Well as evidenced by the space between posts these days, my summer is at least as disorganized as yours!  Maybe even more!

This post started as a reply to the comments in the previous post, but took on a life of its own.  So here goes.

The big bullet point for today:  Summer.  Is.  Different.

I know.  Sounds obvious, right?  But if you carry the same expectations of yourself and your kids that you had in the spring into the summer, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of frustration and disappointment.

Acceptance is the first step…

I stole this line from a friend who stole it from AA.  But the funny thing is that acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means.

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”

Albert Einstein

Now I’m a philosopher so you don’t really want to get me started on the nature of reality!  (or if there is any such thing!)  But it is pretty clear to me that a lot of us make our lives more difficult than necessary when we fail to see and react to what the world is actually giving us, instead of what we wish or think the world ought to be giving us.

Only when we acknowledge what’s really happening do we have any chance of responding effectively.  This is especially the case when we don’t like what’s happening or things aren’t going as we hoped or planned for them to go.

So it makes a lot of sense to notice what’s actually going on in your world instead of what you think ‘should’ be going on.

Maybe you think your kids ‘should’ be able to play by themselves without interrupting you for longer than 10 minutes.  Or maybe you think they ‘should’ get their chores done or do their summer reading without being nagged reminded.

Maybe you think you ‘should’ be able to get the house cleaned and dinner made, or that you ‘should’ be able to get that project taken care of (cleaning out the basement?  Finishing your 8 year old’s baby book?)

Clarify your own expectations

The first thing to do is to take a few minutes and think about what your expectations are for yourself, your kids, your husband, etc.  If you think you don’t have any- notice the times throughout the day when you feel annoyed, frustrated or irritated.  Chances are, there’s some expectation you have that’s not being met.

Don’t beat yourself (or anyone else)up over it, just notice it.

That’s about enough for today- next time, I’ll have some suggestions for what to do once you’ve noticed what expectations you’re carrying around.

Until then, please chime in… what expectations do you have (that are perhaps being frustrated this summer?)

Please share in the comments!

Want to make sure you don’t miss a post?  Subscribe today!  Click the green button at the top of the page to have Life in the Mom Lane delivered to your email inbox.  Click the orange button to add it to your RSS reader.  You can also follow me on Twitter or hang out on my Facebook page…

This has been a hard couple of weeks.  School is out and I still haven’t quite found my feet yet.

I was super crabby yesterday because it seemed like nothing went according to plan.  I’d start do to something, and get interrupted.  And this went on all day long.  Not a single thing on my substantial list got done, despite my best efforts.  At the end of it, I was so frustrated and fed up I couldn’t stand myself (and no one else could stand me either!).

The only consolation is that I know I’m not alone, because I’ve talked with clients and other moms who are also feeling ungrounded and at loose ends.

Why does the end of the school year and the beginning of summer throw us into such a tailspin?

I had a huge lightbulb moment a few weeks ago as I was reading Kathy Waddill’s The Organizing Sourcebook: Nine strategies for simplifying your life.

Her take on what ‘being organized’ means rocked my world- in a good way.

She says that being organized is when your systems match your life as you are currently living it.  Being disorganized results from a mismatch between your systems and your real life.

No wonder….

No wonder things are a little topsy-turvy right now.  Real life has changed rather substantially from a couple of weeks ago and the systems haven’t yet caught up.

My regular times for doing things have gotten all messed up, and so I’m spinning around trying to remember what I’m supposed to be doing and figure out when I’m going to get it done.  Some things just haven’t happened (like writing for the blog.)  Others are happening, but much more sporadically and randomly than usual.

A funny example:  Like you probably do, we have a routine in the morning that doesn’t vary too much throughout the school year.  AJ wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast, brushes his teeth, makes sure his backpack is ready to go, and we’re out the door.

When we don’t have school, he wakes up, maybe gets dressed, maybe not.  Gets himself breakfast and… hardly ever remembers to brush his teeth.

And honestly I can’t really give him a hard time about it, because it’s so built into the morning routine that without the regular sequence of events, I forget to remind him.

And it’s not just the daily routine that’s gotten thrown out of whack.  The milestones of the week have dropped out or changed.  Our violin lesson has been on Monday for two years, and this summer it’s been changed to Tuesday.  I’m still confused and am terrified I’m going to space out one week and miss it!

I’ve been doing the same yoga class on Friday mornings for a good long while too.  But with swim lessons in the morning for the next couple of weeks, that’s not going to happen.

So, yeah… out of whack all over the place!

My old systems aren’t matching my new reality.  And I’m not really happy about it at the moment.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll give some suggestions for how to bring things back into alignment, but for now I’d love to hear your thoughts on the transition between school-year and summertime.

What’s the hardest thing for you about this time?  What do you do that helps?

Please share in the comments!

Want to make sure you don’t miss a post?  Subscribe today!  Click the green button at the top of the page to have Life in the Mom Lane delivered to your email inbox.  Click the orange button to add it to your RSS reader.  You can also follow me on Twitter or hang out on my Facebook page…

It’s such a cliché that kids grow up fast.

In the season of graduations and such, some of the transitions are clear and sharply defined.  These tend to be those associated with ‘official’ categories of one sort or another.  The pre-schooler heads off to kindergarten.  The 6^th grader to middle school.  And so on.

Traditional communities, including religious traditions have rituals that mark the different stages of life- moving from childhood into adolescence and then adulthood.  In our contemporary and largely secular way of life, we’ve lost some of these markers for the different phases of life.

I’m interested in this because my son turned ten in December and since then it’s been more and more apparent that he’s no longer a little kid

Some of it is physical.

All of his classmates look so much bigger and older all of a sudden.  The girls are developing and the boys are growing like weeds.  AJ is up to my shoulders now, and we’re taking bets on when he’ll be taller than me.  Right now his feet are nearly as big as mine, so I’m sure it won’t be long.

But the physical changes are only the tip of the iceberg.

Other signs that he’s no longer my ‘little boy’:

• He closes the bathroom door.

• If I want to kiss him goodbye before school, it has to be in the parking lot, NOT on the playground.

• I think he’s hearing dirty jokes from his friends.  I’m not sure if I want to know what they are or not!

• It’s hard to tell his t-shirts from mine.

He smells.  His friends smell.

One night not too long ago he had a friend sleeping over.  Finally it got quiet in his room and went to check that they were really asleep.  As I opened the door, I had to laugh because the room was filled with eau de stinky boy.  And I realized that it was going to get worse and not better for the next few years!

He’s managing parts of his life on his own

Not too long ago, he was in the shower and realized that he didn’t have a towel.  Instead of calling for help he dried off with a hand towel.

When he wanted to play a more advanced song in his violin recital, I told him he could talk to his teacher about it.  And he did.  We called the teacher up and I handed the phone to AJ.  He calmly and confidently explained to the teacher that wanted to play a different piece.  They talked for a few minutes and the teacher agreed.  He busted his butt to learn the new piece in time for the recital and surprised his teacher with how quickly he was able to get it up to performance quality.

Other people are treating him differently

For many years, the hostess would automatically bring a kid’s menu to our table.  Lately they’ve been asking if we need one.  If it’s one of those places that has a ‘big kids’ menu, sometimes he’ll order something from there, otherwise, he orders from the regular menu.

His doctor asked him if he wanted me to stay while she examined his private parts.  This time he said yes.  I imagine it may be the last year he does.  She didn’t even offer him a sticker afterwards, and I’m pretty sure he would have declined.

The latest:  when I took him to the dentist last week, and the hygienist gave him his new toothbrush- she gave him the same kind she gives me and my husband.  Not the kid kind with power rangers on the handle.  Wow.

The Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack was a favorite in our house for quite a while, so with apologies to Jerry Block and Sheldon Harnick, I made up a few new verses to one of the archetypal songs about kids growing up.

To the tune of Sunrise, Sunset

When did he turn into a big kid?

He has outgrown his jeans AGAIN!

One minute he’s my little muffin,

Now he’s TEN!

When did he get to be so smelly?

When did his language get so crude?

What will it take to teach him

Not to be so rude?

When did he get to be so hairy?

Is that a pimple on his face?

Don’t know when I became

This big dis-grace.

When did he get to be so thoughtful?

When did he learn to be so kind?

Who knew the heart that would be bursting

Would be mine?

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset

Swiftly flow the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears…

How about you?  What ‘unofficial’ signs of growth and maturity have you observed in your kids?  I know this post is very boy-centric, so I’d love to hear from moms of girls what you have  noticed.

What verses would you add to my adaptation of Sunrise, Sunset?

Want to make sure you don’t miss a post?  Subscribe today!  Click the green button at the top of the page to have Life in the Mom Lane delivered to your email inbox.  Click the orange button to add it to your RSS reader.  You can also follow me on Twitter or hang out on my Facebook page…

Well, I’m determined to put something up today, but I’m going to keep it short because it’s deadline week (again!) and I have some juicy stuff to get up on the website and then a newsletter to write to get the word out about all the cool stuff that’s coming up soon….

This is kind of a do-over, but it also connects to the series of being stuck in our own stories….

You’ve probably heard the notion that generals are always fighting the last war?  In particular, they always seem to focus on what went wrong and making sure that THAT doesn’t happen again.

We can certainly see this idea at work in the ever-more-absurd screening process you have to endure before getting on a plane these days.

Some bozo had a bomb in his shoe- OK we’ll all take off our shoes now.

Someone planned to use liquids to bomb a plane- so we all empty our water bottles, and all our toiletries now come in itty bitty tubes and vials.

I’ve ranted and raved about how stupid this is, but was rudely reminded this week that we all do this: focus on our mistakes, where things went wrong, and do whatever we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

On the one hand, this makes perfect sense.  It would be a shame not to learn from our past mistakes.  But let’s just say this strategy has its limitations…

It all started with a ball cap

Sometime in the last year, AJ lost a ball cap on a plane.  It was no big deal, not a priceless, autographed heirloom by any means, but it was annoying (to me) to have lost it.  And therefore when AJ and I left last Wednesday for a short trip to TX, I was a royal pain in the butt about his hat.  He wore it in the car on the way to the airport and as we were waiting in the security line, I bugged him to put it into his backpack so he wouldn’t lose it.  He resisted, said he wouldn’t lose it this time, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

I kept on bugging him, and finally (probably just to shut me up) he took it off and stuck it in his backpack.  But I still wasn’t satisfied because he stuck it in the outer mesh pocket of the backpack.

I wanted it inside the zippered part, where it couldn’t possibly fall out.

Can you tell that I was completely convinced that only my constant vigilance was going to keep this hat from joining the other one in the land of lost stuff?

Part of the background here is that I’ve been known to be a little scattered.  It’s part of my right-brained nature, and for the most part, I manage OK.  But I’m a little defensive about it, and I really do hate losing stuff.  One of my stories is that ‘competent grown-ups don’t lose stuff.’  And of course I want to be a competent grown up because the alternative seems to be ‘hopeless, incompetent idiot.’  So, of course, I am bound and determined to be a fully competent grown-up and not lose the hat this time around.

We hit the ground in Dallas and guess what I’m asking?

“Do you have your hat?”

“Yes mom, I have my hat.”

We exit the aircraft with the hat, and I’m ready to declare victory (at least until the next flight!).

We have the hat but….

It’s not until later that evening when we’re on our way to dinner and I tell AJ to grab his sweatshirt that we realize that the sweatshirt is nowhere to be found.  In fact, neither of us has seen it since he got on the plane and unzipped it.

Yup… you guessed it.

We left it on the plane.

I wish I could say that it was stuffed under the seat in front of him or somewhere out of sight.  But no, it was right there in plain sight.

On his seat.

I never even looked.  I was too busy worrying about the blasted hat.

The good news is that after numerous attempts to contact a live human being, I learned that the sweatshirt was safe and sound in the baggage claim and we recovered the sweatshirt on our way home.

The moral of the story?

I’m all for airline safety.  I really am.  But I get a bit peeved at the lack of imagination that the TSA shows in creating its policies and practices.  Let’s face it, now that the shoe thing has been done, do we really think someone’s going to try THAT trick again?

But in my obsessive focus on the hat, I was operating out of exactly the same kind of thinking.  I was determined not to lose the hat.  And guess what- we didn’t lose the hat.  But my narrow view of the outcome to be avoided meant I missed the bigger picture.

Has anything like this ever happened to you?  Have you ever been so committed to avoiding one problematic situation that you create another?

Please share in the comments!

Cutie RIP

Funeral for a furry friend…

This week we had a profound experience in our family. AJ’s rat Cutie died. It wasn’t a complete shock, because over the last few months, she had started to look much more frail and old. Her personality hadn’t changed and her appetite seemed good, but her coat had lost its full, glossy look and she had obviously lost weight. She reminded me of a little old lady, the way her bones poked through her skin.

And so while we knew her days with us were probably coming to an end, her death actually came about rather suddenly. And the way it all unfolded leaves me thinking that there are many larger forces at work than we can possibly comprehend.

She died on Wednesday, which, as it turned out, was a snow day. It didn’t have to be. There wasn’t really all that much snow. But nonetheless, AJ was home from school.

We had planned to go skiing that day. But no one really felt like making the drive up to the slopes that morning, so we were slow to get moving.

AJ had been planning to go sledding with a friend. But first he and his dad were going to shovel the driveway.

It’s all these little ‘buts’ that seem insignificant, or even annoying at the time, that have me so aware of the unseen forces- whatever you want to call them- that surround us.

As they were shoveling, I went to my desk to get started on the day’s blog post. Cutie’s cage is just a few feet from the desk and as I was waiting for the laptop to come alive, I noticed that she seemed to be struggling go get from her little cubby onto the exercise wheel.

This seemed odd, so I opened the cage to give her a hand. As soon as I touched her, I knew something was amiss.

Her body was oddly rigid, like maybe she’d had a stroke or something. I didn’t really know, but it was very clear that whatever it was, she wasn’t going to be with us much longer.

I wrapped her in a bandanna because she was cool to the touch and called in the snow crew. “Hey you guys… I think you’d better come in. I’m pretty sure Cutie is dying.”

AJ shed his coat and boots and I gave him the small bundle. His dad and I joined him on the couch and we sat there snuggled together, all still in our pajamas, for nearly an hour while our little friend breathed ragged breaths.

As we were sitting there, all ambitions to write my blog post, work on class materials, check email, etc. evaporated. I was exactly where I needed to be in that moment, and nothing else was nearly as important as sitting with my son while he was sitting with his pet.

I was so struck by the amazing circumstances that allowed us all to be there for that event. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been for him to come home from sledding with his friend to find her lifeless in her cage. Or worse, (for me anyway!) to have her die while he was at school and have to break the sad news on the way home.

We talked a little about Cutie, and a few tears were shed, but it was a largely silent vigil.

And then it was over. One final contraction rippled through her little body and that was it.

When she was gone, we put her gently into a tissue box (one of her favorite places to sleep) to await burial.

Because of all the snow, it didn’t make sense to bury her that day, so we agreed that on Thursday after school we would find a special place for her in the yard.

After a bit, AJ said, “I think I’m ready to get dressed and go sledding now.”

And so we did.

In the car he said, “I’d like to invite my friends over tomorrow for Cutie’s funeral.” We agreed, though without knowing how many would be able to come on such short notice, I cautioned him that not everyone might make it.

I was out at a meeting Wednesday night, but DH and AJ called all the boys in his class to tell them the news and to invite them to the funeral. To my amazement, all eight of them were able to come.

We had a lovely service, and I was really touched by the sweetness this bunch of 10 year old boys displayed.

The whole experience just has me profoundly grateful for the things I get to see and do as a parent that I never would have imagined. And how it’s those moments when I completely surrender my plans, my agenda and my desires turn out to be the moments when I know I’m in exactly the right place, doing exactly the right thing.

What about you?  Have you ever had an experience when it seemed like things were going wrong, but they were actually going exactly right?

Give yourself some room!

I’m going to keep this one short because I know I’m feeling the time crunch and I’m guessing just about every mom out there is feeling it too.

If there’s one piece of advice I could give us all this month it’s this:

Give yourself some room.

And I mean that on all kinds of levels.

In your schedule- give yourself some room.

Things are going to take longer than you think.

Traffic sucks.   The weather might be dicey.  Parking is a joke.  Everywhere you go, lines are long.  The store you’re in may not even have what you need, meaning you have to go to another store- or figure out plan B on the spot.

If you think you’re gonna dash in and get what you need real quick- fugeddaboutit!  Not gonna happen!

On a similar note- give your family some room.

Getting dressed and out the door for those holiday performances, parties, shopping trips, etc. etc.  will take longer than you think.

Chances are your standards are higher at this time of year.   I know my son can go a week without my noticing his hair- but the minute we get dressed to go somewhere, I’m sending him back to the bathroom for a comb.

It takes longer to button all those buttons than to pull on a T-shirt, or for the girls to find the “right” tights to go with their dresses.

Finding all the hats, mittens, boots and coats and getting everyone bundled up- it takes a while.

So give yourself some room so you’re not rushed and grumpy.

I hate to admit how many ‘fun’ events have started on a not so fun note as we race out of the house, grownups with that tight tone of voice that’s not exactly yelling- but might as well be.

Find some personal space and time.

For the next couple of weeks, there’s no school.  Days off of work, more people in your house for many more hours than you may be used to.  And I’m not even counting the guests!

Whatever normal personal routines you have are probably going to be shot- but do what you can to preserve your exercise time/journal time/meditation time.  Whatever you do to be able to hear yourself think- do it.

Give yourself some room to be alone- even if you have to hide in the upstairs bathroom for 15 or 20 minutes.  Take the dogs for a looonnnnggg walk.  Stop in for a coffee when you run to the grocery store for some vital missing ingredient.  Get your sweetie to take the kids ice-skating for a couple of hours.  (You can return the favor of course!)

Whatever- you’re a clever mom- you can think of some reason to get yourself out of the fray for a bit here and there.

Give yourself some room with your normal routine.

It’s going to be shot anyway- don’t stress about it!  Figure out what the essentials are and let the rest go for a while.

Give yourself some room with the normal rules and regulations.  Not to throw every principle of good nutrition and healthy child-rearing out the window, but could you cut yourself some slack with the sugar intake?  Bedtime enforcement?  TV restrictions?

Let me be very clear about this- this is for YOU, not your kid.  It’s not about acquiescing to their whines and demands for one more cookie, one more turn on the Wii.

It’s about you not getting stressed because you can’t hold the normal boundaries in abnormal circumstances.

Give your feelings (and those of your family) some room

Newsflash:  holidays aren’t all sweetness and light.  Hopefully there’s plenty of love, friendship, and good cheer in your life at the holidays, but harder feelings are often not far away.

Grief can be a visitor at this time, as can anger, disappointment, resentment, sadness, homesickness, and more.

Often these emotions float along just under the surface until something (or nothing) happens and they pop out.  Some people can tell you exactly where they come from and why they’re there, but for most of us, it will be more like a feeling of melancholy or even anger that comes over us for no reason we can see.

Children often use these times of closeness and warmth to show some of their hard feelings.  Jealousy might show up in a complaint that a sibling got more or better presents.   A tantrum on leaving Grandma’s house might cover their sadness at not seeing more of her.  And neither you nor they may ever know the real reason for their emotional ups and downs.

The simple point is this:  if you expect some hard feelings to come up, both for yourself and those around you, you can make room for them.  And if you can make room for them, they can come and go without disrupting the scheduled happiness too much.

And perhaps most important of all,

Give yourself and those around you room not to be perfect.

Stuff won’t all go down the way you want it to.  You might not find the perfect present for that difficult person.  You might not get the special present you were hoping for.  Your kids are going to make a mess of one sort or another.  Your husband might let you down.

You won’t be able to fulfill everyone’s expectations.  You probably won’t even be able to fulfill your own expectations.  And they won’t be able to fulfill yours.

And that’s OK.

In giving yourself room not to be perfect, you’re really giving yourself room to be you. In giving others room not to be perfect, you’re giving them room to be themselves.

And if you ask me, that’s the best gift any of us could give or receive.

Here’s one more thing to give yourself room for:   It’s a free teleclass: “First Aid for Holiday Overwhelm” and you can get all the details here.

It’s Thursday morning (THIS Thursday!) at 10 am Pacific/1 pm East Coast.

If you’re interested- do it now!  By the time you remember to come back and register, it will be all over!

So I’d love to know- what would you like to give yourself room for?  And how will you do this?

Please share in the comments!

This isn’t the standard version of Do-Overs and High-Fives, but I think the title still fits.

The tooth fairy lost her wings today, and I’m feeling the full bittersweetness of watching my son grow up.

DH was in the shower and I was barely conscious when AJ marched into the bedroom this morning and announced, “I know you’re the tooth fairy.”

“Wha?” I asked.

“I know you’re the tooth fairy.”  He holds up a baggie with a wadded up tissue inside.  “I lost a tooth at school yesterday and didn’t tell you about it.  And the tooth fairy didn’t come.  That proves you’re the tooth fairy.”

“Mmmm…. you think so huh?”  I’m playing it cool at this point.  Or I would be except that I’m still not awake enough to make a truly coherent response of any sort.

Not getting much response from me, he walks into the bathroom and makes his case to his dad.

Dad is noncommittal as well, neither confirming nor denying.

While AJ is getting dressed DH asks if he should smuggle one of the $2 bills he has on hand for tooth-fairy payouts into AJ’s room.

I wave him off, somehow getting the feeling that maybe it’s time to let this one go.  I figure if necessary we can put the money under the bed and convince AJ that it must have fallen.

After several more rounds of , “Come on, just admit it.  You’re the tooth fairy,” during breakfast, AJ gets off to school.

Once he’s gone and I had some time to think and reflect in my journal, it really struck me that this was a milestone of development, and at this point holding onto the myth of the tooth fairy was not going to serve AJ or our relationship with him.

As I was writing this morning, two things came clearly to me.  First of all, I didn’t want him to think that magic doesn’t exist, or that all magic is done by people.  In my experience, lots of magic comes through other people, but there’s plenty of magic that comes from somewhere else entirely!  Second, I wanted him to know that he could now be part of making magic.

So then the question became, “How do we mark this transition?”

My first thought was that he was crossing a bridge out of the world of childhood and into adulthood.  So I made a drawing of a boy crossing a bridge.  Inside the drawing I tucked a letter.

This is what it said:

Dear AJ,

Today you crossed one of the many bridges on the journey from the world of the child to the world of the adult.  You have found out that magic sometimes comes through ordinary people.

This is an important discovery, but please do not think that you have learned all there is about magic.  Crossing this bridge means that you are ready to begin to apprentice a lifelong study of the true nature of magic.

What you need to know now is that some people who cross this bridge think that magic doesn’t exist at all.  They become skeptical.  This is a danger you will have to watch out for.

The second thing to know is that you can now make magic.  Learning to do this will give you and those around you great joy.

Now that you have crossed this bridge, you may have to look a bit harder to find the magic in the world, but know this:  those who don’t believe in magic will never find it, while those who look and expect to see magic will find it everywhere.

After dinner the drawing and letter were at the table.  After he read it, we had a lovely conversation about what real magic was and where we’d seen it happen.  We talked about the magic that comes through other people, and the magic that comes from somewhere else.  We talked about how much fun it is when the magic moves through you to touch someone else.  And we gave AJ a notebook so that he could remember some of the magic he’s been witness to.

It’s probably too soon to tell, but so far this is looking like a high-five moment.

How have you handled these ‘moments of truth’ as a mom?  Please share your stories in the comments!

I’m taking next week off- so we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming after Thanksgiving.

whiteboard

Maybe it’s because I was a geek, or maybe I have always relished new beginnings, but as far back as I can remember I LOVED the beginning of the school year.

New clothes, pristine notebooks and a package of new pens, the world of possibilities opened by new teachers and new classes…. I loved it all.  From elementary school all the way through grad school and beyond, the start of school has always been a time of hopeful anticipation for me.

As a mom, I enjoy the back-to-school rituals with my son.  Getting him new shoes and a fresh haircut, shopping for a new backpack or lunchbox.  And really enjoying the last few days of summer with bike rides and extra popsicles.

Fall is also the time I really get the urge to “GET ORGANIZED.”  Each year I was in school, probably starting in high-school, but definitely in college, I always vowed that this would be the year that I would come up with a schedule and really stick to it.  Not get behind on my reading, always hand in my papers on time, practice music diligently, and work out regularly to boot.

Needless to say, I never achieved those lofty goals, and still find myself in the fall swearing that this year, I’m really gonna get my act together.  I’m going to have a master calendar so that I don’t schedule a workshop on top of a violin recital.  Or double book myself for a work meeting and a school meeting… UGGG.

I vow that this year, I will not find myself scrambling in the morning to fill the lunchbox with something besides an apple, a handful of stale pretzels and a little tub of peanut butter.  This is the year I will have all forms, permission slips, and other miscellaneous paperwork filled out, signed and returned before the last possible minute.

Can I get an “amen?”

I’m pretty good with the food thing.   I usually manage to pull off a lunch with at least three of the four major food groups, and at least one fruit or veggie (even if it’s fruit leather!), but I’m still working on the scheduling thing… that seems to be one of my biggest challenges.

I am making progress,however, slowly but surely.

Last year, I figured out a way to help my son get to school with everything he needs on any given day (which changes!).  Maybe this will help someone else!

At the beginning of the school year, I put up a dry-erase board on the door we exit on the way to school.  I listed the days of the week and beside each one, drew a small picture of what needed to go to school that day and what after-school activities were scheduled.  So Monday it was easy to see that AJ needed to take his violin to school, and that we had a violin lesson after school.  Tuesdays were gymnastics and homework days.  Wednesday, the homework folder needed to go back to school… etc.

If there was something special to remember- a permission slip, or project supplies, that could be added easily to the right day.

At the bottom, I had pictures of things that he needed to bring everyday:  lunchbox and hat stayed constant, though the picture of the hat changed from ballcap to winter hat sometime in October.  When it got really chilly, we added mittens to the list and when snow came, AJ drew a picture of a sled on the board.

Instead of asking, “Do you have everything?” (to which he would always answer “yes,”  I asked, “Have you checked the list?”  If he hadn’t, he would.

This little thing made all our lives much easier- and cut down on the frustration (his and mine) of forgotten items.

How about you?  What have you figured out that works for you and your family?  What’s your biggest challenge with getting everyone back to school?

This is the second in a series of posts that I’m calling, “This is Your Brain on Children.”  In case you missed it, you can read the first installment here.

Some of you may have grown up (as I did) under the Regan era ‘war on drugs.’  One of the hallmarks of that time was a TV ad intended to terrify impressionable youngsters into permanent abstinence.  From drugs that is…  I can’t say how effective it was at that mission, but subsequent generations have certainly benefited from the potential for parody that it offered.  Turns out they could have used the same ad to induce abstinence from sex, because what drugs do to your brain is nothing compared to what kids can accomplish.  Drugs may fry your brain, but kids are guaranteed to scramble it!

Seriously.

Every mom I know has at one point said (or yelled) “YOU KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!”  And the funny part is it’s true.  Lately I’ve been doing a lot of reading and have learned some fascinating things about why having kids can change you from being a relatively sane, competent adult into a spacey, forgetful, raving lunatic with alarming frequency.

The good news is- it’s not you.  That is it’s not only you.  The bad news is that there is no cure, though there may be treatment!  It’s all part of how we’re wired as mammals to attend and care for our young and ensure the survival of the species.  (Yeah I know, sometimes it seems like bad programming!)

Fair warning:  I am a geek and a former academic- so you can expect to see references quoted and noted- though I will try to keep it to a minimum and promise not subject either of us to APA format!

In the first installment in this series, we consider the time honored adage, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

We left off with the observation that because of the way we’re wired, limbic resonance- that is the mutual adjustment of physiological and emotional states will happen.  What that means is that like it or not, mom’s emotional state is going to affect the other members of the household.

So let’s look at the flip side of this:  how do we make sure that mama stays happy?

Honoring ‘negative’ emotions

Part of the trouble here is that some of our emotions have gotten a bad rap.  These days we’re caught in a culture that emphasizes ‘positive thinking’ to the nth degree and one of the consequences is that respectable emotions like anger, sadness and fear have been demonized.  And then of course we’ve probably all witnessed occasions where someone was overtaken by their anger and did some damage- whether physical or emotional.

Understandably, we have some reservations about letting these emotions in (or out).  But maybe a better understanding of what these emotions are all about, and the important role they play in protecting our physical and emotional well-being will help.

Below are some of the most basic ‘negative’ emotions.  There are, of course, variations on a theme- but most of the emotions we try to avoid have one of these at their root.  These descriptions are based on Martha Beck’s chart in “Finding your Own North Star” with my embellishments:

• Anger: Helps us protect our dignity or correct injustice.  Motivates us to restorative action
• Fear: Alerts us to danger.  Heightens perception and prepares us for protective action (fight or flight).
• Sadness/Grief: Appropriate response to loss.  Alerts us to importance.  When honored, enables healing and resilience.
• Exhaustion: State of mental and/or physical depletion.  Inclines/compels us to rest.  *this is not one of Beck’s primary emotions, but since it’s another of those things that mothers aren’t supposed to feel, I’m putting it on this list.

Each of these states has a distinctive physiological counterpart that readies the body for the appropriate action.  Fear and anger can both cause a surge of adrenaline, preparing for fight, or flight.  Sadness and grief slow us way down, making action all but impossible and setting the stage for a phase of ‘non-doing’ in which to process our loss.  Exhaustion insists that we stop.  Period.

These physiological processes cannot be overridden by the rational mind.  Nearly every mom has a story of losing her kid in the store or at the park or somewhere…  Remember that terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach?  That frantic, yet completely purposeful searching?  When you finally find them, your rational mind can understand that the danger is past- but the limbic system takes a while to catch up.  Those stress hormones take time to clear the system, and until they do, your heart will still be racing.  Is it any wonder that in those situations, the first words out of our mouths carry a tone of fear and even anger rather than love and relief?

So maybe you can see how some of these emotions can actually serve us, at least in some situations.

But we don’t want our emotions running roughshod over every member of the household.  Just because the dog has gone on a rampage and chewed our favorite pumps, and then puked little bits of leather onto the new carpet leaving a nasty stain doesn’t mean that everyone in the household needs to pay.

Oddly enough, however, our well-meaning attempts to protect our families from these strong emotions doesn’t work.  As noted in the earlier post, the limbic system never lies.  So you can tell your kids that you’re not upset, but your words and your body will be contradicting each other.  They will pick up the vibe.  And now everybody is just confused.  You’re not stomping around in a rage, screaming and threatening bodily harm to the poor dog, instead, you’re snapping at everybody else over the least little thing.  But really, you’re FINE!

Honoring the negative makes transformation possible

Resisting the ‘negative’ emotion doesn’t help.  Nor does denying it, whether to yourself or others.

So how do we use our emotions (even the negative ones) to point us towards happiness?

• First- name the emotion.  Even if it’s only to yourself.  Acknowledge that you feel angry, afraid, irritated, exhausted, whatever.  Leave aside for the moment the question of whether the emotion is ‘justified’ or ‘appropriate.’  For now- just name it.
• Second- Notice how this emotion manifests in your body.  Is your jaw clenched?  Is your breathing shallow?  How about that knot in your stomach?  Just notice what is going on for you without judgement.
• Third- Only when steps one and two are complete, ask yourself why you are feeling this way.  What happened and what is the story you are telling yourself about it?  Here’s where the neocortex- the seat of logic and reasoning comes into the picture.  Is the danger real?  Ok then, what needs to happen next?  Was there an injustice done?  If so, what needs to be done to rectify the situation?  Was there something lost?  If so, what was it and how can you honor its significance?

Ideally you would have someone to listen to you as you move through these steps.  It’s really important that such a person understand that their job is to listen.  Period.  Not to solve the problem, agree with you that your husband is a lousy, rotten jerk for leaving the dishes in the sink, or even to reassure you that it will all be OK.  They should really just listen.  You may already have a friend who can do this.  Take advantage!  And, of course, return the favor when appropriate!

If no friend is available, writing out what’s going on can help.  If, in the heat of the moment, even that’s not possible, at least take a moment to breathe and articulate your emotions, the sensations and your thoughts on the situation to yourself.

At the end of this process, you will at least have gotten your limbic system and your neocortex on the same page.  Even if you realize that your fear was unfounded, you can say to yourself, or your kid, “Wow, I was really afraid something bad was going to happen.  Now I see you are safe, and I can start to relax, but I’m not quite there yet.”

You will also be in a much better position to recognize and solve real problems.  Maybe your exhaustion has uncovered a need for more sleep that is not being met, or your anger has revealed an agreement that is not being honored.

Once your limbic system has returned to normal, rational conversation will go much better!

More thougts, experiences or questions on limbic resonance?  Please share!

This is the first in a series of posts that I’m calling, “This is Your Brain on Children.”

Some of you may have grown up (as I did) under the Regan era ‘war on drugs.’  One of the hallmarks of that time was a TV ad intended to terrify impressionable youngsters into permanent abstinence.  From drugs that is…  I can’t say how effective it was at that mission, but subsequent generations have certainly benefited from the potential for parody that it offered.  Turns out they could have used the same ad to induce abstinence from sex, because what drugs do to your brain is nothing compared to what kids can accomplish.  Drugs may fry your brain, but kids are guaranteed to scramble it!

Seriously.

Every mom I know has at one point said (or yelled) “YOU KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!”  And the funny part is it’s true.  Lately I’ve been doing a lot of reading and have learned some fascinating things about why having kids can change you from being a relatively sane, competent adult into a spacey, forgetful, raving lunatic with alarming frequency.

The good news is- it’s not you.  That is it’s not only you.  The bad news is that there is no cure, though there may be treatment!  It’s all part of how we’re wired as mammals to attend and care for our young and ensure the survival of the species.  (Yeah I know, sometimes it seems like bad programming!)

Fair warning:  I am a geek and a former academic- so you can expect to see references quoted and noted- though I will try to keep it to a minimum and promise not subject either of us to APA format!

In the first installment in this series, we consider the time honored adage, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

The inspiration for this post comes from my reading of “A General Theory of Love,”  in which three scientists  investigate the neurobiology of emotions.  Read the book for the whole fascinating picture, but here I just want to highlight one key idea which is that as mammals, we are hardwired to tune into the emotional and physiological states of those around us.  Our well being (not to mention the survival of the species depends) on our ability to correctly read these signals and shape our behavior accordingly.

To understand this, even in a cursory way, it will help to understand the anatomy of the brain- at least a little.  The human brain has three distinct, though related parts:

• The Reptilian Brain:  Some might call this the most ‘primative’ aspect of the human brain.  This area of the brain governs breathing, blood circulation, digestion and the other unconscious life processes.  It is also the seat of what we might call ‘instincts,’ the ‘fight or flight’ response, the urge to procreate, and our startle reflexes.
• The Limbic Brain:  Sometimes called the ‘mammalian brain.’  One of the things that distinguishes mammals from reptiles is that they care for their young.  The limbic brain houses the necessary equipment for doing so: the organs of perception and response that distinguish mammals from reptiles.  This is the seat of our emotions and the physiological processes that accompany them.
• The Neocortex: That which makes humans distinctively human.  This is the location for higher-order thinking and reasoning, and in particular for conscious thought and planning.

Limbic Resonance

This is a great phrase for an incredibly complex and completely familiar experience.  Remember when you had a newborn and you would wake up just moments before the baby was ready to nurse?  And you know how if one member of the family has a bad day, pretty soon everyone in the house is grumpy and irritated?  These are experiences of ‘limbic resonance.’

A mammal can detect the internal state of another mammal and adjust its own physiology to match the situation– a change in turn sensed by the other, who likewise adjusts…  Because limbic states can leap between minds, feelings are contagious, while notions are not. (A General Theory of Love, p. 63-64)

I don’t know about you, but when my son was born, for months and months afterward, whenever someone asked how I was, I would always answer in the plural.  ”We’re doing great, how about you?”  or, “Well, we didn’t get much sleep last night, so it’s been kind of  a rough day.”  Remember those days?  If they didn’t sleep, you didn’t sleep.  Somehow I never noticed that working in reverse- but I suppose it’s theoretically possible!

Given that personal identity and autonomy were some of my major interests in grad school, I found it fascinating to watch myself blurring these lines so naturally, and almost involuntarily.  It would have felt incredibly odd (not to mention false) to say, “Well my son has been up all night puking and feels like crap, but I’m doing great!”

Credit limbic resonance for the congruence of emotional and physiological states between mothers and their children.

And so here we have an explanation for that old adage….

If mama ain’t happy, her unhappiness will be contagious.  Even (or perhaps especially) if she denies or tries to hide her unhappiness.

Unlike the neocortex (and the language it enables us to use) the limbic system and its associated physiology never lies.

You know this from your own experience.  You can tell when your kid is upset even when she says otherwise.  And is anything more unnerving than having a conversation with someone who insists that they aren’t angry, but you see the pulsing vein and the clenched jaw?

Yet those of us who pride ourselves on our ability to read others so well, often try to mask our own emotions.  We’ve been led to believe that certain emotions aren’t appropriate for mothers:  anger, frustration, exhaustion, irritation, even sadness and fear.  And so we try to deny or at least camouflage them.

Well I’ve got news for you.

You’re not fooling anybody.  Not really.  The anger comes out in the pots we bang around in the kitchen;  the irritation is evident in our tone, even when our words themselves are innocent.  My son is ridiculously good at calling me on this.  He can spot my impatience, anxiety and frustration in a heartbeat- no matter how much I try to keep my tone light with him.

The limbic system never lies.  And it always affects those around us- it’s just in our wiring.

If you’re like most moms I know, right about now, the guilt is descending…  For all the times you’ve gotten angry (whether you were obvious about it or not).  For all the times you yelled, or spoke with the greatest possible restraint (when you really wanted to yell!).  For the times you went distant in your sadness, so as not to infect your family.

This seems like yet another of those no-win situations moms find themselves in all too often.

But it’s not all bad news.

Because we have such highly attuned limbic systems, our emotional states are bound to affect those around us- and that’s a good thing.  It’s what alerts us to one who is injured, whether physically or emotionally and disposes us to render aid.  It is also what enables us to feel joy at another’s success or good fortune.  In short, it’s what enables us to build and sustain communities small and large.

Because we’re good mommies, we want only our happiness and joy to affect our families, not our anger, sadnes or fear.  But it just doesn’t work that way.

So what’s a mommy to do?

Tune in next week and find out!

Til then, how do you notice ‘limbic resonance’ working in your household, workplace or other social situation?