Catching Up

I've never gone this long without posting before but the last few months have been even busier than usual as I was working on a proposal for a new business.  Happy that I turned it in last Friday and things have slowed down tremendously.  My mother in law is living with us, which is wonderful.  My kids are so lucky to not only have one grandmother in the house, but two.  They get so much love.

We celebrated Kaio's 9th birthday last weekend.  The difference between this year and last year is beyond striking.  He is so much happier now.  If you've been reading my posts over the years, then you know that I've struggled so much in figuring out the right approach for him.  He started off in Kindergarten and once the academics kicked in, begged not to go every day, then I homeschooled him for a year in a half, and then put him back in school mid year last year.
Seeing him run around with his friends, friends fighting over who gets to sit next to him, it is wonderful.  Last year this time he was lonely, afraid of people,  and threatening to hurt himself everyday.  

He is so much happier now and rarely blows up with anger.  Academically, I wouldn't say that he's farther along than when we were homeschooling.  But I'm not worried about it because he's happy, and that is all that matters to me.

I have a tremendous backlog of photos of the kids and baby Tori.  Here she is with our family dog friend Xbox, and Nala's pet bunny.

When she sees the bunny, she makes a little clicking noise with her teeth.

Xbox gets jealous of the baby.

Nala is thriving at school.  I keep getting notes home saying that she talks too much to friends.  Seriously, I do not care.  As someone who was so socially nervous and awkward in elementary school, I'm happy that she's not like that.  Have fun girlfriend.

Tori is Nala's little babydoll.  Even though there is a 6 year gap between them, I feel they will be good friends and sisters.

Mari raced in a bunch of paddleboard races this year.  He now races in the elite league.  I love how we merge our vacations with paddleboarding events.  I love traveling with a mission.

This picture is from a few months ago.  I do not like to put baby gates on the stairs because it gives a false sense of security.  Kaio pushed right through the gate we had when he was a baby.  I want her to learn to go up and down them so I do not have to worry about her falling.  Tori is walking now, and learning to go up and down the stairs holding on to the railing.

As much as they fight, they also support.

Our bed taken over by the munchkins.  We moved a twin mattress onto the floor in the room for me and Mari to sleep in.

These pictures were months ago.  What will I do when she's really not a baby anymore?

Neighborhood friends come over often.

My little hummingbirds.

Kaio living in his world.  Using legos to craft the cockpit of a tank that runs on gas and crystal power.  He drew the controls on paper, and made the levers and engine out of duplos.

A selfie with my baby from springtime.

She's so cute.

Do You Feel Like a Parent?

A friend told me that she started feeling like a parent when her and her husband took their daughter to the pediatrician for the first time.  For me, it's the night before Christmas.  As Mari and I tiptoe around the creaking floors, holding freshly wrapped presents and quietly placing them under the tree, that's when it really hits me.  Then, the rest of the year I mostly feel like a kid still.

This year the kids wanted to camp out by the tree to try to catch a glimpse of Santa.  As I tucked them in (Mari was working late that night), they told me about how Santa would take them back to the North Pole to see his workshop.  I said, "No, don't go with Santa, I'll miss you too much."
"But, we'll come back!" They assured me.

Usually the living room's illuminated brightly and full of activity.  But in prepping for bed we turned out the main lights.  Only multicolored Christmas lights twinkled magically and the space felt still, Beegie Adair played in the background.  Seeing the kids wrapped in cotton and fleece blankets, I felt it was true; I would miss them too much if they went with Santa to the North Pole.  I didn't want them to go.

We didn't exactly plan to be parents.  I mean, I understand how it works and so I knew it was possible.  It didn't come as a complete surprise.  But we never sat down together and looked at our financials, had a conversation, and then started 'trying.'   I'm super impressed (and a little weirded out) by the parents who have college accounts opened when their kids are in the womb.

No, Mari and I were living in a 6'x6' bedroom in a shared 2 bed/1.5bath apartment in Mount Pleasant, DC, making $11 an hour washing towels for a cleaning company.  My bestfriend roommate was more than a little relieved when I told her we were expecting because it meant we wouldn't be making so much noise partying late at night anymore.  In six months or so we moved out completely and into my mom's house, which was closer to both our Virginia jobs at the time.  Living in DC just didn't seem so glamorous (is it ever?) with an hour commute and baby on the way.

So when Kaio was born we were just living in the suburbs - in a little bedroom, next to my mom and above my grandfather.  Four generations all in one 2500 square ft house.  Mari finally had a white collar job and so did I.  We saved all our money up to pay for a trip to Brazil while I was on Maternity leave.  We also decided to have a real wedding ceremony down there (since before we had only signed the marriage certificate at the courthouse).  Mari's real job was a temp position, helping move international telecom jobs to Poland.  We knew it was ending and so it seemed like the perfect time for a long trip to Brazil.   While we were down there my contract abruptly and surprisingly ended - on maternity leave.  So, really, neither of us had a job or health insurance for the first few months after Kaio was born!  It seemed almost futile to return to The States.  But we did anyway.

I didn't really know what I was doing as a mom.  I picked up a parenting book at my midwife's office.  It suggested letting the baby cry it out as a solution to getting a good night sleep.  I told Mari about it and we decided to try.  Kaio had originally sleep in bed with us the first month, but when we returned from Brazil my friend had given us her crib that her father built for her as a baby.  The railing wasn't FSA approved but -whatever.  We put Kaio to sleep in the bed and let him cry it out.  That damn book had convinced me this was a good idea.  I was so naive to trust this book just because it was in the midwife's office.

In the middle of the night I heard some noise from his bedroom and decided to check in.  I could hear Tata inside.  He must have walked upstairs following the crying.  I open the door and there is Tata, sitting in a desk chair by the crib, holding baby Kaio like an angel in his arms saying, "Nu Plange Mikey."  (don't cry Mikey).  Little Kaio stared up at him with serenity, completely calm and transfixed on Tata's gaze.

I can't believe this 90yr old 90lb man with dementia could lean over and pick up the plump breast fed 20lb baby out of the crib.  He called him Mikey, because he thought he was my brother as a baby.  If my brother was in the same room, he'd still call Kaio 'Mikey.'

Mikey and Mikey

Although the moment was heart warming, it scared Mari.  He didn't want to worry about Tata dropping or moving Kaio in the middle of the night.  We decided to get our own place.

I wish I hadn't looked for a job and gone to work.  I wish I had stayed home with Kaio.  We didn't really need that health insurance, although at the time it was my main driver for finding employment.  Mari landed another temp position, and then we bought a house, and the temp position ended.  So only I was employed when we signed the title papers for our new house!

But things always worked out for us.  He found a job within a month.  The next job was a temp to hire position, and he's been well off ever since.

It's not that I totally regret going back to work.  It did serve a purpose.  We wouldn't have been able to buy a house, we wouldn't have been able to accrue the savings I used to pay for yoga teacher training and am using to pay for acupuncture school now.  So It's good in that respect.  But I don't think it was the best choice for the kids.  I wish I could have been around for them more, and been more in tune with Kaio's needs as a toddler specifically.

Yes, we moved back into my mom's house.  After Tata passed away she started renting out her basement.  But she was having issue after issue with her tenants.  We were looking at ways to save money after Nala was born as we had a second daycare expense and second car expense.  It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and I don't think we considered it a permanent solution, but it has become one.  She's a huge help and the kids love her.   I love that the kids wake up some mornings and go cuddle with her in bed.  I love an inter-generational house and us being around to help each other out.

I'd love it if you'd share.  When was the point you started feeling like an adult/parent?

Hi My Name Is

Hi my name is Kaio, I'm 6yrs old and I like being cozy in the morning:

I like getting messy and silly:

Hi my name is Nala, I'm 4yrs old and I want to be an artist:

Bad Date at the Movies

My boy and I went out on our fist date to the movies to see Iron Man 3.  I'm crazy for Marvel Universe films, they're so good!  Upon hearing that Iron Man 3 came out Kaio really wanted to go see it.  We've watched the first two are home already and the Avengers, but there are many parts that are too scary for him and he goes into another room or hides under a blanket.  Well it didn't go well, and I knew that it wasn't going to go well, but I wanted to see the movie so bad that I agreed to try.  He doesn't even sit through a full length movie at home without getting up and jumping around, so I didn't have much faith that he'd want to sit through Iron Man.  We made it to over an hour before he started begging to leave.  The movie is very violent with lots of indiscriminate killing of bad guys.  There were kids smaller than him in the theater too, some of them were crying, he wasn't the only one.

So we left and I didn't get to see the end, which has been bugging me.  I want to know what happens! I even googled, "Iron Man 3 Full Movie" and found a movie on youtube that when you click on it says, "Stop stealing movies, go to the theater."  Now the internet thinks I'm trying to steal movies.  I want to tell it that I DID pay to go to the movie, I just didn't get to see the end.

Instill Independence Fearlessness Good Decisions and Safety

He ran like a freight train out of the living room, stomping his feet with each step, and I heard a door slam in the distance.

Exhale.  I took a minute.  This all happened because I told him not to play any video games tonight.  It's eight pm already, the summer sun remains bright in the sky.  But, I've asked him to start to wind down and get ready for bed.  The kids have been sleeping well past 10pm every night and I know that sleep is important for brain development.

It's been a tough balance for me: between my desire to provide an environment for the kids where they have as much creative and personal freedom as possible, while also ensuring their safety and healthy development.  I end up saying things like, "TV is not good for your brain, you need to see in three dimensions."  While in the back of my head knowing that most well paying jobs require you to sit in front of a screen for more than 8 hours.

So I took a minute to plan out how to explain better.  I've found that when I give all the information I have, Kaio then chooses something on his own accord rather than feeling forced.  But, really he's so quick to anger and I wish I saw signs of that abating, but not yet.

I go to look for him and he has locked himself in the classroom.  Locking doors is another new development he's exploring right now.  I knock on the door and have a parental de-ja-vu moment; from memory, I echo the words of my own parents.

I know I've been on the other side, I remember how refreshing the power to man that lock felt.  Now on the outside, I feel how troubling it is to know that your child needs to put up a barrier.  How unjust it feels to not have access to your baby.

This month Kaio's been infuriated by things that do not seem like a big deal to me.  He's told me he hates me and wants to leave, at least twice.  One night, the first time this happened, it was because we asked him to to stop a noise he was making with a toy.  He actually ran outside in the dark, yelling that he was leaving.   I plopped down on the stoop in shock, watching the little kid decide how far he would run.    He came back and cried about how mean we were being to him.

It seems that he interprets any disapproval I have as mean.  I can say the exact same thing to Nala and Kaio, "It makes me really mad that you guys made such a huge mess tossing packing peanuts all over the floor and aren't helping me clean it up."  Nala will just ignore and continue what she's doing unphased, Kaio will enrage and provoke like an itchy poison ivy he needs to scratch.  Neither will help clean up.

"Look under the door."  Kaio said.

I saw a sheet of white legal paper loosely folded and stapled.  oh, a note.  I opened it up to see it was blank.   

"No, it's a telescope, to use to look for me."  He said from the other side of the locked door.

Then he slipped another message under the door.

"It's a map to find me."

And came another de-ja-vu parenting moment.  I remember sitting in the storm drain across the street from my house, with a pink suitcase packed with clothes.  I told my parents I was running away, then I made a map with directions for how to find me, left the map at the front door, rang the door bell and ran back to my new home in the storm drain.

Last Christmas my dad made a comment around how he and my mom always wondered if I would understand what they went through once I had kids.  I replied that if he had given me more freedom, then I wouldn't have fought so much.  And he said, "But every time we gave you freedom, you'd do something to get in trouble."

And it's true.  Like driving drunk and crashing my car into a steam roller with my younger brother in the passenger seat.  Like getting brought home in handcuffs at midnight as my dad answered the door in his underwear.  Like saying I was spending the night at a friends house, but instead going camping in mountains with two older boys and the driver almost drove us off a cliff: three wheels were off the ground and we needed to crawl out of the driver side window to escape.  Like spontaneously driving across the country in December, having no idea the kind of snow and weather that exists on the rocky mountains and almost crashing on black ice.  So many other times that I put my body in danger.

And so I see how Kaio chooses to ride his bike down our huge steep driveway with no helmet even though he's hit the pavement with his head twice already, and I find myself fighting for this moment and for all the future moments.  Today I may be insisting that he wears a helmet, and asking him to unlock the door.  One day I'll be on the other end of the phone, asking him to come home when he's half way across the country in the winter without snow tires.

So the flip side to all my dangerous behavior is that I have always been a strong and independent person.  Although I made some stupid decisions, I've also experienced so many wonderful, beautiful and profoundly special and inspiring things that wouldn't have happened if I was so worried whatever it is that people worry about.

I remember a mountain top hike with my dad, and I was maybe 9 years old.  The hike summit ended at a jump off point for handgliders.  I wanted to peak over the edge, and my dad insisted on holding my hand as I peeked.  Or how he'd drive for an hour to pick me up from a friend's house in the morning so we could go to the movies together or the gym, never complaining about how far out of the way it was.

I haven't figured out the secret to parenting that instills independence and fearlessness, while cultivating good decisions and safety.  And I haven't definitively decided yet whether there is anything wrong with the decisions I made and the path they took me on.  I mean, good decisions can end tragically, so who's to judge a well-intentioned bad decision as 'wrong'?

But I know that through all the turmoil, I always knew my parents loved me and wanted to protect me, even if I didn't agree that I needed protection.  And that confidence and support is what has made the most lasting positive impression on my life.  So I think I can at least give my kids that and hope that things work out as they did with me.

Yesterday I left my flipflops at the pool and had to turn around to recover them.  From the other side of the fence, I saw my kids attempting to get into the locked car by walking onto the road, very carefully, keeping close to the car and trying to open the door.  I had one of those mom freak out moments, afraid that some crazy distracted driver would veer into my car and hit them.  So I hollered over to them to wait for me on the sidewalk.  Walking back out of the pool game me time to calm past my initial fear kids aren't supposed to do that reaction and realize that it was a good thing they were so brave.  I exited the pool and found them sitting on a picnic bench enjoying the ants on a log snack we had packed. Such sweet independent kids.

Serious Jedi Face

Reality Bites, I'm Making My Own Government

Kaio's been asking for a new video game for our wii console.  Well, a couple days ago he asked for a blank CD, and took a sharpee out to write on it.  After finishing writing, he walked over to the wii and popped the baby in.  If life were a cartoon, this would have totally worked.

But it didn't work, and my poor kid's disappointment was unbearable to watch.  I had no satisfying explanation for why it wouldn't work.  And part of that is my approach to life and parenting in general.  I'm reluctant to explain life, because I truly believe that our concept of reality gets in the way of our potential.  It's like the miraculous placebo effect.  The power of believe goes a long way in making something possible.

So my boy sat there pouting, trying to troubleshoot the problem, "Do I need to draw the characters on the disk?"

I went on amazon and bought him the game.  It was only $6.

He's also been asking for a Lego Republic Gunship set.  It costs $500.  I told him we could try selling some of his toys, or he could make something to sell to cover the cost.  His response, "No, I don't want to sell things, I'm making my own money, I'm making my own government."  Then he made his own money, with Barack Obama and the American Flag:    

Similar thing happened when we saw a deer in our yard and he wanted to go hunt it.  I told him that he would need a hunting license first.  His response, "Here's my hunting license."

I don't know where this subversive behavior is going, but I bet he'll be in the pack of people shopping with bitcoins and raising quails without permission from the county ;)

A Subtle Act of Creative Defiance

Today I volunteered at Kaio's school helping with a kindergarten art activity.  As the teacher's aid explained the task to me I couldn't imagine the kids actually doing it.  She wanted the kids to draw symbols on a paper bag vest and write the words for the symbols below.  This was to teach them that Indians wrote using pictures instead of alphabet.  She had a poster with about thirty symbols to choose from, like a teepee, a tree, a girl, a boy, etc.  The task seemed really complicated to me because the kids would have to look at the picture and copy it, along with spelling a word.

I asked, "But what if the kids don't want to draw that and they start drawing something else?"

"Oh they wont do that.  This is the task and it's not free draw what you want time, they need to draw these symbols only.  They'll do it."

She seemed confident the kids had been trained to follow directions.

In came five kids, including Kaio, to work with me on this task.  I was imagining total anarchy breaking loose.  Kids scribbling all over the page and not understanding the task.  My expectations were pretty low you could say.

Kaio walked in with a smile bright as the sunshine, beaming all over his little face.  He sat right next to me, petting my arm, feeling my hand as if I was barely real.  As if I might be an illusion.  As if I was his sweet long lost love.

Kaio whispered and chatted instead of looking at the teacher while she explained the task...   I braced for needing to repeat the instructions all over again.  I worried about how I'd help five kids all at once.

But, then he proceeded to complete the task exactly as she had instructed.  It blew me away.  At home, he would never do anything of the sort.  At home, he draws what he wants when he wants, don't even waste your breath asking him to do a worksheet or draw something specific.  It would just result in a backlash of, "No! you do it."

I had no idea he could write words other than "Spiderman, and Lego".  I had no idea he could follow directions without continual prompting.  I had no idea he was even paying attention when people talked around him.

So seeing him siting peacefully in the chair, keeping on task, just knocked my socks off.

Then he asked if he could add a door to the teepee.  The teacher had left the room so I said, "ok."  Then he added a tongue to the snake.  Then, in the very last line on the vest - the last spot for a symbol, he drew something that wasn't one of the 'approved images.'

 He didn't ask for permission this time.  I could see it was too late for that.  The creativity inside him begged to escape.  The ideas flowing through his head, visions bursting through the little muscles of his hand, pleading to bleed onto that paper vest.  He'd proven he could complete the task, he'd repressed the desire to cover the vest with symbols for ninjas, monster trucks and angry birds.  Now, at the bottom of the back of the vest, cleverly shaded and camouflaged by the perfectly conformist copies of teacher produced symbols, in a subtle act of creative defiance, he drew a simple stick figure dog.  And under it wrote the word, "DOG"