(no spoilers here…)

I never would have gotten hooked on The Sopranos if it had started after I became a mother; my ability to stomach violent television is virtually non-existent now. But I got hooked, and then even after Ben came along changing everything, I kept watching because the characters were compelling, it was well-written and funny, these screwed-up families held my interest.

And, you know, just when it got too hard, the show would go on hiatus for a year or two.

Still, I’d been sort of anticipating these last few episodes with a mix of relief and dread. I’m done with the show. I can’t watch it anymore. I’m glad it’s over. But I didn’t want to see all these great characters go out in a terrible blood bath.

There were some moments that were pretty hard to watch (so in fact I didn’t; I’ve gotten really adept at using a throw pillow to cover my eyes while I plug my ears, because often the soundtrack is worse than the visual). But the last five minutes of the last show tonight captured everything I loved about the show: a normal-looking family gathering for a meal, talking about their days, heart-pounding tension building as you’re led to believe something terrible’s going to happen, nothing resolved, all of it set to the perfect song.

Now I can exhale and move on with my life.

My paternal grandmother, a steely bird of a woman who’d been advised not to have kids lest it damage her already weak heart and then went on to have four, apparently used to say that it’s not a family until you have more kids than you can grab with your two hands.

She was up to the challenge, and so were my parents, who produced four of their own. Tony and I –having started our family when we were ten years older than my parents or grandparents– have stopped at two. But this week we’ve had a good dose of four, as we’ve helped out good friends by babysitting their pair for hours while they pack and move. We had two full mornings and then today, moving day, their kids arrived at 8:30 a.m. for the day.

I went to sleep last night, thinking “I should plan some activities for the day,” then of course promptly fell asleep. So much for planning! But we’ve been doing this parenting thing awhile now, watch the kids in our babysitting co-op a lot, and are helped, too, by our co-op preschool experience (weekly work shifts with 30-odd kids). By noon we’d made muffins, a pan of enchiladas to deliver to our friends later, decorated t-shirts to commemorate the day, and fed the four children an assortment of snacks and lunches. Sadly, Eli didn’t nap for very long this afternoon, but otherwise everybody held up well and we didn’t need to resort to videos, computer games, or ropes.

Still, obviously I paced myself today for a sprint, not a marathon. I can gear up for a day or two of being outnumbered, but I wouldn’t want to do this every day.

We’re celebrating Father’s Day all month long over at Literary Mama, including a Literary Reflections essay by Lisa Gates titled “Essential Functions.” Here’s a blurb:

At 7:30 a.m., as I drive my son to school, he asks, “What are you thinking about, Mom?”

“Oh, lots of things.”

My son grins. “You always get that far away look when you’re inventing something to write.” My heart falls on top of itself. He wiggles out of the back seat and before he slams the door, he says, “You should call Grandpa, Mom.”

Click on over to Literary Reflections to read more!

Very early on the morning of July 4th, 2001, I climbed out of bed and took a pregnancy test. As I waited for the result, I left the stick resting on the edge of the bathroom sink and sat down at my desk to write a few lines on my computer. A few minutes later, I went back and added some more thoughts, trying to absorb the fact that I was pregnant.

That was the start of my mothering journal.

I’d kept journals sporadically in the past: a small, cream- colored book my aunt gave me before a high school month in England; a cloth-bound book I bought before my junior year at Oxford University. But when I didn’t have a discrete period of time to document, I could never keep a journal going. I’d get fed up with myself for using it as a dumping ground for my complaints about adolescent life, or I’d get hung up with worry about someone finding it.

But this time was different. I’d just started a new job, I was pregnant, Tony and I bought a house: my life was changing fast, changing permanently, and I wanted to keep track of my thoughts.

That January, my computer crashed and took my journal with it. I lost teaching notes, syllabi, years’ worth of emails, but it was the journal’s loss that made me cry. It took me a few days to regain perspective (I hadn’t lost the baby, I kept having to remind myself, only the writing about the baby), but when I did, I took myself to a good art supply store and bought a nice journal with lined pages and an elastic strap to keep it closed.

And now I have a neat pile of six on the bottom shelf of my bedside table, with the current one, a pen in the middle holding my place, on the top shelf next to my lip balm, the current New Yorker, and a water glass.

I’ve kept it going.

The problem, though, was that before long the journal was not enough. I’d start something, jot down a funny thing Ben did or make an observation about my new life, and then it would sit there, undeveloped. I didn’t have any compelling reason to develop my thoughts into an essay. And after years of steady writing in graduate school, culminating in a nearly 300-page dissertation, I didn’t really even know how to write an essay about myself. I cast about for a year or so, writing unfinished essays during Ben’s naps, not knowing what to do with them. Eventually I lucked into a writing group and from there landed a position at Literary Mama and, between the gentle pressure of my monthly turn to present at writing group and the inspiration of the essays I edit, I found my way to a regular writing gig, a book, and a new life as a writer.

But it all would have been much simpler if I’d had Lisa Garrigues book, Writing Motherhood, back then.

I confess, I haven’t read any other writing books, so I have nothing to compare this to. Well, that’s not even quite right; I haven’t finished any other writing books. I’ve poked around Bird by Bird (and found it quite useful when I do), read a few lines of Writing Down the Bones, but I’ve always gotten a little impatient with the books, always had a moment when I realized, “Wait… no one’s asking me for snack, no one needs a dry diaper, I should be writing!” and put them down. So one of the things I like most about Garrigues’ book is that she invites you to do just that. It is not a book to read cover to cover (although I did, for this review, and it holds up perfectly well to that sustained attention), but one to pick up and read for twenty minutes when you have an hour free, or five minutes when you have ten: pick it up, find your inspiration, put the book down, and write. Because just as no one learns to parent by reading parenting books, no one learns to write without writing.

I like the bold orange cover of this book, which won’t get lost on my desk; that bright flash will always peek out from under the messy pile of drafts, bills, and Ben’s latest train drawings, and remind me to write. I like her tone, which is encouraging and friendly throughout; she leaves behind any kind of authoritative teacher voice and comes across as a woman you’d happily share a coffee with. Garrigues calls her writing prompts “invitations,” another subtle way that she manages to lighten up the task of setting down to write. And I like that she gives you lots and lots of good stuff to read, because the most important work in becoming a writer, after writing, is, of course, reading. Garrigues gives you her own short essays (on topics ranging from copying other writers, to marriage, to mama playdates); some of the little essays are hardly about writing at all, but about mothering, and then as she comes to the end and crystallizes the feeling that she’s expressed in the essay, she neatly raises a question for your own writing. She provides sample “mother’s pages” (essays written by her students), and she offers loads of great quotations from other writers. She also offers concrete advice on everything from buying a writer’s notebook to setting up a productive workspace. I have both of those things, but I still picked up a couple good ideas from her. She closes the book with an entire section on moving from new writer to a writer seeking connection and publication, with ideas on setting up and maintaining writing groups and taking one’s writing public. And then, in case there weren’t already enough ideas to keep you going in the text of the book, she offers a list of 99 writing starts and a bibliography.

I am keeping this review short because, inspired by Garrigues book, I want to get back to my writing! But I want to leave you with a couple quotations. The first, from Annie Dillard, resonated with me right now as I struggle to clear space in my days to write:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.

And now here’s Garrigues:

This book is, in part, a story of growing up and into a role I claimed for myself.

Is she talking about mothering or writing?! The point, as she claims throughout the book, is that the two are not mutually exclusive but complimentary roles that feed and develop each other. We should take advantage of that fact, and make time to write our lives.

Garrigues teaches writing classes, and those of you in the NY/NJ area should check them out. For anyone looking for on-line writing classes, I highly recommend Susan Ito’s parent lit workshop (which I have taken) and the new poetry workshop led by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza (my editorial assistant in Literary Reflections). Literary Mama will soon be offering monthly writing prompts, with personal feedback from th
e Literary Reflections editorial staff, as well as listings of workshops and other resources for writers. Get writing!

His first year, he slept in a sling, in a cradle, in the car seat, in our arms, in the stroller, swaddled or not, blankets or none, wherever he dropped off.

Last year (pictured) he slept solo.

Now, he sleeps with a crowd:
His flannel and satin lovey blanket
A knit mole (Mole)
A small gray bear, knit by his aunt (New Bear)
A piglet with a bell inside (Jingle Pig)
A blue plush cow (Moo)
A plush giraffe (Giraffey)
A plush lemur (Ringo)
A plush gorilla (Gorilla)
A fabric dachsaund (Doggie)
A toy hard hat
A toy screwdriver
My car keys (when he can get ’em)
Maisy’s Favorite Things
Corduroy
The polka-dot blanket
The Pooh blanket
The bah-bah black sheep blanket (knit for him by a friend)
The shark blanket
The moon and stars blanket (a hand-me-down from his cousins)
The cow blanket

I’ll keep letting him add things, I don’t care, as long as he still finds room for himself, as long as sleeps…

It was one of those days…

At 6:30 a.m., after Eli and I had gotten up and cuddled on the couch a while, I got a mug off the shelf, got a box of tea down off the shelf, then got distracted.

At 10:00 a.m., after breakfast and a run and a shower, I put the tea bag in the mug and filled the kettle, then got distracted.

At 10:30 a.m., I turned the gas on under the kettle, but then Eli noticed and started to clamor for his own cup of tea: “Tea? tea? Li-li tea??” And while he’s perfectly welcome to join me occasionally in a cup of lukewarm decaffeinated tea, this time I just wasn’t up for the supervision: he wants to have his tea in the little personalized ceramic mug my parents gave him; he wants to get an ice cube out of the freezer (all by himself; one day I fear he’ll tumble headfirst into the low freezer drawer and be lost among the frozen edamame, berries, tortillas and the mason jar of limoncello I made 2 years ago and haven’t touched) and plop it, repeatedly, into the cup; he wants to “duhnk! duhnk! duhnk!” the tea bag and put in the “shuh-shuh” all by himself, stirring, stirring, stirring with the spoon he gets out of the drawer all by himself (after hauling the stool over to the silverware drawer, pulling the drawer out so hard I’m afraid he’s going to brain himself, and then half-falling off the stool because he forgets that he’s actually on the stool). It all quickly devolves into water play which sometimes is fine, but today I just didn’t have the strength.

So I took both boys outside to play baseball instead.

At 3:00 p.m., during Eli’s nap, I boiled the water and poured it into the mug over the tea bag, but then I got distracted.

At 4:00 p.m., Eli having woken up, I took the tea bag out of the mug, added some milk, and put the mug into the microwave, but then I got distracted.

At 4:30 p.m., after Tony took Eli to collect Ben from school, I got the mug out of the microwave and finally sat down to drink my cup of lukewarm tea. It really tasted pretty good.

The fabulous Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, one of my editorial assistants over at Literary Mama, is going to be teaching a 10-week workshop for beginner mama poets. If you’re an expecting, new, birth, step, adoptive or grandmama wanting to learn more about the joys of poetry, as well as create and present your own poems in an encouraging and inspiring workshop format, this is the place for you!

Among others, topics will include: reading & writing as a poet, poetry of remembering & remembrance, forms and how to make them relevant, and the rigors and rewards of revision.

The workshop will run from July 1st to September 9th. Cost is $250. Class size is limited. For more information or to register, please write violeta724 at earthlink dot net

Ben (who is not pictured because I forgot my camera, though he does in fact have the same pj’s and stuffed dog as Google boy here…) had his first sleepover last night: at his preschool! This is a long-standing tradition for the graduating kids–so long-standing that one of the teachers chaperoned a current parent on her sleepover. The families all gathered for a potluck barbecue dinner; at 8 p.m., a bell rang and we departed, leaving a few teachers and six hardy parents to wrangle 20+ excited preschoolers for the night. Ben hardly noticed our leaving, though Eli was very sad at leaving “Buh–buh” behind.

The kids got themselves into pj’s (most before we’d even left) and made glow-stick necklaces so that they could play flashlight tag in the yard after dark. They were invited in for cups of milk before bed, read to, and then left listening to stories on tape. I’m told most of the kids were asleep before 10, with a couple hold-outs finally dropping off around 11. Two kids changed their minds about staying over before bedtime; only one family got a 2 a.m. call to collect their daughter.

When we got to school this morning around 8, we found Ben (who’d managed to sleep through the early bird cacophony) sitting down to a nice breakfast buffet of fruit, yogurt, juice and banana bread. I think he’d sleepover at school every week now if he had the chance; there’s probably nowhere else outside our home that he’s happier.

It felt a little funny to walk past his empty bedroom last night, and Eli really missed him, but still, I think we could get used to this! I’m wondering how soon we can schedule the next sleepover…

When Ben was about a year old and Tony and I were beginning to despair of ever getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep again, we attended a baby sleep seminar (we only had one kid, so we had time for things like this). The seminar, led by the same calm and competent woman who’d taught our birth and nursing classes, ran through the basic information about what disrupts a baby’s sleep (teething; stomach upset; brain development; disturbances in the force…) and various approaches to handling them. She covered Ferber, she covered Weisbluth, and then she mentioned a new book, by Elizabeth Pantley: The No-Cry Sleep Solution. I was sold by the title alone, which set her ideas well apart from the other, more well-known sleep docs. I was not about to put Ben in his crib, shut the door, and leave the room. I didn’t believe that would teach him anything that I wanted him to learn.

So I bought Pantley’s book and read it thoroughly. She advises that you start by making charts of your child’s sleeping and waking patterns, and I still have one of these, of a fairly typical night. I wrote:

Last night Ben slept from 7:15-8:15; 9:20-12:30; 1-2:30; 3-4:15; 4:30-6; 6:30-8:15. Oy.

But after a couple weeks of somewhat demoralizing charting, I began to see some patterns, began to be able to pat him down to sleep again without always nursing him, and slowly, gradually, our nights improved. And neither of us cried about it.

Now, perhaps our nights would have improved without my charts, but Pantley’s book, with its tables and graphs, its supportive advice and its frequent quotations from other parents, helped make me feel like I was not alone, like I was taking steps to improve our situation and, most importantly, like it was going to get better. And it did.

So I was already inclined to like The No-Cry Discipline Solution, and when I saw that MotherTalk wanted reviewers, I signed up because while sleep is no longer an issue (some combination of our experience and Eli’s personality means Eli has always slept more easily than his older brother), discipline certainly is. I don’t know what’s to come, but right now, I can’t imagine two more intense subjects for discipline than a 5 year-old and a 2 year-old. We are Discipline Hungry around here, and I ate Pantley’s book right up.

First of all, lest you get the impression from her title that this book will have you tiptoeing around your kids, afraid to discipline them lest they shatter like so many wineglasses, don’t worry. Pantley’s not looking to provoke tears, but she acknowledges—often– that telling your kids no is going to upset them, and that’s ok. As she puts it, “You want your child to be unhappy about his misbehavior and the consequences it brings. This leads to better self-discipline and will help him to make decisions about how to act.” But I do agree with her that once the crying starts (my child’s or mine!) the opportunity for reasoned conversation, thoughtful reflection, or calm acceptance has been lost. And given how rarely those opportunities come at all, I don’t want to deliberately forestall them. So no-cry, here we go.

The opening section clearly and concisely sets out a foundation for discipline. She dispels myths that can get in the way of parenting well (“Good parents don’t lose their patience”) and promotes attitudes that support it (“Parents who do the right thing 70% of the time should feel proud of the job they are doing.”) She connects how you parent a teenager with how that child’s been parented as a kid, and I love the chart which makes it all look so clear: “Typical Older Child Behavior (leaves dirty dishes/clothes around the house); Preferred Behavior (obvious!); “How to Help Your Young Child Develop Preferred Behavior (as a Toddler, Preschooler, or Young Child).” Now, of course I know (and Pantley acknowledges) that it’s not always a direct route from A to B, but still I find such charts comforting; they suggest that there’s a possibility of success.

This section offered a lot of information I already know. I’m fortunate to parent in the context of a co-operative preschool, and we gather frequently for parent education meetings and more informal gatherings that cover a lot of Pantley’s material. Still, it’s useful to have the information gathered in one place, by a writer with a cheerful and encouraging tone. Sometimes it’s just helpful to pick up a book that tells you: “Keep in mind that [your child] isn’t out to get you, he isn’t trying to anger you, and he doesn’t have a master plan to drive you crazy. He’s just going about life in his blissful little world.” I like all the book’s quotations from parents, too, which offer a community like my preschool community; the remarks remind you that you’re not going it alone. The lovely pictures of kids throughout the book remind you why you make the effort (I’m going to keep flipping to the picture of Tristan, on page 137, when I need a laugh).

The second section, building on the first, offers basic parenting skills and tools. She starts with a list of the various problems that can trigger difficult behavior and offers ways to address them. Again, these are set out in a clear and concise way: Problem (Tiredness, for example), Solutions (make sure your kids gets naps; try not to drag them around on a day’s worth of errands; etc.) She offers a long list of strategies to get you through a tricky transition or diffuse a temper tantrum, from playacting to happy face cards to time outs. Some are silly, some are serious, but since one size doesn’t fit all, it’s great to have loads to choose from. Here, as in the rest of the book, Pantley offers charts, quotations from parents, a “reminder page,” for those of us with short attention spans, with a list of strategies; she’s offering a lot of information and makes it both easy to find and easy to use.

The third section, on anger, is the one I really focused on, because lately this is my biggest issue. I can absorb all kinds of good advice about disciplining my kids, but if I can’t speak to them without losing my temper, then they’re not going to hear it. The trick, for me, has always been that the big stuff doesn’t necessarily make me angry, and an easy day after a good night’s sleep doesn’t always guarantee a day without a flare-up. I can sail pretty calmly through playground meltdowns, grocery store whining, or my five year-old’s recent chant “You don’t know anything about me! You don’t know my feelings!” with a quiet, “I’m sorry you’re feeling like that right now,” but then find myself surprisingly worked up by a bit of toothpaste flying off the toothbrush into my hair. I grab the toothbrush from the out-of-control hand while part of me watches me lose my temper and thinks, “Really? This is the battle you’re fighting today?”

But as Pantley reassures us, this is normal. This happens because we’re doing this hard work — guiding willful people through the day, all day long, often without much support, parenting moving targets, kids whose ideas and needs change without warning–and because we are human, our reactions don’t always fit the perceived crime. What hel
ped me even more is her reminder that adults need reminders and test limits, too. We don’t always obey the known rules; we sometimes, willfully and consciously, “disobey.” Think about it. Why else are there speed limit signs posted every five miles on the highway? So Pantley offers a plan to manage anger, and even more helpfully, ideas on how to identify and reduce the situations that cause anger.

It has worked for me. In the past few days, we’ve endured an unusual series of bedtime meltdowns sparked by my refusing Ben’s last-minute requests for more dinner, dessert, more playtime, more books, etc. I’ve been hit, kicked, and called “Stupid butt-head Caroline” by my usually even-tempered and peaceful five year-old. And tempting though it has been to march him into his room, turn out the light, and slam the door, I’ve instead managed to keep some perspective. Two of his good friends are moving away next month. He is graduating from preschool next week. His little brother is suddenly a very active player in our games and our family plans. We haven’t gotten to the part where he doesn’t melt down at all, but we’re working on that, and in the meantime, I haven’t lost my temper with him since reading Pantley’s book. Tony and I have already spent time talking about adopting some of her ideas, and as soon as I finish this review, he’ll start reading the book.

The final section, “Specific Solutions for Everyday Problems,” offers an alphabetical list of the misbehaviors a parent has to deal with, from babytalk to yelling, and capsule strategies to address them. The section and its epigraph give you a great sense of the overall tone of Pantley’s book:

The list of topics in this section sounds like my three-year-old daughter’s daily to-do list!

It’s a serious book, but it knows humor can help. Here, and with its charts, its clear, non-patronizing tone, its careful repetition, the book simply models the approach it suggests we take with our kids.

This is not the first book about discipline that I’ve read, but I think it may be the last. Pantley isn’t afraid of writing out the obvious, and that turns out to be helpful to read, so I’ll leave you with one more quotation:

Children are childish. Children are inexperienced, naïve, and narcissistic. They have limited knowledge about social rules and expected behavior. Furthermore, they are separate people from us and they have free will.

Someone without kids might read this and think, why bother? But I read this and smile. Indeed, they are separate people, they have free will, and doesn’t that just make the days interesting?!

No, we haven’t moved out of San Francisco, we just know where to get a dose of small town (and summer weather!) when we (read I) need it: over the bridge and in Marin, where today we joined friends for their hometown pancake breakfast/Memorial Day Parade.

And when a couple enterprising kids rolled by us with their lemonade stand on a cart, you know we made a purchase!