bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • New baby’s resolution five: Quit multitasking.

    I have been writing about a few resolutions I'm making in the wake of bringing a new baby out into the world and into our lives. (The series starts here).

     + + +

    I decided I have about six categories of things that I do during a typical day:

    • rest
    • self-care
    • meals
    • learning time
    • activities
    • work (which itself can be subdivided — more on that later)

    I have a vague idea of about how much time I have available to do each of these things, but I am resolved to keep that idea vague and flexible from day to day.

     The main point is that it's finite and not all that much; so I shouldn't get bogged down in endless, super-long to-do lists that get carried over because they are never finished.  

    It's okay to keep a master to-do list with ALL THE THINGS on it, and consult that while making the day's list.  Right now I'm trying out an app called Wunderlist, and I'm using it for the ALL THE THINGS list.   But I'm copying a few things from that list onto an index card each morning.

    + + +

    I also had some all-the-time goals:  for example, one goal is to demonstrate to my children, interest in the things they had to say to me, and delight in each one as a person.  I feel these things far more often than I make them known, and I wanted to work on communicating that love, interest, and delight all day long through all the things I do.

    But I've found that a major obstacle to that is constant multitasking.  I'm always trying to do two things at once.    If I'm resting, I'm answering email on my iPad.  If I'm running a spelling lesson, I'm tidying my countertop while I wait for kids to write down each word.  While I'm chopping onions, I'm supervising my seven-year-old's math homework.  While I'm lecturing my son about the boots that I keep tripping over in the mudroom, I'm photocopying worksheets for the afternoon's school.

    + + +

    Somewhere, I know, there is a homeschooling parent with the opposite problem who is resolving to learn how to multitask.  I can be quite effective, it's true.   BUT I can't multitask like that AND demonstrate love, interest, and delight.  Rather, such effectiveness tends to give me Resting Bitchface.  Not a good look on a mom.

     So here's resolution five:  Decide what I'm doing, and do that one thing.  

    Leave room in my attention for that love, interest, and delight.

    Leave room in my attention to be reasonable, to be kind, to be generous.

    Leave room in my attention to stop and guide a child back on task before the urge to yell sets in.

    Leave room in my attention for …intention.

    + + +

    So what kind of practical change can I make that will bring this about?  I think one of them is simply to look at what I've asked the kids to do, and to be doing that same thing.  

    So, for instance, if the kids are working on schoolwork, I want to try to stay there with them instead of thinking, "Oh, they're working, I'll go get a head start on lunch."  

    When it's time to make lunch, I am going to try to stop their schoolwork, and then we should all leave the schoolroom and start setting up lunch together.  Alternatively, if I need a little quiet time in my own head, I should send them on "break," while I set up lunch by myself or with just one child helper.

    This also amounts to "quit multitasking," but on the family level.  My thirteen-year-old is really the only one who can reliably be sent to do something — be it his algebra or scrubbing a toilet — and finish it without getting distracted.  It's going to be fine to let him do his own thing.  The rest of them really do need attention and guidance whenever they are given instructions.

    So I'm going to try that today, just as soon as I make my to-do list.

    Good thing I never count "…and nursing the baby" as multitasking, or I'd never get out of this chair.

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  • How those resolutions are going, and a nifty to-do trick.

    I have been writing about a few resolutions I'm making in the wake of bringing a new baby out into the world and into our lives. (The series starts here).

    Yesterday, although I am not quite done writing them out yet, I decided to bite the bullet and actually follow them.

    In a way I cheated. It was Monday. Mondays are usually the days I spend entirely at H's house, co-schooling and then shuttling kids to scouts and AHG. However, for the last couple of weeks and for a Very Good Reason, we have not been doing school together. So Mondays and Thursdays have been freed up, and I have been using them to catch up on resting, thinking, and once in a while doing a neglected chore or two. Monday's task list was a clean slate.

    So. The first thing I did was make a to-do list. Nothing new there. Except that it was a very SHORT to-do list:

    (Actual to-do list from yesterday, taken near the end of the day)

    I thought to myself, "I only have four hours to do tasks. What tasks should I do?" And that is what I came up with. I used an index card on purpose; it's like eating dinner off a smaller plate. I felt "full" with fewer tasks!

    When I was making the list I tried to include some work from each of my four categories:

    • Work for school (prepare a Latin translation; buy some curriculum; send an email about history homework)
    • Work for the family (buy a gym bag; sort laundry till I find my daughter's AHG uniform; make the kids shovel snow; grocery list)
    • Work for others (read some bylaws that I have to vote on this week for an organization that I help lead; remind Mark to move forward on a family service project)
    • Creative work (okay, I left that off, but what it amounts to is this blog post that I am writing now).

    And look! It is almost all crossed off! I actually got most of that done yesterday.

    This felt good.

    Here is another thing that felt good: During learning time — what I really call "school time," I guess, but I am trying to change its name — I forced myself not to try to do any of the tasks on my list. Instead I sat down and stayed with my kids.

    I watched a video about Frederick the Great of Prussia with my 10- and 13-year-olds. I watched the whole thing. And when my 10-y-o had questions about the video, I was right there to hear them, and I wrote them down and afterward we looked up the answers.

    I got out the nine-note recorder book and the recorders for my daughter when she suddenly decided it had been too long since she practiced, and let her use them freely all morning.

    I let the boys make lunch and clean it up.

    I read a picture book to my four-year-old for the first time in weeks.

    I led a handwriting lesson and a spelling lesson for all three school aged kids, and I wasn't rushed so I didn't yell at anyone.

    I watched another video with the kids about Roman cities (one of those PBS David Macauley ones).

    I helped my daughter get ready for her AHG awards ceremony and drove her across town, and took her and her friend out to dinner before the ceremony.

    I visited H at her house for a little while before coming home.

    It was a good day.

    I am in the middle of another day that is so far good, too. I will report back on that one later.

    + + +

     In the comments, a reader pointed me to this post at Amongst Lovely Things. It's a homeschooling blog, which is why I don't read it regularly, but this post suggests a different way of thinking about the to-do list that I rather like. She calls it "looping:"

    The concept is simply this: instead of assigning tasks to certain days of the week, list tasks and then tackle them in order, regardless of what day it is.

    Looping can be used wherever there is work that needs to be done regularly. …Right now I use a looping schedule in our homeschool, for my housework, and for my writing.

    Right now this is how I schedule our morning time read-alouds. For example, we're reading All the Swords in England, St. Patrick's Summer, and various plays by Shakespeare. Those are looped during our morning read aloud time (with Shakespeare having a more prominent place on the loop- twice for every once that we're reading the others). Next term I expect that loop to change because I want to read Father Brown, Bible stories, and Our Mother Tongue during morning time.

    Another way you could use a looping schedule is to loop various activities within a subject. For example, many homeschoolers have "Fine Arts Fridays." Picture study, composer study, crafts, art instruction, and poetry could be looped to offer a little variety while still making headway through a particular book or curriculum.

    Basically, take anything you would otherwise be inclined to schedule into certain days of the week (Monday: history, Tuesday: science, Wednesday: literature…. etc.) and put them on a loop instead. Now instead of feeling behind when the baby gets sick or you are running around putting out life's fires, you still make progress across the curriculum.

    I could see this working pretty well for me for household tasks, younger kids' school subjects, and maybe for readalouds, if I ever get back to doing them again. I will think about it. Maybe you will too! 

    More resolutions next time.

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    5 comments on How those resolutions are going, and a nifty to-do trick.

  • New baby’s resolution four: Don’t get bogged down in scheduling specific tasks.

    Part of a series that starts here.  We're coming up with resolutions — not in honor of the new year, but instead of a new baby's arrival and consequent disruption of all the routines that had been serving us well.

    Resolution zero:  to acknowledge our family's most important priorities and give each their due

    Resolution one:  of these, designate four as "all-the-time" intentions:

    • Serve God
    • Show love, interest, and delight in one another
    • Model reason, generosity, and kindness to resolve conflict
    • Teach diligence

    Resolution two:  Simplify the list of things we must "make time for."  I got it down to this:

    • Rest
    • Self-care
    • Meals
    • Learning time (since we're homeschoolers)
    • Activities
    • Work (a.k.a., the to-do list)

    Resolution three:  to accept the limits on my time, spending it on a few choice tasks and letting go of the rest of the to-do list

    + + +

    In the last post  I calculated that, on a typical weekday, I have somewhere between 4 and 5 hours to accomplish tasks of the sort that I might put on a to-do list. 

    I don't say, "I have 4-5 hours to knock all the items off my to-do list."  That's because Resolution Three requires me to accept that I will never get them all. 

    (I'm thinking that the "to-do" list needs a different name.  "Could-do" list?  No, still implies possibility of completion.  "Might-do" list?  "Task menu?"  Will have to think more.)

     This kind of work includes

    • work for the children's schooling including long-term planning, yearly curriculum selection and purchasing, weekly lesson preparation, evaluation and record-keeping
    • work for the familyincluding laundry and clothes-buying; dishes; tidying; meal planning and grocery shopping; cooking dinner; and maintaining the family appointment calendar
    • work for others including volunteer commitments, helping friends, and any paid work;
    • creative work including hobbies, blogging, self-improvement, and other satisfying personal projects

    When I made schedules in the past, I thought I had to "do everything" at least once in a while.  That meant that I had to find a time for each task on my list.  If there wasn't enough time to do each thing as often as I needed, I would just have to do everything less frequently:  instead of mopping every week, I'll mop every two weeks.

    I did all this by slotting many tasks into specific times of the day or week or month.  For example, Thursday mornings between the end of breakfast and the start of co-schooling was Time To Put Away All The Accumulated Clean Laundry.   Time For Weekly Lesson Planning was Wednesday evening while the children were at church for catechism class.  Set Up All The Week's School Materials Time was Sunday night right before bed.  Blogging Time?  Mornings, before kids get up.

    But I didn't always do what I said I was going to do, either because another task felt more urgent or because I thought of some other task I preferred. 

    (Often, blogging.)

    And then I would berate myself for departing from the schedule, particularly later when I couldn't find any matching socks or graph paper.   I would do this even if it turned out to have been a good trade-off.  There wasn't any room for flexibility or forgiveness. 

    I'm just not a flexible sort of person; I'll probably always feel kind of bad about changing my plans.  I therefore conclude that I ought to make less specific plans.  If I don't get around to a particular task now, because it's not so urgent, well — sooner or later it will become urgent and command my attention.

    + + +

    But I don't want to get carried away doing only housework, or only school planning — the two categories that often masquerade as SUPER URGENT MUST DO for days at a time.  I need to use some of my time for creative outlets as well, so I can stay recharged and sharp.  Also, I owe at least a little bit of work to other people.

    + + +

    Resolution Four is about the moment of choosing which tasks will and won't happen in the four hours and change that I have available for it every day. 

    I resolve to regularly choose tasks from the categories of creative work, work for the family, work for others, and work for the kids' school. 

    I'm not promising equal time for each category and I'm not promising to hit every category every day.  But I am resolving to hit them all in their turn, each day choosing what makes the most sense for that day, and — what's harder — letting go of what doesn't.

     

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  • New baby’s resolution three: Know how much time I have in the day.

    Continuing a series that starts here.

    + + +

    I figured out in the last post that there are about six basic ways I can slice up the hours in my day.

    1. Rest and sleep
    2. Meals
    3. Self-care
    4. Learning time
    5. Activities
    6. Work

    "Work" encompasses a lot of different things, but I found one easy way to figure out if a thing is "work:" might I put it on a to-do list and then procrastinate it, possibly for days, while feeling guilty about not getting around to it? If so, it is work.

    I do not tend to do this with, say, taking a shower or eating lunch or going to the gym. That is how I know that showering is not work, but self-care; and lunch is not work, but a meal; and going to the gym is not work, but an activity.

    I do tend to do this with housework or school planning or home improvement projects or even many hobbies that I enjoy, such as writing blog posts. So they all count as work of one kind or another.

    I suppose instead of "work" I could call that category "My To-Do List." That isn't a bad idea. I will consider that.

    Anyway, it's all the stuff in "work" that tends to dog me.

    I. Cannot. Do. It. All.

    I need to let some of it go. But how much to let go? Do I even know how much time I have to do these things?

     Let's figure it out, roughly.

     + + +

     "Roughly" is the best I can do right now. I have a 6-week-old baby and my efficiency is consequently unusually low, plus it swings widely from day to day depending on his nursing pattern. ( I am taking advantage of the resulting low postpartum schooling and housekeeping standards to write these blog posts while the kids play poker downstairs.)

    If I was in a more stable pattern, I might try another time study like the one I did a few years ago, only with the time categories chopped up a little differently. That was a lot of fun, and I recommend the exercise to anyone who is curious about how they spend their time. But that measure takes a week, and I need something a little more quick and dirty — just an estimate.

    + + +

     We start with 24 hours in the day. I estimate generously that I should sleep for about eight hours — about 10:30 pm to 6:30 am. That leaves sixteen hours.

    Meals — this does not include real cooking, just serving and eating and putting away — are variable. Breakfast is fairly self-serve and not messy, so let's say I spend half an hour on that (including unloading the dishwasher from the night before). I take longer, maybe an hour, for lunch and post-lunch cleanup — that's because I have helpers. The same for dinner. Then we have two snacks in our day that probably add up to a half hour. That's about three hours in a typical day at home. Remaining balance: Thirteen hours.

    A day's bathing, dressing, grooming, and getting ready for bed — let's say 45 minutes. I think that's pretty generous. Remaining balance: Twelve and a quarter hours.

    + + +

    Let's pause here to notice that activities, learning, and work — plus any extra rest I might need — have to fit into twelve and a quarter hours. From day to day, the allocation of that time among those three categories probably fluctuates quite a bit. But I am looking for a reasonable, realistic estimate of how much time I have for the to-do list. So let's truck on with estimates of time spent on activities and learning.

    I allot about five hours a day (9:30 to noon, and 2 to 4:30) that at least one of my children is doing schoolwork, and I really should be engaged with them for most of that time. So let's say that I am busy that whole five hours with "learning time." Remaining balance: seven and a quarter hours.

    That time gets divided up between work and activities (unless it's used for extra rest). Sometimes there isn't any special activity at all, of course, leaving the whole 7.25 hours free.

    (Did I say "free?" Ha. It is telling that I am now beginning to think of the "knock-things-off-my-to-do list time" as "free time." Can we say, "workaholic?" Can we say, "defines self-worth in terms of accomplishments?")

    Anyway, typical evening activities are swimming lessons at the Y, or religious education classes at church. The swimming lessons take us about two and a half hours when you count travel time, changing, and showering. Religious ed is two and a quarter. So let's estimate generously and say that two and a half hours go to activities, when there are any.

    Remaining balance that I can count on having for "work" on this typical, imaginary day:

    4 and three-quarters hours.

    Well, now. That isn't so bad. It is less than I would like, and it's true that it needs to be broken up throughout the day — a half hour here, an hour forty-five there — but it isn't like there is no time at all. And when there isn't a scheduled activity, or if I get out of it for some reason (say if Mark volunteers to take the kids to RE) — there's bonus time. And any time I don't spend that time working, it could be used for resting.

    + + +

    That calculation being finished, we come to the resolution part of the post: to accept that those 285 minutes in each day are what I can expect to use for work, give or take a little.

     So here is resolution three, in full. I resolve

    • to stop pretending I can somehow stretch those 285 minutes out;
    • to value them, and try not to waste them;
    • to quit berating myself for not doing more than I could reasonably have done in those minutes;
    • to decide what tasks to use them for, and then to delegate the rest or let them go.
    Easier said than done, of course, but by counting them up (roughly) I am at least a bit closer to having my eyes open.
     

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  • New baby’s resolution two: Simplifying the list of things that there are “times” for.

    Part of a series that starts here.

    + + +

    Last time I wrote about my post-baby resolutions, I said that I'd identified some intentions that wouldn't become part of a "schedule," but would rather be things I would try to keep in mind all the time.

    Essential ingredients for every time-block.

    These were:

    • Serving God in everything
    • Showing each other LOVE, INTEREST, & DELIGHT in one another
    • Anticipating/resolving conflict by modeling KINDNESS, GENEROSITY, & REASON
    • Helping each other work by teaching DILIGENCE

    You may have noticed that these don't correspond quite exactly to any of the "essentials" that I identified in my first post. They are distilled from some of those "essentials" in order to get their total number down.

    One thing is for certain, we'll never get anything done if we are running in too many directions at once.

    + + +

    So of those essentials, what remains?

    • Connecting with God.
    • Resting.
    • Showing love to, and taking delight in, each other.
    • Connecting with people outside our family.
    • Resolving conflict and encouraging generosity, particularly among the children.
    • Helping each other work, and learn to work, with diligence.
    • Caring for our bodies (and that extension of our bodies, our clothing and appearance).
    • Meals.
    • Physical activity.
    • Order in our environment.
    • Learning.
    • Creative work.
    • Work that serves others.

    And can these things that remain — the things that "there are times for" — be simplified even further?

    + + +

    Our days and weeks must have "times" for

    • rest and sleep
    • meals (planning, shopping, preparing, eating, cleaning up)
    • health (physical activity, hygiene, medical care)
    • clothing care and dressing ourselves and grooming (purchasing, laundry, haircuts, etc.)
    • maintaining an orderly environment

    • intellectual development (teaching, school planning, curriculum, chosen hobbies and such)
    • connecting with the outside world (volunteer work, seeing friends, paid work)

    But that's a lot of different stuff.

    Far too overwhelming to make anything even approximating a daily or weekly routine.

    And some of the categories are nebulous.

    "Physical Activity, Hygiene, Medical Care" only go together in an abstract way as "healthy" things to do. They are not anything like one another in a practical sense. They're not done at the same frequencies or at the same times of day or in the same places. They can't be substituted for one another: one hour in the bathtub, one three-mile walk, and one doctor's appointment don't have the same effect on my overall health.

    Better to re-formulate the categories and condense them, without micromanaging the details. Mother Teresa's rule for her sisters famously included time blocks that were simply labeled things like "Work for the poor." It wasn't subdivided into individual tasks. I need the same generality categories, because in this season of life, I need to stay flexible. At a particular time in the afternoon, I may need to spend some time homemaking, but I don't want to say "laundry at this time, bed-making at this other time, return phone calls from then until the next time." I need the flexibility to do whatever household task is most important and then let the rest of the to-do list go when I have to move on to some other activity.

    So what I came up with was this list:

    Things we make "times" for

    • Rest
    • Taking care of body and clothing
    • Meals
    • Learning time
    • Work
    • "Activities"

    Much simpler, isn't it?

     

    I got away with so few categories by making several of them broader. For example, "rest" includes naps, quiet recreation (such as reading for pleasure or surfing the web in bed), and sleep. By thinking about clothing as an extension of the body, I was able to collapse the whole of the processes of getting up in the morning and getting ready for bed, encompassing dressing, bathing, dealing with hair, and even putting clothes away. "Meals" includes the necessary clean-up afterwards.

     

    "Work" encompasses several kinds of work, some enjoyable, some not my favorite. I guess now that I look at it, "work" is anything that I tend to procrastinate. It includes work for the family (a.k.a. homemaking), work for the kids' schooling, creative work (aka hobbies), paid work, and service. This category probably needs to be subdivided some, however, so that none of the kinds of work gets short changed; but maybe on a weekly rotation.

     

    "Learning time" is not called "school" because I need to separate it from the "school work" I have to do every day, week, and year: curriculum purchasing, planning, grading, and record keeping, not to mention maintaining our materials and space. Rather, "learning time" needs its own turn at the top of my priorities. By "learning time" I mean the time that the kids spend directly engaging with their schoolwork and that I spend teaching them or keeping them on task. I am always tempted to wander off and get something else done the instant that everyone appears to be working independently; but what they really need (especially the younger ones) is for me to stay focused and present to them for a good-sized block of time.

     

    "Activities" sounds pretty nebulous, but in our family it is immediately obvious what this word means. It's the stuff we do after dinner and on the weekends. Family gym night; swimming lessons; Wednesday night religious education; going to Mass on Sundays and holy days; Scouts and AHG; shows at the Children's Theatre; the occasional outing for bowling or a movie; potluck and board game night with friends. Nearly all of it optional, and none of it has to be "made up" if it's missed for reason of illness or crisis.

     

    Now I have gone and expanded them, but remember that it all collapses into just six categories.

     

    Rest, meals, learning, work, self-care, activities. To everything there is a time. And each of these to be met, all the time: in a spirit of service, loving one another, peacefully, diligently.

     

    More details in the next resolution.

     

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  • New baby’s resolution one: What there’s no “time” for.

    In the last post I wrote about how having a new baby in the house is a good time to re-evaluate priorities and make new resolutions.

     

    "Resolution zero" was, so that we could use our time well, to acknowledge and honor our priorities:

    • Connecting with God.
    • Resting.
    • Showing love to, and taking delight in, each other.
    • Connecting with people outside our family.
    • Resolving conflict and encouraging generosity, particularly among the children.
    • Helping each other work, and learn to work, with diligence.
    • Caring for our bodies (and that extension of our bodies, our clothing).
    • Meals.
    • Physical activity.
    • Order in our environment.
    • Learning.
    • Creative work.
    • Work that serves others.

    As I contemplated these essentials and thought about trying to schedule time for all, it occurred to me that they fall, for us into two categories.

    One category: priorities that we can have "times" for. There are times for rest and sleep, for example, and mealtimes. We can set aside time in our days and weeks for schooling and for chores and for getting to the gym.

    But there is another category of priorities that need to be practiced, bluntly, "all the time." There is no "time" that we block out for, for instance, showing interest in our children, or resolving conflicts between them. We have robe ready to do that at any moment that it may be called for.

    Does that mean we parents have to be ON all the time? Sort of. I can reasonably anticipate some down time, after the kids are in bed, or when I go for a run, or during the after-lunch break when I send them all away for me for a while. But we are pretty much always on call, and always called to love.

    I drew a vertical line down a sheet of paper. To the right I made a list of the things "There's A Time For." Meals and chores and the like, a rough schedule marked out by hours.

    But to the left, outside of the schedule, I made a list of things to strive for "All The Time:"

    • Serving God in everything
    • Showing each other LOVE, INTEREST, & DELIGHT in one another
    • Anticipating/resolving conflict by modeling KINDNESS, GENEROSITY, & REASON
    • Helping each other work by teaching DILIGENCE

    + + +

    These all have to do with keeping a certain intentional attitude while taking care of all the busy-ness of the day.

    Resolution one is to keep these in mind as all-the-time intentions, and find ways to do each thing — to spend each "time" — that honors these priorities all day long.

     

    ___

    note:  I slightly edited the first, "Serving God in everything," a few hours after posting it.  No reason, I thought it was a little more precise than the first version, "Doing everything for love of God."

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  • New baby’s resolutions: Resolution zero.

    New Year’s resolutions are so passé.

    Especially in February, she said. But I digress.

    If you have messed up your New Year’s resolutions already, you could wait till Lent starts, of course. Lots of people try new things then. I do think Lent can be a good time to try new self-disciplines, so to speak, though unfortunately many of us attempt to turn it into a diet plan. That can be counter-productive, when you consider the reason for the season.

    I am now thinking that a really great time for a resolution — a shaking up of the old routines and a turning over of a new leaf — is several weeks after the birth of a new baby.

    Because you know what?

    There’s no going back to the way things were before.

    I might as well formalize it.

    + + +

    Even before we decided to invite a new little one into our lives, I knew I didn’t really have room for one more along with everything else I do. I knew, I really did, that something was going to have to give.

    That didn’t stop me from trying to hang onto everything, even as I struggled to stay awake through the first trimester and to keep up with everyone during the second and the third. It didn’t stop me from trying to keep up what I had been doing and hang on to all my commitments, and that is probably good because I really have to try and FAIL before I am okay with giving up.

    Early on, I figured out that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with school by advance-planning everything on the weekends (including copying and printing, getting books to and from the library, writing new worksheets, composing emails with instructions to my “independent” students, and writing answer keys) and then sticking to my preplanned work on weekdays, keeping careful records of what everyone accomplished each day.

    Up till this last year, that has worked pretty well. It isn’t going to work anymore. I have now hit the point where if everything were going to be preplanned and prepared by me to my own exacting standards, I would have to spend my Entire Weekend on that work. And this is not good for my family, even if — maybe BECAUSE — I kind of enjoy holing up in a locked room with a computer and a curriculum catalog and no human interaction for 12 hours at a time.

    Something has to give.

    And that is just one area of my life where I was overindulging in productivity. We haven’t even talked about things like housekeeping, or dinner, or the few volunteer commitments that one or the other of us has made.

    It’s the same way there. Something has to give.

    I warned my partner in co-schooling, H., before I warned anyone else, not long after I found out I was pregnant, that my standards were about to slip, and I didn’t think it would improve matters by trying to plan out exactly how they would slip, so I was just going to LET them slip and see what happened.

    + + +

    H. didn’t really have a chance to give me much feedback before she found out she was pregnant too, and then that she was going to have twins, so, you know, any plans we had for the year were going to go out the window anyway and be replaced by … Something.

    + + +

    So what are the new baby’s resolutions? I think I am going to spread this post out over several days because I still have to process some of them, and I have been having a damnably hard time blogging for the last few months.

    Which might have something to do with my foggy brain. Though the causality could really be going either way.

    But the first resolution… No, wait. The zeroth resolution, really, since it has to underlie all the others… Is to recognize that I have priorities. Priorities with names. Values.

    It’s like this. We need these things in our lives (no particular order here):

    • Connecting with God.
    • Resting.
    • Showing love to, and taking delight in, each other.
    • Connecting with people outside our family.
    • Resolving conflict and encouraging generosity, particularly among the children.
    • Helping each other work, and learn to work, with diligence.
    • Caring for our bodies (and that extension of our bodies, our clothing).
    • Meals.
    • Physical activity.
    • Order in our environment.
    • Learning.
    • Creative work.
    • Work that serves others.

    Resolution zero is to recognize and honor these priorities so that I can somehow use my time (and help the rest of the family use their time) in a way that gives each of these their due.

     

    + + +

     

    So much for new directions. I only know one way to start anything, and that is by making a list. I have written and rewritten and re-rewritten the list over and over for a week, moving the bits around, and yet nothing has changed yet.

     

    Sooner or later I will have to put down the pen and get out of my chair.

     

    But not yet.

    —

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    2 comments on New baby’s resolutions: Resolution zero.

  • Plans.

    Still working on that birth story, I promise. Where did all the time go?

    + + +

    Now that our baby has reached 6 weeks without problem or incident, our family feels a little freer to make plans. It’s always hard for me to do so when I am pregnant. You just never know what is going to happen, you know?

    But we have been kicking around a particular idea for several years — one that was put on hold a year or so when we decided to have another baby, one for which we have been setting aside money for a while now. It’s time for us to think seriously about it.

    And that would be, taking the kids on a significant trip.

    I am not sure exactly when we might go yet, but we are making calls. We do think we know where we want to go. It seems funny, but the only places on our tentative itinerary are cities and towns that Mark and I have already visited (albeit separately).

    In a way this is characteristic of me. I am a little intimidated by taking my five children anywhere new; I like to try out even a restaurant before I haul them all in for dinner. What is on the menu? How much background noise is there? Are there TVs on the walls? Do other families bring children? How close are the tables? Do the tables have glass tops (DANGER DANGER DANGER) and is the only table that’s big enough for us a giant round one in the middle of the room? When is happy hour, and does it include half price nachos and $3 taps?

    So.

    I told Mark when we first started discussing this that I didn’t want to go trucking all over the continent with little kids. A baby is okay; they are very portable. Teens are okay too. But I will have three kids in the middle, elevenish, eight, and four-point-five. We need to stay put for a while. At least a week at a time. Have a home base, with 3 separate bedrooms and a kitchen. A place where we can get to know the neighborhood, venture out to see stuff when we have energy, come back in the afternoon to rest.

    And where can we go that we won’t exhaust the possibilities in 2 weeks?

    Rome, of course. I have three kids learning Latin and I haven’t gotten around to the cultural bits yet. I have a history-buff teen and an army-guy-doodling tween and a young daughter who loves beautiful things. All three think it would be super cool to go to a Wednesday papal audience in St. Peter’s square. The baby will be portable and, I hope, cute. The only big question mark is the four-year-old, but there’s one of him and two of us and there will be a lot of gelato around with which to bribe him and soothe the rest of us.

    But we do want to go one other place, one a bit calmer (in some ways) than the Eternal City. One that is beautiful, one with challenging things to do outdoors, one that suits both Mark and me. It’s okay if it is a tourist spot, since we plan to go in the off season.

    So: Chamonix, in the French Alps. Birthplace of l’alpinisme. First host of the Winter Olympics. World class rock climbing and alpine touring and mucking about on glaciers (something Mark has done before). Téléphériques that whisk you up the mountain so you can take hikes among the rocky peaks (something I have done before — it is the most beautiful place I have ever been). Cragging sites great for kids, all the wat from five-one to five-twelve, that you can walk to from the centre-ville to set up your own top ropes. Overnight huts in the mountains that feed you dinner after you straggle in and breakfast before you saunter out. Also a bunch of stuff that caters to families on vacation, because it is a tourist spot for sure: alpine slides, shops that will pack you a pique-nique basket, gigantic gear rental places, and a year-round population of mountain guides.

    A week or two there, with my own kitchen, sounds just wonderful. (Hilly hiking is my favorite outdoor physical activity, and it is hard to think of a better place to find some.)

    + + +

    Here’s the thing: I don’t really want to try this with a 1-to-3-year-old, so it is this year or four years from now. And four years from now my oldest will be grown. So this is the year.

    Bring on the language tapes and tack the maps to the wall. It’s time for a reeeeally long unit study.

    —

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    5 comments on Plans.

  • Four years ago…

    Still working on that birth story.  It's about half done.

    + + +

    It has been four years (exactly!  today is a birthday!) since I last had a newborn baby, and I have been rather amazed at how much I seem to have forgotten.  I feel very clumsy.

    And sometimes I even forget that the baby is even born.  I am walking around with laundry, or trying to teach math, and I look down and I realize — hey!  he's here!  

    That part that I was so worried about — the going into labor and giving birth thing?  I don't have to worry about it anymore, because it already happened.  It's done!  We are safe, home free.

    And then sometimes I think:

    Now all I have to do is NEVER HAVE SEX AGAIN.

    I will probably get over that thought.

    + + + 

    I got over it four years ago, after all.  

    It helped that the newborn in question grew into a wonderful little boy whose first complete sentence was "Ank'oo make a dinner, mama."  

    Who skipped right over the so-called terrible twos and also the usually-more-deserving-of-the-word-terrible threes.

     Who likes to randomly compliment strangers in the grocery store on their pretty earrings.  

    Who has latched on to the fact that his first name means "lion" and who with his dad likes to play "daddy lion and baby lion."  Then he is a baby lion who can only meow for help.  But who, other times, likes to roar.

    (And scratch with his Sharp Claws.  Only in fun, but those claws can hurt.)

    Who idolizes his big brothers, and who willingly rescues his princess big sister from dragons, and who, we are pleased to discover, is thrilled to have a new baby brother that he can "kiss on the nosey."

    1525024_3687770490970_751513840_n

    Who loves going out in the snow with his dad even if it is -17 F and dark.

    1503931_3687822172262_1371000490_n

    It's a good day for a birthday.  Especially since it's grocery-shopping day, which means I can outsource the cake. 

    Wonder if the grocery store will have a lion cake.  I will figure something out.

    —

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    8 comments on Four years ago…

  • Walking outdoors.

    Today after lunch the temperature hit 40 degrees F. Instead of driving to the gym, I laced up my hiking boots, dropped 3-week-old Simon lightly dressed and behatted into my new front carrier (a Boba, astutely recommended by ChristyP), put a coat over all, and tromped out into the snowy streets.

    After a stop in the library to return some books that were already overdue while I was still pregnant, I pulled on gloves and came out briskly walking. The trees dripped softly in the sun, and running water burbled in the gutters, carving tiny canyons down into the layer of ice. I went west, counting city blocks; there are sixteen to the mile. At the end of each I had to clamber over a berm of snow left by the plow, unless some kind resident had shoveled a cut in it.

    It feels good to get outside, especially in the sunshine. Soon we are going to get another blast of arctic air, and spend a week well below zero; today I could almost pretend it was the start of a spring melt, something I never appreciated until I moved to Minnesota. I remember last March we had a few days’ thaw, and I went for a run around the still-frozen lake on a path that was completely clean and dry, and watched paraboarders taking off with their giant rainbow kites from the frozen, snowy lake surface. That time it got cold again later, too, but I remember the delicious sensation of wearing a light jacket, and mesh running shoes instead of boots, and thinking of green grass and flowering trees.

    Simon slept soundly with his face up against my neck. I swung my arms, glad that I had chosen a two-shouldered carrier; I am not as young as I once was, and the soft asymmetrical slings hurt my upper back after a while. I passed from the residential area, crossed the highway, and entered the business district. Stopped to take a shop-window selfie on the way:

    Then I headed south for two blocks before walking back east to home. I thought about stopping to buy a cup of coffee and nurse the baby , but the thought of lying down for a nap with him in my own bed drew me more strongly.

    I am trying not to get too worked up about the extra 30 lbs I am now carrying around, and am starting with the most basic of habits: taking a long walk three times a week, drinking lots of water, and eating frequent small meals (from PLATES, yo) to keep my blood sugar from yawing wildly while I attempt to nourish another human being at random intervals.

    Something about getting out in the sunshine makes all the things I have to do seem much more achievable. Even paying down those library fines.

    —

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    9 comments on Walking outdoors.

  • Aw, man….

    The Blogsy app for iPad ate my birth story. I generally like the various composition apps that one can get for iOS; but a pervasive design flaw is that it is alarmingly easy to accidentally select all the text in your document, putting yourself one fat-fingered touch-tap away from overwriting everything.

    I think this might be a blessing in disguise, because as I noted in the last post, I wasn’t too happy with how the story was coming out anyway. Perhaps if I start over, and just plow through, it will work better.

    —

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  • Two weeks old quick takes.

    Photo on 1-13-14 at 8.03 PM

    Five children.  I've unlocked a new level:  Grand Multipara.  

    I thought I might feel overwhelmed.  I don't.  There are challenges ahead.  It feels… Exhiliarating.  Bracing.  All in a good way. 

    + + +

    I'm working on the birth story.  It is not flowing out very easily this time.  I'm trying to write about the week before the birth.  I can't seem to find the words for it.  

    I wept a great deal that week, and worried, and kept it away from most people except a very few.  I was so afraid, and yet in retrospect it seems almost as if it was inevitable that everything would all turn out right in the end, so that I should not have been afraid at all, and so that when I try to write honestly about my fears they seem very silly.  And so none of it seems to be coming out in a way that really tells the story.  

    The short of it:  my water broke just before I reached 36 weeks, and then labor didn't start for a week after that.  It scared me.  I didn't know how long I should let it go on, the leaking, before the responsible thing to do would be to go into the hospital and do the medical thing; and I didn't want to go in too early, either, not knowing whether the baby would be ready.  I worried for a week.  And then I did go into labor spontaneously at home and gave birth pretty darn fast, not quite two hours after we called the midwives.  And then everything was okay so why was I so scared and worried?

    + + +

    I don't understand why I'm quite so tired.  

    I mean, I do get it:  One is supposed to be tired when one has a brand new baby.  But somehow the math doesn't seem to be working out quite right.   I'm getting enough sleep now, now that he has learned how to nurse in the side-lying position and I'm not having to sit up with a pile of pillows and the football hold every two hours.  I'm eating plenty of good food.  I'm spending a lot of time sitting in a chair or lying in a bed.  I'm not teaching right now or even planning.  I'm doing very little housework.  And yet, I'm yawning all day long, and dozing off in the chair.

    Maybe it's residual, from being scared and worried.

    + + +

    So:  Nursing.  We are doing so much better in the last couple of days.

    I've been nursing nearly continuously for more than thirteen years.  (My current three-year-old is the only one of my children to wean while I was pregnant with the next sibling.)  And I still needed considerable help and advice with this guy, as I mentioned before.  

    Just now it is starting not to hurt when he latches on, and just now I'm starting to have a real MER (aka letdown).  I can tell he's been getting plenty of milk all along, from the diapers and such, and also I think I can see some fat on him now.  We'll see the pediatrician this week and find out if I'm imagining it.

    When my milk went away during the pregnancy and my three-year-old first missed it, I told him that the new baby would bring more milk and he could have some then.  I didn't expect him to wean entirely, because none of the other kids had; two lasted past their fourth birthday, and one I had to wean a few months after the sibling was born. But this little guy did wean, and it's been several months since he tried to nurse.  

    Still, he remembered that I had promised him milk when the baby came, so about a week after the baby was born, when I was finishing up nursing the baby, he came up to me and asked:  "Can I have some breast time now, mama?"

    I said, "Sure, you can give it a try… if you remember how.  Do you think you remember how?"

    "Yes," he said confidently.  I opened my arms to him and he snuggled up against me and put his face to my breast.  Then he sat back and asked shyly:  "How do I do it?"

    "You forgot how, didn't you?"

    He nodded, with big eyes.

    "Well… I guess you sort of… push with your jaw?" I tried.

    He put his face to my breast again and… blew a big raspberry.  PBLTTTTT!  Then he sat back and we both laughed.  His eyes were a little sad.  I suppose mine were too.

    + + +

    A few hours later when I found myself somewhat engorged, I really wished he had remembered.  But it all has to come to an end sometime, of course, and now is as good a time as any, when I have another little one to hold in my arms.

    + + + 

    This baby has a funny quirk:  He will not latch on until after  the milk lets down.  He can be rooting like crazy, sucking on his fingers, bobbing his head and searching with a little-bird-open-mouth against my chin and chest.  I put him to the breast and… he starts to talk to it.  Very earnestly.  Snuffles and grunts and growls and chuckles, all while sort of nibbling and almost latching on.  I keep trying to stuff my nipple in his mouth and it doesn't help.  Sometimes he lets out little cries as if he is starting to get angry, and I'm saying to him, "Here it is!  It's right here!  What are you talking about?!? What's your problem?!?"  

    Eventually the snuffling and rooting and crying gets through to my autonomic system, or whatever is in charge of this sort of thing, and the deep familiar twinge clenches tightly, and I start to drip milk all over the place, and as soon as that happens and my shirt starts to get all wet, then he latches on.  Clearly this is just the way he likes to do it.  Not going to waste a minute actually suckling if he can use a voice command.

    + + +

    The other thing this kid does is make little tiny poops and little tiny pees all day long, so that we blow through almost our entire collection of newborn cloth diapers (3 dozen or so) by the end of every single day.  At least it won't take long to teach him to pee on cue, when I get around to leaving the diapers off and paying attention to him.  We had too much trouble nursing for me to bother with that in the very beginning.

    + + +

    Today I filled two laundry baskets and two cardboard boxes with clothes that currently do not fit me, and I hung a much reduced collection in the closet.

     I hope I get to dip back into the laundry baskets eventually, but it's going to have to wait about thirty pounds. 

    Deep sigh.  We all know it's normal, but it feels daunting anyway.

    I cheered myself up with some new nursing tops from Japanese Weekend.  My old ones are looking a bit dowdy and dated.  

    + + + 

    I'm living on one-handed food:  clementine sections, string cheese, bits of deli meat.   The first time Mark went to the grocery store after the baby was born, he brought back a feast of snacks:  aged gouda, mixed olives, runny Brie, fancy crackers, lox, proscuitto, sopressata.  We had it for dinner one night, with good IPA for Mark and me and sparkling juice for the kids, and pretended it was New Year's Eve (which had passed without a party since we had a three-day-old baby at the time).  Then the rest of it went into the fridge, to emerge as tidbits on the plates of snacks at my elbow next to my nursing chair.

    + + +

    What to give a nursing mother to drink so she won't crave Gatorade and fountain Coke all day:

    In one quart glass jar, put the juice of half a lemon or half a lime; one tablespoon honey; and one-half to one teaspoon sea salt.   Fill with cold filtered water and add a little ice.  Stir well.  Replenish when empty.

    + + +

    Or you could pour me a Guinness, from the widget can.  That works too.  Someone told me once it was a galactagogue, and I'd rather not stop believing that, so I haven't googled it.  If you know better, please keep it to yourself.

    —

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    7 comments on Two weeks old quick takes.

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