Pssst...You Aren't Doing Anything Wrong!

Notice anything unusual in this lung scan? Look closely for the sobering answer to problems with sleeping, colic, biting, hitting, and everything else I have yet to look forward to with my son Cam.

Still don't see it? Look at the upper right hand corner for the big hairy gorilla that 83% of radiologists missed.

When I first heard about this phenomenon on NPR, I couldn't help but drop everything I thought I knew about navigating parenthood. I listened in awe as the reporter described what he referred to as inattentional blindness.

"...when you ask someone to perform a challenging task, without realizing it, their attention narrows and blocks out other things. So, often, they literally can't see even a huge, hairy gorilla that appears directly in front of them."

Parenting Through Inattentional Blindness

Whereas radiologists might be focused on cancer nodules, when something big hits our parent-child relationship, as parents our focus often narrows to "What am I doing wrong?" I know this internal dialogue well. What am I eating that's making my newborn colicky? What am I doing to make my kid hit? What did I do to make my toddler unable to sleep through the night?

From my experience, this approach rarely leads to "figuring it out." Take, for example, mother-infant bonding during the newborn phase. No matter how helpful the 5 Ss are, you can't just whip out The Happiest Baby on the Block and work mama magic on a colicky newborn. Mom and baby have to work at getting acquainted.

The Power of Observation

For me, the ability to work my mommy magic didn't happen until Cam reached 8 or 10 months. It came from countless hours of presence and observation--even lying sideways on the floor of my office when I discovered that was the only way he would nurse without crying. It also came from Cam recognizing that I was the source of his nourishment quite literally. (For the first few months, he tried to nurse his dad and multiple grandmothers.)

We know the power of observation from experienced moms confessing that every baby is different. I calmed Cam during the colicky newborn days by putting him in the Moby Wrap and riding my spinning bike to Konichiwa B*#!%es. My cousin calms her one-year-old by driving him around in the middle of the night. My colleague had to buy all new baby stuff for her second baby because he was completely different from her first.

Mommy magic does not automatically translate from one child to the next. It's built from the ground up with the watchful efforts of each unique combo of mom and baby.

Finding Your Big Hairy Gorilla

I confess, I'm still looking for the solution to my son's inability to sleep by himself and his occasional, yet diminishing episodes of inappropriate hitting. Try as I might, I cannot find that big hairy gorilla, and I don't think I'll find her anytime soon. I'll probably find her about a year from now when (fingers crossed) Cam is sleeping peacefully through the night in his own bed. I observed my way through 8 weeks of tortorous colic before discovering my son's obvious sensitivity to dairy as a newborn, and I expect that's how many more challenges in my parenting journey will play out.

In the thick of most challenges, I think the key is to take a step back and relax your effort. Accept and observe the hair off that invisible gorilla. By all means, look for logical solutions to whatever is ailing you and your child, but avoid rigid, extreme corrections that leave you both feeling exhausted, helpless, and no closer to finding that gorilla.

What do you think? Does this post ring true with your parenting experiences? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Warning: I'm Going Mom Blog

I'm not taking the yoga out of Write On Yoga. I feel the need, however, to acknowledge a new direction in the content of my posts here. I used to have a mom blog and a yoga blog, but who has time for that? It also felt schizophrenic to discuss mom stuff and yoga stuff as if they had nothing to do with each other. For an update on how I plan to unite the two subjects, check out my new About page.

Fair warning to my long-time Write On Yoga readers (you are still out there, right?): this post is going to be a heavy dose of mom blog because...

I'm ready.

I'm ready to have another baby. I intended to be more subtle about it this time around, but I thought that would mean simply having the patience to get pregnant on our first cycle of secretly trying, surprise the family with a Christmas announcement, and let the cat out of the bag to everyone else at the end of the first trimester, which should be right about now.

Instead, we're on our third cycle of trying and shenpa has dug its dirty claws into my formerly nonchalant attitude towards achieving baby #2. If you have any sort of fertility challenges, let's pause for a moment so you can laugh and curse my melodrama.

For me, shenpa and trying to conceive go hand-in-hand. I just recently learned about shenpa--the Tibetan word for attachment or hooked--from Pema Chodron. It's that thing that makes you tighten and grasp desperately for something--anything--for relief.

During cycle #1, I felt relaxed, open. I practiced first trimester poses out of Iyengar Yoga for Motherhood and listened wistfully to Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery." Now on cycle #3, I'm all tightened up about it. I'm on forums scouring for details that both encourage and discourage my hopes of having another baby. I'm considering digging out the basal body thermometer and Taking Charge of Your Fertility charts if this cycle doesn't work out. I'm pushing my toddler to wean faster than he would like just in case breastfeeding is interfering with implantation. There's nothing wrong with these things in and of themselves. In a weird way, the forums especially, are a fun part of trying to conceive for me, and I'm fascinated by knowing what's going on with my body, not to mention I'm ready to stop whipping out a boob every time it's time to nap or Cam has hit his head again.

What I'm doing, though, is reaching for these diversions to avoid sitting in the reality of being out of control. The space that I want to be sitting in is the truth that fertility statistics are in my favor and that it's perfectly normal to try for a year or more before getting pregnant.

That's so boring, isn't it? It's so much more entertaining to bury my head in self-perpetuated drama. But premature phrases like secondary infertility and aging ovaries are horror movies that come with negative consequences on my mental health. So I'm going to try to reframe this. Instead of focusing on all the maddening things about trying to conceive (cutting back on red wine and coffee, not knowing when and if I'll be pregnant, the two week wait...oh, the two week wait), I'm going to start exploring the inviting, fuzzy things about trying to conceive, like sex, anticipation (is that a fancy word for anxiety?), taking extra good care of myself, and enjoying one-on-one time with my toddler while I'm still a mother of one.

Practicing Ahimsa: When Your Toddler Hits

The older Cam gets, the more he busts out with cute little antics that he no doubt learned from watching me. He talks on his toy cars, saying "hiyee" just like me and proceeds with unintelligible blabber punctuated with giggles. My favorite thing of all is when he bends into a Down Dog in the most random places--the aisle of a jetplane or under a desk at the office.

His latest stunt is not so endearing. It started with a plastic golf club at my dad's last week while playing with my 3-year-old half brother. Cam whacked Ty with the golf club, then a toy car, and then his hand. The 3 incidents landed him in time out, and that extinguished the problem...until we returned home.

This week Cam has been liberally hitting the dogs, Daddy, me, and his friends in gym childcare. One afternoon we did 6 time outs in a row to no avail. I'm embarrased to admit that he probably picked up the habit from watching me. My husband has a horrible routine of poking and prodding and generally pressing my buttons to see what kind of reaction he can summon. It usually ends with me reaching my patience limit and stopping him by using physical force.

So, we're working on that.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my little hitting monster. I rarely use time outs, but in the past when I have, they've been highly effective. This time, they're not working. I tried clap-growling like Harvey Karp says to do in The Happiest Toddler on the Block. He laughed at me. I even tried slapping his hand, which was a new low in my parenting endeavors. He laughed at that, too.

By Thursday afternoon, I was entirely spent and awash with guilt. Cam laughed at my efforts to be authoritative, but I tend towards inappropriate laughter in stressful situations, and it's highly possible that's what was going on with Cam. And worst of all, how is it possible to teach nonviolence with the use of force and intimidation? I've criticized other parents for this in the past, and here I am.

I still don't know what to do. Cam isn't to the point of being able to hold an intelligible conversation, so I have to rely on body language and very basic words to teach. Whenever he hits me or the dogs, I've started saying "no hit" in a firm but gentle manner and following up with the sign for gentle--a soft stroke on the top of the left hand. So far it's not doing a bit of good at decreasing his frequency of hitting.

But there is one positive outcome in just the past 24 hours. We went swimming yesterday and every time I carried him around the pool, he'd stroke my back like the sign for gentle. So something is getting through to him. It seriously melted my heart and confirmed that I'm back on the right path.

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

Walking to the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, FL.

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a mom. When my brother was born, he was my baby. I dressed my poodle in clothes and played with my extensive collection of dolls until the embarrassingly ripe age of 12. There was a brief period in my early 20s where I could not imagine being responsible for the life of another human being, but by 25, my biological clock kicked in and my desire for motherhood overtook me once more.

I still remember the first time I was prompted to think about what I might like to be when I grow up. I didn't want to be anything in particular, so I fell back on what I knew of the work world at the age of 8 and ended up drawing a picture of myself as a teacher. By the time college rolled around, I still didn't know what I wanted to be. Sure, I went through phases in high school--both marine biology and a brush with pediatrics--but nothing stuck. I majored in nutrition because of my interest in health and meandered my way into writing and editing after graduation.

Now I'm a mom. I still write and edit part-time from home, but my full-time job is mothering. Recently I found myself in that same old situation, wondering what it is I should do with my life once the demands of motherhood are not so consuming. What should I be working on now? Am I doing enough to keep some semblance of a career going? My kid will grow up eventually. It's not like I can keep this motherhood gig going forever.


Learning to use the rain barrel at Grandma's house.

I'm really good at being a mom though. And I think I've been ignoring that because it's really not all that convenient. I've tried like crazy to keep working full-time through Cam's infant days and stuffed the agony I felt from paying someone else to do what I wanted to do--teach, play with, and love my baby every day. I pushed myself to be career-minded, something I've never been and don't know if I ever truly will be. All that stuffing and striving landed me in a gooey puddle of icky depression.

What would be so wrong about really being a mom? What if I gave myself over to the vulnerability of being whole-heartily present and engaged in the business of raising my son? I found a way to make it work financially, so what else is there to do but do it? Too often I give myself over to the persistent whispers of what I think other people think I should do--what other people think is best for me, best for my family, and best for my son.

After all this time and all this doubt, I know what's best. I am a mom. That's who I am. That's what I do. There's nothing else in the world I'd rather be doing with my life right here, right now.

Compassionate Night-time Parenting

If motherhood is a spiritual practice, sleep deprivation is one of its great tests. Until recently, I thought I was a night-time parenting master. But now, out of nowhere, at 21 months old, Cam is back to night-waking galore.

I revisited the 5 sanity-saving tips I wrote for new parents back when Cam started sleeping through the night. Now, in the thick of toddler sleep challenges, I'm struggling to accept my own advice.

Here's the situation: For the past 2 weeks, Cameron refuses to sleep by himself. If we let him cry it out in his crib, he falls asleep standing up, but only for a few minutes before he wakes up again and resumes screaming. The only way he will sleep is next to Mom and Dad. He could care less whether that's on the couch, in our bed, or on his toddler mattress, but the crib is most definitely not acceptable. Consequently, Mom and Dad are getting very little sleep amidst Cameron's thrashing about contentedly in our bed.

The LAST thing I want to do is accept the situation. Cam is not a newborn, and this isn't "supposed" to be happening. Surely there is something I can do to make it go away. Over the past 2 weeks I have:

• Enforced a regular nap time and bedtime
• Bought a toddler mattress with a car-studded comforter that Cam selected himself
• Built a consistent night-time routine of brushing teeth, story time, and falling asleep together on the toddler mattress
• Asked friends for advice based on their experiences
• Started reading a book on sleep that appears to be consistent with  my parenting philosophy

But we're all still sleep deprived.

It's really hard to ride this one out. I favor a compassionate approach to night-time parenting—--one that takes into account Cam's needs and my own. When he was about 6 months old, that meant not rushing to his crib every time he cried and instead seeing if he would fall back asleep within 5 minutes. Usually it worked beautifully, and occasionally I'd bring him into our bed for some extra comforting. Today, that approach doesn't work, and I don't know what the new compassionate approach will look like.

There's no neat way to wrap this up. I'm working on accepting the situation before I take further steps to try to change it, and I'm trying to focus on being grateful for things like morning (and afternoon!) coffee, days at home with Cam, and tiny luxuries like burning a stick of incense. Although I'm not yet ready to accept this next part, I do have a sneaking suspicion that my previous conclusions on infant sleep are also true of toddler sleep:

All the warm baths, bedtime routines, and ideal sleep environments in the world cannot make our babies sleep through the night. Mostly, we do stuff to make ourselves feel like we’re doing something that may someday resolve the sleepless hell we live in as new parents. In reality, our babies sleep through the night when they’re ready. It happens when it happens.

Here's hoping that either I'm wrong or that "it" happens soon! 

Who's Teaching Whom?

Long time no talk, yoga peeps. Since I last wrote, I moved to Northern Virginia and became a work-at-home mom. I tried to continue my teaching escapades and got turned down by Lifetime Fitness, so I've turned my attention to teaching my toddler.

Teaching a toddler is stretching my skills and my patience. This morning over the course of no more than 3 minutes, Cam tossed his toy phone at my work laptop, throwing the screen into a fit of vertical rainbows, and then hurled himself at my morning coffee, which spilled onto our new plush microfiber (thank god) sofa.

We've both retired to watching Sesame Street while I tap out this post on my damaged laptop, get used to the reality that I'm not getting any work done this morning, and allow myself to enjoy those joyful babbles Cam spouts when he's really enjoying himself.

A few years ago I read a Yoga Diary column by Janet Stone in Yoga Journal on motherhood. At the time I admired how she weaved yoga terminology and cues into her description of her daily routine as a mother. Now that I'm a mother myself, her musings have new meaning for me. You can read the whole piece here. I leave you with my favorite excerpt:

I once had a daily two-hour practice. Now I practice from the moment my eyes open until they close. Sacred texts teach nonattachment, noncoveting, uniting opposites. Could there be a better teacher than children?
 

 

A spontaneous performance of airplane yoga. At least he's learning SOMEthing. 

Tantrum Yoga and Contemporary Violence

Cam had his first hard core temper trantrum today. I'm used to being able to pick him up in the middle of whatever he's doing and move him along with my designated agenda for the day. This morning he was contentedly rolling his green tractor over the back of the toilet, and when it was time to go to daycare, he could not part with his activity.

I picked him up. He went stiff all over and threw his hands over his head. I plopped him in the stroller and wrestled the buckle around his waiste. He screamed bloody murder.

Halfway through the parking garage, the tantrum continued. Cam rotated 180 degrees and stood backwards in the stroller, howling. I had a lot to do at work, and I hate Cam being late for morning snack at day care. But as I caught sight of his distressed, beaty little face and allowed myself to really see him, I stopped, turned around, and went back home.

 

I sat on the couch and let him work it out. He fussed. He cuddled. He nursed. And then finally, he let go. I was an hour and 15 minutes late to work. Cam missed morning snack.

 

My responsibilities as a parent and a professional came to a head this morning. Navigating that mess required presence and clarity as to where my priorities lie. There is a time to push ahead and "play my edge," but this morning I knew I had to change course. The result was a more peaceful, less violent start to the day.

 

"There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence, and that is activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of this innate violence."

~Thomas Merton