Toddlers

Honking at Me?

Applying sunscreen to a two-year old is now a two person job. This morning, I held the wriggling creature, as her dad tried to make her laugh. One hand on her waist, the other trying to hold hair back from her neck, I counted to five as we swiped the deodorant-like stick across her face. In our juggling she paused, “Earrings Mama!”

“Where?” I asked.
“Right there, on the counter.”
“If we get this sunscreen on your face, you can pick a pair.”

She agreed and the wiggling subsided. As she calmed, her focus turned toward selecting the perfect pair of stick-ons, she started humming to herself.

“Which ones do you want Mama?” she asked.
“You pick first.” I said, sucking my teeth as I looked at the clock.

“No, you.”

She insisted. And I succumbed, being given a pair of pink daisies with blue petals.

I remember once seeing a meme that said if a toddler gives you something, you must accept it. They have so little tangible things and most are connected right to their hearts.

Few people saw me out in the world today. I’m not sure if the clerk at the post office noticed my ears. But I knew that little gift was there.

On my walk back to my office, my head full of thoughts of what-ifs and anger about the current state of certain things, I noticed I was getting honked at.

“What the hell?” I thought, looking down the street.

But no, the looming big trash truck wasn’t honking at me.

They were tooting the horn for the gaggle of school children flocking to the fence at recess.

As the blue truck moved towards me at the crosswalk, I watched grown men in green vests delight small children in their green Catholic school clothes.

Tears came to my eyes.

Yes, the world is hurting, but the trash men are honking. The children are laughing. And giving gifts.

We must slow down to notice them. What’s getting in the way of your ability to receive?

I’m still wearing the earrings tonight. Those suckers are surprisingly sticky. If they make it through the night, I’ll be sure to remind my daughter just how grateful for them I am.

A Different Take on Ruffled Feathers

Tucked away in the back right corner of our refrigerator lives a bag of old bread butts. While slightly disturbing that the crusts seem to never mold, we save the remnants for the duckies.

Yesterday, I pulled the collection out of the fridge, and baby proudly held the mass of old carbs in her lap as we drove to the park.

“Will there be duckies Mama? Will there be duckies?”
“I hope so. We’ll just have to see.”

When we arrived with another little family, we perched ourselves against the stone wall, creating a bit of a barrier between ourselves and the slightly aggressive birds. Surely we aren’t the only ones throwing our crusts to this group of geese and ducks.

As I took care to pass out the pieces, babies and toddlers threw chunks of bread to the waiting creatures. Giggles and joy cascaded into the water as feathers ruffled and beaks chomped on the soggy morsels.

I watched as little kids were immersed in the joy of what their gifts provided – a bit of control in inviting an animal into their space.

Sure, we gave old bread. But the geese and the ducks gave me so much more. Under blue skies and canopies of golden leaves, I sank into the joy of what it means to offer whatever fills our pockets. When we are able to give, other creatures will happily receive.

It was a simple ten minutes. After a few pieces, baby promptly told me she was done. It was time to go to the playground. And I asked her to wait, just a few minutes more, as I allowed myself to sit in gratitude for the gifts of a fall morning, friends by my side, and enough bread to live in the fridge until we were ready to share.

Simple abundance and quacking ducks. Beautiful things.

Twirling

We made it through another one. Father’s Day mixed with emotions – gratitude, remembering, looking forward, hating for just a moment, Hallmark. As we sat around a shared table for dinner, I thought to myself, my husband is the only adult at this table who hasn’t lost a father. Odd to be in similar company of people my parent’s age. Odder still that where I put the apostrophe matters.

And as with most holidays, I twirled between wanting to be present and wanting to turn towards the ache of missing someone so profound without forgetting those still here with me. How do I celebrate life and mourn the dead?

I tried.

“Now I enter the “safe zone”, I spat, ruminating to myself sarcastically. While no month is “safe” from grief, there’s an ease that comes with the end of June as I look out towards the rest of summer. From now until October, the gremlin seems to behave herself.

Most evenings these days we turn on music after dinner, and if I’m lucky, my toddler will let me pick her up to give her a squeeze. We spin and hold hands, dancing in the kitchen. “More Mama, more” she’ll often request. And in the twirling, memories are made.

There’s a new sweetness to this summer. Her sticky neck and red cheeks from the days heating up. She insists on putting on sandals by herself, requiring deep levels of patience and persistence from both of us. She finds exuberant joy in learning how to control a hose. Popsicles are messy work. You forget how much you take for granted already knowing when you’ve got a little creature soaking in so very much.

And in this early-summer space I want to remember the evening spins, as I watch the roller coaster slow. The trolley care has been put into neutral, shifting down the grief hill we’ve been climbing for quite some time.

I want to be twirling in colors and sniffing the deep scent of tomato leaves off my hands, as I watch a little human grow. Maybe I can be more kind to myself, allowing what comes next to appear.

More Mama, More. Hold on tight.

We go pretty fast. But it’s in the early evening light, as the sun sets and my patience gets tested, where beauty is found. Twirl with me.

Mama Loves You

Last night I put an overtired toddler to bed. We asked too much of her – dinner was late, there was a tich too much t.v. while we cooked said dinner. I insisted on a bath. The offer of picking out a book pushed her over the threshold, and her tears started to flow. I’m learning to respond with more kindness when these moments happen, rather than pushing through, and as we closed the books, and turned out the lights, baby continued to cry.

Luckily, I wasn’t pushed past my limit just yet and I was prepared to sit with the tears for as long as it took. However, her distress is also distressing, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I started rubbing her back and singing a tune, listing out all of the people that I know to love her.

Mama loves you and Daddy loves you.
Pop Pop loves you and Gigi too.
Nahna loves you and Sam loves you.
Gaga loves you and M&M too.

Over and over I sang the made up rhymes until eventually, baby began to calm down. Her breathing slowed, eyes drooped and she fell asleep, awash with words of love.

I’ve been having so many conversations with hurting people lately. We’re tired, scared, nervous for another tumultuous election year. Layoffs are happening. The need for collective exhales seems to persist. And in those moments of distress, I’m realizing I’m gifted at being grounded, unafraid to sit in the dark. However, in order to do so well, I believe we need to be awash in words of love.

In a recent conversation with a wise friend, he encouraged me again with the invitation to stop and remember how incredible it is just to be alive. To sit in a warm coffee shop, with gloves on my cold fingers, and have intelligent, heart-warming conversation is a miracle in times like this. We woke up today. The cars started. The coffee brewed. How many things had to go right just to get us to this point, wherever you are now, reading these words.

Yes, there are a million stimuli, and the desire to melt down like an over-tired toddler is an active one. At times, we may need to let the tears flow. And when they do, for whatever reason, may you start to make your own version of the song.

You may not know Nahna or Gaga, but I’m sending love to you. Be awash in words of love. A beautiful thing.

Of Cautionary Tales

She shares the tale frequently. 

The one of a rebellious toddler with a shaggy hair cut – his red locks grazing the back of his neck as he turned his chin up to look at her with defiance in his big brown eyes.

coil

“Don’t touch that,” she said softly, “it’s hot and you

will get hurt.”

Always curious, you could watch him processing her words behind his crinkled forehead.

With defiance, he made his own decision, and leading with his balmy palm, stuck all five fingers straight to the coils and promptly started to scream.

I’ve been thinking of that little toddler and all the tales of caution we get served up.

Don’t put your hands on the burners, take your vitamins, avoid cigarettes, build up your 401k. For if we do all the right things, we’ll get out unscathed.

This week started with me calling 9-1-1 for a stranger in Macy’s. A pregnant woman had fainted. We were shopping for jeans. Dylan helped her partner lay her down on the worn green carpet in the department store. Undertrained staff frantically fumbled and we, just bystanders, made the decision to call for help.  While Dylan moved the tables stacked with denim, I leaned over and counted the woman’s breaths saying “Now. Now. Now” to the dispatch woman on the other end of the phone.  Another kind stranger fanned the woman with a crumpled flyer full of coupons waiting to be clipped.

I did something kind. We responded to a situation and when the emergency team walked in, I said good luck and we went on our way. I didn’t have it in me to stick around and see what happened next. Was it any of my business anyway?

The week ended with someone I love in the hospital and while she is ok, the tethers of vulnerability connecting us still brought me to tears. A friend was evacuated from her house due to forest fires.

All of these people take their vitamins, eat vegetables, and save money where they can. They tsk at diet soda and hug their loved ones and take deep breaths.

They’ve heard the tales, took caution, and still seem unable to escape the pain.

How do we witness and engage in others pain? How do I experience the heat of their experiences surging into the hot plates sitting in front of me?

Whether we know a diagnosis is coming, or show up and ride an elevator up to a sterile room full of beeping equipment, or call the adoption agency, or click send on the email with the hard to say feelings from years of resentment. We have choices with how much we want to touch the burning red. We can see it coming. The response is ours.

Is it really protecting ourselves to avoid the glow all together? Where can we lean in and feel the heat and not get scorched?

Or perhaps, we need to grab and hold and promptly let ourselves scream.

The choice is ours. What a beautiful thing.

 

 

 

ABC’s

They tell me to worry about all these things. You could go through the alphabet, much like my mom does with her toddler students at day care.

A is for Airplanes. The 737 seems to be failing.

B is for bacteria. It’s crawling all over you. Wash your hands. Bleach.

C is for cancer. Don’t drink Diet Coke. Put down that cigarette.

D is for Donald… Ugh. Yes I am afraid.

E is for Eggs. Are the ones I just purchased cage-free and do the chickens producing them even have beaks?

F is for Future. Uncertainty looms.

We could go on and on… at least until X. It always gets tricky at X. I’m not afraid of xylophones. Some people are afraid of their eXes I suppose.

I want to stop the worrying. I’ve caught myself tuning in to CNN too much – hoping for good news. Am I crazy? They thrive on my anxious clicking, fine-tuned to hone in on the bad.

So today, here’s a beautiful ABCs – let’s bring it in and focus back to the basics.

jessicah-hast-PrrTltpJdKE-unsplash.jpg

Photo by Jessicah Hast on Unsplash

A is for Apples crunching – honey crisps falling on bending bows of bountiful trees

B is for Babies – brave people keep making them

C is for Cheese – have you had cheese! I bought burrata and more gorgonzola for those gorgeous pears

D is for Dogs – mostly my dog Olive

E is for Eggs – soft boiled with a dash of salt

F is for Family – as messy as we are we keep trying to show up

G is for Grandmothers. Mine makes me smile.

H is for Home. However you define it, may you find comfort in those walls.

I is for Iced coffee – just a few days left to drink your java on the rocks

J is for Juice – spiced apple cider – cinnamon swirling, spice sediment mixing in magic

K is for Koalas –  k is a little tough…

L is for Light streaming in, sun rising slowly, dancing in the golden leaves

M is for Marriage – it’s hard and messy and comforting and wise

N is for Not Yet – I don’t have all the answers – there are things I’m waiting on. Not yet

O is for Octopus. Isn’t it funny God gave animals eight legs?

P is for Pumpkins on porches, in pies, and in breads

Q is for Questions – the big and the small

R is for Remembering – the good times, the vibrant memories of love

S is for Silence. Deep breath. Slow down. Hear the pauses your breathing creates.

T is for Time. We think we have more.

U is for Underwear – a fresh, basic staple

V is for Vacuum lines on the carpet

W is for Walking in the evening before the sun sets

X is for Xylophone – everyone knows this

Y is for You – you have purpose, passion, meaning

Z is Zinnia – flowers linger while seasons wait to change

How can you turn your fears into gratitude today?