Jeanne

I just found out that one of my midwives, Jeanne Bazille, has breast cancer. It makes me so sad. She's such a wonderful woman and has helped so many families and babies. Her prognosis and attitude are good but cancer is cancer. One of the most uplifting things that can come out of something like this is that you get to see how many people that person has touched and for Jeanne, it's a lot. Whether she has attended a birth or mentored another midwife, helped write the MN Homebirth laws or spoke on panel discussions about homebirth, she's touched, helped and advocated for thousands of women whether they know it or not. She's truly amazing and such an inspiration.

I haven't seen her since 6 weeks after my twins were born when I tearfully attended my last post-partum appointment. And yet I have such deep love for her in my heart for the road that we walked together. She never batted an eyelash when I told her that I was having twins. Her support of me and my birth was strong from day one and her attendance and help at our birth was amazing. I love her dearly and I pray for all the best for her during her treatment and recovery.

You Never Know

I had an interesting (read nasty) interaction yesterday with a woman at the library. Let me start by saying that yesterday was a rough day. I had just come home from being gone all weekend and the babes were really needy. I did my best but sometimes they just need to whine to the one with whom they're most comfortable...mom. Anyway, that was our morning, naptime was all of an hour long and we finally ended up at the library in the afternoon which is where we'd be trying to get all day. The twins love the library. They love playing with the puzzles, following the big boys around as they hunt for books, visiting with other people their size and sometimes they love hearing the echo of their own screaming voice. Yesterday, the last "love" was the major activity. Most of it was exuberance or at least not a temper tantrum but yes, they were loud-ish. Okay, loud. I was doing fairly well re-directing them and keeping them busy while guiding the older boys in finding the books that they needed for their week of studies. We finally got all of our books and went to check them out which is their biggest of the library loves. They each get a stool and take turns putting a book in and it's pure toddler heaven...except for yesterday. Nothing was going right for S in his world and so just about everything was setting him off. We finally got into a good check-out rhythm when he fell off of the stool. At this point, a librarian came over and offered to help. Now the majority (not all but truly the majority) of librarian experiences in our county have involved guilt, scowls and irritability. So the fact that this one came over and asked if she could help me with a look of pure pity in her eye told me just exactly how this whole escapade looked to the outsider.

We finally got all of the books checked out, bagged up and all children accounted for. S insisted on being carried and since M and G each had their noses firmly planted in their books, I was on my own for carrying both the fussy toddler and the large bag of books. We got about halfway to the car when we were passed by a woman who was probably in her 50s. Just as she passed us, she takes the opportunity in the break of fussing to mutter something deragatory my way. Now, I've had an entire day of this stuff and I'm pretty much on my last nerve. I was pretty proud of myself that I had been able to maintain my patience so well to this point but when I heard her, I just incredulously said "Whatever!" right out loud. When I'm irritated at someone, I don't bother to mutter unintelligibly. Let's get it out there, shall we? So she gives a huff and proceeds to her car and we make it to our car and as she's pulling out, she stops to flip me off. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I may or may not have at this point screamed a profanity at her which may or may not have been heard by the entire parking lot of the library not to mention my own offspring. I'm not really sure though, it's a bit fuzzy; one of those out-of-body (and mind) experiences that we have from time-to-time.

After that grand showcase of parental self-control, I got into my car and called Tim to talk me down with the caveat that he MUST NOT try to solve this, utter anything other than comments which clearly showed he was on my side against this crazy woman nor should he give even the slightest sign that he was judging or condemning me in any way for my behavior. After the ground rules were firmly in place, I started crying. Man was I mad! Of course the kids were concerned and I had to explain that I was very angry and sad but I was okay and it's just not how you want to show up in front of your kids but it also shows that we're all too human and that's important for them to see sometimes too.

Here's what I don't get about the entire thing though: why judge? She had no idea what kind of a day I had been having nor what kind of patience I had exhibited. She has no idea who I am or what kind of a parent I am or anything about me other than the unfortunate fact that I probably would have severely kicked her ass at that point in time if given half the chance. But this is something we see and do to each other all the time. We see a mom scolding her kids and we're so quick to condemn her as a "bad" mom not even stopping to consider what is happening in her world at this moment. We see a dad yelling at his kids and we assume that he's a jerk who doesn't really care about his kids, he happens to be stuck "babysitting" them right now until mom gets home. I think it's really unfortunate that instead of judging and making up stories about other parents, that our first reaction isn't one of compassion and empathy for the entire situation. The truth is that we have no clue who those parents are and yes, they could be really bad parents or they could be really, really great parents just having a rough day and we happen to be witnessing their dark moment. The rest of the truth is that we've all been there. It may not have been in public but we've all been there so we know what that feels like.

I learned a lot from this experience but one thing I know I will take forward with me is to strive to have compassion for other parents who may be having a rough day. Until we walk a mile in their shoes, we have no idea what's going on in their world and they deserve nothing less than our compassion and understanding. And neither do I.

Here is my goodie stash from the yarn festival. It was kind of overwhelming to see all of that yarn and all of that fiber in one spot but Andrea and I managed :). We've had a great time and we're resting up before heading off to the party tonight. Great mama weekend away!

Look Mom!

We've been having a lot of "look mom" or "watch this" from the twins lately. Here was C's this morning. "Look mom, 2 fuh-fuhs (pacifiers)!

Cute.

Twins

Um, has anyone seen my babies? Because there are these 2 little boys here and they're hardly recognizable as babies anymore. Where has the time gone?

For the fashion update, the photo really doesn't do this justice. They were wearing coururoy overalls, one red with a royal blue shirt, one royal blue with a red shirt. Sometimes dressing twins is so much darn fun!

SMM

We decided to celebrate the first day of school...for everyone else...by heading to the Science Museum where we would be able to explore the exhibits and wander the halls by ourselves. It was wonderful.

The big boys took in the Omni Theatre movie about Arabia which led to a very interesting conversation about terrorism, perceptions, racism, a brief history of Afghanistan, and intolerance over lunch. I adore it that my kids think that all of these things are just ridiculous and wonder why anyone would hate someone for what they believe or the color of their skin. I really love that.

Everyone had a great time playing with the ping-pong balls and experimenting with air pressure. This is always one of our favorite exhibits and it never seems to get old.

G's New Belt

Our G-man undertook and accomplished an incredible challenge this summer from his MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) instructor: No Treats, No Screens, 3 months. Yep, No Treats, No Screens, 3 months. From June 1 through August 31, he had no sweets, no video games, no t.v., no computer. He and a friend were 2 of only 4 kids who actually made it until the end. We did make some reasonable exceptions which were allowed: he got ice cream on his birthday and we did a couple of family movie nights. If he went to a party, he got to partake in the treats a bit but it removed all of it from our daily lives and let me tell you it was WONDERFUL! Mom and dad experienced zero questions about "can I have a treat; can I watch a show; can I play some video games?" None of it. It was heavenly. So heavenly, in fact, that we wanted to maintain that level of peace even when the challenge was done. So, we went to the boys and told them our thoughts: this has been a really nice summer of non-nagging and we'd like to keep it that way as much as possible. What can we do? They listed all of their options and ended up with the following family guidelines:

Treats sometimes on the weekends and on special occasions. That's it.
They can watch one show a day but only after all of their responsibilities are taken care of (i.e., school and chores).
Video/Computer games only on weekends and only 1 hour per weekend day.

Truly, these were the parameters that they came up with. I led the conversation but mostly as a note-taker with a couple of small inputs here and there but they really did a good job of placing parameters around all of it. Way to go boys!

Above are some pictures of the belt ceremony (the reward from the MMA instructor was that they got advance an entire belt for completing the challenge) and of the massive desserts that they got to partake in afterward. It's good to be king!

Tim and I are obviously extremely proud of him but nothing that we feel or convey could possibly top the way that he feels about himself. It was awesome to see the look of self-pride on his face when he reached the end. It was the kind of things that parents dream of for their kids: a sense of accomplishment and pride in themselves for something that they did. Awesome.

As parents, we want our kids to feel good about themselves and so we do things like praise the heck out of them but I'm starting to wonder if we're just a praise-happy society and what effect all of that actually has on our kids. If we're always praising them and telling them what a good job they're doing, will they truly be able to internalize that for themselves or will they always seek validation from outside? It probably has something to do with personality in part but I've been doing a fair bit of reading on this subject lately and I have to agree that we're trending toward creating praise-junkies who are constantly doing things for the praise that they may receive instead of for the self satisfaction of a job or effort well done. So, I've been trying to break myself of saying "Good Job" 500 times a day. It's really hard to do and because it's hard to do, I know that I've been saying it too much. Now, I'm not saying that I no longer recognize my children's accomplishments because I do believe that they need parental validation and someone to celebrate with them but I'm trying to use phrases that help them focus on what they accomplished instead of just receiving praise. Things such as describing what they just did, celebrating with them when they do something, celebrating the effort no matter what the outcome. Seeing the look on my G-man's face when he completed his challenge really validated for me what I want for my kids: I want them to know for themselves how incredible they are and not have to always hear it from the outside to believe it. Isn't that what we all want?

I love you my G-man and I'm so proud of you but no moreso than you are of yourself...just like it should be.