Entries Tagged 'Family Life' ↓

My youngest child turned five yesterday! Five! 5! FIVE!

What a milestone for this Mama! (For him too, but come on! This is huge for ME!)

Child development books say that a person is who they are by the time they are five. They have a psyche, they’ve either achieved a sense of safety, love and well-being – or they haven’t.

He has. Hallelujah he has. We’ve done our jobs well. We’ve put in the time, energy and love. I’ve read the bedtime stories and taught the letters, numbers, colors and shapes. We’ve put in the work towards discipline and limits, all that hard parenting stuff. He’s a good, solid, stable, happy, well-developed person.

For me, as a woman and a mother, this day is significant.

It marks the end of a spiritual agreement I entered into with myself, my Mormon heritage, my unknowing children, and my desire for meaningful work when I became a mother.

The agreement was: I will have children and work from home, no matter what the sacrifices may be, giving most of my time, attention and focus to them, until the youngest one is five.

The agreement has been fulfilled. He’s 5! He’s five! He’s FIVE!

I’ve walked the tight-rope, sacrificed a great deal, fought the internal work v. mothering war, raged against the unfairness of my own agreement and it. was. so. hard. The result: two well-adjusted happy children with solid foundations that will last them a lifetime.

I did it! He’s five!!!

Hormone Martini Recipe

One part early puberty.
One part early peri-menopause.
Mix in a whopping bit of love.
Stir in some house rules in a card game, jokers wild.
Plop in some compound hormones.
Slather on some mean girls from school.
Drizzle some dark chocolate over a smashing headache.
Add a dash of bloating.
Pour over a marriage on the rocks.
Shake vigorously.

I’ll let you know how it turns out in a few years.

Yesterday I read my horoscope for 2011 and it said, among other wonderful and exciting things, that I would make a serious change in my working environment on Jan 4.

Sure enough, I woke up this morning and decided that I was done working at home with a four-year-old. It’s . . . under-stimulating, isolating, frustrating and just plain not working for me anymore. I’m glad I did it. But, I don’t want to do it anymore.

I’ve been feeling like this for a while now and coming up with some brainy ideas like putting Zack, my 4.5 year old, in childcare for longer and trying out the new co-working thing at Cohere.

This morning I couldn’t think of one single reason not to try it out TODAY!

I’ve got a lot on my plate with the release of TGR Body, several corporate projects to tie up, and a book I’m trying to do final edits on, not to mention keeping The Girl Revolution updated and growing.

“Mom, come wipe my bum,” is non-conducive to feeling unstressed, productive, centered and focused.

All my life I’ve been very attached to the idea of “working from home.” Since the birth of my first child I’ve been walking the fine line between meaningful work and meaningful motherhood very, very carefully.

It’s hormonal, in my opinion. How many times have you heard the words, “I never thought I’d want to quit my job, but then I had a baby and it kills me to leave everything and go back to work?”

Yeah. Then there’s the equally true and just as emotionally-charged, “Being a stay-at-home mom/work-at-home mom is the hardest job I’ve ever had. I miss my career, I miss people, I miss being validated with a paycheck.”

Yeah. The war rages on – inside of us.

Never under-estimate the power of estrogen.

I think his hormones were tied to mine in an inherent psychic, spiritual and emotional way that was stronger than any of my other desires or ambitions. As it was with my daughter. As it is with children and mothers in general, some more than others. But, as he turned four, I could feel his pull on my hormones lessen. Give a little here and there. My need, my desire to be with him most of the time got weaker. His “pull” on my mind, body and soul weakened, became more flexible.

As our hormonal connection got weaker and weaker, I got more ideas . . . maybe my friend Jenny is right, that co-working is perfect for me. Maybe Zack should be in a school setting. Maybe I can take on this project or that one. Maybe I need to – no, want to –  spend more time working and less time mothering. Maybe I really, honestly, truly don’t care what other people think about whether I work, or don’t work, or where I do it from, or where my children spend their time. This is MY life. Our life. We should do what we want. What feels best for us.

The more I thought about these ideas the more I fell in love with them.

So, today, I just did it. And it feels . . . liberating, exciting, calming, relaxing and right.

There’s a tendency to carry “junk” to the family gatherings around the holidays.

They’re disappointed in me because I …

… didn’t to the right college.

… married outside of my race, class or religion.

… got pregnant in high school.

… got arrested.

… forsook the family religion.

… voted for the wrong party.

… am gay.

Everybody does it, at some point, to some degree. Carries this feeling of guilt or failure or “not enough” to the family gathering with them. It kind of ruins the party, makes you not want to go.

This summer, I went to my cousin’s wedding. No one knew I was coming. My grandfather on the other side of the family had died and I was in town for his funeral. It was a happy coincidence that it was the same weekend.

As my  cousins, aunts and uncles saw me  unexpectedly, I saw a genuine light in their eyes. They were happy, excited to see me. It was so unplanned and unexpected that it made me suddenly see, in a way I hadn’t internalized before, that these people like me, they really like me. They love me. I am a person in their life that a they are glad to know. That old baggage I carry into the gathering every now and then doesn’t matter to them. They are my people. It was a wonderful sense of belonging. I had so much fun basking in it and dancing that night.

That’s my Christmas Wish for all of you.

Drop the baggage. See the light in their eyes.

2011 Dream Board

I love Dream Boarding. The art of collage, combined with the optimism of dreaming up anything your heart dares to desire, added to a bold dose of faith that “anything is possible,” proves to be a potent and powerful combination in my life.

It’s goal setting, only more fun and creative.

The number of things that have happened or are happening from my last dream board is nothing short of miraculous.

The problem was . .  . I wasn’t feeling it. Amazing, exciting, wonderful things were happening and I was feeling neutral about it. This bothered me. It was depressing. Why put forth all the effort to make all that amazing stuff happen if it wasn’t going to bring me the happiness, joy, fulfillment and validation I had expected?

Just in time, exactly what I needed appeared where it always does . . . Martha Beck‘s column in O Magazine. She writes of two women, one who wanted her business to succeed and one who wanted to have a baby. They thought it would make them feel loved or successful. It didn’t. It made them stressed out and that was disappointing. You know the feeling, you get the job only to find it eat at all your family time or your boss is a jerk, you have the baby only to find you’re so sleep deprived that it’s hard to find the love, you come back from the honeymoon expecting wedded bliss and you find yourself locked in a power struggle over housework or starring into the dark wondering when the snoring is going to turn to music.

Turns out it’s a simple lack of adjectives that accounts for this disparity between what we want and how we expect to feel when we get it. Do we really, really want a successful business or do we really, really want to feel happy, stimulated, creative, focused, validated and successful? Prior to this month, I would have answered, No Martha, I really, really want to be a best-selling author and to achieve this list of goals because I know that’s what will make me happy. But, having achieved a long bad-ass list of goals this year and feeling disappointed in the emotional payoff was enough to make me consider another perspective. Perhaps, Martha is right. Perhaps putting the feelings I’m hoping to achieve on the dream board rather than the goals I’m hoping will make me feel that way, will lead to those goals or better. (In my experience, I usually get better than my dreams.)

I went to last year’s dream board and looked. Sure enough, where I had written adjectives (feelings I wanted in my marriage) I had experienced a positive shift in my feelings. Where I had focused on achievements and goals (work) I had achieved a lot, but found it disappointing emotionally.

This year, when I brought home three pieces of poster board, collected all the old magazines, scissors, colored pencils and sharpies the kids and I focused on adjectives to describe how we want to feel in 2011, instead of goals we wished to achieve. I still have the goals. They are still on last year’s dream board and since many of them were super-ambitious, I’ll keep trucking along. But, this year, the focus is going to be more on feeling good while I achieve them. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Words for 2011: present, productive, powerful, inspired, excited, pleasure, joy, validated, successful, wealthy, confident, connected, loved, intimate, successful, fun, miraculous, electrifying, effortless, in flow, healthy, fit, sweet, happy, content, adventurous, passion, spiritual, sexual, stylish, charismatic, lucky, unified, fortunate, valued, feminine.

Ainsley's Dream Board