Yellow Ladybird

I know I say every holiday tradition is my favorite, but yesterday my favorite holiday tradition arrived in the mail: my aunt and uncle's box of homemade Christmas cookies.

Every year, my aunt and uncle send cookies to relatives and friends. Judging by the number of nieces, nephews, and siblings alone, they must fill at least two dozen boxes. They also make ten different kinds of cookies - and not your plain old sugar cookies, but gourmet cookies like hazelnut biscotti, pfeffermusse, and my all-time favorites, springerele and pecan tassies.  And then, they mail them out, which always impresses me since I never go to the post office, preferring to let packages and letters sit for months until the recipient ends up visiting us or the letter becomes moot and I write a new one.  So I have great respect for people who actually go to the post office.

We have decided to share the cookies with our children this year. We haven't always, as we think it is best for a child to show a certain appreciation for fine cookies before allowing them to partake in this holiday tradition. But Katherine and Clara, who got to taste a few last year showed the appropriate anticipation and respect when the box arrived this year, so they may now join in. We'll see about Alexandra. 

Last week, I had a day at home with Clara and Alexandra. With Katherine off at school and no plans on the calendar, we had the morning to ourselves. A nice break from our usual school-day chaos, I envisioned a leisurely breakfast and then a nice walk through the woods. A little sunshine, some very cold fresh air, and the joy of hauling two kids through the woods on a sled because in all likelihood they wouldn't be able to walk through the deep snow… I couldn't wait. I'd been longing to get into the woods all week. 

But Clara and Alexandra had other plans… it is their one morning at home together, the one morning they don't have to get dressed or all bundled to go outside, and they just wanted to stay inside and play. After all, there is so much to do…

like snuggling in Alexandra's bed with books, 

then turning it into a crib fort,

and bopping balloons that Dave hung from the ceiling, 

then building a couch fort, 

and of course, sitting by the fire to keep warm.

I didn't get my walk in the woods, but these two clearly enjoyed their indoor morning at home. 

Growing up, my family celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah, and I loved being half Catholic - half Jewish. But over the years, I became more "neither" than "both".

Lights of Winter

My childhood memories of the holiday season are warm and bright, filled with the excitement of presents and celebration. I was extra lucky because my family celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah. Being half-Catholic and half-Jewish set me apart and earned me the admiration of my slightly envious peers. The Santa crowd marveled at the eight days of gifts (not realizing my Hanukkah gifts typically comprised dental floss, pencils, and Scotch tape), and the Menorah crowd was curious about the logistics of Santa. I had gingerbread house-making play dates and could hold my own in dreidel games. For a few weeks out of the year, I took great pride in being “both.”

As I grew older, I began to understand that Christmas and Hanukkah were about far more than presents. The stories of both religions held my family history, and I felt connected to both sides, revering the traditions of all my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My pride shifted away from the quantity of presents, and towards the quality of my parents’ marriage as a testament of how the two religions could come together.

But in junior high, personal commitments to one’s religion began. My Jewish peers were Bar Mitzvah-ed, my Christian peers were confirmed. Now it was no longer just about family tradition and history but also about belief and faith.

Furthermore, my parents, who had been happy to indulge in the winter holiday celebrations, were not all that interested in joining either of the religious organizations that had, as I later discovered, refused to acknowledge their marriage years earlier. My pride wavered and, unable to choose one over the other, I lost my status of being "both." I became "neither." Still, we continued to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah in our home, and I grew to love the celebrations for the light and warmth they brought to the dark months.

Over the years, I let the Jewish traditions go without thinking much about them. By the time I had children, I found it felt more natural to implement my Christian traditions than my Jewish ones. But last year when my sister and I were reminiscing about our family menorah, she was surprised that we don’t celebrate Hanukkah at all: “Don’t you want to share our family’s history with your children?”

This simple question triggered something: a longing, a sadness, something, though I’m not quite sure what. Perhaps I had a little too carelessly forgone an important component of my childhood.  Judaism, just as much as Christianity, is a part of my past, my parents’ relationship, and the long history of both sides of my family. I suddenly wanted it back.

But how do I bring back my family tradition when I no longer feel Jewish? Do I even have the right to observe the Jewish holidays at this point? Is it ok to hold onto the tradition when I was not raised with the religious belief? These are questions I ask myself, and I am not sure of the answers. But I am beginning to feel a desire, a responsibility, to share this history with my children.

Perhaps I will start slowly. We will read books that tell the story of Hanukkah. I will share the traditions of my childhood. We will light the candles of our family menorah and say the blessing. And my children will receive dental floss, pencils and Scotch tape as gifts, just as my sister and I did when we were little. 

Happy Birthday to my seven-year-old!

A few weeks ago I posted about Katherine’s request for a pogo stick, and finding that balance between keeping things practical and giving in to a birthday wish. Well, we gave in (Jill, it was your comment that convinced us) and Katherine is now a proud pogo-owner. She loves it, and it turns out you can pogo in the snow and in the dark, which will come in very handy over the next few months. If I had known that, it would have fallen into the practical category and there wouldn't have been any discussion about whether or not to get it for her!

Katherine is also deeply absorbed in cat’s cradle, and was hoping for (and received) a string game book. Last night she happily got into her bed on her own while Dave and I finished bath and books with her sisters. That has never happened before. Thank you, string games (and Grandma!). Then this morning, I found her awake in her bed before her sisters woke up (which has never, ever, ever happened before) working on… string games. She has mastered the tortoise shell.

And then there was cake. An extra big cake. This year we tried out paper decorations on top instead of frosting and candy decorations. We had fun with paper doll snowmen, and Dave and I were pleased to have all the extra sugary crap that we had tucked away (just in case) for ourselves. Win win.

Katherine agreed it was a good day and is happy to finally be seven. Happy birthday sweet girl!

In the past, the “Fall Back” time change has been welcomed in our home. Not just because of the extra hour we gain, but because it magically resets the kids’ bedtime, which has a tendency to creep later and later every night. I don't want to place blame, but one parent allows bath time go on and on, gets suckered into one more story, one more sip of water, and one more song ("a really long song!"), and before we know it, seven o’clock is eight o’clock and The Ants Go Marching (all ten of them) is stuck in everyone's head for a week. Unfortunately, the other parent’s brisk and heartless one-story-one-kiss-one-pat-lights-out-not-another-word-or-else routine isn’t enough to hold it at seven o’clock. Probably because the kids request the sucker parent most of the time.

Then daylight savings comes and we’re back on track. While other parents dread the disruption to the daily schedule and complain of kids waking up at the new 5am, we enjoy longer evenings to ourselves with pleasant mornings of kids waking up on their own instead of our having to drag them out of bed at 7:10.

But this year has been different. Bedtime and wake-up have never been better, as expected, but daylight savings has destroyed our afternoons.

Late afternoon is already the trickiest part of the day for us. Alexandra wakes up from her nap and is ready to go outside. Clara is excited to play with her sisters after having endured quiet time all alone in her room, and is especially happy to see that Katherine is home from school. Katherine, who has held herself together in her usual, radiant and well-behaved fashion all day at school, is exhausted and needs down time to, let’s just say, “recharge her kindness”. She doesn’t want to be with anyone, least of all, eager Clara.

After struggling with this dynamic for the first two months of the school year, we finally figured out a carefully coordinated rotation of inside-outside time that met everyone’s needs and got us through from after school to dinner. I’d even say it was enjoyable. Then the time changed, it’s dark by 4:30, and the afternoon is grim again.

We’ve come up with some strategies to help adjust to the change: dinner is now at 5:15 instead of 6, jump roping is allowed in the kitchen, kids are granted access to the art supplies willy nilly (including the glitter on really rough days), before dinner lantern walks around the yard are a special treat for well-behaved children, and one parent gently encourages the other parent to stay on a tighter – and earlier – bedtime schedule (read: takes over at the first sign of delay). There’s no way we (I) would make it from 4:30-8pm every day, but 4:30-6:30 is manageable. 

We're working our way back to enjoyable and I think we'll get there soon. Hopefully before we Spring Forward.

How does the time change affect your routine? How do you deal with the early darkness?

A few weeks ago I attended a workshop on conflict resolution. The goal of the session was to introduce parents to a structured format of working through conflict in a non-judgmental, non-punitive way. I admit I didn’t really want to attend, having been through several of these types of trainings over the years and not really feeling like I had the energy to tape mock identities to my forehead for role-plays about bullies and nerds.  But I felt pressure to attend from the mass of flyer and email announcements, and the buzz about it from other parents sparked a sliver of hope that this workshop would offer something fresh and new. Plus, with free childcare, I really didn’t have any excuse. But as I sat down in the circle of other parents, I couldn’t help but regret having given up what could have been an afternoon to myself.

I participated in the workshop nonetheless. There were no bully-nerd role-plays; instead we provided examples of conflicts we’d recently experienced to work through in small groups. The time our neighbors wouldn’t turn down their music. Then we identified our emotions with “feeling cards”, angry, frustrated, disappointed, and linked them to our needs that weren’t met, support, shared reality, understanding. We provided feedback to each other on how to word an offense in a neutral, non-accusatory way. When the music is loud, I feel frustrated because my children can’t sleep. I played along half-heartedly while the parents around me appeared enlightened by the concept of identifying the true source of the conflict.

After the workshop, a friend asked if I had enjoyed it. I shrugged and mentioned it wasn’t really new information, and made some vague comment about having heard all of this before. She nodded and said, “Well, it’s always good to hear it again”. This friend obviously had a good attitude. I, obviously, did not, and at home, I complained to my husband that I didn’t get anything out of the workshop.

But of course that wasn’t actually true. Over the past few weeks, snippets from the workshop have snuck into my mind, not in moments of conflict, but in moments of general dissatisfaction. Like on those days when my late afternoon plan unravels in the face of tantrums and bickering, and my cup of tea, already twice reheated, sits un-sipped on the counter. The snippet hints, as if mocking me, Hmm, it looks like you are frustrated that you don’t even get ten minutes of uninterrupted time for a cup of tea... Or when my irritation suddenly spikes for no good reason, say, at the sight of the pile of crap that’s been sitting on the table for a week. The snippet taunts, Gee, I wonder what need isn’t being met; longing for a tidy and organized space, are you? At first I ignored the snippets, grumpily giving up on my tea and cursing the pile of crap on the table. But in the background, I’ve started to realize this annoying little voice in my head might actually carry some wisdom. Maybe the workshop wasn’t just about identifying emotions and needs during my children’s conflicts. Maybe I could use the information to work on bettering my mood. Mood resolution.

It’s pretty easy to identify frustration and impatience as the core “bad mood” mom emotions, and I can easily rattle off a whole list of unmet needs, as could any other mom, with lack of sleep at the top. But when I push past the superficial needs (I mean, everyone - kids or no kids - could probably claim sleep as an unmet need), the one thing I cherish but never, ever get anymore is time alone at home. I can add up an hour’s worth of time to myself if I count the six-mile drive to school for drop-off and pick-up and the occasional twenty-minute walk at lunch. But those moments borrowed against the usual routine are nothing compared to the liberation of being alone in an empty house for a good, long stretch of time. Time to wander through the rooms in their quiet stillness. Time to put things where they belong without little hands taking out other things à la Sisyphus. Time to not be needed by anyone.

Hey, look at that, the snippet applauds, you’ve identified the unmet need that is the source of your poor mood! Enlightening.

Of course I don’t see any way to meet this need for at least the next two years, and the workshop, unfortunately, didn’t cover how to deal with unmeet-able needs. But maybe simple awareness is a good start. It’s already easier to curb my frustration when I admit the mess itself isn’t really the issue, and that in a few years I will get to sip my tea while it’s still hot. 

In the winter garden, through the falling snow
Stars are gleaming, streaming, gleaming,
Down to earth below.

I'm not sure who wrote this (Nancy Foster?), but we used to sing it it Katherine's class and it has been in my head all day... and in the back of my mind I've been trying to figure out what to do with our garden before winter.

The family who lived in this house before us left a beautiful flower garden, and as recently as last week, we filled a vase with the last of the fall flowers. But after several nights in the teens, the green has finally turned to brown. Except for the pansies. They are a hardy bunch.

I've been asking friends what they do to their flower gardens in the winter, and everyone has a slightly different answer. I guess it is a personal decision: some like to cut down all the stalks, neat and tidy; others have very specific plans -  straw covering for this, leaf covering for that, cut this down, leave that standing - depending on the plant; and a few simply do nothing. I sort of assumed I would fall in the neat and tidy camp (seemed like a nice middle ground that wouldn't require too much thinking on my part), so this afternoon I went out with my clippers to get things in order. I cut a few things here and there, but found myself hesitating. 

As I hummed the Winter Garden song, I realized I wanted some sort of reminder of what was here all summer. Plus, the crunchy brown stalks are interesting in their own way. I bet they'll look quite nice in the first snow, before they are buried under what I hope will be many feet of snow (hey, if it's going to be cold and grey, then I want snow!) 

So for now I'm going to leave the flower gardens as they are and see what happens. 

And then it snowed! So here is how it looks in that first snow. 

This past year has been an interesting one... wonderful because we made it to Vermont and love it here, and challenging because getting here meant a lot of changes. Probably the biggest change was my becoming the working parent and Dave becoming the stay-at-home dad. I haven't written much about that side of life, but here is an essay I wrote about our role reversal.

Role Reversal

When my husband, Dave, and I were in the Peace Corps, planning our future together, he warned me he had no idea what he wanted to do when he grew up. I replied with certainty, “That’s fine, I plan to get a high paying job so you can do whatever you want.” Then I ended up going back to school for nearly ten years.

I tried out that high paying job when we first returned to the U.S., but I only lasted nine months before I couldn’t stand making one more dentist appointment for my slimy boss. I decided at that point I would never again work for someone who thought he was superior; I applied to grad to school in hopes of getting out of having a real job for as long as possible (while promising Dave I would be done in two years and then get a high paying job I would like, in Vermont).

The reality of our post-Peace Corps plan was that Dave supported me through grad school and we had three children. I did end up getting a job, but mostly I was home with the kids, and we hadn’t made it to Vermont. We were still living in D.C. when our oldest daughter reached kindergarten last year, Dave and I decided it was time to move; we wanted to be in our final landing spot before she started first grade. So we both asked our respective bosses if we could telecommute. Dave’s said no. Mine said yes. Turns out that was all we needed and within a few months, we left our lovely city neighborhood of nearly ten years and moved to rural Vermont. I became the full-time working parent and sole breadwinner, and Dave became the stay-at-home Dad. Finally, I had come through on my promise. I had the high (relatively speaking) paying job, and Dave was free to figure out what he really wanted to do.

This role reversal has been an adjustment. I used to know all the details about the kids’ day: what they liked for snack, whose knee got scraped, who napped and who had a meltdown. Now when I come home from work I feel like my arrival is disrupting a scene I wasn’t written into. I sit down to draw with my six-year-old, not knowing she has been asked to put her books away three times and still hasn’t done it. I brush past my four-year-old to listen to a phone message, not knowing she’s been waiting for me by the door for thirty minutes. I cut my one-year-old’s quiche into bite-size pieces and then feel admonished when Dave tells me she hasn’t needed her food cut for weeks now. I feel out of sync with my children and admit to myself it would be easier to work late than to come home early. The guilt of this realization sits heavily on the weight of responsibility, and I have to fight the urge to throw up my hands and snap, “I guess I’m just not the mom anymore!”

It’s difficult for Dave, too, to be home all day with the kids and the monotony of daily household chores that never amount to any final product of accomplishment. Finding chunks of time to focus on a new career takes creative energy that he doesn’t always have after a day at home with three young children.

But the reversal has also been as enlightening as it has been challenging. For one, I am beginning to understand that having to work and getting to work are two very different things. I like my work slightly less knowing I don’t have a choice, but take greater pride in it knowing its value to the family.

Finding guilt-free time for myself is also far more difficult than I expected. It was easy to head out the door for a run when Dave came home from work; after all, he hadn’t seen the kids all day and would surely be grateful for an hour alone with them while I took a little break. Now, slipping out for a run not only adds an hour to Dave’s already long day, but takes away an hour from my already limited time with the kids. The time-at-home disparity of a one-working-parent set-up does not favor personal time for the working parent, a concept I didn’t grasp when I wasn’t the one working.

However, the piece I never fully appreciated is the responsibility the sole working parent carries. Everything is wrapped up in my job – our income, our health insurance, our retirement, and even our vacation schedule. I didn’t give Dave nearly enough credit for the burden he carried for all those years.

It still comes up in conversation every so often, my early promise of a high paying job. For years it was a question Dave asked in jest, “Tell me again, when are you going to get that high paying job you promised?” Now the conversation about that promise, which we have both fulfilled for each other, carries a deeper understanding and mutual respect for the other’s role in the family.