Jiaozi

The poetry of everyday things

Where was I, before work/housework/homework distracted me?

Oh, yes. How to succeed at dual domestic and professional occupations. I am indebted to a couple of readers for pointing me in the right direction. Tracie commented:

I keep coming back to the idea that we need to redefine our ideas of success.... I can't help but think of all the women I come across in the art world ... that make wonderful art and share it with their families and friends and art communities. Thousands of them share their photographs and crafts, recipes and stories on blogs and in books and galleries. ... They reach out to women all over the planet and encourage creativity and confidence. That has to be considered success on some level, doesn't it?

Along the same lines, Maia said:

I think that when you have children, especially young children, unless you have already managed to find financial success ... you can only hope to work in bits and togs and pieces. And that our art reflects that - and is a (not really recognized) school of its own.

Bingo!

If we measure success in terms of fame or financial success, very few of us -- male or female, parent or non-parent -- will succeed. We may make small, satisfying steps -- publish a book, have a gallery show, get reviewed -- but it's less likely that we will be able to support ourselves and our families through creative work or see ourselves on the cover of a magazine.

If, instead, we define success as having our work seen and appreciated by people, especially people who are smart and discerning, then we stand a much better chance. In fact, by this definition, we have already succeeded. Thanks in large part to the Internet, those of us who blog and social-network and run little online shops are making art, and we are reaching other people with our work. Maybe a dozen people, maybe hundreds. But the people whom we reach are choice.

Some of the best writers I’ve ever read are bloggers. Most of them are probably not even making enough money from their blogs to pay the hosting bills. That’s okay. Very few books ever turn a profit. Through the Internet, I have gotten to know artists whom I never would have known existed otherwise. I've found a community of creative women who support one another's efforts with encouragement and, often, patronage. We are creating our own sort of salon here on the Internet, in between sessions of baking bread and wiping snotty noses. The kitchen table is not exactly the Algonquin Round Table, but we can pretend.

It took me a while to "get" social media such as Facebook and Twitter. When I figured them out, it was a revelation. I am amazed at how, given limited time and space, women can make poetry out of everyday things. I turn on my computer every day and revel in these beautiful glimpses of domestic life, each one a poem in itself:

Crow funeral. September raspberries and roses.

Sesame spinach and roasted beets, carrots, turnips, potatoes and cipollini onions, with broiled corn on the cob.

In southern California, we throw open the doors and windows for gray skies and wind and fog.

Sunday morning. Cooking pancakes with honey. Loving light rain. Playing with cats and dogs. Watching hummingbirds. Morning lessons. Flash cards. Reading poetry aloud from an old Childcraft.

Bread is in the oven. Rain on the roof.

Kitchen tables, head wraps, ear-piercing, dog walking, coffee drinking, box packing, Shrek.

Made-from-scratch blueberry pancakes with toasted walnuts and iced tea. 

Potatoes, fresh from the garden.

Rosemary focaccia, broiled eggplants and zucchini with basil lemon vinaigrette.

As in Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural poem, "Praise Song for the Day," these snippets celebrate the rhythms of everyday life. As Maia suggests, we are indeed creating a new genre -- the Facebook poem, the Flickr gallery, the Twitter memoir -- each chapter complete in 140 characters or less.

I used to have a boss who closed our staff meetings with the command "Now go and make beauty." It was an odd thing to say at an aerospace company, yet it made perfect sense to our group of designers, artists, writers, and editors. We took what we were given and we really did try to make beauty out of it. We polished every technical report as if it were going to appear in The New Yorker. I doubt that the recipients appreciated our craftsmanship, but we took satisfaction in our work just the same.

It is easy to get discouraged about the business of creativity. The huge market for "reality" television shows and ghost-written celebrity tell-alls does not bode well for originality. A system that does not take women's subjects seriously hampers our efforts to be respected. Fine. The Internet is a legitimate medium. We are here to provide each other with encouragement and support. Let's start by respecting ourselves and our work. We'll figure out the money part later.

Now go and make beauty.

CSI: Mommy

Everyone loves a mystery. We're all amateur sleuths at heart, right? That's why God invented Google.

I have found an easy way to satisfy my inner Nancy Drew. If you'd like to try it, just get hold of an assortment* of children and pets, and in no time you'll be setting up a personal crime scene investigation lab in the comfort of your own home -- complete with disgusting bodily fluids!

With a little help from the usual suspects, you'll soon find yourself solving mysteries like the following taken from actual case files:

• What's that smell?

• Who is throwing up hairballs all over the house?

• What is the dog eating?

• Why does the cat have hairspray on her fur?

• Where are your socks?

• Where are your underpants?

• Why are there four pairs of dirty socks in your backpack?

• Who took the last Oreo and put the box back on the shelf?

• Why am I the only person in this family who knows how to tell time?

• Why did you wait until 9:30 p.m. to tell me you need your uniform washed for tomorrow?

• Are your legs broken?

• Did you hear what I just said?

• Did you just say what I think you just said?

• Who forgot to flush?

If, like me, you are closer in age to Jessica Fletcher than to Nancy Drew, you get to solve the following bonus mysteries ripped from today's headlines:

• What did I come in here for?

• Where are my keys/glasses/phone?

• Why did I open the refrigerator door?

• What was I saying?

Seriously, what was I saying? Oh, yeah -- get yourself a big enough brood and soon you'll be solving mysteries like these and bringing your junior miscreants to justice before they have a chance to say, "I didn't do it!"

*You have to have more than one suspect or there's really no mystery, is there?

Random 100 days

Some blogging friends recently posted lists of their personal accomplishments during President Obama's first 100 days. Their lists looked something like the following:

• Earned a PhD.

• Taught my 3-year-old algebra.

• Wrote a book.

• Grew family's entire food supply in the back yard.

• Built a house with my bare hands.

Me, not so much. I can hardly remember the past 100 days, much less list my accomplishments, trivial as they are.

I do know, however, that mid-May through mid-June is my crunch time. That's when all the kids' dance recitals, sports events, soccer tryouts, gymnastics performances, school plays, talent shows, final school projects, graduation ceremonies, etc., fall. I hardly have time to catch my breath.

That's a roundabout way of saying that I'm falling behind on blogging. I've written numerous posts in my head, really I have! For all four (four?!) of my blogs! But sometimes you have to choose between living life and blogging about it. I'll catch up with you later.

Babies don't keep

Many years ago, my mother clipped a poem from a women's magazine and taped it to her dresser mirror. The last lines of the poem went:

The cleaning and scrubbing
will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up,
as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs.
Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.

My mom had seven babies, so there were lots of cobwebs at our house. But I always remembered that little poem.

When my babies were little, I rocked them and thought to myself, "Remember this moment. Remember holding your baby. Remember how her head smelled and how her little body felt in your arms. Soon she'll be too big to hold and you won't be able to imagine that she was ever this small."

I remember thinking this, but it's hard now to remember actually holding them. They really did grow up fast. Bess was 10 months old when we met her and Ella was 12 months. Two months after we brought them home, they were walking, feeding themselves, and starting to talk. I missed their infancy. I held them as long as I could, but they wanted to be up and doing things. There were things to learn and explore. They became toddlers overnight. And May was 8 when she arrived, her babyhood lost to all of us including herself.

I wish I'd asked Big A to take more pictures of me holding my babies. It would be nice to have proof that I did it, because now I'm second-guessing myself: Did I hold them enough? Did I spend too much time on cleaning and scrubbing, or God forbid, computing? Why is it so hard to imagine them being that little? I can look at pictures of my girls when they were babies, and I see in those tiny faces the big girls they have become. But I can't remember what it was like to look down and see a little face gazing up at me from knee-height, or how it felt to pick up a squirmy 17-pound body. My memory is obscured by the 100-pound teenager who is standing in front of me right now.

I was right to think that they would grow up fast. But I was wrong to think that they would become too big to hold. While we're sitting on the sofa together, one or two or all three girls sidle close to me. They rest their heads on my shoulders and creep onto my lap. In front of their friends, they give me a brusque goodbye; safe at home, they grab my hands when I tuck them in and pull me back onto the bed. "You will always be my baby," I tell them. Even May.

When my mother comes to visit, as she did on Mother's Day, she sits close to me on the sofa and wraps her arms around me and tells me I was her first baby. I'm bigger than she is. If I tried to sit on her lap, I think I'd break her. But if she could hold me, she would. I understand that now.

The Fixer

I've learned a lot about dogs since S, our Corgi mix, joined us. For one thing, dogs sure can shed! I thought I'd been through the worst, having once owned a white Persian cat, but her fur output was nothing compared to this dog. I'm constantly vacuuming up drifts of black fur along the baseboards.

Another thing I've learned is that dogs get bored. And a bored dog is a naughty dog. Our cats don't get bored. If there's a ball of yarn handy, great; if not, that's cool too. They can always catch up on their sleep. We don't have to worry about chewed shoes and toilet "accidents" if we don't keep the cats entertained. (If they are feeling jealous, that's another matter.)

I've also learned that one way to keep a dog entertained is to give her a challenge. You don't just hand her a treat, because that will only keep her occupied for, oh, about one second, since dogs tend to inhale food. You stuff a treat inside a Kong toy and let her figure out for herself how to get it out. Depending on the reachability of the treat and the resourcefulness of the dog, it may take awhile. This is a good thing, because according to dog experts, working to solve problems keeps dogs intellectually and physically fit.

I have to remind myself of that when S has a biscuit stuck inside her Kong and I feel the urge to fix it for her. Because if I do, the game is over. If I leave her alone, she will stick with the task much longer than I would have given her credit for.

Watching S work for her treat, I have been thinking about parenting. I've felt the same urge to fix things for my children. When they were little and learning to stack blocks, I wanted to put a finger out and nudge the blocks into place so the tower wouldn't fall. There were times I gave in to the urge, and times I resisted. When I held back, sometimes the tower would fall, and sometimes there were tears and frustration. But eventually my children learned how to stack the blocks securely and build a bigger tower, and I learned that a moment's frustration wasn't going to kill them.

It's a constant struggle, knowing when to fix something for your children and when to leave it alone. I think it's especially difficult for parents today. We have somehow gotten the impression that we can, and should, protect our children from every disappointment and difficulty. And the truth is that we can't, and shouldn't. My children are so precious to me, of course I wish I could shield them from every heartache, but it's just not possible. If I jump in to help every time they face a challenge, they'll never learn how to stack blocks, or manage friendships, or work independently. I hate to say it, but the School of Hard Knocks is a pretty effective school.

I was at a family holiday party a few months ago where there was a white elephant exchange for the children and adults. Everyone brought a wrapped box of cereal, so the stakes were pretty low. There was a possibility that you'd wind up with a box of something yucky (i.e., sugar-free), but mostly we were doing it for fun, not for the prizes.

One mom, a lovely, caring mom, had a bit of anxiety about the game. She wanted us to agree that adults could not take cereal from children, though trading is part of a white elephant exchange. She hovered over her school-age kids and coached them through the selection process based on her guesses as to what was inside the wrapping: "Don't take that one, honey, take the one on the left...no, the one in red paper."

My brother and I laughed and suggested that a little disappointment wouldn't hurt the kids. "They might as well learn now that you don't always get what you want," I said, and I laughed again at how much I sounded like a cranky old man. My brother and I riffed on this for a while: "Yep, they should get used to disappointment, because that's what life is all about. It'll toughen 'em up." We were being facetious. Semi-facetious. Because if a fourth-grader can't handle the loss of a $3 box of cereal? What's he going to do when he doesn't make the soccer team or get into the college of his choice? (Also, he missed a valuable opportunity to learn how to distinguish between wrapped boxes of All-Bran and Lucky Charms, a skill he could use in the future.)

That's an extreme example of helicopter parenting, but I don't think it's all that unusual. Our school has to give the children instruction in problem-solving. A boy will break his pencil and sit staring at it or burst into tears rather than go get another pencil. Girls tattle to the playground teacher instead of settling their own disputes over who gets the next turn on the swings. We've all heard of parents coming to the high school threatening to sue when their son or daughter is kicked off a sports team for drinking. Colleges are even dealing with parents who come to campus to demand that a student's legitimate C grade be changed to an A. I don't even want to think about what these kids' future employers will have to deal with.

A column written a few years ago by parenting educator Jan Faull made a deep impression on me. A parent wrote to say that her family was moving to a new city because of her husband's job. She was fearful of how her children would cope with this change. I expected Faull to respond with tips on easing the transition, and she did -- but another part of her answer surprised me. She talked about what a great opportunity this would be for the children to learn resiliency. When was the last time you heard someone talk that way?

It sounds quaint to say, "It'll build character," as our grandparents did, but was their approach really so wrong? I felt encouraged by Faull's advice. I realized that if my kids hit a few bumps in the road, it does not mean I am a failure as a parent. I can't always smooth the way for them, but I can give them the tools (and space) they need to meet challenges on their own.

I have to go now. One of my kids can't find any clean socks.

Wake me when it's over

I was reading the book Delivered From Distraction by Dr. Ned Hallowell last week, and the following passage jumped out at me:

Most people who have ADD do not get enough sleep. They stay up too late on their computers or watching TV, and then they have enormous trouble getting out of bed in the morning....You should consult a sleep specialist if you do not wake up each morning feeling refreshed from your night's sleep, or if you do not get enough sleep. "Enough" sleep is that amount of sleep it takes for you to wake up without an alarm clock.

Ha! Do you find this as funny as I do? Do you know any woman whose life in structured in such a way that she does not require an alarm clock (either literally or in the form of small animals and children) to wake up in the morning? Or any man, for that matter? I have no idea what time I would wake up on my own, and I'm not likely to find out in the near future. As for staying up late working on the computer or watching TV, I'm certainly guilty of that -- I have to wait until all the kids are in bed to have any time to myself, free of distractions. (That's why I'm writing this at 11 p.m.)

I have to wonder whether ADD is the cause of sleep difficulties, or the result. If we're all failing to get enough sleep, is it any wonder we don't know where we left our keys or what we went into the kitchen for? I don't need a sleep specialist to tell me why I don't wake up refreshed from my too short, too often interrupted night's sleep. I would like to try the sleep cure for my diminishing memory and focus, but I doubt it will be possible until the last bird leaves the nest. And I'm in no hurry for that to happen.

Summer break, my foot

Something's breaking, but I think it's my back. Though I tried not to overschedule the family this summer, somehow the calendar filled up. The swimming lessons have concluded (a half-written post about that is sitting idle in my TypePad account), I cleaned out the garage (another half-written post), I scheduled our vacation, two of the kids' summer classes are over, and I have yet to take a breather.

One reason is that we're taking care of a lot of medical issues this summer. Nothing big, but it's time-consuming. We took Ella for psychoneurological testing to address her school problems (this story is also a half-finished post), and the psychologist recommended that we have her vision evaluated. We took her to a well-regarded developmental optometrist, and now she must do vision training daily. I realized that Bess had never had a formal eye exam, so I took her for a checkup; fortunately, her vision is perfect (no surprise). Then I took May to Ella's optometrist to see if anything could be done for her strabismus (one or both of her eyes occasionally turn out slightly, but the ophthalmologist we had seen before said she was too old for treatment). She came away with a prescription for therapeutic glasses, vision training exercises, an eye patch, and instructions to get her bangs away from her weak eye. Both Ella and May will need to make several return visits to the optometrist. Ella has had a few appointments with the pediatrician this summer, and all these doctors are a few towns away, so we spend more time driving than we do being seen by the doctor (at $4.33 a gallon! Eeek!).

Bess made her annual visit to the orthodontist, but she still has four baby teeth to lose (at age 12 -- she's a late teether) before she gets braces. I also took Ella to the orthodontist; his eyes got a little big when he looked in her mouth and he recommended that she have four baby teeth extracted because there is no room for her adult teeth (she has a double row of teeth, like a shark). A and I fired our dentist, who was pushing way too many aggressive treatments, and found a low-key dentist who doesn't nag as much and thinks our teeth look dandy.

I work with Ella every day on reading and math, running through flash cards and a variety of books to keep things interesting. Bess and May have been doing the library's summer reading program; actually, they finished the program by the 4th of July and are now reading on their own. I work with May constantly on pronunciation and grammar, which is tough because, as you know, English makes no sense. Everything's irregular. I also take her into Chinatown twice a week for dance classes, which is another adventure I need to write about.

Most of my summer reading has been duty-related; as May says, "Mom! All your books are about taking care of kids!" I don't want to sound too much like I'm whining; this is all part of being a mom. But sometimes I really feel the need to recharge my batteries. I treated myself to some fun books at the used-book store (a book of essays by Sarah Vowell and Barbara Kingsolver's newest book), and now all I need is a quiet afternoon and a couch by a sunny window. But first I have to finish the writing assignment I just took on....Maybe I'll take my break in September. 

What's your name? Who's your mommy?

Mommy, Mama, Mum, Mother: our children's names for us, and our pet names for them, are part of the private language of a family, like the baby words ("biscetti" for "spaghetti") that remain in our vocabulary long after the children have outgrown them.

Bess called me Mama until the day after her second birthday, when suddenly I became Mommy. Did she decide it sounded less babyish? I wouldn't put it past her. Today I am usually Mom; I'm Mama when she's tired, and Mother (as in "MO-ther!") when she is exasperated with me. May and Ella switch among Mommy, Mom, and Mama. When May says, "Mama," her lingering Chinese accent makes it sound like the French Maman, which I find absolutely charming.

The way May tells the story of her life, she has had six mamas. (She was sent to live with several different families before she was finally taken to the social welfare institute.) She calls her foster mother her "China mom." She calls her first mother her "real mom." She came up with this term all on her own. I always refer to her as "your first mom" or "your birthmom." I don't think she had ever heard the term "real mom," but as she learned English, this is the combination of words she put together.

You know what? I don't care. I'd give a stern dressing-down to anyone who tried to ask me, "Who's her real mom?" I was as offended as anyone else by Teleflora's gaffe in labeling adoptive moms as "non-moms." But when May calls her birthmom her "real mom," she intends no disrespect to me. In fact, it would be disrespectful to correct her, because her birthmom isn't a non-mom, either -- she is her real mom. And so am I.

To May, I am simply her mom. No qualifier needed. And when she says, "You're the best mom I ever had," I know she means it sincerely.

Mama, Mommy, Mom, MO-ther -- it's all good. I waited a long time to be a mother, and my kids can call me whatever they want, as long as they call me.

However, a word of advice for those of you who are still waiting for your children: remember that whatever M name you choose, it will follow you forever. My mother has seven grown children and 13 grandchildren, and she still stops and turns around when she hears a kid cry, "Mom!" in the grocery store.

Once a mom, always a mom. Or mum. Or mama. Your choice.

More insanity

Ha. I just set up a spreadsheet to track the sizes and colors of the seven mermaid costumes I'm making for Peter Pan. I do so love a fresh spreadsheet. (Jo, I am forced to be organized because my brain is like a sieve these days.)

The business of summer fun

The tulips are blooming, and to me that means one thing: It's time to work on my summer activity spreadsheet. Though I know it borders on insane to set up a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to plan summer activities, the project is truly complex enough to warrant this level of detail.

I have a row set up for each child, and a column for each week of summer. (We used to have 12 weeks, but now it's down to nine.)  I enter the "must haves" like swimming lessons and soccer tournaments. Then I look for openings for dance classes and drama camp and, maybe, vacation. It takes me weeks to run through the various scenarios.

Here's the fly in the ointment: The groups hosting these activities have vastly different organizational abilities. Facilities plan months, even years in advance. Tournaments have a long lead time because the location must be booked. If you don't have lodgings reserved for your summer vacation yet, it may be too late. On the other hand, local sports groups, being run by volunteers, tend to wait until the last minute to announce their schedules. We have known since January the dates and location of a big soccer tournament that will be held in August, and motels in that town are completely booked for those dates -- but we don't yet know where or when practice will be held next Monday. Schools are even less well organized, and they are terrible at communication, so we sometimes have less than two days' notice of an evening band concert or play practice.

And everything is "subject to change without notice." More than once I have carefully built my summer schedule and then learned during the last week of school that a program has changed, knocking down my house of cards. I don't know how the people who run these programs can live this way. Don't they need to plan their own summer schedules?

And it's not as if we schedule that much during the summer. The kids have plenty of time to loll around. We go to the library and the swimming pool. But summer is a good time to learn new skills and try things there isn't time for during the school year.

It's hard to make family members understand why we can't plan very far in advance. My dad, who is retired and doesn't have enough to do, starts planning Christmas in September. He doesn't know why I can't give him a head count at that time; things weren't this complicated when we were young.

But those of you with children, you'll understand.