Becoming a good mom, one hour at a time
Peeper has found a new passion.
We were out to dinner in Seattle (at Mama’s in Belltown) this week, and Peeper was teetering on the edge of Meltdown Canyon. She had been going to sleep much later and skipping naps altogether in our few days out of town, and I was beginning to think that a sit-down dinner in a restaurant was simply asking too much. But we’d already ordered, so we made a go of it.
That’s when the music started.
About a month ago, I tooted my own horn spoke the truth about how I am a really, really good mother. Well, the same goes for Eric, my forever person and father to our wonderful Peeper and Kiwi.
I know him well enough to be fairly certain that he’ll feel all embarrassed by this post (just as he was extremely awkward when I shared with the world that he’d been awarded the educator of the week—something especially noteworthy, I think, because he teaches special ed and this is his first year as full-time teacher. Heck yeah, I’m proud!). But he can just deal, because I’m going to sing his praises anyway!
Ten ways Eric is a wonderful father barely scratches the surface, but these reasons give a glimpse into how lucky our family is to have him. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in the crazy and rewarding whirlwind of parenthood.
Happy Father’s Day, my love. Read more
Lately I catch myself staring at Peeper. A lot.
I look up and there she is, and suddenly I’m overcome.
After she goes to sleep, I lose myself scrolling through my Instagram feed or flipping through photos on my phone. I can’t get enough of her, and then I realize I’ve been smiling at her pictures for the last 30 minutes.
Perhaps it’s a side effect of knowing our second child is on her way. The coming arrival of Kiwi makes me savor this time with Peeper even more.
But my absorption with her goes beyond soaking up these last minutes of her as our only child. She is just so damn wonderful.
Every mother has a magic patch of skin. It’s easy to find: It’s the skin below your clavicle—your décolletage—which is, not coincidentally, right above your heart.
It’s magic because it has the ability to transport a mother back in time.
The other day, I went in to Peeper’s bedroom when I heard her wake up from a nap. She was crying, so I gathered her in my arms, sat back in the glider and started singing. She nestled into me, and her face snuggled right against the skin left bare by my v-neck shirt.
With the instant ease of a key turning in an oiled lock, my heart opened.
The best feelings of motherhood—awe, gratitude, love that practically blinds you as it shines out from every pore—washed over me. I inhaled Peeper’s scent, a mix of shampoo and toddler sweat with just a hint of peanut butter. And I was suddenly the brand-new mother of a newborn. Read more
When my sisters emailed me about the need to start planning a baby shower for Kiwi, I told them no. “People don’t throw a shower for second babies,” I told them.
The idea of registering for things we didn’t need, playing games and opening a mountain of presents in front of guests—read, the usual baby shower—didn’t appeal.
Undeterred, my sisters convinced me by proposing a thoroughly unconventional baby shower (or sprinkle, as some folks call the more minimal baby showers).
One morning on Memorial Day weekend, we had grand plans to go disc golfing at Milo McIver State Park near Estacada, a fabulous hiking/disc golfing/throwing sand into the river spot we go to again and again. The weather was less than cooperative, though, so rather than head out in the rain and muck, we stayed in. And instead of bemoaning the absence of park-going weather, Peeper and I stayed cozy with a baking project: making healthy apple-carrot muffins!
I pulled a chair up to the counter so my toddler sous chef could help (i.e. dump grated carrot on the floor and dunk every single measuring cup we own into the batter). She loved pouring ingredients into the bowl and stirring everything together. Remarkably, she lasted the entire apple-carrot muffins recipe!
For anyone reading this blog, it should be no surprise that Peeper loves her some art. Most of her hands-on time is very open-ended: I set her up with some paper and crayons or a paper plate full of paint, then let her go wild. (And by wild, I mostly mean become speckled green, black and orange in art supplies.) I thought she was just intuitive; turns out she is loving her some process art. But what is process art?
It turns out that free-spirited approach to crafts is good for kids’ creativity. “Process art is more important than end product,” writes Rachelle Doorley, artist and author of Tinkerlab: A Hands-On Guide for Little Inventors, on her blog. And focusing too much on what kids make, and especially what projects are meant to look like, is stifling.
Doorley also polled a whole slew of educators, artists and parents on what they wished they’d known about kids’ art and rolled it up into a fantastic blog post. Just about everyone agreed that art is all about the doing—and encouraging kids’ creativity—not about what gets done.
The other day, I read a post from the food blog Hummingbird High about an amazing-looking chia seed pudding with pistachios and kumquats (oh my gosh, right?). Michelle wrapped up the post by asking what readers’ dream breakfasts would be. The question made me realize that I had been getting my own perfect breakfast-in-bed for weeks—though it looks pretty different than how you might imagine.
Peeper goes through phases in her routine. She’ll wake up asking for a book for weeks on end then all of a sudden switch one day. For a long spell, she wanted nothing more than “raisin toast”—a cinnamon-raisin English muffin—as soon as I got her from her crib.
We developed an AM ritual. Eric would toast and butter a muffin and leave it for me on the bedside stand when he kissed me goodbye at 5:30. I’d sleep until Peeper woke up, and the breakfast would be ready for us.
Peeper and I would crawl back into my bed. We’d each grab a half of the English muffin and nibble while I read book after book to her—as many as lasted through my daughter’s appetite.
I kept a stack of books in the bedroom just for this reason. Peeper would snuggle into me and slowly wake up; I relished not only the closeness but the extra rest it gave me as I struggled through the tail end of morning sickness.
Sure, I had to sweep out a small mountain of crumbs from the sheets every day, and our comforter has butter stains now, but that was a small price to pay in return for the sweet wake-up routine.
One day, Peeper decided she no longer liked raisins. Just like that, she had switched allegiances to “triangle toast”—just toast cut on the diagonal, which apparently tastes completely different than toast cut in rectangles. Now we skip the books in bed entirely; she’d rather play while I cook our morning oatmeal.
I’m grateful to Hummingbird High for reminding me of that beautiful and crumb-filled stretch of breakfasts in bed. In the years to come, we might end up celebrating holidays by bringing pancakes or waffles (or chia seed pudding, dare I hope?!) back into bed, but something tells me I’d rather share cold English muffins and a few stories with my firstborn.
Growing up, my older sister, brother and I would play Thundercats (my younger sister was still in diapers and didn’t quite get the concept of fighting Mumm-Ra and his villain lackeys until later). As the kid with no seniority, I was usually relegated to play Snarf, the goody two-shoes who tagged along and tried to protect Lion-O. We spent hours running around, protecting Third Earth and its berbils.
Years and years later, Cartoon Network began showing reruns of the 80s cartoon. I rushed home every day after school, popped a blank tape in the VCR and hit record with the opening song. We copied every episode.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcGNqrAtsgg]
Flash forward again. My brother recently cleaned out a storage unit when he moved back to Oregon. Among the boxes of books, old furniture and high school yearbooks he unearthed two child-sized suitcases of action figures and Matchbox cars.
“I’m not sure if Peeper will like them,” he began when he brought everything over one night and trailed off.
But he needn’t have worried. The moment Peeper laid eyes on the treasures, she was smitten.
Ever since, she spends hours playing with “Mama’s old toys.” She has learned most of the names of the Thundercats and the Batman villains who live alongside them in the suitcase. She scolds Batman for not wearing a helmet on his “bike” (aka Batcycle). She brings Kit to the grocery store and dentist, and she clutches tiny trucks and racecars to her chest when I read books to her. “Fast car read a book, too!” she’ll say.
She has never seen an episode of Thundercats or Batman, but that doesn’t stop her from imaginative play. “Touchdown!” she whispered the other day when playing with Jaga, his arms raised in the air.
Watching her reminds me of the countless hours I spent sprawled on the carpet, directing miniature dramas between He-Man and Barbie or Panthro and Pretty Ponies, and of the breathless play with my siblings and the rest of the neighborhood kids. We’ll see if she loses interest in the toys or if, like me, she’ll foster a lifelong love of snappy cartoons and their memorable characters.
Of course I hope for the latter. After all, I want to play, too. She’d just better not make me be Snarf.
Last week Peeper received a package from her Aunt Bootsie, and the book inside was one of the most touching gifts she’s ever gotten. Each page contained one piece of advice for my daughter, and as you can see, Peeper—and anyone else lucky enough to read it—will definitely be the wiser from it.
Each page contains a snippet of wise (and sometimes wise ass but true) advice from her sage aunt. In fact, the pearls are timeless enough that I found myself nodding along. (Was some of the advice secretly for me, too?)
