.

She puts away the words of the worst reality,
Picks up a book of poetry,
A magazine,
A notebook, a pencil,
The phone.
This small quiet space is what fuels her, fills her, defines her,
So she chooses.
Carefully she fills her cup with what is delicious and rich,
Refusing the bitter,
Ready, in the morning, to be again poured out.

1. It won't last forever.
2. You will sleep again.
3. It's not just okay, it's absolutely necessary to ask for help.
4. Take a nap every chance you get.
5. Enlist the slowcooker, the pizza place, your husband, your in-laws, your Chinese delivery place for help with dinner. No shame.
6. Peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches count as a home-cooked meal.
7. Your baby won't look like a Gerber commercial all the time. It's okay.
8. Take a bath or a shower every single day, put on a little makeup, and put on some fresh clothes. You'll feel a thousand times better.
9. A newborn requires something like 8 to 10 hours of care per day. You're working a full-time job in addition to being a wife, a home-maker, etc. Give yourself a break.
10. Keep easy, protein-rich snacks on hand: string cheese, yogurt, protein bars, trail mix. Eat them.
11. Drink water till you feel like you're floating. It will help you feel more energized, it will refresh you, it will clean out your body, it will make your skin brighter.
12. Go to bed as early as you want to whenever you can.
13. Tell people what you need help with specifically: they're not good at guessing (especially husbands).
14. If the house is a mess and it's driving you crazy, pick one thing to tackle each day. Monday, sweep the floor. Tuesday, put away laundry. Wednesday, pick up clutter. Don't try to clean the whole house and bring complete order in one day.
15. Hire a housecleaner, if you can, to come one afternoon or morning and get things scrubbed and shiny. It will give you a boost for getting back into a routine.
16. Trust your gut. It's great to read parenting books and get advice, but keep things in perspective. Go with your gut. You're the Mommy.
17. Say NO loudly and firmly when sick people ask to get near or hold your baby. It is NOT worth it to end up with a sick newborn.
18. Babies cry. This is a natural thing, and it does not mean there is a crisis, you are a bad Mommy, or anything like that. Remember that crying is their only way of communicating at this point. Sometimes all they're saying is, "Hey, um, I'm bored. Can you do that funny peek-a-boo thing again?"
19. Emotions, sleeplessness, and hormones are a crazy combination. It's normal to feel overwhelmed. It's normal to cry. It's normal to be frustrated. Talk to your spouse, your Mom, your best friend. If you feel depressed for more than a few days, talk to your doctor.
20. You will make mistakes; this is a law of parenting. But you will still be the best possible parent for your baby, so hang in there, do your best, take care of yourself, and relax your standards. Perfection isn't the goal; love is. The more you relax, the more you will enjoy your baby.

Image courtesy of therapycatguardian on Flickr.

I've talked about having house rules before; having a short list of them helps us Moms to maintain consistency because it gives us a concrete standard. But let's look at it just a bit more, because just sticking some arbitrary rules on the wall isn't really the goal.

Listen to what Charlotte Mason says:

"When a mother allows a little trespass to go, unchecked and unmarked, the child has learned to believe that he has nothing to overcome but his mother's disinclination; if she choose to let him do this and that, there is no reason why she should not; he can make her choose... and if his mother does what she chooses, of course he will do what he chooses, if he can; and henceforward the child's life becomes an endless struggle to get his own way.

Let the child perceive that his parents are law-compelled as well as he, that they simply cannot allow him to do the things which have been forbidden, and he submits with the sweet meekness which belongs to his age."

{Charlotte Mason, Home Education, pp. 14-15}

We all live under the law.

I'm not talking about the speed limit, though that kind of law matters, too. I'm talking about the big, divine, universal laws: the laws we know inherently, though some of us choose to ignore them and at times, we all fail to uphold them. Think in terms of the Ten Commandments, or, better yet, what Jesus said about the law:

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these.

{Mark 12:30-31)

We parents are to live under the law, and we need to teach our children that the rules we have are not just random ideas we come up with and then impose upon them arbitrarily. Sure, some rules may be: "No shoes in the house" doesn't have much of a moral implication. But the rules that really matter do have a moral implication.

Do a little digging and find the principles behind the rules, and teach them to your children. I've made a simple change when I discipline our children. Instead of saying, "No, Robbie, don't hit your sister," I say, "No, Robbie, I can't let you hit your sister. It is not right."

Does that matter? Maybe not all the time. But in the end, yes: because we want our children to grow up learning principles that give them wisdom for life, not legalistic rules, we need to help them to understand that law is universal and that we, their parents, answer to a higher authority. Everybody has to obey.

...it is upon the mothers of the present that the future depends... because it is the mothers who have the sole direction of the children's early, most impressible years.

...And they [must] take it [motherhood] up as their profession - that is, with the same diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labours.

Nothing is trivial that concerns a child.

{Charlotte Mason, Home Education}

Image courtesy of adreson.