Possibilities

I love the sense of ultimate possibility inherent in childhood. Kids feel no limitations on what they may become. They are powerful, bold, and imaginative. Anything may actually happen in their world.

Maggie, my four year old, informed me the other day that her uncle, my brother Robert, was going to grow up and be a pirate. I started to correct her, to let her know that while her uncle has chosen a field equally obscure in the 21^st century (being a poet) I was pretty sure he was not going to become a pirate. Especially, the swashbuckling, sword-wielding, Johnny Depp model she had in mind. But then I thought, “Why?” Why convince her that being a pirate is not a valid occupational interest?

I took a similar out when my seven year old, Mia, informed me that she did not really need to do any research for her first grade report on horses, since she “pretty much knows everything about them already.” She followed that up with this morning’s comment about how she is “really good at math, and at science, and at reading, and at all the stuff at school.” Mia is bright, but, truthfully, she is no math whiz. But, again, why close the door on her self-confidence? Even, if it is rather over-inflated. The time for self-doubt will come soon enough in life I’m afraid.

I just wish I had more of my children’s sense of endless opportunity.

Recently, while taking Mia to piano lessons, she asked me, “Mom, are you ever going to be anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Are you ever going to be something or are you always going to be just a mom?”

Ouch. I gotta admit that hit a nerve.

Of course, I told her about how much I love being a mom, how it is the most important thing I could possibly do with my time. I alluded to the challenges I face trying to forge a path to be “something” and make certain that it does not conflict with or distract me from what matters most. I even dredged up my past work experience as proof that I have been “something” at some point. But, when Mia tried to understand what I had actually done while working on legislative and policy matters for Congress, she distilled it down to, “So you did some stuff to help Dad?”

Ouch, again.

The truth is it only gets to me because I ask myself that same question all the time.

I know, completely, that I have chosen my path of motherhood. I chose to turn down educational opportunities when Mia was born. I chose to cut back to part-time work and move away from my job in DC. I chose, four years later, to quit work entirely and move away from all the contacts that I had cultivated. I CHOSE to be a mother. And, I would NEVER choose to do it differently. I love being the one to raise my children.

I have prayed many times in gratitude that motherhood found me BEFORE I executed my plan to run up $200,000 in student loan debt getting all sorts of advanced degrees and ensuring that I had no other economic or social choice but to work full time. Thank you, again, to an omniscient and loving God.

But, since motherhood found me before I found me, I have given a lot of thought to what I do want to be when I grow up. Practical thought. Not the endless sea of possibilities variety, since in all honesty, I have many limitations now. For example:

1- I am too old to be an Olympic athlete, an athlete of most any type, or a dancer. Just not going to start that career in my mid-thirties.

2- I am too lazy to dive into something that involves restarting my education and mastering completely new disciplines. This rules out anything requiring intensive science or mathematics, including going to medical school and practicing child psychiatry, which I have seriously considered in the past.

3- I am not interested in anything full-time, or with a long commute, or requiring me to be regularly unavailable to my family during “after-school” hours. So, “No” to resurrecting my lawyerly ambitions or my former career on Capitol Hill.

Oh, and did I mention that I want to do something that I find personally fulfilling and meaningful, and that I actually enjoy? Well, I do. So, no secretarial or mundane job that is mainly about bringing in some money, but not rewarding to me.

Given all the restraints it has been hard at times to figure out what I can do.

I have thought about what I enjoy doing: cooking, running, reading, writing, gardening, decorating, dancing, teaching, researching, analyzing and critiquing, even sewing and creating. I have considered fields such as photography, architecture, catering, clothing design, interior design, editing, education, politics, academia, wedding planning, flower arranging… It is a long, long list. But, with each, I have struggled to feel like I would actually love doing it that often. There are so many hobbies that lose their luster when turned into a career.

I feel that I have become a jack-of-all-trades. I do many things, pretty well, and nothing really well or with any authority or professionalism. At some level, this is what motherhood calls for: a moderate level of proficiency across the board. I have this, but I long for an area where I excel, where I have some credibility.

In the space that emerged after I quit work and moved across the country, I began to think differently about what I could “be.” Blessed with a husband who provides well for our family and not burdened with the economic necessity of having to bring in an income, I realized I could put time and effort into something creative, something risky, and something that I love.

But, here is the irony. I feel so paralyzed by fears of mediocrity that I actually avoid doing it. I worry that I don’t have the talent, the discipline, the tenacity to succeed. I pause at trying to cross the boundary between one of many things that I do pretty well, but without actual credibility, into something I really, legitimately do.

Right now, I could use a good dose of child-like confidence and optimism. I need to believe that I really can be anything I want. I need to feel the limitless possibility of youth.

Because sometimes successfully finding what I want to be when I grow up seems less likely than becoming a pirate.

Today Elsie Jane is...

18 months old
32 inches tall
24 pounds
hating the doctor, and the nurse, and the whole check-up process
always on the move
climbing on everything -- four falls last night alone: a ladder, a stool, a bike, a basket (turned upside down)
fiercely independent
very helpful if you need something unloaded, like the dishwasher, or the cupboards, or a purse
proficient in the use of the word "mine"
a constant explorer
trying to keep up with Mia and Maggie
loving being outdoors: chasing, riding new plasma cars, arranging tiny chairs, digging in the dirt
hating baths and showers and the pool
identifying her nose and mouth, and yours too if you stand close to her
a terror during sacrament meeting at church, on account of the fact that she is also...
a screamer, especially if her sisters try to take something away from her or force her to do anything or I try to have her sit still on my lap
happily going to nursery at church on her own (first time yesterday, Happy Mother's Day to Me!)
adorable when she lets me put pigtails in her hair
enjoying the chance to sample sweets, like a small ice cream cone or pieces of cookie
able to get herself a snack of her favorite goldfish crackers when hungry
starting up a shoe fetish
regularly getting toothpaste on things other than her teeth
learning to tiptoe
able to mimic all the moves I do with Maggie's dance class
interested in carrying bags and purses and pushing strollers for play
never wanting to be left out
making friends (She gave the most adorable hug to her friend Dallin the other day -- too sweet!)
proficient in fine motor skills, like drawing, eating with a fork, and inserting a straw in a lid
disinterested in television and unable to sit for a whole story
still going to sleep well with her binki and favorite blanket (She often takes a 3-4 hour nap)
already interested in toilet training (tried to take her diaper off and get on the potty like her sisters the other day)
constantly babbling, if you listen really close there are real words mixed in there
a carbon copy of Mia
an absolute beauty
pure joy

The Mom-o-sphere

I recently posted my 100^th blog entry. Yep, I did. I have been writing here for about two years now. And, it just seems like the right point in time to take a step back and evaluate why. Why do I write this blog? What is it I am trying to accomplish? Who am I writing this for, anyway?

I think the answers to this question have evolved. This blog began to share a bit about what happens in my little family with extended family and friends. But, over these two years, I must admit, it has taken a more personal tone. It has, for me, become less about just posting events and happenings and more of a repository for my thoughts. It is more about me.

Yet, it is still a “mom blog.” It is about me, but in the role of mother and from the perspective of my family. This is not the blog of a writer or a political hack. It is not about current events or recipes or crafts, although I throw those things in too. It is just about me as a mom. Which makes me wonder: what is up with the “mom blog” anyway?

There has been a good amount written in mainstream media about the emergence of “mom blogs.” The successes of those who turn writing about their off-spring into a profitable enterprise; the risks of exposing too much personal data on-line; the elusive drive for so many moms to engage this electronic platform.

As a “mom blogger” (a title I innately shun – why should my writing be defined by my relationship to my children, by my role as a mother? Those who read this blog regularly will not be surprised at my trepidation here and will note the same pride and self-delusions related to my youth that I have displayed at in previous posts. See the mini-van or Obama stories. Still, I must confess that since what I do all day, every day is be a mom, and what I write about is just what I do and think about, it pretty much all revolves around some aspect of mom-hood. I guess, once again, I should just embrace this statement of the obvious and move on.), I have considered this question of motivation and reward. Why do we, why do I, choose to engage in this forum?

Potential answers are countless.

Perhaps it is some form of expositionism, a need for a moment of glory or public acknowledgment.

Maybe it fills a similar role for moms as Facebook does for teens. Constant connection and self-promotion. Maybe we all seek our own, however limited, sense of celebrity status. We want to believe the public, some public, is as concerned with what we are doing, where we are eating or shopping, what is on our schedule, or the antics of our children as they are with the “Brangelinas” of our day.

There are plenty of blogs out there that seem to provide a needed self-esteem boost for moms. They’re the modern brag pages. They include the beauty, the accomplishment, the creativity and acquisitions of moms and their kids. They give a safe venue from which to say, “My child is brighter than yours.” “My child is cuter than yours.” “My home is nicer than yours.” “My life is better than yours.” And, as a natural extension, also provide moms with the needed reassurance.

Maybe, as I supposed when first beginning this blog, it is just a great way to keep in touch, provide updates, and communicate with a host of friends and family in various locations with great ease.

But, I have another theory based on the nature of motherhood itself. Particularly, stay-at-home mothering.

Parenthood, more than anything else I have experienced in life, seems to place me on a great precipice. There is the potential for enormous failure, for wrecking not only my own life but those of the people I love the most. The fear that I may fail to help my children learn to navigate this world in a responsible, compassionate, and thoughtful way. The overwhelming, looming possibility of their inadequacy, and subsequently my own.

And, yet, on the other side is the tremendous and tantalizing thought that I may succeed. That I may manage to raise brilliant, capable, self-reliant, devoted, loving people. That they will achieve independence, personal success, and righteousness.

Just to add to the enormity of the task that lies before me are the mantras of my religious culture that banter about in my head. “Families are forever.” “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” I believe these things. I really, truly, believe them. But boy, what a weight to carry around daily as I approach this monumental task of being a mother.

And, here is where my theory takes off. It is the day-to-day facing of something so huge, so critically important that is the real challenge. Because despite being incredibly valuable, on a day-to-day basis, it feels mighty mundane.

Nothing is more isolating, more challenging, more lonely, more exhausting than being a full-time mom.

Plus, it is often difficult to figure out how you are doing along the way. Formal employment offers performance assessments – key indicators of how you stack up, of how much you are accomplishing. Accomplishing. That is a key word, because, to be totally honest, motherhood is quite devoid of accomplishment. Few are the moments when you can stand back, assess your progress and say, “Look what I got done, now I’m going to take a break.” Because there are no breaks. There is no real rest. It is a constant process, an eternal obligation. Sure, you can go out for the evening, send the kids off to school for the day, even, but it doesn’t end the need to keep on mothering.

How do you rank your performance on tasks that are never complete? When you do the same thing every day, when you wash the same clothes and dishes, every day, when you pick up the same messes and vacuum the same crumbs, when you settle the same sibling quarrels, and teach the same lessons, every single day, it gets hard to know how you are doing. Whether it is amounting to much of anything.

Caring for kids is a singular work. It contains little adult conversation, or adult thought.

So, it is all the more essential to reach out, somehow, and feel like you are not truly alone in the struggle. To know that others are dealing with the same types of issues, day after day after day, too.

That is where I think the mom blog comes in. It is a hope, an attempt to share the frustrations, the joys, the challenges, the successes, the failures, the disappointments of motherhood. It is a need to account for what it is you actually do and connect to others.

Which brings me back to why I do this thing: why do I write a “mom blog”?

It is partly to keep in touch (and maybe even brag a bit) to family far away, to share some little moments that grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles miss when they only see us every six months.

It is also to write. To have a venue for the thoughts that run around in my brain and pester me until I put them down on e-paper.

It is also a way to document, for future reference the happenings of my life, and of my children’s lives. A journal, but far less personal, and hopefully, better written.

But, I think, most of all, it is to tell the truth about my life. To honestly talk about what I do and how I see it.

That is my one commitment when I write. I won’t sugar coat it. I won’t pretend that I am a mother that I am not, or that my family and children are something they are not. I won’t say I always love it or that I am always loving. I won’t carry on some charade about how our family has it all. We don’t. I don’t. Instead, I will just tell the truth.

And so this blog continues to range across the topics and happenings of my life. It is about what we do, and maybe about some accomplishments along the way. And, it is about me. What I think, what I struggle with, and mostly, what it is like for me to work at being a mom.

Now, 100 posts later, I am not certain where I want to go. Do I want to keep with the “mom blog” thing? Do I open my blog up and make it more public? What topics matter the most for me to write about – and in what format? Are my poems or essays as worthy of posting as the stories about the kids? Should I roll in my recipe blog (which I am terrible at updating) and make it all one? Should I focus more on formal writing, rather than anecdotes, or discuss more current events? Finally, if this is mainly about me, does it matter if anyone reads it, and if it does, should I think about what they may want to see here?

I have not yet decided what the future holds. But, if you have any ideas on where I should go, how to make this “mom blog” move up to the next level, feel free to share.