Okay, so I am definitely not cool enough to spell things with a 'z' instead of an s, but indulge me.

I think the Moms/Mommies/Mamas in the blogosphere spend more than enough time admitting our shortcomings and not nearly enough time celebrating our strong points. So, I'm suggesting that on Mother's Day, or the day after, or at least some time in May, you take a moment and make a list of three things that you do well as a mother and either post it in the comments here or in your own blog. My list is below.

a) Playing to the crowd - When my kids need someone to indulge their nonsense, I'm all over it. "Mommy, what if I was so strong that I could life this house with one finger?" "Well, kiddo, I'd be impressed. Then we'd have to start a lifting contest so you could see if you were the strongest kid in the world." "Mommy, let's hop to the car like bunnies." "Okay, easter bunnies or regular kind?" "Easter bunnies." "Okay, here's your basket. Hold my paw little bunny."

b) Really listening/getting down to their level - When my kids are upset or confused, I get down on my knees by them and help them to put their feelings into words. "The Boy is mad because you hurt him, TLG. You've said sorry. Why are you crying?" "Medunno." "It can be scary when we hurt someone by accident. Are you scared?" "Yes,me scared." "Oh, well, what do you think would make you feel better?" "Hugging The Boy." "Oh, okay. The Boy, TLG has apologized, can he have a hug? He feels scared." "Okay."

c) Explaining - I can never get enough information on something I am trying to do, so I am slow and careful with my explanations wherever possible. I will outline what will happen next until I am blue in the face, I will discuss all the possible outcomes of choices until I develop a twitch, I will explain over and over again the reasons why something is happening. "No, I am sad that you are upset about that, but if you don't eat your supper you can't have a snack. You can choose your supper or a peanut butter sandwich, but you cannot have a snack. Do you want supper or a sandwich? (ad infinitum, ad nauseum)" Or "If you walk on the curb on a busy street it can make drivers nervous, and a nervous driver isn't a safe driver, so we don't want to make them nervous. You can walk on the curb when we get on our own street."

So, I don't do these things perfectly every time. Sometimes I have to take a few deep breaths first, or sometimes I have to say 'Mommy needs a little space right now, I'll explain in a minute.' or whatever but these are three of my strengths, and I am pretty damn consistent with them. How about you? What parts of motherhood are you rocking?

Consider yourself tagged: Marla, Andrea, Ann, Dani, Jen, Trudy, Tina, Kateri, Meagan, Mudmama

Oh, and feel free to do this even if I haven't tagged you. Pass it along.

One more thing - Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

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I can get an incredible amount of stuff done in little pockets of time throughout my day. If I notice that there's 30 minutes until I have to leave to pick up The Boy from school, and I have a to do list, I'll cycle through my stuff to do crazyfast and float on the feeling of accomplishment all the way to school.

I think having the pocket of time removes any pressure to actually FINISH anything, and I can just enjoy the process of doing. I can do this artificially by using a timer, or by setting a 'power hour' (a list of tasks that I will do one after the other for 60m, no mre no less) but it doesn't work as well as when the deadline is imposed rather than set by me. But I'm trying to figure out how to trigger it when setting my own deadlines. Promises of rewards don't work, neither does forcing myself to do more of whatever I am putting off. I'm convinced there's a solution though, a way to create urgency and hence prioritize without having some authority set the time frame.

I wonder what it's like to be naturally inclined to time management? Or, alternatively, to have NO drive for self-improvement?

PS - In other news, sign up for Jen's Bliss Notes - they're AWESOME.

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I am a Mommy and I am blogging, and since Mommy blogs are dismissed and maligned in a way that no other blogs are, I am choosing to identify as a Mommy blogger to add strength to the numbers and refuse to dismiss other writing women. Distancing myself from Mommy Blogging would be to say that something is wrong, or, somehow lesser about blogging about your family,and I don't agree with that. I don't know if other people would see this as a Mommy blog, but it doesn't matter. Just like other blog categories, Mommy blogging has a wide range of subjects and styles, and I fit somewhere on the spectrum.

Personally, I think personal blogs are just that, and everyone has the right to tell their story, whether you are a partier in New York or an accountant in Winnipeg. I don't get why Mommies aren't supposed to have that right, why we are supposed to be silent. I don't think that other stories are automatically more interesting or important. Different people are interested in different things, and when I encounter a blog that doesn't interest me, I just don't read it. I don't publish an entry about how boring that person is, how they have no right to tell their truth, and then post a trackback on their blog, or comment to tell them how dreadful they are.

Yet, people feel they have the right to do that to Mommies all the time. And for some reason Moms blogging is news. I mean, I understand in a socio-political sense that Mommy blogging, claiming a place in the social narrative for the previously invisible work of mothering, is inherently radical, and hence attracts scorn, but I am surprised at the scope and vehemence of the scorn.

The latest guilt trip for blogging Mommies is the whole 'think of the children' schtick. After all if you can't shame Mommies any other way, get them to worry about the effect of their actions on their kids. And, while it is true that some bloggers have published stuff that their kids are going to be irritated about later, the truth is that kids get irritated with their parents anyway, and if it wasn't blogging it would be something else. I have cringed at what some Mommies are willing to write about their kids and about mothering, but it is their truth, not mine and they are not asking my opinion.

And here's the thing, those kids are growing up with those Mommies, so the attitudes and ideas that come out in their blog are going to be in their parenting to some degree, so the kids are already exposed to it. Sure, people are braver on the anonymous internet (except me, I am much braver in person, when I can explain myself when I am misunderstood)and they might go farther than they do in person, but the basics are still there. If it wasn't coming out in blogging, it would be coming out some other way.

Anyway, as a coincidence, before this latest round of foolishness, a few of the most responsible bloggers I know decided to stop blogging about their kids because the kids are reaching a point where they are telling their own stories and interpreting their own experiences. This makes sense to me, since everyone has the right to decide how much of their own stories to tell, and when to step back and give other people the space to tell theirs.

I gave the issue some thought for my own blog, and decided that I wasn't going to stop doing things the way I have been all along. I have always maintained that this blog is about my life as a mother, the actions, changes and thoughts that this experience has brought about in me. I'm not giving a day by day account of life with my family, I'm not spilling any big secrets, and I don't even talk about specific things my kids do all that often. I try to make it clear that it is just my side that I am reporting on, not some universal truth (not that my responsible blogger friends were doing any different, in my opinion, althought they sometimes were more specific and detailed in their stories than I am). So I am comfortable with the details I reveal, and since I am honest with my kids I don't think they will be too surprised or crushed if they read my blog when they are older. It's all about me, baby. And since kids like to forget their parents are people, they may not even read it.

So basically, while I respect why my blogger friends have withdrawn from that aspect of their blogs, I think I already have discretion covered, so I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing - exploring my own issues and challenges with this role and reporting anthropologically on motherhood via the ultimate participant observation position.

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So, yeah, I dropped out again. Just the usual hassle, no crisis.

I'm pretty impressed with myself lately. I've got a lot of writing done, most of it paid work. I've straightened out some AAMP administration work that has been plaguing me. I've done a little house organizing. It's been swell. But the thing that really gets me is that I've been learning something new.

That may not seem like a big deal to you, and it wouldn't be one to me if it was some bookish hobby, learning about goalsetting, or trying a new type of word puzzle. But this is an actual coordination-required new activity: playing drums in Rock Band.

If you've been reading for a while, or if you know me in real life, you'll recognize this as a BIG DEAL, because I have a lot of trouble learning new physical things. I can dance pretty well, by myself, add a partner and my brain suddenly disconnects from my limbs and I'm all akimbo. For years I thought I was missing something in my brain, some connection that made learning these sorts of things easy for everyone but me.

And that made be true to an extent, I do seem to have a coordination problem of some sort, sports and whatnot do not come naturally to me AT ALL. But my main problem was that I didn't realize, until I started yoga, that it was okay to practice less than perfectly, that the perfect would come from the practice.

When I played clarinet in junior high, I honestly thought there was no point in my practicing because I just didn't get "it". I didn't realize that the practice would create a body memory and one day it would just click. I didn't understand that practice and learning were tied so closely, I thought you had to know what you were doing first and then practice to stay at that level or get better. Yoga taught me differently, but I'm still challenged by how to make the leap from not getting it to practice level. You have to have a certain level of understanding in order to practice and reaching that level puzzles me sometimes. It's like improv, you don't just throw yourself on stage and babble, you hang your routine on a (very flexible) structure. You have to have something to work with before you can play.

Learning to play the drums in Rock Band works perfectly for this learning to learn to practice for me because I can slow the songs down and get the hand-eye coordination down, then speed up a little. I haven't played at full speed yet, nor have I played with other people, but I feel good about the learning process. And that's half the battle. Or something like that.

Oh, and for the record, I have no trouble singing my heart out in Rock Band. I'm not good, but I live by Vivi Walker's motto : If you can't sing it good, sing it loud.

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And I've used that as an excuse to slack off everywhere. But today I caught myself, so that's enough of that.

I've always been someone who is big on the system, not in the sense of THE SYSTEM, but in the sense that there is a best way to do things and the inefficiency of doing things in the less than best way has always driven me crazy.

Even though I espouse the idea that 'Done is better than perfect', I've always taken that to be about the end result not the process of getting there. But, luckily, some time before Christmas I happened upon a personality test that (once again) revealed that I am an INFJ (Myers-Briggs) and in the description of my type it said that INFJs tend to get bogged down in searching for the perfect way to do something, in trying to find the best system.

Reading that was like someone poking me with a stick. I actually said aloud 'So, there is no BEST way?'

Oddly enough, that test, taking in procrastination, made a huge difference for me, making me attack several large tasks around the house, not in any methodical way, but with an eye to chipping away at them. Man, that's waaaaay easier than trying to figure out the perfect way to get it done. No wonder most people don't worry about the procedure!

But I probably won't give it up entirely. For starters, it's a long-ingrained habit. And besides, SOMEONE has to spend some time zooming out to make sure things are on track, and I seem to have a flair for it. Or so I keep telling myself. :P

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I am not an inherently organized person. I mean, I like organization and I can keep it up for a while, but if any in a certain category of things goes off, then the whole system can go down the tubes. I find that I don't have the consistent sort of energy that keeps details properly filed. I'm kind of a sprinter rather than a marathoner when it comes to that sort of thing. But I'm at work on that.

A few weeks ago I finished up some articles that had been extremely difficult for me to write, for various reasons and I found that once I got them out of my head, I was awash in ideas and energy and I was able to knock off a whole bunch of other troublesome tasks rather quickly. And I found myself feeling very peaceful and very balanced and content.

It was kind of an unfamiliar feeling (by the way, Jen at Dwell has been making similar discoveries lately)and it made me realize that while I was happy last year, there was always this frantic feeling under the surface. Like how in Grad school we used to joke that guilt was an inherent part of relaxing, I had come to accept this frantic-ness as just an underlying theme for my days.

But despite how much I had normalized it, it has not always been part of my life (only from time to time). Somehow last year I got off track, and only ever got part way back on. To labour the metaphor, I just ground my wheels against the side of the track, and the sound drove me batty, but I couldn't quite ease all the way back on. It wasn't fun, and it meant that every little thing sent me spinning in a way that was very unpleasant and left me feel desperate. Even though I knew better intellectually, emotionally I felt like I wasn't doing ANYTHING right.

And I kept thinking I finally had a grip on it, and then things would go all scow-ways* again.

So, now that I feel better, more centred, more able to recognize when my thoughts** are heading off the rails again and just accept them as thoughts, not signs of SOMETHING TERRIBLY WRONG. And I want to stay in this place, I like it here. It beats the hell out of both the valley of doubt and that rut that is about three feet from the edge of the pit of despair.

Sooooo, I am trying to organize my time so I keep everything moving ahead steadily, workwise, homewise and lifewise. And I'm making some real progress (see March 3 below). But I still don't know how to organize days that are always changing, it's hard for me to plan my week when the incredible monkeymind of a three year old and the entire school board is working way ahead of me. But I think that accepting the inherent difficulty is a kind of progress in itself.

And to quote Dame Julian of Norwich "All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well."

Now I am off to the gym. Exercise also helps to keep the frantic to a minimum.

*Does that word make sense to you? Or is it a local expression? It means all messed up, upsidedown/sideways, that sort of thing.

**Which are just things! They don't define me! I can acknowledge them and let them pass! They don't have to mean anything big, just a moment's thought! - John Kabat-Zinn, if we ever meet, I will bake you cookies to thank you for The Mindful Way through Depression

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I sometimes read this blog of a really funny, interesting woman with two small daughters. I only read it sometimes because her posting can be sporadic, and because sometimes her sadness is hard for me to bear. I check in almost to bear witness for this woman who despite her best efforts is having a rough time, I struggle with the fact that I can't help her, but take comfort in the fact that she has local support and that no one seems to be in danger there. I comment occasionally but I don't know what else to do.

Today, I discovered that her marriage is disintegrating. And that always makes me sad, to think of the hopes people go into marriage with, and the myriad of reasons things go wrong. Most of her commenters touched on a similar expression of sadness, regret on her behalf, concern for the wellbeing of everyone in their little family. However, one commenter took everyone else to task for supporting this woman, as if everyone was encouraging her in some frivolous endeavour. And then, the commenter surrendered all possiblity of being taken seriously by suggesting that the writer was part of the 'problem with society' today, and, how, of course, things like abortion and divorce are immediately indicative of that 'problem'.

It turned my stomach.

I don't know how someone could seriously comment on a post full of pain and say that the writer was not only casually throwing away a marriage (does anyone do that? really?) but she was also some sort of canary in a mine, signalling the downfall of all we should hold sacred.

I had to respond, even though I normally try not to engage trolls. Because I think that commenter, not the blogger, is the canary in the mine, indicating through an utter lack of sensitivity and through fundamental unkindness that it is easier and somehow righteous to condemn rather than trying to understand someone in pain.

If our society is on a downslide it is the people who can't reach out to others, can't see the good intent, can't be bothered to see pain, that will be the cause of it, not people who divorce, not people who abort, and not people who don't conform to some random moral code established by the harsh.

Of course, I don't necessarily thing we are in a moral decline, but I do think a lot of people have lost touch with something fundamental, but also think that enough people miss it, that enough people are searching, that we will establish some equilibrium again.

As for that blogger in pain, I wish her well, and I will continue to bear witness, and I hope that sometime I will be able to do something tangible to help.

And I send lovingkindness to that commmenter. I hope that when s/he is in pain, comfort is available, and that no one picks that point to teach a high-handed moral lesson.

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So, this afternoon TLG was so cranky that it took me an hour and a half to actually get to eat my lunch, and then while I was eating he climbed into my lap and fell asleep. Alas, that was only 10 minutes before we had to leave to pick up The Boy, so I had to struggle a sleeping 3 year old into a one piece snowsuit. Which roused him to a cranky half-sleep.

Thus began one of the most surreal half hours of my life.

It turns out that TLG did not wish to be in my arms, nor did he wish to be laid down. He did not wish to be put in the stroller, yet he was upset not to be in his stroller. Once in the stroller he screamed to be lying down, so I adjusted the seat, at which point he screamed because he was not sitting up, at which point he screamed because he was not lying down. And so on, and so on. I was half expecting my neighbours to have called social services and to find some irate government officials waiting on my step when I returned home.

Seriously, TLG was in an impossible state. It was like one of those statements that the enlightened masters in kung fu movies plague initiates with:

"Peace for the strollered child is neither upright nor prone."

Clearly, I required more meditation to figure it out, yet there is no way to quiet the monkey mind with all that screaming going on. Obviously, enlightened masters didn't keep company with three year olds.

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Long time no see!

I'm trying to find a blogging program that will let me concentrate on writing rather than on the intricacies of webpublishing, but I am on the edge of knowing what all the details mean and can't quite push myself over. So my blog may look odd over the next little while as I play around with some stuff.

I'm really pleased with my parenting lately. I have managed to get a few writing projects and a lot of house clutter out of my way, and it has made a huge difference to my patience. I am much more able to be where I am when I'm there.

So if I should be writing, but TLG is demanding my attention, I have been closing my writing down, and shifting my attention to him, so I am not in two worlds at once and disatisfied with both.

So we've had a great few days, of me trying to stay in the moment. Trying to remember that the point of making cookies with the boys is not the cookies but the making, so it doesn't matter if the cookies turn out weird, or not at all, the point is that they got up to their elbows in flour and they got to measure things and we all had fun.

It's a hard thing to remember though, I'm used to being more goal oriented, and since I've had the kids I've gotten used to trying to cram a lot into the small windows of time I have to myself. It's difficult to break those habits. But hopefully the lesson is in the practice.

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