Sink or Swim

 ^ An oldie but a goodie for your listening pleasure.

One of the perks of being a stay at home mom (hereafter known as SAHM) is the whole summer shebang. A round of days at the pool/park/people's backyards/back to the pool again is not bad work if you can get it. I confess, I sometimes feel guilty when my husband comes home from work, all weary and white-faced in his suit, and asks what we did and I say "Well. I went to spin class and then I took the kids to the pool and we had a picnic with our friends and took long naps and then we went outside and took pictures and blew bubbles...". Then I remember that he never ever has to scrub a toilet or experience nipple cracking and it feels slightly less cruel and more like justice.

Summer in Minnesota is lovely and my life is pretty charmed. Unless, of course, you consider that my eldest child acts like a dadgum hellion at the pool. Charging into the water as deep as she can go, blithely ignoring my frantic pleas not to endanger her life. Or running on the concrete in a dead heat to escape the fenced in pool area entirely. Or wallowing in the mud in the playground instead of playing on the slides. Or totally ignoring all her toys until some other kid borrows them and then attempting to hit/splash/otherwise intimidate the other child. Or refusing to poop (despite being potty trained) until she enters the water. 

I could go on, but I won't. Suffice to say, I have yet to enjoy my pool time with Adelaide this summer.

We did the pool thing yesterday and while I was attempting to discipline Addie, Graydon fell face-first into the water and had a few seconds of underwater time. Needless to say, I felt like the world's worst Mama. I was totally frazzled by the time we left.

I pondered all this last night and happened upon this article in the meantime. Why Are American Kids So Spoiled?

This was a timely read for me. If you don't have time to read the whole thing (it's four pages and not the usual TNY 12 pager), I'll briefly summarize. Two teams of ethnographers studied child rearing habits in Los Angeles and in the Amazonian basin and found two extremes of behavior. In the Amazon, toddlers routinely cooked their own meals over open fires. In LA, 25 year olds don't know how to cook their own meals and still rely on Mom to pre-chew their food and deposit the mush into their gaping maws. Slight exaggeration, I just wanted to be sure you were paying attention. 

The authors posit a couple of theories for the prolonged childhood of the average American youth and you can decide for yourself how much validity their ideas possess. I personally think there is some real meat in what they're saying.

Now, I don't plan to have Addie cook her own lunches anytime soon. (Book club: I know you are flashing back to The Glass Castle right now!). But I do think that in order to get more respect, I need to give her more respect. In the pool scenario, that means that I need to respect her intelligence. She's not stupid. If I let her get in over her head...quite literally....then she will quickly learn that I'm not just meeting a word quota for the day and I actually mean what I say. Obviously, I'm not planning on letting her struggle for long here. But I'm going to do less to get more out of her. Because right now I honestly don't think she listens to much that I say and frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being tuned out by a toddler.

And while I'm working on a better give and take with Addie, I need to be sure that I'm not sinking under the weight of my own expectations. I worry about being judged by other parents as being cruel or indifferent or just plain negligent if I let Addie fail or get herself into a pickle. I'm coming to realize that 1) I'm my own harshest critic and 2) other people are too busy with their own kids to notice me anyway and 3) they've most likely been there before in one way or another. After all, I don't judge other parents that have toddlers melting down in Target or at a restaurant or at the gym drop off because I have sooooooo been there, done that, and written the blog post about it.

Anytime that I have a discipline issue with Ads, I try to approach the problem with a negative and a positive strategy in mind. The negative in this case is letting her fail...or flail, if you will...until she figures out that deep = bad. And the positive will be that I'm going to take some time each trip to try to teach her how to swim. After all, it's not like I want her to drown, for the love of Pete. That's obviously a long term solution, but it's a good constructive thing we can do together.

And the good news? Once you know how to swim, you can stop yourself from sinking anytime that you like.

Following that disastrous pool morning, I was lying down with the kids to take a nap. Addie was dreamily murmuring her internal monologue to me, which went something like "Pool pool, so fun, swimming, with Mommy, "that's too deep!" (in her imitation of my voice), Calum, Jen, our friends, Riley, Miss Cold (Nicole), we were splashing...hey, pool, come back!" and so on and so forth. Graydon was nursing and we were all falling asleep in that lovely mix of dappled light and shadow that only happens on summer afternoons. And I felt it again. "It" being that effervescent mix of happiness and contentment that fizzes up through your tummy all the way to the top of your head and the soles of your feet.

We drifted off to sleep together, all of us, and I remember savoring the feeling of my mind and body letting go and letting be, and feeling like I was sinking into sleep. But as I think about it now, I'd say we were swimming instead of sinking. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

North Carolina

 We went to North Carolina a few weeks ago in order to celebrate my brother's high school graduation. It was a great visit, though entirely too brief and so filled with family events that I didn't get to visit a single friend. That was a first for me, but I didn't mind too much, as it was so nice to have my entire family in one place again.

Myself, Des, Dillon, and Jordan

It was surreal to watch Dillon graduate. He is 13 years younger than myself, and I sometimes can't believe that he'll soon be 19 and that he's going to be in college in August.

We forced him to strike a pose

I haven't lived under the same roof as my brother since he was six years old. Sometimes the distance between us, in both years and geography, makes me really sad because I know he doesn't really remember how much we used to love each other. But I will never forget those years.  Dillon was the first baby that I loved. I was there when he was born, holding my mom's hand allowing my mother to grind my bones to powder as he made his entrance into the world.  I remember seeing my mother take him in her arms and cry "He's here! He's here. Oh, he's so beautiful!" and thinking that this is what I was meant to do with my life (be a mother, that is, not a one handed doula).

Meeting Uncle Dillon. Graydon loved having some male support around the place.

And as he grew, I was sure he was the cutest and smartest kid ever (and he was, until Addie and Graydon. Sorry, Dillon. Third place is nothing to be ashamed of, champ!). He used to sneak into my bed at night and cuddle up with me, and while I pretended to complain, I actually loved hearing the patter of his little feet on the hallway outside my door. He made us laugh all the time and allowed us to grow closer as a family during my teenage years, a time when most kids drift away from their families. He was the missing piece of the family puzzle, the person we didn't know we missed until he arrived. And you know what? He is still bridging the gaps in my family to this day.

 I'm very proud of Dillon. He hasn't had the easiest go of it through his teen years, but he's maintained a kind heart and good nature. It would have been easy for him to become bitter or cynical and instead he's smart, he's funny, and he's growing into a genuinely good man that is beloved by everyone he meets. I've already noted that he is a guy that builds bridges, so it's very fitting that he is planning to study engineering at N.C. State next year. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Celebrating with some friends

The sisters

The other big family event (if you can call a series of meetings an "event") was introducing Graydon to my family.

It was especially poignant to watch my grandfather and grandmothers meeting Graydon. They prayed so hard for him during his illness and my Mema in particular put Graydon on every prayer list in southern central NY. I haven't been able to blog about Graydon's time in the hospital, despite many attempts to do so, but she had every single denomination out there, from the Roman Catholic monks to the Protestant ladies at her office praying for Graydon.That means a lot to me, and it was nice to see them together.

Even if G isn't actually showing his gratitude here.

Pappy and his great grandson

Pappy and Erika and Graydon

It was really nice to get to see my parents with Graydon as well. My mom had only gotten to spend some brief time with the little man the day he was born and during his illness, so she was very eager to hold him and kiss him in his "thriving" mode. And my Dad had never met his little namesake at all. They got along really well, and Graydon really enjoyed his time with Heavy.

"Heavy D" and Gray Jay

Cici finally getting to hold that chunky monkey. Pretty sure he averaged about 15 kisses per hour

And here are some more meetings and photos....

A long overdue family photo

Aunt Desi and G

Uncle Mike and Pappy

Adam (Jordan's boyfriend) and Pappy

Addie found a dog crate and that's all she cared about playing in for the entirely of Dillon's graduation party. She managed to convince some other kids to join her. Here it's Gaston Thrift...

And here, her second cousin, Hannah. How much would Mumsie have loved to see these girls together?

The only other thing of note was our brief and ill starred beach trip. It rained for the entire two days we spent at Myrtle Beach, and we managed only one very brief and very chilly hour on the beach. It was fine though, we just caught up on our sleep. And the kids enjoyed their brief beach outing to the hilt. My dad was able to go with us and it was really nice to have some vacation time with Heavy D.


Graydon spent the entire time either attempting to eat sand or actually eating.

Hanging out with Mom.

Graydon in the "toad loader" as my dad insisted on calling the Bumbo

Oh hi, cuteness. Love that curly "Mohican" as my dad called his hairstyle. Pretty sure he meant Mohawk.

World's cutest UV shirt? I think so.

Graydon's only concern was getting into the sand. He was fascinated.

Love his sandy hands and toes and his chubby tummy. My dad: "Boy, I believe we're going to need to put an anchor on that shirt to hold down those rolls".

Blue Steel?!?!

 As for Miss Addie, can you say run? That was the entirety of her beach experience. Running through the tide inlets, running into the waves, running, running, running.

Stepping in

Splashing along

Love that expression

And this one, through her wild wind tangled hair

Cute little baby bum

Still running

Checking out the water

Still running...