Magic Moments

Today had two magic moments in it. Magic moments are the unexpected events that can’t be planned or even hoped for, they are moments of true and meaningful connection with others. They are spontaneous as a rule. Magic moments are treasures, and even if they seem unimportant to anyone else, they are the small memories that burn bright in your heart all your life and never lose their warmth.

Today I saw Luke when he and Noni came to visit Grace and me at the hospital as a surprise for my birthday. It was so much fun to play with him. But it was later over the phone that my magic moment with him happened. I asked him if he ate dinner and he said he had soup. I asked him if it was yummy and he said, “it not yummy. It hot.” He’s only just learning descriptions and to hear him come up with that on his own was so precious to me. I have a feeling I’ll smile for the rest of my life whenever I eat soup, thinking about my Luke sharing details of his life with me.

I had another magic moment today, this one with Grace. But in able to share the magic, I have to contrast today with yesterday. Yesterday was our third day being inpatient at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. I was so distraught. I was so worried about Grace, the most I’ve been in months. She was so clearly miserable, so tired, so sad. She was on every laxative known to man trying to dissolve a blockage that was causing her considerable pain and caused vomiting after every meal. I felt so helpless. She wasn’t talking at all, only using thumbs up or thumbs down to tell us how she felt. She took a four hour nap and when we took her down to the playground she only watched Luke from a chair while wrapped in a blanket and cried. It was a hard day for all of us.

But today Grace started talking again. By the afternoon she had eaten a little chicken broth and had some lemonade and it cheered her up so much that she was even smiling and sitting up again. I think her tummy was finally starting to feel better from the laxatives working. By dinner time she was allowed to eat a banana and crackers. She was so happy, she told me today was the best day ever. Later I took her to the bathroom knowing we’d be there for some time. So we started singing silly songs as we waited.

“Willa-bee-walla-bee-woo, an elephant sat on you. Willa-bee-walla-bee-wee, an elephant sat on me,” the songs goes. I’d sing about the elephant sitting on the “pospital" and she’d finish the song with him sitting on the hospital. Our elephant sat on the bed, in the sink, on the nurse, on the doctor, getting shots, driving home, snuggling in bed and then we ran out of rhymes. She was laughing the whole time and it was so wonderful to see her enjoying life again. Her smile was so bright and so genuine and I was so glad to be part of it. 

I would have never imagined moments on the phone and on the potty could become treasured memories. But it does seem that often it’s the little nothings that come to be the most important and most lasting in life. The big moments are special too, but they don’t always seem to shape us the way the small but frequent memories do. And small moments have a special way of squeezing down into the smallest crevices of our heart, like a seed where they slowly stretch our hearts bigger and deeper as they take root and grow.

Those special connections are full of magic, but only if you can catch them. Having two magic moments in one day with my children was the best birthday present I could ask for.

Grace Learns Dinner Manners

The other night at dinner started fantastic. Grace sat with her face scrunched, her eyebrows as deep down as they could go, and in her scariest voice told us stories about a haunted house. Then three-year old Luke would chime in and say "scary shadows," while mimicking Grace's scary face. It was hilarious. 

After her story she decided to not only drink milk from her cup, but to also practice her balancing abilities while at it. She only used her mouth to hold her cup, not unlike a seal trying to balance a ball on it's nose, and it was about as messy. She was told that her drinking method was unacceptable. As she is an alpha female in a five-year old body, she decided it was as good a point as any to stand her ground. She was asked to leave the table but refused, instead she grabbed onto her chair like it was a life preserver on the Titanic. 

"Uh-oh," I said, using our key word for, "This is about to be a problem...for you." She didn't budge. "You can walk to your room," I said, "or I'll be happy to carry you." She was still holding her chair. When I picked her up to carry her she grabbed onto the table cloth, spilling all of our dinner onto the ground.

My husband Chad and I wanted to find a consequence that would teach, rather than just punish, but we didn't have any idea what that might be. So we did what most good parents do. We googled it. Thankfully "Love and Logic" had just the right solution. An "energy drain." An energy drain is whenever a kid zaps your energy with their bad behavior and they are then responsible for helping you get it back. It's always at a personal but a fair cost. And always with empathy and kindness when the verdict is delivered.

Because Grace made our dinner so unpleasant, we decided that we would need a grown-up dinner at a nice restaurant without kids to get our energy back, and that Grace would pay the baby sitter. Luckily, her babysitter accepts toys and allowance as payment (we paid her in cash afterwards).

When Grace was allowed out of time-out we told her the consequence, and that she would need to pick out a toy to pay the babysitter with. We were expecting a major meltdown at the news. But as always, Grace completely surprised us. She picked out her newest and most favoritest Elsa doll that she had just spent the last ten weeks saving up for. We explained several times that it didn't have to be that doll but she felt strongly that it did. She even went as far as to gift wrap it and colored a card to go with it. 

She wasn't upset at all, in fact we suspected that she was secretly feeling really good about it. (She mentioned the next morning that we were mean for making her get rid of her doll, but I told her that most parents would just yell or spank. After that she didn't complain again.) Chad and I think that kids have a more intense sense of "fair" than we do, and when they know that they are making it right again, they feel good about it. Grace is young but smart and she knew she really blew it that night. We think she was happy to have a way to put things right.

The next night Grace decided to test her limits with extremely bad manners again. 

"I'm so happy," I said to her complete astonishment. "I really had a great time with your dad last night at our dinner. Will you be paying for another babysitter tonight?" 

The bad manners totally stopped. Instantly. The best part was that I didn't have to yell or even get mad. In fact I was a little disappointed she cleaned up her act so quickly. I was secretly hoping for another night out. It turned out our family dinner was nearly just as nice at home that night, even though I had to clean my own dishes afterwards. And Grace learned that if she makes a mistake can feel good about herself when she makes it right again.

(Thanks Love and Logic for sharing this on your Facebook Page!)

Accidental Bullying

I thought I was in a safe place to share. It was a  Facebook group set up for local moms to buy, sell, and trade kid and maternity items. There were about a thousand moms in the group and there was a constant flow of great kid stuff for sale at next-to-nothing prices…every mom’s dream come true.

I had decided to list my offensively-expensive-when-new, gently-used maternity support belt. For those of you unfamiliar with such an item, imagine a cross between a chastity belt, a thong big enough for grandpa, and an industrial grade construction belt with lace. It’s used outside the underwear and was very clean, as I clearly stated in the posting. It had been my salvation during my painful pregnancy and I still have very sentimental feelings towards it for that reason.

I knew there would be comments. In fact, I was secretly looking forward to anything that would be clever. But I was surprised at what happened instead.

 “She’s a bully and I won’t stand for it.” That was my mom calling to inform me that a lady from the group had copied and reposted my photo on the group page without my description, but left her own comment instead, “This is gross.”

“No, mom,” I said, “I’m sure she’s just trying to be funny. She’s just one person and I’m not deleting the post. I really want to sell it. It was really expensive.” But I should have known. Mother is always right.

The comments came in fast. They started as snarky remarks. “This is disgusting,” and “What is that??!!?” The comments really didn’t bother me, I have a pretty thick skin and a good sense of humor. “LMBO is all I can say,” and yes, I did have to google to find out what LMBO meant. “Someone identify this before we snicker ourselves sick,” wrote another woman.  In less than two minutes I had over a dozen comments, and they kept coming, and coming fast.

When the comments started to pile up I started to feel anxious about the whole thing, which surprised me. I started to wonder how many comments I would get and if they would last on my permanent online record. I was hoping to get a laugh, but instead I flashed back to when I was as the girl wearing braces and a handmade kitty sweater in an age of neon socks and Hypercolor shirts. The funny, snarky comments had accidentally crossed over to cyber bullying without anyone really realizing it. If you don’t believe me, then let me explain.

Those women didn't have to say anything necessarily piercing. It became bullying when they made those comments in front of a large group of my peers. But somehow people have forgotten that when online.

If I had walked into a restaurant and if twenty women started to make fun of my dress, it would suck to be me. It wouldn't have been nice, but it wouldn't have been bullying necessarily either. Now imagine instead that those same women were standing on a platform with a megaphone in front of nine-hundred and eighty-five other moms when they berated me. And all one-thousand of those moms shopped at my Target and dropped their kids off at my kid’s school and played at my park. And all one thousand of those moms knew that I was the "gross" mom posting a "gross" maternity belt. It changed into bullying because it was done online. 

After ten minutes of comments one lady posted in my defense that it was a maternity belt and I thanked her on the thread because I had started to feel “ganged up on.” All of the sudden the comments turned more personal. “You can’t say this was ganging up,” and “don’t be so dramatic about it.” "You’ll need to leave the group if you can’t stop causing problems," and "we can report you to the administrator and have you kicked out." But I loved the cheap-awesome -kid-stuff group. I really didn’t want to be forced out. I did some research and was able to delete my post before things got worse.

Things had gone from snarky comments to nearly being kicked out of a group that I liked. In fifteen minutes. For posting a maternity belt. I don't think any of those mommies meant to bully. I think they'd still think my stance is overly dramatic and that real bullying is when a bigger kid holds your head in the toilet during recess. But today's rules about bullying are changing. I think that we all forget that the online world is changing too. The world-wide-web actually has made our world smaller and more personal. People can't hide behind anonymous Myspace avatars anymore. They can't make comments without consequences anymore.

As it was, I was able to donate my overpriced maternity belt to a single mom's group. Hopefully it was more appreciated there. I'm thinking that you just have to have insanely painful Vulva Vericose Veins and crippling pelvic pressure to appreciate the relief of a maternity belt at a second hand cost.

Wait, did I just write the word Vulva? Yes, yes I did. And watch the snarky comments in 3...2...1...go.