anna's birthday present

Last year for Brady's seventh birthday, we took him on a "date"- a fun day for just him with our family.  We went all over town, out to lunch and had a grand time.  We also took lots of video and photos and Sandi put it into a cute little movie for him. 

Anna, his little sister, has been wanting a day of her very own ever since.  And, because her birthday was 10 months away, she had to wait for a while.

We gave her a certificate for her special day at her December birthday party and we finally (as Ella said, because she was very disheartened by the delay) took Anna out last weekend.  (Ella doesn't acknowledge an insignificant thing like anesthesia school and its hinderance of our social calendar.)

When I asked Anna what she wanted to do she said, "I want to go to the Maine Jump and to the park but not to Dr. Suess because I'm going to see that at school."

Okaaaaay.

I wasn't really sure what she was talking about since I had made no overtures toward planning the day until I spoke to her.  Then Ange translated:  "Last year you took Brady to see the Lorax and Anna is going to be watching that at school and so she doesn't want you to take her to see it."

I love the way kids think.  And I loved that, given the year she had to think on it, she had a sense of what she wanted.  I loosely made a plan in my head.   Then we met Matt halfway to pick her up and he said, "I asked Anna what she wanted to do with you and she said, 'I don't know.  I may just see what I feel like.'" 

Then I started to panic.  Did she have the wrong idea about this day?

I reviewed the tentative itinerary for the Maine Jump, lunch and the park and she said yes.  Phew.

happy girls ready for some fun

The Maine Jump is a cool indoor "inflatable playplace."  The kids love it.  For about 90 minutes.  Your fee allows you to stay as long as you want, but like our family eating at an all-you-can-eat-buffet, we never get our money's worth. 

But it is the padded room of my dreams for Maya.

Look how happy Anna is!

There was a little air hockey action which was good practice for Maya on losing graciously.  Or at least to reduce her desire to punch her opponent in the face given a loss.

I happen to think Anna is a total stunner.

After lunch at the place of her choosing (Sea Dog), the kids wanted to run up.  We ran into our friends, Emily and Davy, and so we chatted while the kids ran.

Maya was having fun running while Davy threw his hat at her.  I managed to get this picture of the throw and run in action.

Then onto the park.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  But it was only 43 degrees and it did get rather chilly out there.  Still, it was pretty wonderful to be back on the playground.

Fortunately for Maya, Ella's feet got wet and she went to hang in the car.  That meant Maya had Anna's undivided attention.

They began to collect random bits of things on the playground and develop creations.  (Oh, Ange, I forgot to tell you to wash Anna's gloves....)  

Here we have an ice cream cone, an umbrella and a jacket.  

Love these girls. Now, if only they would stop with the birthdays and the growing older part. 

two wonderous lives and a cake to celebrate

It is hard to believe that year has gone by since our friends Mindy and Charissa went from a three to a five person family.

Would you look how tiny their twins were at birth?

Happy first birthday to Drew and Baxter!  What better way to celebrate this amazing, exhausting, roller coaster ride of a year than with a party?

 

And we all know every good party needs a good cake.   

 

Now, to be honest when I offered to make the cake, I was thinking of  a sweet little cake with maybe polka dots and soft colors.  Maybe something simple and easy.

 

But my friend Charissa has a designer's mind and she had ideas.  I love her for this, but it also had me sweating. She was working with a nature theme and sent me pictures of cute trees and owls.  She sent a lot of owls.  I got nervous and began to worry I was in over my head.  I can't draw an owl on paper (it would likely look like a horse which, frankly, looks the same as a dog and a chicken- I am a terrible artist.)

 

I sent Charissa a text message that said, "I think this may be beyond my skill level."

 

Enter in Ange who saved the day, as she often does, by remember there were owl cake pops in her new cake pop book. 

 

Cake on a stick?  What's not to love.

I highly recommend this book.  It has such cute and creative ideas which are *mostly* within the scope of the average baker.  There is a learning curve and I had a few hiccups but overall I was pleased with the end result.

Be forewarned: cake pops take a lot of time to make.  I don't recommend trying this on a Saturday with your kids are at home unless there is a marathon showing of "The Fresh Beat Band" on TV. 

This is how I broke it down to largely coincide with my kids' school schedule.

Day one: I baked a box cake and let it cool overnight.

Day two: I crumbled the cake, mixed it with the frosting, formed the mixture into balls and put them in the refrigerator.  The recipe called for 48 balls, but I ended up with 38.  Oh well.

Day three (could have been later in day two): Shaped the chilled balls into the triangles required to make owls.  Adhered chocolate chips as ears to each pop.  Allowed to dry.

Same day: dipped cake pop in melted candy melts.  Gave my kids a disc of unmelted candy melts and had them begging for more because they are, honestly, delicious.

Because of time I ended up doing the dipping at two different time.  Here was the issue I soon discovered in the general instructions about forming and dipping cake pops, it says to dip them when they are chilled.  Yet, in the owl instructions specifically, you attach the chocolate chips and allow them to dry in the styrofoam block.  It doesn't say anything about returning the pops to the fridge. Apparently I needed to.  The batch that was at room temperature came out with a dull finish and I lost a couple of pops in the candy melts (which for me was rather merciful since it was two less pops to manage).  I realized that I probably needed them to be chilled so I managed to get the second batch to fit in the fridge and then I dipped those after they chilled again.  These came out much prettier, shinier, were easier to dip, BUT at least half of them cracked. 

Sigh.  I ended up re dipping all of them so they would look uniform.  The book specifically suggests  avoiding this. Oh well.  It was fine except that it made extra work and it also rounded out the owl ears so they looked more like mouse ears.

Day four (or day three if you don't have kids): decorate.

To decorate the owls I went on a virtual treasure hunt for the various candies needed for each feature: candy necklaces, rainbow sprinkle chips, brown mini M&Ms (I couldn't find those so I used Raisinets) and flower sprinkles.  Maya demonstrated her stellar fine motor skills and helped me sort all the candy for only the colors we needed.  (There was a lot of candy I had to buy that we didn't end up using since we were looking for specific colors.)  I assembled half of them during school hours and the rest one afternoon which was a somewhat regrettable choice.  Maya really wanted to help.  This was kind of fun because it was like I was the surgeon and she was my scrub nurse.  I would say, "Nose" and hold my hand out and she would place a nose in my hand.  However, Ella kept using the table like a gymnastics bar and kept launching herself off of it. 

I worked hard to keep my cool. I think I halfway succeeded.

Including the adhering of the ears, each pop required NINE different small items to be attached to it.  Nine times 36 pops...You do the math. 

The way the cake pops were supposed to look:

The way mine looked:

All I can say is that I think I needed to make the triangles flatter and that she must have also had flatter candies in her candy necklace.  My owls were bug eyed and looked like they had some unresolved optical issues.  Plus the mouse ears.  Who wants a mouse cake pop?  Probably a kid, actually.

 

Then onto the cake. 

 

Honestly, prepping to decorate a cake takes almost as time as the decorating itself.  I made a huge batch of butter cream frosting, tinted it 5 different shades, added in the chocolate butter cream I had left over from filling the cakes and I was ready to go.

 

Except that I had a mini anxiety, self-doubt attack at this point. What had I gotten myself into?  Why did I think I could "draw" with frosting on a cake?  I had already frosted the base of the cake green and used a toothpick to make it look like grass and the butter cream was drying out and it came out kind of messy.  What if the whole thing was a bomb and I had to be bailed out by the Hannaford bakery?  This was our gift to the babies, the hard work was part of the love.  How could we go essentially empty handed with a store-bought cake?  Oh the pressure.  I pictured myself showing up at the party with my proverbial tail between my legs, ashamed of my over inflated sense of cake mastery and nursing a bruised ego.

 

I gave myself a pep talk to shut down the crazy talk and got to work.  I practiced making trees on a cutting board.  Sandi came home and told me it looked great. When I told her how nervous I was she reminded me that that has happened before every cake I've made.  I hate love it when she's right.

 

Maya was super supportive and kind to me.  She kept coming in the kitchen (which was daring since I had essentially told the kids to stay out) and saying, "WOW Momma! That looks A-MAZING!  I can't believe what a good job you're doing!  They are going to love it!!"  And then she would hug me and leave only to return like a boomerang to check my progress.

I was also really anxious about the lettering and spacing and used toothpicks to mark where I needed each letter. I also checked the spelling of "birthday" in my head 15 times because for some reason I was preoccupied with spelling it wrong and having my cake appear on "cake wrecks."

My favorite quote from the party was when Marianne said, "I wasn't sure if that grass was colored coconut, shredded paper or cut up Easter grass so I tried it to find out."  I could just imagine myself snipping up Easter grass and then placing this non-edible thing all around the base of a cake to make grass. That and the image of Marianne potentially eating shredded paper.  

 

The cake pops were a huge hit with the kiddos and there were at least 25 extra for people to take home.

 

But really it was these two I had hoped to impress!

Baxter

Drew

 

How adorable are they?

 

 

 

I am so incredibly proud of this family.  What an honor to watch a family evolve, expand and find its new groove.  Hats off to you Merill-Maguires.    Thanks for letting us be a part of it.

 

 

 

Marry me?

We have an ongoing joke at our house about when proposals for marriage will be given.  I say I'm waiting to be asked.  Sandi says that she already wears her mom's diamond engagement ring and so, naturally, I need a diamond of my own.  I agree.  We scan our checkbook and shrug. 

It will be a while.

Ella said to me yesterday, "When WILL you and Mommy get married?"  I said my usual line: "Well, Mommy would have to ask me first."  Ella, exasperated, replied, "MOMMA, maybe she is waiting for YOU to ask HER!"

In all honesty, we would really like to be able to have a real reception when we get married so we are waiting for the paychecks to roll in in about 10 months.  But that doesn't stop people from applying pressure.  A few weeks ago someone Sandi used to know from college said to us at Starbucks, "Really?  After all that and you haven't gotten married yet?'

I'm sorry.  I didn't realize we OWED it to people to enter into matrimony 5 minutes after we were able just because they voted yes on question 1. 

But really the point of this post is to share with you the poem Ella wrote last night.  When I told Sandi what Ella said to me about her waiting for me to propose, Sandi said that maybe she would do a joint deal in which she would ask to marry me and for our family to get a dog (I am the one holding out).  If she thinks this is a way to sweeten the deal, she is for surely wrong. 

Nevertheless...proposals and dog requests apparently go together now.


"Wedding" by Ella Carver

kiss   kiss
      kiss

hug  hug
    hug

   will
   you
marry me?

will you get
    me
     a  
   dog?

weddings
  love


I  LOVE that my daughter is spontaneously writing poetry and says things like, "The words are just there in my head and I need to write them down."

Also,  there are no rings, no dates and no dogs as of yet.

just the right number of cooks in the kitchen

Since nothing ever is permanent, not playing the garage game as we drive down the road, not modifying my life to care for a convalesing American Girl doll with a sprained ankle and not listening to Carly Rae Jepsen sing "Call Me Maybe" each and every time we get in the car (Maya's favorite song), I have decided one way to embrace my kids' rapid growth is to wave goodbye to the old and welcome in the new. 

 

Check out who who is old enough to plan, shop for and cook supper?

  

I'm really not sure what the toy syringe is doing nearby the food prep, but suffice it to say that there is some medical preoccupation in our house.

 

On the menu: krispy kale, Pillsbury cresent rolls and smoothies.  Maya really wanted to help.  So she moved the furniture around the kitchen.

 

 Ella even put the pans in and took them out of the oven.  It was a momentous moment for her as well as for me as I let go and let her learn, despite the risk of second degree burns. She was a pro.  (Sandi wasn't there for the first few ins and outs of the oven and when Ella reached in for the final pan of Kale, Sandi nearly had a heart attack.  It was actually really funny.  Ella was like, "I've GOT this!")

 

Krisy kale recipe: cut the stems out of the kale and tear it into pieces.  Spray a pan with cooking spray (or olive oil).  Layer with kale.  Spray kale with spray and lightly salt it.  Sprinkle fresh parmesean cheese over the top (to whatever desired amount.)  Cook at 400 for about 8-10 minutes, watching carefully, to desired crispness. The browner it gets the more krispy it will be but be careful not to burn it.  Fight people off as soon as it gets on the table.  (I'm serious, our kids love this stuff.)


I love how much whipped cream she used on her smoothie.

Part exercise in giving Ella independence and freedom, part me loosening up control, part empowering Ella about food choices...with the added benefit of adding another cook to my kitchen!!  Good job Ella!

where is my reset button?

For whatever the reason, lately I've been feeling like someone who has a terminal illness.  I'm guessing, in fact, that it might be that I'm not used to being present.

Pedestrian moments feel momentous. Each person I love and count on to be here seem somehow fragile in the hands of life's unpredictability.  It feels like the curtain has lifted and I see that this life that I've carefully constructed, where things are cataloged and ordered, is a figment of my imagination.  Life offers no such guarantees about tomorrow being like today.  People die, they change their minds, they move, they get sick, friends grow apart,  kids grow up.

I think I've spent most of my life in active denial about this.  I feel like someone who has just crawled out from under a rock and has been debriefed as to how things actually work.

No matter how stable things seems, like isn't stagnant.  Wise Heraclitus wasn't kidding when he said: "You can never step in the same river twice". In many ways I'm glad for this; there are plenty of things, people, situations and states of mind I'm grateful weren't permanent. But what about the good stuff?  How do you hang on to it?  I'm fearful the answer is quite simple: you don't.

I realize that, often, it isn't until I look back at what used to be that I wish I had known how to celebrate what was when it was, rather than grieving its absence now.  I'm often so busy wanting, planning or looking toward what is coming that I forget to be enjoying that which I've already created. 

For instance, I am so looking forward to Sandi being done with school (November!). I look forward to having her back in our family full-time, to see her smile more and for real sleep to erase the perpetual bags under her eyes. I'm excited that we will have a pay check and she will have free time again. I'm excited to spend a weekend away with her and lazy mornings in bed.  (Oh, wait... we have kids.  Scratch the latter.)

Yet, to wish the time away also means to miss this time in my life, in the girls' lives, in our family's life. When Sandi graduates the girls will be 6 and 9. Right now we are all healthy, happy and together. Life changes on a dime. Do I really want to rush through this part to get to the next part, the one that has no promises about how life will be then?

Do I want to stand here with my arms painfully extended in a pose of wanting or do I want them wrapped around the people I love who are right before me in this moment?

I know this may seem like an extreme example, because obviously it is a very stressful circumstance, but it actually translates into the rest of my life, too.  Because really no moment, no period of time is ever all wonderful or all awful.  Everytime I wish for something to be different than it is, I am exercising my wanting instead of my presence.   And when I do, I miss my life. 

My kids are growing up. I am aging. I have lines on my face I didn't used to have. It is like it has just occured to me: there is no going back.

 I remember so many days when the girls were little and they would be crying and screaming at some event that was supposed to be fun.  Sandi and I would look at each other as we carried their limp, whimpering bodies to the car and say, "This will be more fun when they are older."

And it honestly is.  Except they won't ever be young again.  You can't have both. 

Lately I have been grieving the growing of my children profoundly.  I can hardly look at the growth chart in their room without my eyes brimming with tears.  To see the pen mark when Ella was two and now the one where she is eight... To remember Maya sleeping in her crib with her bum in the air and her cheek smooshed contentedly on the mattress...  When we clean their room and package up toys to give away because the girls have outgrown them, I am grateful and incredibly sad.  One glance at the collection of Sandra Boynton board books that we have spent hours snuggled up laughing over, learning to read over, and I almost come undone. 

But, thankfully, Maya still loves them and being read to is a huge part of our girls' time with us.  Ange said to me today, "Remember Maya is only five still.  You have time." She is right of course.  But all I can think is, she's five now but the injustice is she won't be five forever.  Somehow, that feels like a cruel part of parenting. 

Today I registered Maya for kindergarten which means the permanent step out of our house full time.  Some of this hurts so much I feel like I'm packing my kids up for college. 

I can remember being in the grocery store with Maya strapped on my body in a carrier and Ella in the cart.  I remember feeling totally overwhelmed and sometimes even frightened about the responsibility of caring for them, purchasing food and keeping my head together.  Strangers would often stop and admire the girls and say to me, "Enjoy it.  It goes by fast." 

I would say, "Thank you. I needed that reminder today," and try to appreciate the moment.  Often, though it would be lost the instant the crying started, the grocery bag split open in the driveway and Ella cried because her shoes didn't match her dress.

The truth is that I don't want to go back to when my kids were young. I remember how hard it was. I remember how trapped and overwhelmed I sometimes felt. I remember the stresses of life that were going on at that time and I would never want to walk that path again. 

Yet...

I wished I had relished it more. I wished I had understood to the core of me that time was, in fact, passing, and that no matter how much it felt like it would be like that forever, the inevitable passing of time was sifting the sand right under my feet. I wish I could go back and hold my girls as their younger selves, just for an afternoon.  I wish I had done a better job- been more patient, more present, more fun.  I wished I had done less and enjoyed more.

Ella has had significant emotional turbulence as of late.  When she yells and screams and says things like, "I can't do anything right!" I feel guilt and regret slice me off at the knees.  I worry that I have messed this whole thing up horribly, that I never should have tried to be parent.  In my darkest moments, I worry that someone such as me, who didn't know great love, stability and safety as a child, should never have dared to be a mom. 

Sometimes I just want a chance to go back and do it over again.  To do it better.  Of course, it is totally unfair for this more mature, more relaxed, more present version of me to judge my former self. But, let's face it, it's hard not to.  How much better a shot at life would our kids have if I could turn back the clock and do their formative years over?

Ella just bought herself a Furby with her Christmas money.  This is a toy that talks, has digital eyes and a microchip heart to communicate its various themes on personality.  In short, what you expose it to determines how it will behave (sound familiar?).  Ella took it to some busy places this weekend and it wasn't acting quite right. 

This is the tearful conversation Sunday night as she tried to get herself calm before bed. I doubt the metaphor will be lost on you.

Ella:  "I just want it to go back the way it was. It's voice is different.  It's eyes are different.  I don't want the new Furby. I  want my old Furby back."

Me: "Honey, you might like this new Furby. Maybe you could just give it a chance."

Tears fall down Ella's face and her cheeks burn with color as she looks down in anguish at the toy that has betrayed her.

Ella: "Mom, can't we just reset it like Mommy and I saw on the computer?  Can't we just start over and I can have it the way it was?"

 Me, imploringly, swallowing the lump in my throat: "But look at it.  It sounds more like a girl which you were hoping for.  It's voice is very sweet and - oh, did you hear that?  It just said 'happy'!  And what a pretty song it sings. You may actually like it this way better. Remember how we read that it takes a little bit for each Furby to establish its own personality?  Maybe this is who your Furby wants to be.  Can we just give it a chance?  Maybe sleep on it and wait until the morning to decide if you want to reset it?"

Ella, begrudgingly relieved as the Furby's eyes flashed hearts at her and cooed: "You're right Momma.  I think I might like it better this way.  Let's not reset it."

Maybe it is universal to sometimes want things back the way they were.

Do other people grieve like this for life talking the course it is meant to take?  I'm guessing this is where some people get baby fever at my age.  I tell myself to revel in what has evolved, to really love all our girls have become.  In the best case scenario, you raise your kids in a happy family and they grow up to be good citizens of the world who stand on their own feet and find their way.   In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the end goal of being a parent.

Then why is it so damn hard?

As if processing all of this in my newly raw and wide open self wasn't enough, last night out of the clear blue, another pillar of childhood fell. 

Maya has been after this one particular Barbie (the mother of her mermaid Barbie) that they don't make  Ella has been telling her that Santa's elves could make it.  On the second go around of this, while Sandi held a wailing Maya over the loss of the never-to-be-obtained Barbie, I mentioned to Ella that maybe we could let this lie since they don't make the Barbie. She began to question me about why Santa couldn't make it.  I told her he can't make everything.  Thus began the unraveling. 

Ella: "Momma, please just tell me, is Santa real? Or do you and Mommy buy the presents? I've been wondering for a while and I just really want to know.  Will you please tell me?"

I tried every which way to Sunday to avoid the question, to focus on the magic of Christmas, to telling her that I believe in Santa.

Ella: "Yeah, but you know if he is real or if it is you and Mommy."

Me: "Why do you want to know honey?  You are only young for such a short time and once you know certain things, you can never not know them."

Ella: "But some of it just doesn't make sense.  Some kids don't get the things they want from Santa and some do.  So tell me, please, is Santa real?"

I had to tell her. I worked hard not to cry.  I told her that it was the world's biggest secret (alongside what happened to JFK and, of course, if Elvis is alive) and that she had to keep it from all other kids.  I told her that it could be fun now because she could be involved in the secret.  I told her it was okay to be sad.

Ella: "I'm not sad.  I'm kind of relieved to know the truth."

I'm grateful my kids aren't leaving for college today, that I am not out of time. I have regrets over how I have done things but I also know, can remember clearly, how hard it was and that I did do the  best I could. I'm grateful that I can still be better. Now when the kids ask me to play with them, I try to drop everything and do it. This weekend we built a blanket fort inside which we read books, ate Swedish fish and played go-fish (once you got through security clearance with the password that is).



Ella actually looked relieved last night after our talk.  She seemed at peace and I even began to wonder if this helps her resolve her own conflict of growing up, the way she seems stuck between young and older sometimes.  She appeared proud to be in on an adult secret. 

And then, when we went in to check on the girls, this is what we found:

This has never happened.  We have often encouraged (strongly at times) Ella to take on the protective role of big sister and she has always been reluctant.  I think in some ways she felt she would have to give up being young if she did.  Perhaps embracing her own growth will be to everyone's benefit.

I am working hard to relish my life and the people in it, to no longer wait to do the things that make me happy, to not, indeed, need a terminal diagnosis to wake up in my own life.  I don't want my life to be a string of accomplishments and checked off lists.

I want to play, to laugh, to cry, to rest, to stop, to appreciate, to love.

from dark into light

Let me say that this post takes a tremendous amount of courage to publish.  I am doing so partly to be real and honest about who and where I am, but also to give strength to anyone else who may be searching for something more.

In January I called a truce with myself.   The past month has been one of remarkable change, daily awarenesses of who I am and what I need to be doing, gentle shifts and massive epiphanies.

I have read and reread Geneen Roth's Women, Food and God which was what convinced me to not go back on Weight Watchers after a recent weight gain but to really be brave about looking deeper at what is going on with how I eat and how I feel about my body.  I read it again.  I felt I needed more guidance so I got on Amazon and ordered a bunch of her other books. 

These days you can find me sitting in the cozy recliner next to the wood stove and a big window reading and searching my soul.

I'm not even kidding.  I hardly recognize myself in the past few weeks.  I am finding space for myself, giving myself a much needed break (about 36 years worth in fact) and making my own self-discovery high on my priority list. 

I know, who has time for this right?  Well, it turns out I do.  It is amazing what you can find time for when your soul's future is on the line.

It would be impossible for me to tell you how amazing Geneen Roth is.  You would have to read her books to find out.  But let me give you the basic premise of her work to put my own story in context.

Geneen Roth gained and lost over 1000 pounds in her life before she became so desperate she knew she had to find another way. She stopped dieting and began to form a bridge back to herself, away from the punishment and judgement of the diet cycle. She decided to find out if she could learn to trust herself again. She has been at a normal weight for years and writes and teaches workshops to help others "break free."

Roth's basic premise is that emotional eating and the guilt and self-judgement that accompany it, the unending quest to change our bodies and beat ourselves into submission regarding what we eat is a way that we escape ourselves and our lives over and over again.  In Women, Food and God she writes: "our relationship to food is is an exact microcosm of our relationship to life itself.  I believe we are walking, talking expressions of our deepest convictions; everything we believe about love, fear, transformation and God is revealed in how, when and what we eat."

Here are the basic five eating guidelines that she developed from her own journey:

1. Eat when you are hungry.

2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.

3. Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, TV, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety provoking conversation or music.

4.  Eat what your body wants.

5. Eat until you are satisfied.

6. Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.

7.  Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

It sounds wonderful right? Powdered donuts for breakfast, french fries for lunch and hot fudge sundaes for supper?

Let me tell you, though, it is wildly uncomfortable.

For those of us who have lived their lives struggling to achieve the ideal body weight or manage our eating, it is downright terrifying to entertain the idea that the way to put out the fire is to walk head on into it. 

Turns out I far prefer a strict set of dos and don'ts, a careful equation of eat this and lose weight, eat that and gain it. There is tremendous security in a diet laid out by someone else.  It takes a great deal of trust to let go of calories and points.  Not to mention it is a little dicey to begin to trust yourself  when your hunger for things like chocolate feel endless and you feel you could eat a house if it were made out of chocolate.  Okay, maybe not an entire house, but for surely a small shed.

In many ways my eating itself is way less disordered than it has been at other points in my life. Yet, the constant obsession with what I'm eating and how it is going to affect how my pants fit has brought me to my knees.  I have been plagued with a general sense of discontent and hopelessness. It makes me miserable, angry and stripes all the pleasure out of eating. I tighten up the belt, so to speak, so that I can work on this extra 10 pounds and then I feel so boxed in a corner, so deprived, that all I know to do is bust out of the chains. I will eat what I want. I will do what I want. And you can't tell me not to.

My entire life I have eaten according to a list of "good" or "bad" foods. It is not that I always eat the "good" foods, but when I eat what I considered "bad" foods, I did so guiltily, with little enjoyment and sometimes in secret. I rarely, if ever, have had a no-strings attached, pleasurable eating of something that I considered a "bad" food. Living my life in this good/bad dichotomy has meant that I have deprived myself of lots of actual food, or at the very least, deprived myself of any joy while eating them.

Geneen Roth extends such love and non-judgement in her work that I can't help but feel like a flower opening to the sun.  What would it be like to assume that you are doing what you do with food for a very good reason? What would it look like to embrace yourself as you are right now, as a worthwhile attention of your own time, rather than a project and a body that needs to shed 10, 20 or 40 pounds?  What would it be like to change my internal state of being so that the need for extra food disappears?  What if I accept that being thinner will mean that I have a slightly different body but I will still have the same insides that need my attention?  Because, honestly, when I was at my thinnest, I just wanted to be thinner.  It is the quest for this holy grail of happiness that keeps me entirely apart from being in my life in this moment. If I could just get down 5 more pounds....

When I read her words, I feel like I am almost reading a suspense novel.  Where is she going to go with this?  How is she going to get me out of the one?  Where I find loopholes and doubt, she has a needle and thread to patch things back together or a safety net on which I can land.  She is my guide on this dark journey, holding a flashlight and lighting my way.
 
Here are two passages from Women, Food and God that really speak to me:

"Diets are based on the unspoken fear that you are a madwoman, a food terrorist, a lunatic.  The promise of a diet is not only that you will have a different body; it is that you will have a different life.  If you hate yourself enough, you will love yourself.  If you torture yourself enough, you become a peaceful relaxed human being."

And this one from a chapter called, "Reteaching Loveliness:"

"Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away.  When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop.  When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart.  When the shape of your body no longer matches the shape of your beliefs, the weight disappears. 

You will stop turning to food when you start understanding in your body, not just your mind, that there is something better than turning to food.  And this time, when you lose weight, you will keep it off.  Truth, not force, does the work of ending compulsive eating,  Awareness, not deprivation, informs what you eat.  Presence, not shame, changes how you see yourself and what you rely on.

When you stop struggling, stop suffering, stop pushing and pulling yourself around food and your body, when you stop manipulating and controlling, when you actually relax and listen to the truth of what is there, something bigger than your fear will catch you. With repeated experiences of opening and ease, you learn to trust something infinitely more powerful than a set of rules that someone else made up: your own being."

Roth writes about stepping through the doorway of our issues with food to what is behind them.  Because food is really just the symptom of the bigger problem. The physical attempt to feed hunger is a failed one because, of course, the hunger I am trying to feed is not physical.  I have learned that I have not only deprived myself of real salad dressing and eating cheese but I have have also deprived myself from enjoyment, from rest, from indulgence, from contentment. It is all mirrored with food. I remember being on WW and eating an ice cream sundae without the ice cream (cool whip and diet chocolate sauce and a cherry...sad, so sad) because it was less points. It is like living a substitute life.

I am learning to treat myself with exquisite gentleness, to feel worthy of unproductiveness, to recognize my need to take a break and rest. I have stopped bullying myself.  I sit in quiet meditation and welcome myself back to the present moment 100 times a day.   I'm inhabiting my own body with love and kindness. I have banished self-judgement and extend to myself the kindness I give so freely to others. I live in my moments, even the tough ones, and am not using food or obsession with my body to escape. I notice the desire to eat when I'm not hungry and ask myself what I really need.  I am taking up space inside myself, in my life and not making any apologies. I'm not weighing myself but I would guess I'm staying right where I have been, only I feel so much lighter and freer.

So I'm eating chocolate chip cookies and ice cream (sometimes for lunch but only when I'm hungry) and enjoying them like a starving cast away eating at a buffet.  It is hard to describe the degree of deprivation and judgement I have had around food.  It is such a relief for it to be over. And you know what? Now that the stigma of "forbidden" has been removed and I can eat anything, I find I am more discriminating than I thought.  That two cookies is enough or cheap chocolate isn't that enjoyable and, when I have my own permission to eat them, I no longer want the entire batch.  I tell myself I can have more just as soon as I'm hungry again and the compulsion slips away. 

I feel like I have returned from exile and come home to myself.

The amazing awareness that this journey has brought, and one that is required for it to truly work, is PRESENCE.  Once again, Roth (in When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair) says it best:

"Every day we open our eyes, get out of bed, brush our teeth, eat breakfast, talk to our families, do our work.  And most of the time, our minds are somewhere else. When we get out of bed, we are thinking about something we should have done yesterday.  When we talk to our children, we are thinking about the phone call we need to make.  When we walk to the bathroom, we are thinking about the candy we shouldn't have eaten.  Or want to eat.  Or are going to eat.  Or how great our lies are going to be when we lose weight, or get a promotion, or fall in love.  Every day, in every moment, we spend our lives thinking about what we already did or are going to do, and we completely miss what we are doing.... This lack of attention leads to a tremendous hunger that we can't quite name, so we get fooled into thinking that it's for something we don't have yet instead of for something that is unfolding minute by minute, right in front of our eyes."

Presence is essential to this journey because it is only in the present moment than I can know if I am  hungry, know what I want to eat (or know on a non-physical level what I need), and know when I am satisified.  Because compulsion is about leaving the moment, presence is its antidote.  Being in my body, the body I have been at war with most of my life, paying attention to it in a loving, gentle manner, is the only way to care for live in a real and true way.

 And I know you must be thinking, how do you pull off eating cookies for lunch when you have kids?  Simple. It is called the "free meal".  Once a week we will have meal where each person can decide for herself what she wants to eat. No judgements allowed. (Roth's idea and perfect for our kids who I worry will internalize my food issues.) 

We had our first one Sunday.  As we set the table for crepes and ice cream and a bowl of Cocoa Puffs for Maya, I thought, if anyone who knows us comes in right now they are going to think we have lost our minds.  Then Trish and Brittany came in carrying a chocolate cream pie for us.  Now if that isn't providence I don't know what is. 



I'm pretty sure the kids thought we were messing with them and Ella looked prepared to have us say "just kidding!" right up until the moment she bit into her pie and dug her spoon into her ice cream.

 

 Chocolate for supper.  No forbidden foods anymore.  Freedom.

So the laundry can wait. The dust bunnies can roll on by. The school can (and always has) function without me. I am stepping off the hamster wheel and placing my feet squarely on the sand to oppose the rip tide.  No one is going to die if I sit in my chair by the fire and feed my soul.  You can find me, all of me, right there.

52 reasons we love Mommy

I want to tell you about the really cool Valentine's gift the girls and I made for Sandi. 

 

While Sandi was in Ecuador, we were over at Tricia's (Tia's) house and saw her friend Brittany making one of these for her boyfriend. It is SUCH a cool idea: a deck of cards, a simple ring from the stationary section of Target (plus some decorative paper we had leftover from making valentines) and you have yourself a gift that can hardly contain the love and adoration. All for under $5.

 

I got the cards all ready by cutting out and gluing on the decorative paper (at 11 pm two nights in a row). Then the girls and I sat down and let the love pour forth.

 



"We love you because you like apples and peanut butter."



"We love you because you take really good care of us."

 

  

 

I love this one: "We love you Mommy because your smarxt."

Some of my other favorites were: we love you because your bum is so pretty.  We love you because you smell good. We love you because you can bench press us.  We love you because you read to us.  We love you because you play with us. We love you because you look fantabulous. We love you because you smile a lot.

If you wonder how to make a difference in the life of a child, let me tell you what I learned from this: it is pretty simple.  Eat with them, read to them, play with them, adore them, hug them.  We could all use a little of that.

As you might imagine, Sandi loved it. Who wouldn't?