Park Slope Reader

parenting

Life in Balance

By Filed Under: Books, Community, Park Slope Lit, Park Slope Reading, Reader Excerpt Tagged With: , ,

Excerpted from Tick Tock: Essays on Becoming a Parent After 40 edited by Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin (Dottir Press, 2021

My daughter, Eleni, is twenty-one now, but I distinctly remember a day when she was two and I was desperately trying to convince her to put on her shoes so we could go out to play. Eleni was running around distractedly and wouldn’t listen, while my mother, then seventy-five, was repeatedly asking me unrelated questions—something about a neighbor and what we would like for dinner. As I answered my mother’s questions, she asked them again because she was hard of hearing. For what seemed to be an eternity, I found myself caught in a cycle of speaking louder and louder to a two-year-old who wouldn’t listen and to a seventy-five-year-old who couldn’t hear. To a bystander, the scene may have seemed comical, but I was not amused. 

In retrospect, that particular day was golden. The sun was shining, my father—also seventy-five—was out for a run, and my mother was still able to cook the foods of her native Greece. Though I was an exhausted, older single mother, I found immense joy in (eventually) taking my daughter out to play, and, as an only child, I reveled in the fact that my parents had finally been granted a grandchild. My family now felt whole and complete. 

In a few years’ time, things would change. 

“Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a mother; and as I crept toward forty and remained unmarried, this dream, this ambition, didn’t fade. Then when I was forty-one, a confluence of factors arose that made motherhood seem possible.”

Living in an unusually sizable apartment in Brooklyn, I had a steady job that I loved, supportive parents and friends who resided near my home, and a surprising ally in the Chinese government. Though things have changed since, there existed a window of time, a fortuitous opening, when the Chinese government allowed a single woman over forty to adopt a healthy infant—in most cases, a baby girl. (For me this was a bonus, since I intended to raise a child on my own.) On top of that, the adoption process in China was fairly straightforward; and with some luck, it appeared I could be in China within eighteen months, a new mother to a baby daughter. After much thought and reasonable trepidation, I decided to pursue this option. 

On August 16, 1999, I arrived at a dimly lit registrar’s office in central China, where I was handed an eight-month-old baby. At the age of forty-two, I suddenly became a first-time mother. I named my daughter Eleni in honor of my own mother, who had waited patiently for her first and only grandchild. Then nine days later, we flew home to New York, where my parents and friends greeted us at the airport. Eleni and I were set to begin our new life together. 

Our first two years in Brooklyn passed quickly. Eleni was a happy child, a curious child, a child who never slept. By extension, I was always exhausted, holding down a full-time job, caring for my daughter, having few spare moments to myself. But as an older mother, I viewed this juggling act and ever-present fatigue as a small price to pay for the joy of raising a child. As a parent over forty, I’d had countless years of “me time,” during which I could travel, see friends, build a career. So spending a Saturday afternoon with my parents and Eleni was more than enough to make me happy. Having my mother prepare Greek meals and bring them to our house, or seeing my dad play so energetically in the park with my daughter, fulfilled me. I was grateful for my job, grateful to reside in a neighborhood with other adoptive families and little girls from China, and grateful for the multicultural city in which I lived. By some divine stroke of luck, everything seemed in order. 

But as it happens, the best-laid plans often go awry. On September 11, 2001, when Eleni was almost three, the World Trade Center was hit by terrorists, bringing our city to its knees. Several weeks later, the magazine at which I’d worked for nearly a decade folded, citing a consistent loss of revenue. Then, in the spring of 2004, my seventy-nine-year-old father—the bedrock of our family, a man with boundless energy—was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer. How supremely unfair it felt that a man who had valued his health and had so much to live for would be struck with such a fatal illness. Within six months of his diagnosis, my father died, leaving me with countless business affairs to look after, a broken heart, and a mother and daughter who were beyond bereaved. 

Eleni was five, almost six, when her grandpa died, so it was hard for her to comprehend how this vibrant man had left us. On the playground at school, Eleni would look up at the sky and see her grandfather’s wispy, white hair in the cloud formation above her. In class, she described his spirit as coming to her “like a wind,” helping her with her math problems. My dad was athletic, so in tribute to him, Eleni learned to play soccer and tennis. She was fast on her feet and adopted my father’s work ethic. 

My mother, on the other hand, was seventy-nine when her husband died. For years, her health had been faltering, first with coronary bypass surgery in her early fifties, then later with various issues causing memory loss and pain. My mother was surprisingly strong, having survived not only these health problems but also the shelling of Athens during World War II, yet somehow, she liked to convince everyone that she was weak, a victim who needed constant care. 

My father had been that primary caregiver, her rock—her lifeline to the world. When he died, my mother was understandably adrift. In order to protect her, my father had declined to tell my mother exactly how sick he was, perhaps believing he had more time to live than he did. But her lack of emotional preparedness and the relative speed of my father’s passing sent my mother into a tailspin. There were days when she stubbornly refused to take her medication and her memory loss worsened. There were times when she became short-tempered with Eleni and with me. 

As the weeks passed, I tried to keep our lives in Brooklyn in balance. My daughter was in first grade now, learning to read, write, and socialize. I was working from home as a freelance writer and editor, which gave me flexibility in terms of time and workflow. But every weekend, Eleni and I would run out to my mother’s house some fifty miles away to check up on her and a family friend who’d agreed to stay temporarily. My mother was sad, lonely, and increasingly confused, and it became clear she would soon need a higher level of care. The turning point came a short while later, when my mother arrived at my apartment for an extended visit. As she bent to tie her shoelaces one day, she slipped and fell, fracturing a vertebra in her back. It was the last day my mother would walk independently. She would soon need a wheelchair. 

Faced with this new set of circumstances and knowing my mother could no longer live independently, I decided to move her to Brooklyn, into a sunny assisted-care facility near my home. I hired loving professional aides to care for my mother and I visited almost daily. But although the logistics of having my mother close by made life easier, I was still wracked with guilt. I knew my mom was suffering. 

For one thing, my mother wanted to go home, and home meant her house on Long Island. Because of her deepening dementia and overwhelming grief, my mother couldn’t understand why she couldn’t live alone and why my father had left her. In an effort to comfort her and settle her nerves, I brought my mother some personal belongings, including a painting she loved of me and Eleni. I also brought my six-year-old daughter to visit her whenever possible. Sometimes Eleni would draw or play contentedly, and sometimes we would all sit together on the couch, watching TV. But on other days, both my mother and Eleni would vie for my attention while an aide was trying to talk to me. At still other times, Eleni found it too hard to visit. It was tough for her to reconcile the grandma she’d once known with the one now lying in a hospital bed. How could this be possible? 

For more than eight years, I was tasked with balancing the needs of both my mother and daughter. Early on, I decided it would be easier for me to see my mother on my own, preferably when Eleni was at school or at a friend’s house. I could sit and hold my mother’s hand or help feed her. I could take her to doctor visits, check on her medication, and talk to her aides without interruption. Eleni would come for shorter visits, after school or on the weekends. 

My days with Eleni at home and in the world were cherished times and often proved to be the antidote, the needed balance, to caring for an aging parent. As a first-time mother—and an older one, at that—I loved every stage of Eleni’s development. As she grew, my daughter played sports. She read and watched movies. She danced. She had friends. She grew taller than me and at times her grandmother barely recognized her, instead remembering her as a smaller child. While my mother drifted in and out of reality and often in and out of hospitals and hospice care, my daughter found joy in real-life activities. She was thriving, and her curiosity about the world buoyed me. 

Eleni also knew intuitively that I was doing my best in a difficult situation. From the time she was six until she was fourteen, Eleni watched as I cared for my mother as she edged closer to dying and bounced back again. She, along with family friends, helped me clear out our Long Island home with its more-than-fifty-years’ worth of possessions, and she was there on the tearful day we sold it to help pay for my mother’s care. Five years after my father’s mesothelioma diagnosis, I was diagnosed with early-stage endometrial cancer and required surgery. Eleni was there to greet me at home with her godparents on the day I returned from the hospital. I was fortunate in that Eleni had always been a considerate child and a fairly easy one to raise. And as she grew older and into her teen years, she empathetically cut me slack when my conflicting duties got the best of me. 

In hindsight, it’s hard to say how I—we, all three of us— got through those challenging years. Sometimes things fell apart, such as when an aide, Eleni, and I took my mother to a doctor’s appointment and got stranded when our wheelchair-accessible transport failed to arrive. Other times, I lost my patience; occasionally, I completely lost my temper with everyone. Eleni had hard days of her own and sometimes seemed inconsolable despite my best efforts to support her. But even in my worst moments, I was lucky enough to have a village to help raise my child and care for my aging mother. 

During those years, I thought often of my father and how he had run marathons later into life, driven by a will of steel. When he died, it felt as if I’d followed in his footsteps. My marathon, however, was of an emotional nature, a very long race that would call for a great deal of energy, determination, and grit in order to reach the finish line. But because I was an older parent in my late forties and fifties during those “sandwich” years, I was able to draw on decades of my own life experience and find wells of strength I never believed I had. 

I was also willing to refocus my priorities on both my mother and daughter, knowing I had one shot to get this right. (As a result, my career and personal life were indefinitely put on hold.) It soon became clear that I couldn’t help my mother get “better,” but I was dedicated to helping her find some measure of comfort and peace. Over time she became less verbal, making it hard to know exactly what she needed and why she held on for so long. But as one of her nurses once told me, “She has too much love. She’s not going anywhere.” As for Eleni, I had waited so long to become a mother that I wanted our experience together to be memorable. I wanted to soak up all the time we had at each stage of her journey, whether it was the big things, like going to Disney World when she was nine, or the small things, like watching Harry Potter movies on repeat. Her joy, happiness, and sound emotional development were at the top of my to-do list each and every day.

In the end, my mother chose the time and place of her passing. On February 15, 2013, on what would have been my father’s eighty-eighth birthday and one week short of her own, my mother died in the Brooklyn hospital where I was born more than fifty years earlier. In another act of perfect symmetry, she was holding the hand of my daughter, a child who was then fourteen and had been named after her, years earlier. 

It was an emotional walk home from the hospital that night. But when we arrived back at our apartment, I pulled out my mother’s wedding ring, a simple, silver band with tiny, twinkling diamonds – a symbol of my parents’ long commitment. I slipped the ring onto my hand thinking I might wear it, but it just didn’t look right on me, so I offered it to Eleni. By some stroke of magic, it fit perfectly on her long, slender ring finger, and I joked that my mother’s ring chose its wearer, just like Harry Potter’s wand chose him. 

Eleni has worn my mother’s ring religiously since that night. It traveled with her and protected her on the subways she took to high school. It swam with her and glistened in the turquoise-dappled waters of the Aegean Sea. It accompanied her to college and to a semester abroad in Italy. It has been given a new life, a new set of adventures in a modern world. My mother’s ring was one that I loved and admired during childhood, and it’s a ring my daughter wears proudly now in memory of her namesake. It’s a symbol of the time that my mother, Eleni, and I all spent together—and a symbol that we all made it through. 

Tick Tock reading at Community Bookstore on Wednesday, 10/6 at 7:30PM EDT featuring Laura Broadwell, Cathy Arnst, Jean Leung, Salma Abdelnour, and editors Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin.

Homeschooling In Brooklyn

By Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: , ,

Artwork by Christian Dellavedova

These days it is safe to say that homeschooling is more and more commonplace. We are certainly moving away from the days of homeschooling being “strange” or “weird”. There is a growing number of parents in Brooklyn ditching the traditional educational system and seeking homeschooling clubs, co-ops, mentors and online educational groups. Additionally, in Brooklyn, there are many resources dedicated to parents and their homeschooled children of various ages such as Brooklyn Apple Academy or Cottage Class, Brooklyn. 

I have had many conversations as a parent about this topic and I have to say the homeschooling families I have met in Brooklyn are like any other traditional educational family. Nothing out of the ordinary. The primary difference to me is the amount of time the homeschooling family puts into their children’s education/curriculum and their reasons for doing so. “I wanted to create an environment where my child would never feel held back if they were advanced or pushed too fast if they needed extra attention” said Michelle R. from Crown Heights (Mom to a three-year-old). Parents are very involved in the direct material their children are learning from and contrary to popular thought, the parent(s) are not always the “teacher” in their children’s lives. What is more, is that many parents feel that the emotional development in the traditional system sometimes can be overlooked. The parents of homeschoolers can zero in on the emotional development of their children and decide how to best support their individual growth.

Personalization is fundamental to academic success. Engaging children holistically is the key to raising success and many Brooklyn parents are opting for a different educational method. There are roughly 7 main approaches to homeschooling such as unschooling, Montessori, classical to name a few. If Brooklyn parents need support as newbies or seasoned vets looking to gain more resources, Meetup and Park Slope Parents provide a community to do so and Brooklyn Queen LEAH provides Brooklyn Christian families homeschooling resources. In true NY spirit, Brooklyn parents are coming together and creating resources and micro-communities for homeschooling families. 

How do you know if homeschooling is right for your family? Is it something you have thought about prior to having a child? Perhaps, your child was in a traditional school and you came to realize the environment was not supporting your child’s growth and development. You might be on board with homeschooling your child, but have questions like, how will my child make friends or how will I find a mentor? All of the homeschooling parents I spoke with either made the decision prior to having a child as Michelle R. states, “ I have always known that if I were lucky enough to have a child, I would attempt to homeschool” or parents that quickly realized that their child was not thriving, but rather declining in a traditional educational environment for whatever reason in various grades: academically, socially, emotionally, etc. 

Homeschool is not for all families and not all families will love the homeschooling lifestyle. It is important that we give all children the chance to thrive in the best environment for their individual needs.

When it comes to homeschooling children, there is currently no lack of solid options today. Thanks to online programs like Time4Learning, K12 and Calvert Education, etc. guessing and scrambling for the curriculum is not necessary. “I get a lot of resources from Facebook groups where the kids are in just about the same age group as mine,” said Nicole D. from Prospect Height (mom to a 7-year-old). “I felt like my son was slowly becoming uninterested in learning and this was concerning.” Several parents expressed how the world and the environment was their classroom. Real-world and life experience are great teachers in addition to their chosen educational platforms. “My child stays curious now about learning and shows no signs of boredom like before,” says Nicole D. Another tip is to really take a look at your child.  What are her interests? What style of a learner is she? Understanding these particulars about your child will assist you in the direction you want to go in.

Some of the homeschooling highlights from parents I spoke to have included: Family bonding changes from homework anxieties and social stresses to flexible start times or spontaneously taking the day off to visit a museum to learn about something new or different. Travel becomes much easier. Instead of cramming vacation in the summer months, you now have the flexibility to take vacations at different times of the year which might be better for some families in terms of the cost (flight tickets) or the time/availability to take off from work. Shared values are not compromised. Parents can educate their children according to their own values and/or religious beliefs. Schools may not foster the emotional/spiritual support you wish your child to have. You decide and set the environment. Lastly, there was an emphasis on safety and freedom from bullying in addition to accommodation for special needs children.

Let’s look at the academic side of homeschoolers. Parents, in general, feel their children are thriving and excelling as a result of homeschooling. I would like to note the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) has stated home-educated students typically score 15 to 30 percent above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. They also achieve better outcomes on the SAT and ACT tests. A lot of the parents I spoke with feel the independence and personalized curriculum has added to the academic success of their children. Often, they are learning through doing and learning through subjects they are interested in learning about. 

It was wonderful to talk with homeschooling families of Brooklyn. They want the same thing all parents want for their children: The best possible education and environment. Of course, homeschool is not for all families and not all families will love the homeschooling lifestyle. It is important that we give all children the chance to thrive in the best environment for their individual needs. Today, we have options and homeschooling is no longer for child actors or school-aged Olympic athletes. Life is fluid and sometimes homeschoolers do go to traditional schools at some point and vice versa. Whatever you decide, keep in mind that your decision on how to educate your child is not etched in stone, it’s not final. If it does not work, you can take another route and try something different. 

Dispatches From Babyville: Becoming A City Kid

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , ,

Art by Heather Heckel

I hover. As a mother, I mean. Sometimes I try not to, and sometimes I lean into it but either way, it’s my instinct. I was raised by hoverers. I was also raised in Staten Island. These facts are unrelated but relevant to my point which is: I grew up in the city but was not a city kid – at least not until I started high school in Manhattan. I was neither sophisticated, nor saavy, nor independently mobile. 

Even as a little girl. I loved Manhattan – the lights! the smells! the people everywhere! – but I didn’t develop a borough inferiority complex until later, when I was in middle school. This, of course, is when one is most susceptible to developing complexes. 

My parents would drive me over the Verrazano into Bay Ridge every morning, and I would dream we’d keep going until we crossed that cathedral of bridges, with its twinned arches, into the glittering metropolis of Manhattan. I had a small town girl’s adoration of the city, which was stoked by my favorite sitcom, Mad About You. Nothing could be better, I thought, than to live in a doorman building and order Chinese food every other night. That was the life I wanted. 

And that life was mine, every time I visited my aunt, uncle and two cousins in their apartment on East 78th Street. I visited them frequently, for weeks at a time in the summer, like some kind of reverse Fresh Air Kid. When I was in high school, for almost three years, I lived with them Monday through Friday, because it took me just thirty minutes to get to school instead of an hour and a half and three modes of public transportation – bus, train and, incredibly, boat. 

Staying at my aunt’s apartment was like living in a Mad About You episode. I would greet the doorman on my way in, take the elevator sixteen stories up and gorge myself on Chicken Chow Fun and Moo Shu Pork from takeout containers. 

I even had a building bestie, Leah Goldstein. Leah was just my age and lived four floors below us. Leah was a city kid. She enjoyed an independence I dared not dream of. She walked places by herself. She took buses unsupervised. She had HBO and was permitted to watch anything she wanted, including Fatal Attraction. 

I was fairly successful at fitting in with Leah and her savvy, independent friends, but a close look would have revealed I was an impostor. For example, I made it through all of Fatal Attraction without closing my eyes, but had nightmares for months afterward. If I’m being honest, my palms still get a little clammy when I look in a bathroom mirror.  

One weekend afternoon, when I was about eleven, I was hanging out at Leah’s apartment, with her and her friends, when someone suggested we go out for lunch. 

“Ooooh, we should go to Hard Rock,” said a girl with killer bangs. 

There were murmurs of agreement and within minutes, feet were being shoved in shoes. 

“Let me just go grab my wallet,” I said. “Don’t leave without me.” 

I raced upstairs, beginning my begging before the door was even closed behind me. My mother was called. My request was denied.

I implored my mother. I bargained with her, I appealed to her basic humanity. 

“You can go,” she said. “As long as your aunt goes with you.”

It was a preposterous idea. It was like offering someone a freshly-baked chocolate cake that was full of dysentery. I told her as much, and amped up the waterworks. I was then, and am now, a fast and voluble crier. 

“What if,” my aunt chimed in. “What if Harry and I just happen to have lunch at Hard Rock too? At the same time? We won’t sit with you. We’ll just be there, on our own.”

“Because the food is so good,” my uncle Harry said. “And not at all overpriced.” 

Beggars can’t be choosers. People who have never been to the mysterious but inarguably incredible place called “Hard Rock” must find a way there, even if they are accompanied by a secret security detail.

“All right,” I agreed, grabbing my wallet. “Just walk really far behind us. And don’t- you know- talk to me. Or look at me too much. From now on, we’re strangers.” 

I still don’t understand why they caved to my outrageous demands, but a few minutes later, we were taking separate elevators down to the lobby, where I rejoined the group. To my horror, they’d decided in my absence we were going to take a cab to the restaurant. Which was not part of the plan I’d thrown together with my aunt. 

But, I reasoned, this is what city kids do. They probably come out of the womb hailing taxis. And so, throwing a discrete and apologetic glance at my aunt and uncle, who were waiting in the lobby, I piled into the taxi with the other kids. 

I wasn’t privy to the part where my aunt and uncle raced for the next taxi and yelled, “Follow that cab!” All I know is that soon after our group was seated at a large round table in the big, boisterous dining area of the Hard Rock Café- every bit as cool as I’d imagined-my aunt and uncle walked in and were ushered to a table on the upper level. 

I followed suit as Leah and the other kids ordered burgers, fries, milkshakes. It was, I thought, the best meal I’d ever eaten. The burgers were juicier, the fries crispier, the milkshakes creamier than their outer borough counterparts. I felt so suddenly grown-up. I was keenly aware that I was in the middle of an important metamorphosis. 

I would never be the same after dining (mostly) unsupervised at the coolest restaurant in the coolest city in the world. After this meal, I’d be an adult. A saavy, sophisticated adult. I’d be ready to pay rent for a studio apartment and tell tourists the fastest way to get to Bleecker Street from anywhere. It was a straight shot from here to Mad-About-You city -iving bliss.  

And then the waitress brought our bill. 

We were short. Significantly so. 

“You guys, we forgot about tax!” shrieked Leah. 

“Well, isn’t that, like, optional? Like a tip?” one of her friends ventured. 

Panic percolated among the group as it was concluded that tax was not optional. What would happen to us now? Would the waitress call the police? Would we have to wash dishes? 

 I glanced up and found my aunt and uncle paying their own bill. They’d just turned from a liability to an ass-saving asset. 

“Oh my God, you guys!” I exclaimed to the group. “This is so crazy but . . . I think that’s my aunt and uncle up there.” I pointed to their table. “How weird is that? They must be eating here too!” 

“Can you ask them to lend us some money?” Leah asked. 

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. 

My aunt and uncle did not bother to mask their delight at this unexpected reversal. 

“Sorry,” my uncle teased. “But we have no idea who you are. We’re just perfect strangers enjoying a delicious lunch at the world-famous Hard Rock Café.” 

Back then, I didn’t understand this delight. Now that I’m a mother of kids around this age, I understand it all too well. It’s not just the simple satisfaction of being able to wield an, “I told you so.” It’s the desperately-needed confirmation that you, the parent (or parent proxy) know what you are doing. That, despite all the misgivings and mistakes, the bad calls, the wrong-headed battles waged (and lost), that you still possess enough parental instinct to get the job done. More specifically, it’s a welcome reminder that your kid (or surrogate kid) still needs you, even when they insist they don’t —and never will again.

So it was with immeasurable pleasure that my aunt and uncle descended the stairs to serve as a real-life deus ex machina. 

“Hi guys,” my uncle said. “I hear you’re a little short? We can cover you.” 

I emerged from the lunch a hero. Or at least, the guy that knew where to find the hero. 

When the bill was settled, my uncle asked: “How are you guys getting home?” 

“Oh, just walking,” Leah said. 

“We are too,” he replied. 

They trailed us the whole way home.

Heather Heckel is an artist and educator living in New York City. In addition to the Park Slope Reader, her clients include Whole Foods Market, Kids Footlocker, Juice Pharma Worldwide, and The Renwick Hotel. Her artwork and children’s book has won international awards, and she has been published numerous times in the 3×3 Professional Illustration Magazine. Recently she has completed artist-in-residencies through the National Park Service in Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington, and California. Heather is passionate about social and environmental justice, and is an advocate for human rights and animal rights.

heatherheckel.com

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Keeping It Simple and Sweet…

By Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,

School is back in session. This means new classes, new teachers, new classmates and hopefully some new friendship opportunities. Children and teenagers living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as well as typically developing children, can sometimes struggle with the social parts of a new school year. If you have a lovely child that is socially sensitive, my advice is to keep it simple and sweet.

Luckily, for us, we live in a location that offers many social opportunities. But let’s remember to think outside of the box. Social doesn’t just mean participation on sports teams or hanging out with a group of rambunctious, funny children. For the person that has ASD, or who is socially insecure, keep is simple and sweet.

Maybe have your child or teen feed the ducks and geese at the lake with just 1 other peer. Have your child and a peer walk in a complete circle in the park and end with a snack lakeside. They can share music along the way. Who doesn’t just love completing a circle and enjoying reinforcers like music and yummy snacks?! Movies are a perfect idea for spending time with friends, without having the internal nagging of “what should I say next?”…keep it simple and sweet. Riding bikes or scooters next to each other is another low-pressure social situation. Just think of how many social skills are addressed with this simple activity: checking on your personal space, keeping in rhythm with your buddy, small talk, joint attention and more and more and more!

With school comes at-home responsibilities…having a study buddy or homework pal will help friendships blossom. Set a regular schedule where 1 day per week your child and a friend from school complete homework together, have a snack and relax with a low-key activity…after-school cartoons, binge-watching NETFLIX until they meet again next week or walking to the corner for a snack.

If you are and your loved one are unsure who can be a potential friend, it helps if you choose someone who has a similar demeanor and enjoys many of the same interests. If your child or teen is mellow- yellow then seek out the artists or the musicians or the intellectuals. I always tell my clients with ASD…”you just need 1 friend. Anything more than that is a bonus.” That is an achievable goal for everyone. Just 1 friend can make the difference in every child’s school year.

The 13th Child Autism & Behavioral Coaching, Inc. is a consulting company focused on those living with Autism Spectrum Disorder & other socio-behavioral uniqueness. 

Dispatches from Babyville: A Lit Legacy

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Art by Heather Heckel

I was a voracious reader as a child, a read-while-walking-down-the-sidewalk kind of bookworm. As an adult, I’ve moved apartments countless times and every time, during the brutal downsizing that precedes packing, I place one childhood book after another on the “Keep” pile, schlepping the yellow-paged books from one shoebox apartment to another. I love these books. They’re my Proustian madeline.

Naturally, I want to share these jewels of literature with my children, now aged 6, 11 and 14 years old. When they were very young, this was easy enough. Toddlers are happy to sit through any readaloud, be it an evergreen Sendak or a psychedelic Stephen Cosgrove. But when it comes to chapter books–the classics–I’ve been less successful in preserving my literary legacy. In fact, my children have flat-out rejected my legacy. Loudly, Repeatedly.

With my firstborn, Primo, I tried Heidi.

“You’re going to love it!” I assured my then nine-year-old. “She drinks milk from goats and she lives on a high mountaintop and her grandpa’s really grumpy.”

“Sounds boring,” he noted–to my mind, prematurely.

A few pages in, he confirmed his initial assesment.

“It is boring,” he pronounced.

So, I upped the ante. I acquired an audiobook version, in which a Swiss woman read the story in the most lilting, hypnotic accent imaginable. Her voice was more relaxing than a bottomless glass of Chardonnay. Turns out one man’s “relaxing” is another man’s “boring-est thing I ever heard.”

We listened while on a road trip, making it through three or four chapters before we arrived at our destination. Once out of the car, the children staged a mutiny and refused to get back in until I agreed to never play Heidi again. So, that was that.

Several years later, I tried Little Women, this time with Seconda, who was about eight. I hooked her by telling her that something really, really terrible happens in the middle of the book. Seconda really digs it when terrible things happen in books, so she agreed to try it. And she did. But we’d hardly made it past chapter two when she put the kabosh on the readaloud.

“But we didn’t get up to the terrible thing yet!” I reminded her.

She raised her eyebrows suspiciously. “I bet it’s not even that bad.”

“Oh, it’s bad. Trust me. Reaaaally awful. Tragic.”

“Does the dad die?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“The mom?”

“No.”

“Just tell me! I’m never going to read this book and I want to know.”

“If you want to find out what terrible, awful, sad and tragic thing happens,” I said, “you have to let me read it to you.”

“Okay,” she said, shrugging. “Forget it then.”

About two years later, when we were in the middle of an argument, she yelled: “And I know what happens at the end of Little Women! Beth dies!”

I gasped. “How did you find that out?”

“The internet, Mom!” she replied. “It’s called the internet!”

And then there was one.

My youngest, Terza, is six years old and, I am aware, my final shot. I knew I had to choose the classic carefully, so I left Little Women on the shelf, opting instead for A Little Princess.

A Little Princess has it all. There’s servitude, and rodent friends and orphanhood. There’s the word “princess” right there, in the title, irresistible to kids of the Cinderella-Ate-My Daughter age bracket.

Plus, I knew Terza liked my literary tastes. My husband and I had read the entire Ramona series to her–twice–using a few of my childhood volumes.

I hooked Terza with a tight elevator pitch. I kept her focused by doing all the voices. I even edited out some of the more boring adjectives.  

She was smitten for one night of bedtime reading and then another. We conducted light literary analysis on the way to school. We bonded over favorite quotes.

It’s not the legacy I planned but then again, in parenting, it never is.

“It’s working,” I thought with no small amount of self congratulation.

And then, on the third night, just after Ermegarde St. John was introduced, Terza cut me off mid-sentence and said, “I don’t want to read this. Let’s read Ramona again.”

“But–but what about Ermegarde St. John? We have to find out what happens to her. She has the best name ever! ERMEGARDE ST. JOHN!”

Terza shot me a “Mom, you’re really losing it” look. It’s troubling when your six-year-old appropriately uses that look on you.

“Can we please read just a little more?” I pleaded. “I really want to read it!”

“You can read it, Mommy. Later. After I go to bed.”

“But you didn’t even find out what terrible thing happens!” I blurted, floundering..

“I don’t care. I want to read Ramona.”

“Okay fine,” I said quickly. “I’ll tell you. Her father dies. She loses all her money! She has to become a servant in her own school!”

She shrugged. “So what?”

To which I could issue no reply. There is no coming back from “so what?”

I pulled Beezus and Ramona off the shelf and started reading, for the upteenth time, Cleary’s sturdy, steady prose. I began to feel, I think, what my daughter does while reading it –  bemused, delighted and more than anything, safe. Klickitat Street is no Sesame Street; you can’t have all sunny days in Portland after all. But when it does rain in Cleary’s world, there’s always an umbrella to stand under, metaphorically speaking, anyway. I understood then, that that’s what my little one is looking for when she reads. Or what she’s looking for right now, at least. Fair enough.

A week or so later, Terza was browsing Netflix when she cried out, “Look Mom! It’s that really boring book you kept trying to read to me. Can we watch the movie?”

“Are you kidding?” I wanted to say. ”Before finishing the book?”

Instead I said, “Sure” and made popcorn. We followed the trials and tribulations of Sara Crews and Ermegarde St. John and her rodent friends. Terza was riveted. She watched the movie again the next day.

It’s not the legacy I planned but then again, in parenting, it never is. I’ll take it.

The following morning, on our walk to school, she turned to me and said, as if conceding a point: “You were right, Mom. That is a really good story.”

Nicole C. Kear is the co-author of the new middle grade series, The Startup Squad, out this May, as well as author of the chapter book series, The Fix-It Friends, and the memoir Now I See You. You can find out more info at nicolekear.com.

The Perfect Party

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Madonna dance-off. Limbo contest. Cannoli cream cake. 

Year after year of my childhood, that was the formula for my birthday party, which took place in the basement of my Staten Island home. It was a three-prong party plan that worked. Well, four prongs, really. Just before the cake was served, came the Chaplin-esque birthday cake pratfall, courtesy of my father. He’d walk down the stairs to the basement, carefully holding the cake box aloft, only to stumble at the bottom, throwing himself down the last few steps and tossing the box extravagantly into the air. The crowd would gasp, and he’d jump to his feet, open the box and reveal that IT WAS EMPTY! Ha! Ha HA! No need to worry, the cannoli cream cake was intact, upstairs.

So:

Madonna dance-off.
Limbo contest.
Father pratfall.
Cannoli cream cake.

After the age of 11, I could have done without the pratfall, but generally speaking, it was a good party. The formula worked. I am reminded of this as I enter the winter, also known as Kear Family Birthday Season. Three kids. Three birthdays. Lots of headaches.

I’m not the sort of parent prone to observing wistfully, “Things were so much simpler when we were kids.” First of all, of course things were simpler. We were kids.  Really, though, I’m just not terribly interested in adjudicating which time period was better/ easier/ simpler/ less stressful. The circumstances of our lives and our world are too fluid to make it a satisfying enterprise. Besides, since I’m not the proud owner of a time machine, there’s not much I can do about it anyway.

If I were that sort, though, I’d definitely observe that birthday celebrations were simpler when I was a kid. Of course, it might just be that birthday celebrations were, and are, simpler when you inhabit a living space in which more than 260 square feet is allocated to each family member (yes, I’ve done the math).

We just don’t have the space to host a birthday celebration at home. This is the party line.
It is part true and part me playing the NYC No Space Card.
“No space” is the golden excuse that comes free with your exorbitant rent in New York City.  I’d say it’s one of the hidden perks except that I think it’s the only one. Regardless, it’s a goody.
Unwanted house guest angling to crash at your place?
“I wish we could but we just don’t have the space.”
Your spouse planning to purchase some hideous piece of furniture on the level of When Harry Met Sally’s wagon wheel:
“I wish we could but we just don’t have the space.”
Your child begging for a dog, or a baby brother:
“I wish we could but we just don’t have the space.”
The No Space card is so valuable it almost makes up for not having any space.

But the truth is, even if I had all the space in the world, even if I lived in Staten Island, I would try to get out of hosting a kid party. Because of the cleaning.

It’s not that I’m against cleaning. For an adult cocktail party, I’d happily scour my bathroom like Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. But tirelessly cleaning my apartment, top to bottom, only to have a horde of children obliterate it again, within minutes, has always seemed to me a task that only a dupe like Sisyphus would take on. The pointlessness demoralizes me.

For these compelling reasons, I’ve avoided hosting parties at our apartment for over a decade. This would have been impossible financially – since paying for a kiddie birthday party in Park Slope costs what weddings do in other parts of the country – except that my grandmother’s apartment building happens to have a party room.

The party room is the hero of this tale. The party room, spacious and clean and practically free, has made it possible to celebrate my children’s birthdays …  not to mention baptisms, first holy communions, Halloweens and whatever random holidays they’ve had a hankering to observe.

We’ve thrown so many birthday parties at the old party room that my husband, the kids and I are nothing short of a well-oiled party machine. We can set up a party in a tight fifteen minutes if need be.

My husband does streamers. It has taken him years to perfect his streaming technique, and to describe it would be to reveal trade secrets I am not at liberty to disclose. Let’s just say his moves are as intricate as a Simone Biles floor routine: double stranding and full twists and three-point-anchoring. It’s not for novices.

The kids are on balloons. Thankfully, they’ve spent their whole lives training their lungs for the task. At least, that’s what I surmise all the yelling was for.

I set up the folding tables with juice and snacks and paper products. I hang up the charming homemade birthday signs. I spread age-appropriate art supplies and activities in key locations around the room.

Then David turns on the music and the party is on.

We’ve perfected the party the way you nail down anything, through trial and error

PInata?

No, oh no, never again.

Karaoke machine?

Yes, indeed, well worth the investment.

Finding the right number of guests has involved a learning curve, too. Instructive, indeed, was the year I let my daughter invite everyone her heart desired and everybody came, creating a level of mayhem not witnessed since the sinking of the Titanic. She ended up hiding under the table, in tears.

Then, only a month later, there was the party for my other daughter, in which we catapulted to the other end of the guest list spectrum. So eager was I not to repeat my over-inviting mistake, that I severely under-invited kids. That’s not exactly accurate. I invited all the kids in her day care class. I just intentionally threw the party at a time when I knew no one would be able to come. It worked. Only two guests made it. The three toddlers ended up overwhelmed in the large room and I couldn’t handle the strain of having to make conversation with the two parents in attendance. My daughter ended up under the table, in tears. I felt like joining her.

Of course, no sooner did we stumble upon the perfect party formula then the kids outgrew it. Now that my older kids are tweens, it’s all about the sleepover birthday party. And sleepovers, I have found, can’t be shot on location. They are not an away game. You can’t outsource sleepovers. You have to have sleepovers at your house.

I have tried to play the No Space card, but my kids are old enough now to play their own cards. The Guilt cards. The Childhood-Is-So-Fleeting-And-Before-You-Know-It-You’ll-Wish-We-Were-Still-Taking-Up-More-Than-Our-Allotted-260-Square Feet Card.

I’ve got nothing that can trump that one.

And so we begin a whole new trial and error process. Which, I guess, Is parenting in a nutshell.

Nicole C. Kear is the author of the memoir Now I See You (St. Martin’s Press, 2014). Her chapter book series for children, The Fix-It Friends, will be published by Macmillan Kids’ Imprint in spring 2017.

THE MOTHER’S DAY MINDFIELD

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

In my first few years as a mother, I totally fell for the Mother’s Day hype. It’s very name, and the Kay jewelers commercials that run constantly, led one to believe that it’s a day in which those who constantly cater to the needs of others finally have their needs catered to, the one day among the other 364 in which mothers are given their due, honored for the terrific martyrs they are.

Awesome idea. Stellar. Too bad it’s a load of malarkey. I should clarify here that I’m a holiday person. I make homemade costumes for Halloween and throw elaborate themed birthday parties for my kids. I hurtle myself headlong into Christmas, like a moony teenager falling in love for the first time. Once, when my kids and I boarded a bus only to discover the meter was broken and no fare required, I declared it “Free Bus Day” and we sang jubilant songs on the theme, on and off all day.

I like celebrations. And I especially like celebrations in which the person being celebrated is me.

I respect, but do not understood, folks who try to ignore their birthdays, people who forbid their spouses and co-workers to make a big deal. David, my husband, is one such person, and it caused some arguments in our early years together.

[pullquote]

I’VE RECONCILED MYSELF TO THE FACT THAT I WILL NEVER GET A WHOLE DAY OF HUGS AND KISSES AND GRATITUDE.  BUT I CAN GET FIVE TO TEN MINUTES. 

[/pullquote]He has a particularly strong aversion to surprise parties, which I discovered when I threw him one for his twenty-third birthday in our living room. I convinced him to take a nap, and while he was sleeping, I hung streamers, sneaked out the German Chocolate Cake I’d spent two hours baking according to his mother’s recipe, and ushered in the guests. When everything was ready, I woke him from a dead sleep by crying: “The kitchen sink! It’s flooding! Come quick!” Still half asleep, he stumbled into the living room in his boxers and T-shirt and when everyone yelled “Surprise!” he about-faced with nary a word and marched right back into the bedroom.

Looking back, my surprise party plan was not as well-conceived as I’d thought. I nailed the surprise part—the party part, not so much.

Of course, in marriages we give our partners what we want. I have been waiting patiently for several decades for someone to throw me a surprise party—for my birthday, Mother’s Day, International Women’s Day, even Free Bus Day, I’m not picky.

Sometimes, I wonder if maybe David has been planning a surprise party all this time, and he’s just playing a long game, so that I’ll be absolutely flabbergasted when it happens. It’ll be Mother’s Day in my seventy-sixth year of life and David will contrive for me to play mah jong with my girlfriends (by that time, I will have started playing mah jong and calling my ladies “girlfriends”). But when I arrive, instead of being greeted just by Ethel and Martha and Frances (my friends’ names will age along with them), I’ll be greeted by a room packed full of friends, my children, my grandchildren, maybe even the barista of my favorite coffee joint, who’s always thought of me as a mother figure. The mayor might swing by for a minute, say a few words.

There will be not only a chocolate fountain but a prosecco fountain and a marble bust in the exact likeness of me. This will all be possible because one of my three kids will have become a billionaire, having invented the cure for the common cold. After everyone yells “Surprise!” David will turn to face me, leaning on his walker, and he will say: “All these years, you thought we were slacking off, but we were really planning this. Happy Mother’s Day “

And I will finally feel satisfied on Mother’s Day. I will finally feel adequately honored.

It is no surprise that on a recent Mother’s Day, David’s card to me read: “I love you. I hope you have a great day. Just manage your expectations.”

For my part, I think my needs are fairly simple. While I would certainly enjoy a ticker tape parade, I don’t expect one. All I want are heartfelt, homemade cards from each of my children, some kind of dessert with so many calories it’s illegal in some states, and the privilege of choosing the afternoon’s activity.

Of course, I can’t help but hope that, on this one day, my kids will tone down the bickering, or even eliminate it—for one day, how hard is that? I can’t help but dream that they might toss me a moment of gratitude, in the vein of, “Thank you for your joie de vivre and the priceless gift of hope”—that, and maybe pick up their dirty clothes off the bathroom floor.

I always tell my kids that “practice makes perfect—or at least, better” and this is true of Mother’s Day celebrations, as well. Over the past eleven years, David and I have gotten better at hopping around the Mother’s Day minefield, without detonating any explosives.

The primary lesson David had to learn was that it is his job to oversee the children’s card-making. This came as something of a surprise to him. It was a little like watching the sausages get made.

When the kids were in nursery school or Pre K, this was a non-issue because their teachers made the construction of such cards mandatory. Those cards were the best, the Rolls Royce of Mother’s Day cards. Quality materials, like heavy weight card stock and tempera paint, were used. Time was devoted to the enterprise. The cards were both funny and sweet, including phrases like: “Today, I wish for you a donkey!” and “I lov u mame beecaws u ar nis and pretee and giv me candee.”

But when the children were either too young for too old for nursery school, they fell into a dead zone of cardlessness. A two-year-old will not think to make a card for her mother. A six-year-old will think to do it but lack the follow-through to make it happen, hatching extraordinary plans and then getting distracted, permanently, by a stale gummy bear under the couch. Thus, there was one Mother’s Day early on in which I waited and waited for the official Presentation Of the Cards and alas, I waited in vain.

“Why didn’t you have the kids make cards for me?” I asked David.

“That’s their responsibility,” he countered.

Then I let forth a bitter laugh. An “Oh, to be as ignorant as you!” chuckle.

“Why do you think you get Father’s Day cards every year?” I asked. “I stand over them and make sure they do it. And not just a two-second scribble either. I make them go back and revise and give you the good stuff. Acrostics, Haikus. Drawings with verisimilitude.”

So David started overseeing card construction. He doesn’t have the natural ability of a Pre K teacher, and I’ve yet to receive a sonnet, but he gets the job done.

I’ve learned a thing or two myself. I’ve learned to lower my expectations. The lower, the better. If I could bring those expectations to street level, and then pulverize them underfoot, that would be ideal. As it stands, I’ve managed to get them from Sky High to about Fifteen Stories High, which isn’t half bad.

I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that I will never get a whole day of hugs and kisses and gratitude. But I can get five to ten minutes. And the good news is, I don’t just have the chance for these moments on Mother’s Day. Because I’m a mother every day.

Much as I’d like to shout “Action!” and instantly call up Hallmark moments, these moments tend to happen spontaneously, sometimes at the most inconvenient times. I’ve noticed children get very lovey when it’s way past their bedtime or you’re in the middle of talking to someone else about something very important or when you really, really have to go to the bathroom. No matter when they occur, I try to savor the tender moments. I have a whole folder full of heart-melting, no-occasion notes from my kids, as well as drawings of me and them holding hands in a field of flowers and hugging in a room full of cats and smiling while standing next to Frankenstein (mysteriously, I am always wearing a pearl necklace, though I do not own one. Pearl necklace, I’ve learned is the signifier for “Mother”).

That’s to say nothing of the moments we share for which there is no paper trail. The early mornings when my three-year-old clambers into my bed and nuzzles in my shoulder. The bedtimes when my nine-year-old will curl up next to me as I read Little Women aloud. The sporadic, sudden hugs from my eleven-year-old who is so much taller than me that my head nearly rests on his shoulder now.

String these moments together and you get one hell of a Mother’s Day. n

Nicole C. Kear is the author of the memoir Now I See You (St. Martin’s, 2014), and the forthcoming chapter book series for kids, The Fix-It Friends (Imprint, 2017).

Playing House

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

For Christmas last year, my daughters got a dollhouse. By New York City standards, it’s really more of a doll mansion than a house. Four stories, massive terrace on the second floor, private garage, and a charming two-person swing hanging from an attached archway. Every time I look at the dollhouse, I imagine what the doll version of our real apartment would be, an exercise that only depresses and demoralizes me. No parent would buy that doll-apartment—except maybe for New York City parents, because, after all, it would be a space-saver.

My girls love their dollhouse. I love their dollhouse. It fulfills my real estate dreams and allows me to realize my housekeeping aspirations. Because while I don’t have a shot in hell at keeping my real house tidy, I keep an immaculate dollhouse. 

My three children are humans (as far as I know) but their effect on our home is not like that of humans. It is like that of weather. Bad weather. Ruinous weather. Hurricanes. Tornadoes.

The eye of the storm is my three year-old, Terza. Her messes are not just epic, but Homeric. I’d be impressed by their breadth and ambition, if I wasn’t so busy having a nervous breakdown.

Terza is an upender. Before selecting a pair of socks, she needs to upend the entire bin and ponder all of her choices spread out before her. Ditto with the underwear and the pants and the shirts—and the toys. She upends packs of crayons, containers full of ponies, tubs of beads, packs of cards, boxes of blocks. Apparently, it takes so much energy to upend everything that there’s none left to put it all away. I try to get her to clean up, I really do. But being a savvy third child, she knows that more often than not, if she stalls long enough, we’ll eventually have to rush off to pick up or drop off a sibling, and by the time we get home, it’ll be past her bedtime and I’ll be so fried and ready for all three-year-olds to be asleep, that I’ll “put a pin” in her mess which is to say, send her to bed and clean it up myself.

[pullquote]Every night, the dollhouse looks as if it has been ransacked by a gang of thugs or has just hosted five simultaneous frat parties.[/pullquote]

The older kids—my daughter, eight and son, ten—no longer create state-of-emergency messes.  With the big kids, the mess is less a downpour and more a steady, unrelenting drizzle. They move through the place, constantly dropping personal belongings everywhere, like Hansel with his breadcrumbs—only for no good reason. Hairbrushes, socks, markers, books, headbands, and always, everywhere, endless pieces of paper. I’m surprised they have time to get anything else done, so busy are they picking up items and depositing them in a new location.

I’m surprised I have time to get anything done, so busy am I nagging them constantly to “Put this back where you found it!” and “Put your dirty clothes in the hamper!” and “Put these clothes back in your drawer and don’t you dare put them in the hamper because you wore them for five minutes and they are about as dirty as a Mister Rogers episode!”

On bad days—snow days, or worse, playdate days —it takes hours to wrestle our house into order again. Even on our best days, it takes a full hour– and even then, it’s not clean enough that I’d invite Child Protective Services—or my mother—over. I can never get our house clean. The most I can hope for is that it appears habitable.

But it takes mere minutes to make the dollhouse immaculate—no matter how anarchic the mess. And it does get anarchic in there.

When my girls play in the dollhouse, their dramas are not your usual “family” fare.  More often than not, they play with animals, many of which are feral. This results in much stampeding and charging and attacking—which wreaks havoc on a domicile. Even when they play with people, their dramas are tragedies of a very physical nature. Doctors are constantly being sent for because characters are inevitably wounded, sometimes fatally. There is also quite a lot of dancing that goes on in the dollhouse—dancing which brings the roof down, literally.

Every night, the dollhouse looks as if it has been ransacked by a gang of thugs or has just hosted five simultaneous frat parties. The furniture isn’t just overturned; it’s overturned in the wrong room. The fridge is in the master bedroom, the bunk beds are in the kitchen, the sofa’s on the terrace. Most disquieting of all, the charming two-person swing is off its hinge and lying on its side a few feet away.

So, every night, I groan and sigh and shake my head. And then, ignoring the mess in my actual home, I kneel down and set about tidying up the dollhouse. I don’t have to clean the dollhouse, but I want to. It calms me the way a glass of wine or evening yoga might calm a less crazy person.

Cleaning the dollhouse takes about three minutes. I return the master bed to the master bedroom, the fridge to the kitchen, the sofa to the living room. I hang the charming two-person swing on the charming archway created for this express purpose. The dollhouse is not just habitable. It is flawless—ready for its flawless family to move in.

I place the dollhouse Mom on the sofa, the dollhouse Dad in the armchair and the dollhouse child in her bed. Sure, it’d be fun to give her a push in the now-functional swing but it’s night and at night—in the dollhouse at least—children sleep. They do not run into the living room at 3 a.m., demanding marshmallows and begging to watch Mickey Mouse.

Cleaning up my dollhouse reminds me of how well I used to parent, before I had kids. I was the absolute best mother when my kids were just figments of my imagination. I was patient and consistent. Fun but firm. I knew the answer to every question and exactly what to do in every situation. When I was a parent only in my day dreams, I never yelled, never caved, never doubted myself.

My imaginary children were paragons of obedience and self-regulation—they always cleaned up after themselves. They never bickered or whined or raised their voices. They watched absolutely no TV and ate absolutely all their vegetables. They always minded their manners and never minded sharing. They did everything I told them to, just like the dolls in the dollhouse.

Of course, my imaginary kids never surprised me. They never caused me to snort with laughter. They never made me feel like I was having a cardiac episode from such intense feeling—joy and terror and gratitude and wonder, all at the same time.

I remind myself of this as I turn my attention from the perfectly-ordered dollhouse to my real living room. I remind myself as I sweep up crushed Cheerios and load the dishwasher. I remind myself as I put dirty shirts in the hamper and fish out clean ones that somehow found their way in there.

I think about how it’s good to have a dollhouse to dream in and a real house to live in. A person needs both.

 

 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of the memoir Now I See You (St. Martin’s Press, 2014) and the forthcoming series for children, The Fix-It Friends, out in early 2017 from Macmillan Kids. 

Picture Book Pitfalls

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , ,

Does this scene seem familiar? You’re curled up in bed or snuggled in a rocking chair or sitting on your stoop on a beautiful fall afternoon and you’re reading Bread and Jam for Frances to your child. You are feeling incredibly good about yourself because you know that reading builds a lifelong love of literature and ensures that your child will be adequately attached to you so that they won’t get strung out on heroin or drop out of high school or get ill-advised tats on their ankles.

Your child is leaning against you and it’s wonderful to smell that good, clean kid smell and also wonderful to know you are the best parent that ever existed, so exceptional you may, in fact, win Mother of the Year. Because you could have opted for a shorter book, maybe Sendak or Willems, which would have left you a few minutes to send emails, but you opted for this one because, well, they just grow up so fast.

You are admiring Hoban’s writing style—so simple, yet so satisfying, the literary equivalent of comfort food—and you are feeling delightfully charmed by Frances, who is not only the only badger you’ve ever encountered in children’s literature, but also the best. And then it happens.

Frances sings.

Of course she does. That badger will sing about anything. She will sing about eggs and tea sets and jump rope. Yes, it’s a part of her precocious appeal and yes, the songs are great—funny and smart and pithy. A part of you wishes Taylor Swift would release an album of Frances covers. But the fact remains that they put an undue onus on you, beleaguered mother, who did not get formal songwriting training at Julliard.

There you are, reading happily, until you crash right into those block quotes which instantly kill your buzz and trigger the following inner monologue:

Oh, come on. A song? Really. Now? Did the Hobans bother to give me a clue as to a melody that might work here? Did he insert a helpful footnote, clarifying that if you’ll just sing to the tune of “Oh Susanna,” you’ll be on cruise control? Something like:

“Why are there so many

Songs inside picture books?”*

*sing to the tune of “Rainbow Connection”

No, of course they did not.

I could speak the lyrics, as if it were a poem. That’s perfectly legit. We move the plot forward, we get character development, and without the stress of composing an original soundtrack. Still, I can’t help feeling like I’m giving everyone short shrift here. How hard is it, anyway, to sing a jaunty little tune? It’s not rocket science.

I’ll just pick a very basic melody; say, “The ABCs” or “Row Your Boat.” We’ll give that a shot.

And look at that, it’s a disaster because I’m not a direct descendant of Pete Seeger, and thus, it’s not that easy for me to match Frances’ lyrics about soft-boiled eggs to the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” It would be easier, really, just to improvise a new melody. You know, like the jazz giants did. Like Coltrane.

It seems like it would be easier, and yet it is not. Because as soon as I’ve sung one line of Francis’ incisive lyrics, I forget the melody I just came up with. You could call it “avant-guard,” if by that you meant “unbearable.”

So, I’ve exhausted all options, which means the only choice now is to imagine WWNNPD—what would non-neurotic people do? They would say: Who cares? It’s not like my daughter will notice. She probably thinks I sound like an angel and am beautiful too, because she is young and innocent in the ways of the world. And I get an A for effort, which still puts me in the running for the Mother of the Year, which, despite the fact that it is a fictional prize I know does not exist, I still have my heart set on. Not quite what non-neurotic people would do, but as close as I can get.

Repeat this monologue at every new mention of a song in a picture book. You get the idea. It’s draining.

It’s not the most pressing problem to plague families today, I’ll admit. Yet you’d think there’d be a hack for this. Or, better yet, an app. Yes, what we really need is an app in which you can search for picture books featuring un-scored lyrics, and then play an original composition for each tune, courtesy of some actual Julliard grad who, no doubt, could use the work.

Anyone?

Nicole Caccavo Kear is the author of the memoir Now I See You (St. Martin’s), now available in paperback. Her children’s series, The Fix-It Friends, comes out in 2017 by Macmillan Kids – and will not feature any original songs.

Mom Bod

By Filed Under: Yoga Tagged With: , , ,

We all sit with our yoga mats in a circle, moms holding their babies. At the beginning of each class, I ask everyone to share their name, their baby’s name and age, and what’s new for their child that week. Whether it’s a fresh-cut tooth, colic, or 5 a.m. ready-to-play wake-ups, I like to hear about it. I also invite the mothers to share what is going on with their bodies. “What body?” I can hear them thinking, as they unload the contents of their diaper bags and peel infants out of Moby wraps. One by one, we go around the room, and each mom shares a “discovery.” Or, what I’ve begun to think of as chapters in a book called:

Things That Happen to Your Body After You Have a Baby That No One Told You About

Your hair might fall out. (Maybe no one else will notice the change, but that doesn’t spare you the indignity of wiping up handfuls of your own hair off the bathroom tile.)

Your abdominal muscles may have separated, a condition known as diastasis recti. (You mean, I shouldn’t be doing sit ups?)

You wake up in middle of the night dripping wet with sweat. (Hormones give you the business.)

You can’t sleep even when the baby does. (Your nervous system is on hyper-drive.)

You feel like you have a hunchback. (Nursing and feeding does a number on your posture.)

Your thumbs, wrists, knees, feet, or back hurt in weird and confusing ways. (Hormones, again.)

You are tired. Really. Freaking. Tired. (It’s shocking how tired you can feel. You’re so tired you can’t come up with creative ways to express how tired you are. )

Recently one mommy said she was ready to get her “body back”. She continued, “I’m ready to feel like myself again.” From feeling like ‘me’ to feeling like ‘mommy’ and back again Whenever someone says they want to get their body back, I immediately think, “From whom?! What happened? Did that cute baby steal your body?!” Because you still have a body. Your body. But it’s different now, and that’s a hard truth to swallow. I think what they really mean is, “I want my body to be something I know and something I like…because I’m not sure I like this.”

Wanting to feel like yourself again—now, that’s big time stuff. Just like our bodies have changed by becoming mothers, there is sort of a seismic identity shift that happens as well. Unfortunately, you may have to wade through some pretty murky, unknown waters until you suddenly realize, “Oh yeah. This is still me. I should get out of this gross water now.”

You may think I am sitting from a perch of answers at the front of the class. Not quite—I’m in the circle, too. I have an infant and a four year old. I know what my students are talking about because I feel it in my own body. I want what they want. I, too, want to tighten up my ish! I want to feel stronger! And sexier! Or at least start caring about being sexy again.

This is where aparigraha can come in handy. Aparigraha—one of the Yoga Sutras or Eight Limbs of Yoga—represents the practice of non-possessiveness otherwise known as non-attachment. Breathing and stepping back, at least figuratively, can be a secret weapon in making peace with the body and the baby.

But how do we practice non-attachment in the age of attachment parenting?

One of my favorite moving meditations is a simple one: “Let. Go.” I encourage my students to breath in the word “Let” and breathe out the word “Go”. Inhale, “Let.” Exhale, “Go.” That’s it. Let go of the expectations. Let go of trying to lose the weight. Let go of wanting the baby to be good. Let go of what you read last night on Babycenter.com—and maybe just stop reading it altogether!

The idea of non-attachment in yoga is about fully participating in the process without getting tied up in the outcome of the product. Sounds breezy, right? Um. Maybe. But it takes practice just like the physical aspect of yoga takes practice.

Working towards non-attachment has been particularly helpful for me when it comes to toddler mealtime. “What!? You don’t want to eat your favorite meal I made for you? That thirty-minute meal took all day to make in five-minute increments! I was looking forward to eating with you and watching you enjoy it BECAUSE IT’S YOUR FAVORITE! But today, you’re not going to eat it!? Okay.”

I get it. Making the meal was the process. Daughter actually eating it was the product. So much for the good intentions of my home cookin’. Deep breaths. Let. Go.

Potty training is another time when aparighara helped my parenting strategies. It would drive me absolutely bananas when we were about to leave the apartment and my daughter would refuse to go potty. A gentler reminder to “give it a try” would become a wild-west style stand off. It wasn’t until I stepped back a little—well a lot, really—that things improved. Let. Go.

How do you let go without letting yourself go?

The media is relentless when it comes to inundating us with images of how a woman should look, especially after having a baby. The beautiful people seem to have little arrows pointing to their bikini bodies saying things like, “SEVEN WEEKS AFTER BABY!” A lot of women internalize this to mean, “YOU LOOK BAD IF YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE THIS SEVEN WEEKS AFTER BABY”. Maybe we should stop reading this stuff, too.

I’m trying to refocus the lens a bit, one class at a time. I want my students—my fellow new mothers—not to feel bad for having bodies that change. If you were lucky enough to get pregnant, give birth, nurse or feed an infant, and shift your identity to include being a mother, then YEAH, stuff has changed. Also, let’s not forget that the last time you tried to wear those shorts was two summers ago—last summer you were pregnant, remember? Now you are two years older. Time is marching on, my friends.

So let’s sit in a circle and marvel at our bodies—their health, their vigor, what they can do on six hours of constantly interrupted sleep for months or years on end. Let’s be proud of what we just did! We had some babies!!! We adopted some babies! Some of our wives had babies, too!

Post-natal and baby yoga classes are not exclusively about getting in shape, although it’s important to have an opportunity to exercise with your little one. I want people to feel like they are a part of something; they are connected to their babies and each other in the circle. I want people to laugh and blow off steam, because that may help you feel more like yourself again. But there is a fine line between feeling good in your skin and trying to get skinny in order to feel good. Let’s stick with the former, shall we?

I recently started practicing yoga regularly again since having my second child. It has been a humbling experience. When I curl my body into child’s pose, I feel my hip flexors boing-ing me upwards. I am tight and loose in all the wrong places. There are no arm balances or binds. At least, not yet!

But you know what? I just built some people with my body! Who cares that my boat pose may look a little like a sinking ship? I do, but I don’t. I’m trying to let go, too, one breath at a time.

Jessica Phillips Lorenz has been teaching yoga and creative drama classes to children and families in NYC for over a decade.  Also a playwright and lyricist, she has performed many original solo works and her songs appear on the award-winning children’s record  Come Play Yoga.  Her work has appeared in Mutha magazine.  Jess lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids, who sometimes co-teach family yoga classes with her.  She teaches at Bend & Bloom Yoga in Park Slope.