Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Thursday, August 05, 2010
The important thing
Last weekend I scoured the cookie aisle at Whole Foods trying to find any pre-packaged cookie that Annabelle could safely eat. It was almost impossible. But I landed a brand that had only one questionable item in the ingredients list. I wondered: Was a cookie was worth a stomach ache? Today it would be! We bought the package and took it with us to a party.
How joyous to watch Annabelle walk around with that box, showing everyone that SHE was eating cookies! And then, with anyone who asked, so willingly share one with them! It was beautiful to see her have a chance to feel like a regular kid, happy to have something special and sweet. It was almost a fantasy, standing back and watching her celebrate the occasion.
As Annabelle grows she is beginning to understand more clearly that there are certain foods that she is not allowed to eat. I know I've talked a lot about this here, but as her perception of this reality matures it affects how everyone in the house relates to food. One of the primary results is that her negotiating skills are out of this world. Especially considering she just turned five a few months ago.
Annabelle :: Mom, what would you think if we just tried raspberries today? What if I just had two and then asked for one more? What if I asked without crying?
or
Annabelle :: I know! I will try eating chocolate today, then wait two days, then eat it again, then wait two days, then eat it again, then wait two days, then eat it again, then wait two days, then eat it again. That will work!
or
Annabelle :: Do you think I could not be off dairy for a while?
or
Annabelle :: Just a little? I'll take a small bite, a teeny-weeny bite, a fairy bite! No, two fairy bites! No, three fairy bites! Just three fairy bites? That's okay, right mom? I can do that, right? Four fairy bites? (shrugs shoulders and nods head) Yes, that will work. Right? We can just try that today and I won't worry about it. Okay? Five fairy bites is no big deal. Yes. Good. Okay, let's do that.
We are constantly pushing in some direction, trying to open up her diet in a new way. I try to choose foods that open the most doors, like introducing eggs a couple months ago... This week I actually removed eggs from her diet and she is doing so much better! It is hard not to overdo something (like the eggs that she was eating every day) and then push the envelope too fast and too hard just to have it backlash. It is not easy to gauge when or how this happens, and I think we'll be able to reintroduce eggs really soon, but maybe keep it to a once or twice a week food. We'll see. Potatoes are next and I will go very slowly.
Two days ago Annabelle had a playdate with a little girl who is the closest she's ever had to having a best friend. I made a big deal about taking an extra cookie to share with her friend and she talked about how it would be a surprise that would be really fun. After the playdate we went to the grocery store and stopped in the cookie aisle so that I could get a second box for the week.
Annabelle :: My friend did a funny thing with the cookie I gave to her!
Me :: Really? What did she do?
Annabelle :: (laughing) She took ONE bite and then threw it down on the ground!
Me :: (gasp!)
Annabelle :: (still laughing) And then she said it was disgusting!
Me :: (trying very hard to hold on to my equanimity) Oh.
Annabelle :: (silent for a moment, then burst into tears)
I hugged her for a long time while she cried and then she told me that she never wanted to buy those cookies again. I wasn't sure what to do, but I agreed to find her an even better cookie. So we spent over twenty minutes pulling down every single gluten-free cookie bag or box off the shelf and organizing the least offensive choices over and over again until we narrowed it down to one. I tore open the bag and she tasted it and agreed that it was delicious.
Okay, so a second start.
But all the talk has been about whether or not her friend will actually like these cookies. There is anxiety, even though she loves them. I have been working through a wide range of options about how to respond to the situation. Downplay is usually the best choice and I think I'll do that here. But I also feel reluctant about encouraging her to share her new cookies with her friend. Besides, I tasted the cookies and even though they look like chocolate chip cookies, they certainly don't taste like them. I can't imagine any child who is accustomed to your average store-bought chocolate chip cookie actually enjoying them.
More than anything, however, I have wondered if it is usual to have this sort of situation arise between kindergarten friends. Is it a life lesson that would ultimately be good for her? Am I working to protect her too much? Does my striving to find a second bag of cookies only prolong the inevitable pain of watching the whole scenario happen again?
Why do I feel like it is extremely early in my daughter's life for me to be asking myself these questions? Being a parent is such a puzzle. I have met very few mothers who think they do a good job at parenting. But the women who seem to be relaxed have found a sense of peace in knowing that they truly have done the best they could. I definitely need to work on that! I must stop judging my own capacity as a mother on whether or not Annabelle seems happy. Because I know it is the fact that I judge myself that harms her the most! The mothers who are relaxed aren't doing any better than anyone else, but they are giving their children the gift of their own sense of peace and inner confidence.
The answers to my second guessing aren't important. What's most important is that I stop second guessing myself. Annabelle will recover and learn and in the meantime we'll spend every afternoon in the pool until school starts again. Playdates aren't nearly as important as curling up in bed together and reading Twig for the hundredth time. And we'll eat cookies and try summer fruits and adventurous smoothies and go on lots of bicycle rides too...
How joyous to watch Annabelle walk around with that box, showing everyone that SHE was eating cookies! And then, with anyone who asked, so willingly share one with them! It was beautiful to see her have a chance to feel like a regular kid, happy to have something special and sweet. It was almost a fantasy, standing back and watching her celebrate the occasion.
As Annabelle grows she is beginning to understand more clearly that there are certain foods that she is not allowed to eat. I know I've talked a lot about this here, but as her perception of this reality matures it affects how everyone in the house relates to food. One of the primary results is that her negotiating skills are out of this world. Especially considering she just turned five a few months ago.
Annabelle :: Mom, what would you think if we just tried raspberries today? What if I just had two and then asked for one more? What if I asked without crying?
or
Annabelle :: I know! I will try eating chocolate today, then wait two days, then eat it again, then wait two days, then eat it again, then wait two days, then eat it again, then wait two days, then eat it again. That will work!
or
Annabelle :: Do you think I could not be off dairy for a while?
or
Annabelle :: Just a little? I'll take a small bite, a teeny-weeny bite, a fairy bite! No, two fairy bites! No, three fairy bites! Just three fairy bites? That's okay, right mom? I can do that, right? Four fairy bites? (shrugs shoulders and nods head) Yes, that will work. Right? We can just try that today and I won't worry about it. Okay? Five fairy bites is no big deal. Yes. Good. Okay, let's do that.
We are constantly pushing in some direction, trying to open up her diet in a new way. I try to choose foods that open the most doors, like introducing eggs a couple months ago... This week I actually removed eggs from her diet and she is doing so much better! It is hard not to overdo something (like the eggs that she was eating every day) and then push the envelope too fast and too hard just to have it backlash. It is not easy to gauge when or how this happens, and I think we'll be able to reintroduce eggs really soon, but maybe keep it to a once or twice a week food. We'll see. Potatoes are next and I will go very slowly.
Two days ago Annabelle had a playdate with a little girl who is the closest she's ever had to having a best friend. I made a big deal about taking an extra cookie to share with her friend and she talked about how it would be a surprise that would be really fun. After the playdate we went to the grocery store and stopped in the cookie aisle so that I could get a second box for the week.
Annabelle :: My friend did a funny thing with the cookie I gave to her!
Me :: Really? What did she do?
Annabelle :: (laughing) She took ONE bite and then threw it down on the ground!
Me :: (gasp!)
Annabelle :: (still laughing) And then she said it was disgusting!
Me :: (trying very hard to hold on to my equanimity) Oh.
Annabelle :: (silent for a moment, then burst into tears)
I hugged her for a long time while she cried and then she told me that she never wanted to buy those cookies again. I wasn't sure what to do, but I agreed to find her an even better cookie. So we spent over twenty minutes pulling down every single gluten-free cookie bag or box off the shelf and organizing the least offensive choices over and over again until we narrowed it down to one. I tore open the bag and she tasted it and agreed that it was delicious.
Okay, so a second start.
But all the talk has been about whether or not her friend will actually like these cookies. There is anxiety, even though she loves them. I have been working through a wide range of options about how to respond to the situation. Downplay is usually the best choice and I think I'll do that here. But I also feel reluctant about encouraging her to share her new cookies with her friend. Besides, I tasted the cookies and even though they look like chocolate chip cookies, they certainly don't taste like them. I can't imagine any child who is accustomed to your average store-bought chocolate chip cookie actually enjoying them.
More than anything, however, I have wondered if it is usual to have this sort of situation arise between kindergarten friends. Is it a life lesson that would ultimately be good for her? Am I working to protect her too much? Does my striving to find a second bag of cookies only prolong the inevitable pain of watching the whole scenario happen again?
Why do I feel like it is extremely early in my daughter's life for me to be asking myself these questions? Being a parent is such a puzzle. I have met very few mothers who think they do a good job at parenting. But the women who seem to be relaxed have found a sense of peace in knowing that they truly have done the best they could. I definitely need to work on that! I must stop judging my own capacity as a mother on whether or not Annabelle seems happy. Because I know it is the fact that I judge myself that harms her the most! The mothers who are relaxed aren't doing any better than anyone else, but they are giving their children the gift of their own sense of peace and inner confidence.
The answers to my second guessing aren't important. What's most important is that I stop second guessing myself. Annabelle will recover and learn and in the meantime we'll spend every afternoon in the pool until school starts again. Playdates aren't nearly as important as curling up in bed together and reading Twig for the hundredth time. And we'll eat cookies and try summer fruits and adventurous smoothies and go on lots of bicycle rides too...
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing
This morning a very young man flirted with me. It caught me off guard and I wasn't even completely sure that he realized what he was doing until our exchange at the car wash was complete and I had to drive away... and then he gave me a smile with an eyebrow raised. I started laughing on the spot and didn't really feel bad until later. I hope he didn't think I was laughing at him, but he was at least ten years younger than I was (!) and that happens so infrequently these days that the laughing just sort of came out unexpectedly.
I promptly forgot about it until I went to the store this afternoon, this time with Annabelle, and was asking the butcher about his tri tip. Over his shoulder I noticed another butcher smiling broadly at me. I smiled back politely and continued to carry on my conversation. Then, to make his point, he winked at me. I did a double-take, showed my surprise, and he blushed.
Honestly? I looked down at my shirt. It was buttoned.
Then, as we were walking to check out, a third guy was smiling at me down the aisle. I ignored him until he came directly up to my cart, stood in front of me, raised both his eyebrows a few times and then walked away smiling over his shoulder.
I was at a total loss. This is not the sort of attention I usually conjure. Either my lackadaisical not-showering-regularly-during-the-summertime look really works for me, or it's the post-sweat cheek flush from my bike ride in the sun an hour earlier. Or maybe it's the why-wash-my-hair-if-I-swam-in-a-chlorinated-pool look that I'm sporting, along with my "Clean enough!" yoga pants.
On the ride home I remembered a conversation I had shared with another teacher at school who is the mother of a 17 year old girl. Her daughter is gorgeous, a knock-out, and we were laughing about how we were gorgeous when we were 17, but of course had no idea. Then the thought occurred to us at the same time: we should start believing we're gorgeous now, because when we are in our fifties and sixties we're going to be having this exact same conversation.
Of course, in that moment I liked the idea, but now I'm not even sure what it means.
I wasn't going to mention all this here. But today's experience was so unusual (and so rare) and there will be a day in many, many years when Annabelle reads all the things I've written in this blog. And among the wide variety of things I practice, things I preach, and things that just are, I can't help but wonder how I can help my daughter to feel good about herself in a way that is healthy and humble.
This brings me to question myself: how do I feel healthy and humble? How can I be a mother that is able to receive flirtations with a certain gratitude for my own youthfulness and not just look in the mirror and begin to directly criticize myself? I don't want to grow old and grumpy. I don't want to be prudish.
Even as an (almost!) 36 year old, I find it really discouraging and difficult when women don't like to have their picture taken. And I really hate it when a woman tries too hard to look ten years younger than she is! I look around for women that have figured out how to grow old in a healthy way, to accept themselves and be happy about the marvel of change that accompanies the process of aging. It isn't easy to find these women, particularly because surrender is not the same as acceptance. I don't want to resign myself to the process, I want to embrace it. Without botox, if possible. (I cross my fingers.)
I wonder if it is too idealistic, what I am asking to find. Maybe it is unfair - the post-modern woman is still trying to figure out how to do it all: be a mother and wife, have a career, get a good education, have a social life, have hobbies, be interested and interesting. And now I add: be happy about the obviousness of having less time left in life to do it all? I bank on the fact that I have more life to live! That alone saves me an embarrassing amount of stress. Will I be able to, as I hope to do, figure myself out enough that I don't feel that same stress when I have less life to live?
Not sure, not sure.
I promptly forgot about it until I went to the store this afternoon, this time with Annabelle, and was asking the butcher about his tri tip. Over his shoulder I noticed another butcher smiling broadly at me. I smiled back politely and continued to carry on my conversation. Then, to make his point, he winked at me. I did a double-take, showed my surprise, and he blushed.
Honestly? I looked down at my shirt. It was buttoned.
Then, as we were walking to check out, a third guy was smiling at me down the aisle. I ignored him until he came directly up to my cart, stood in front of me, raised both his eyebrows a few times and then walked away smiling over his shoulder.
I was at a total loss. This is not the sort of attention I usually conjure. Either my lackadaisical not-showering-regularly-during-the-summertime look really works for me, or it's the post-sweat cheek flush from my bike ride in the sun an hour earlier. Or maybe it's the why-wash-my-hair-if-I-swam-in-a-chlorinated-pool look that I'm sporting, along with my "Clean enough!" yoga pants.
On the ride home I remembered a conversation I had shared with another teacher at school who is the mother of a 17 year old girl. Her daughter is gorgeous, a knock-out, and we were laughing about how we were gorgeous when we were 17, but of course had no idea. Then the thought occurred to us at the same time: we should start believing we're gorgeous now, because when we are in our fifties and sixties we're going to be having this exact same conversation.
Of course, in that moment I liked the idea, but now I'm not even sure what it means.
I wasn't going to mention all this here. But today's experience was so unusual (and so rare) and there will be a day in many, many years when Annabelle reads all the things I've written in this blog. And among the wide variety of things I practice, things I preach, and things that just are, I can't help but wonder how I can help my daughter to feel good about herself in a way that is healthy and humble.
This brings me to question myself: how do I feel healthy and humble? How can I be a mother that is able to receive flirtations with a certain gratitude for my own youthfulness and not just look in the mirror and begin to directly criticize myself? I don't want to grow old and grumpy. I don't want to be prudish.
Even as an (almost!) 36 year old, I find it really discouraging and difficult when women don't like to have their picture taken. And I really hate it when a woman tries too hard to look ten years younger than she is! I look around for women that have figured out how to grow old in a healthy way, to accept themselves and be happy about the marvel of change that accompanies the process of aging. It isn't easy to find these women, particularly because surrender is not the same as acceptance. I don't want to resign myself to the process, I want to embrace it. Without botox, if possible. (I cross my fingers.)
I wonder if it is too idealistic, what I am asking to find. Maybe it is unfair - the post-modern woman is still trying to figure out how to do it all: be a mother and wife, have a career, get a good education, have a social life, have hobbies, be interested and interesting. And now I add: be happy about the obviousness of having less time left in life to do it all? I bank on the fact that I have more life to live! That alone saves me an embarrassing amount of stress. Will I be able to, as I hope to do, figure myself out enough that I don't feel that same stress when I have less life to live?
Not sure, not sure.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
A party with the old gang
It had been seven years since Dave and I left San Francisco. It was very special to be so openly welcomed back. There were so many happy faces to share the reunion...
From the bench
Last January I found an old, broken bench online that fit the peculiar dimensions of a little nook in my kitchen within 1/4 inch. So I bought it. Never mind that the guy made me take the horrible matching coffee table that I had to turn around and give away to someone else. Never mind the work of painting or covering cushions. Where else would I find a 7 foot couch that fit underneath the window? I couldn't imagine any other solution. Besides, I always wanted a couch in my kitchen.
Here are the before and after shots::
Red, please.
Last night, before I covered it, I decided to try it out, just laying on the uncovered cushions. Dave was getting a game set up for us to play and I grabbed my camera for the different perspective. There have been lots of changes around here lately, some nesting and fixing and making right. I have been trying to take advantage of the final weeks of summer before school starts, because I have proven to myself that I cannot undertake any huge home improvement project when I'm teaching.
I liked seeing our place from my prone position, so I later moved to the couch in the living room, where Dave joined me.
Superman.
The bench yet uncovered, the vacuum waiting to see who will take pity and put it away.
On with the game! I have recently discovered the new Braggs Vinegar & Honey drink and love it. But because the only ingredients are water, vinegar, and honey I think I'll try my hand at mixing it myself at home soon.
"If you win, then you are definitely putting this vacuum away." (Kidding.)
Here are the before and after shots::
Red, please.
Last night, before I covered it, I decided to try it out, just laying on the uncovered cushions. Dave was getting a game set up for us to play and I grabbed my camera for the different perspective. There have been lots of changes around here lately, some nesting and fixing and making right. I have been trying to take advantage of the final weeks of summer before school starts, because I have proven to myself that I cannot undertake any huge home improvement project when I'm teaching.
I liked seeing our place from my prone position, so I later moved to the couch in the living room, where Dave joined me.
Superman.
The bench yet uncovered, the vacuum waiting to see who will take pity and put it away.
On with the game! I have recently discovered the new Braggs Vinegar & Honey drink and love it. But because the only ingredients are water, vinegar, and honey I think I'll try my hand at mixing it myself at home soon. 
"If you win, then you are definitely putting this vacuum away." (Kidding.)
Monday, August 02, 2010
Choices
Realizing the time and that we have less than an hour to get to the market and meet Dave for dinner...
Me :: We need to get in the car and get groceries. Let's go!
Annabelle :: Nope.
Me :: (surprised because she loves going to the store with me) You don't want to come?
Annabelle :: No. I'm going to stay at home and eat all the food I'm allergic to!
Me :: We need to get in the car and get groceries. Let's go!
Annabelle :: Nope.
Me :: (surprised because she loves going to the store with me) You don't want to come?
Annabelle :: No. I'm going to stay at home and eat all the food I'm allergic to!
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