Self Regulation

There is a charming little sandwich shop I frequent not far from our home. It’s nestled in the middle of a densely populated area in a prime location in the center of one of the town’s most popular shopping destinations. The beloved restaurant is known for its delectable sandwiches, creative desserts and over-priced soup.

And the shop is tiny. Almost microscopic. Perhaps ten tiny tables in the entire storefront. As a regular, I have had plenty of opportunities to study the length of time I’ve had to wait for one of the tables, or for take-out, and rarely is it longer than ten minutes. 


The flow of patrons never gets much more than the establishment can support.

On my drive to work every morning, I take a long, winding road to campus. I choose this road for two main reasons. One, this road is the width of a four-lane road, but is just one lane in either direction. And two, it is practically deserted.

What I can’t understand is how this road, smack in the middle of the city’s congestion, can be both inefficiently wide and very underused.

The flow of traffic never gets more than the street can support.


There are exactly two times a day when my own flow of things is almost more than I can support: 7 am and 6 pm.

At 7 am I awaken our beautiful, angelic children while my husband is in the shower. I go to Lowery first who, immediately upon waking, begins her litany of questions including, but not limited to: “Is this a school day?” “Can I wear my cowgirl boots?” “When’s Christmas?” “Is sister awake?” “Is Izzy awake?” “Why are you wearing a robe?” “Have you not brushed your hair?” “Why are you squinting?” And on and on as I shuffle around her room trying to find her a cute shirt, clean underwear and a pair of 3T jeans with no holes in them.

Her questions continue as we go into London’s room to find the baby is awake and smiling, but with the fire of a thousand flames of hunger burning just below the surface. I spend a few minutes regulating the strength and pressure of Lowery’s hug to her younger sister, and then rifle through the dresser to find a clean onesie and a pair of 9-month pants free of any poop or vomit stains.

The three of us make our way down the stairs.

Once there I place London in the exersaucer. She immediately begins to whimper. I run to make her bottle while Lowery complains of hunger. Despite reminding her every single morning that she eats breakfast at school, she always demands “a pre-breakfast snack.”

As I go into the kitchen, the baby wailing and the three-year-old demanding, I find our pug dancing excitedly around me reminding me that, she too, needs something edible shoved into her mouth.

The doling out of three breakfasts is always a bit of a blur and I’m only ever about 80% sure the dog food and the formula make it to the correct recipients, but either way, within minutes, the baby, the dog and the three-year-old are cramming their faces with nutrients.

I know better than to get too comfortable with the momentary contentment. Soon, the bottle is drained, the dog bowl is empty and the string cheese wrapper is floating poetically to the ground.

Then it’s time for everyone’s bathroom breaks. I let the dog outside and watch her through the window to verify she both pees and poops, because if she doesn’t do both, she’ll do one in the kitchen while we are at work. I keep my eyes glued to her furry ass as I command my three-year-old to go pee in the potty while I simultaneously wrestle the nine-month-old with all the strength I have to change her diaper.

Sometimes, while I’m in the midst of monitoring, wiping or encouraging the urination and defecation of three tiny, demanding females, I begin to question my life’s choices.

But somehow, the pug always manages to wind herself in circles in the back yard right around the time I hear my three-year-old flush the toilet and I toss a massively full diaper in the trash.

Then it’s time to get dressed. Lowery loves to do everything all by herself, which actually means she demands I watch and praise her abilities to put underwear on correctly and button her own sweater. I love the idea of encouraging her, letting her figure things out on her own and developing her independence, but dammit sometimes I wish I had dressed her in the middle of the night while she slept so I could avoid the slow and painful process of watching my child try to work a zipper.

But instead, I pause with forced patience and remind her: “Tags in back, buttons in front.”

Patiently helping Lowery get dressed is nothing compared to wrestling a nine-month-old into a onesie. Or a shirt. Or pants. Somewhere, in the midst of trying to force my sweet baby’s doughy legs into a pair of stretchy leggings, I lose my will to parent.

Once the girls are dressed—the dog remains naked—I put the baby on the floor so I can style the three-year-old’s hair. In theory, I enjoy fixing my child’s hair immensely.

In practice, there are a lot of tears.

For the past year I’ve tried many products to help with my child’s tangles, and searched high and low for a specialty comb with teeth set apart so wide it’s really just a BBQ fork.

Each day I believe we are closer and closer to scream-free combing, but that’s just called optimism and optimism can’t get you as far in life as Johnson and Johnson’s detangler.

After the girls have been fed, emptied, dressed and combed, it’s time for socks and shoes. Lowery cares immensely about what shoes she wears, which I’ve decided to find endearing. While she runs around looking for her desired pair, I run around looking for all of Lowery’s baby dolls, because on their little plastic feet are layers and layers of all of London’s socks. If I find a pair of matching baby socks, I remind myself to buy a lottery ticket on the way to work, but in general, the baby goes to school with mismatched socks, or, if needed, a small mitten on each foot.

My husband comes down the stairs as the girls are by the front door ready for him to take them to day care. As they walk out the front door, my three-year-old’s curls bouncing as she skips, and my youngest smiling at me from my husband’s arms, I immediately ache for them to be near me again.

But before I allow the feeling of unconditional love to take over, I slam the door, and lock it. Coffee must be made.

After some caffeine and a warm breakfast, I feel more regulated and can calmly get ready for the day. I enjoy my drive to work. Just a short ten minutes from my house to campus down the wide, quiet, curvy street where I drive past the quaint little sandwich shop as I mentally prepare for the day ahead.

In my general day-to-day work I engage in a number of personality-intensive activities, like back-to-back meetings with students or teaching a three-hour class. There are rarely moments of quietly sitting and thinking in my office, and not just because I have no interest or need to do that, but because my job is one in which interacting with people, students, administrators and community leaders is what I’m paid to do.

This works well because I get all my energy from others. I tend to drain it from them and leave them for dead. And while I fully recognize I’m in a good job that plays to my strengths, I still find myself at the end of the day feeling as though it is all a bit more energy than my body can support.

Especially knowing I’m heading home for the 6 o’clock hour.

I spend the ten-minute drive home, down the wide, curvy quiet street, and past the adorable little sandwich shop and try to regulate my flow of thoughts and energy. And to prepare for the upcoming flurry of chaos I’m about to endure.

There is a moment in every person’s life that defines his or her character. Mine is the moment I put the key in the door upon returning home.

In my arms is my 9-month-old, and beside me is my energetic three-year-old continuing on with her litany of questions that include, but are not limited to: “What’s for dinner?” “You know I love macaroni, right?” “I hope we have macaroni for dinner!” “Mom, what’s your favorite dinner?” “I’ll bet it’s macaroni.” “Is Izzy awake?” “Where’s dad?” “Did you go to work today?” “I really hope you make macaroni!”

She rattles on as I fiddle with the key, the baby grunting and clapping because she’s aware food exists on the other side of the door.

Once the door is open, Lowery bursts into the house running around wildly while stripping her clothes off piece by piece. I’m relieved to see my husband is pulling in the drive.

He comes in and instructs Lowery to pick up her coat, gloves, hat and artwork she has made that day as he walks to the kitchen to prepare London her dinner. While he wipes down the high chair and mixes up oatmeal, I send Izzy outside.

While standing at the window, staring at pug butt, I yell at Lowery to stop running around topless and go to the bathroom. She politely tells me that that is of no interest to her.  This escalates quickly into the kind of yelling match my three-year-old and I have perfected.

It ends with her finally relenting just as the pug leaves a pile on the porch.

My husband, having gotten the meal for the baby prepared, comes to my side to help hold her down while I attempt to change her diaper.

There’s a rash.

I dab a bit of ointment on it and she sticks her hand into it and tries to bring it to her mouth. My husband grabs each hand and I pull wipe upon wipe out of the container, unable to regulate the flow of them. But no matter how much I try, the ointment keeps spreading all over the baby, the table and, somehow, my elbow.

As the medicine mangle continues, my husband and I communicate through huffs and puffs. Izzy begins scratching feverishly at the back door, the baby wails in frustration and my three-year-old tugs gently at my pant leg.

Covered in diaper rash cream and fighting a baby who possesses inexplicable upper body strength, I turn my head to see Lowery’s bright, happy face, surrounded by white ringlets, and she asks:

“Can I have some macaroni?”

At some point, within minutes, the chaos dies down and Jim and I are able to enjoy the giggles of our children. We are able to eat dinner and talk to one another and revel in the beauty and wonder of the little life we’ve created. And eventually, darkness falls and slumber awaits us.

As I lie in bed, waiting for sleep to take over, I enumerate the struggles that await me when I wake. How will I manage the rush of 7 am? Wait, do I have clean socks for the girls? How will I deal with the day at work? Crap, where did I put those lecture notes? How will I get through the 6 o’clock hustle? Do I have anything in the fridge for dinner?

The only thought that regulates my worry is to think of my drive to and from work. Down the wide, curvy street and past the little sandwich shop.

Where every table is full but the line is not too long.

Stone Soup

I only remember a handful of the books my parents read to me when I was a child. Among them were Frog and Toad, Ping, Caps for Sale and Stone Soup. Now that I am a parent, and have read Go Dog, Go! roughly two thousand times, I realize that my myopic view of children's literature was about my insistence on what was read to me and not about any refusal on my parents' part to buy me more books.

Among the books I was adamant about as a child, Stone Soup is perhaps the most significant. I’m not sure if it was because I associate all culinary action with my mother, or because the illustrations were so beautiful, but that book evokes a visceral emotion in me when I see the cover art or hear someone reference it.

Mostly, I've always remembered the concept of the book: A deceitful vagrant comes to town and tricks the citizens into believing he has a magical stone from which he could make a delicious soup to feed everyone. And I've always remembered the lesson of the story: The things we believe to be magical or mystical are typically tied to something concrete and achievable. The vagrant wasn’t powerful and his stone possessed no magic. Instead, his charm and storytelling were enough to make the town believe their own everyday actions were the product of a very paranormal pebble.

I’m not sure why that was such an important lesson to me as a kid. Perhaps I just liked the idea that I possessed the power to create something, or do something, that otherwise seemed miraculous. I had the capacity within myself to achieve something remarkable by doing something very common.

It's not as though I don’t believe in magic or mysticism. But when I was working on my dissertation, it was good to know that I had the ability to get it done. I didn’t need to wait on some homeless man to bring me a rock and claim it would finish the job.

And it’s not as though I don’t feel my two daughters are my destiny and that perhaps, maybe, there was divine intervention. But I’m comforted by the fact that it was really just sperm meeting egg and a couple of quality epidurals that brought the two beautiful creatures into being.

For me, miracles are a bit more powerful when I can create them on my own.

This past weekend I participated in an overnight retreat for a community organization focused on leadership in the nonprofit sector. Forty-six people committed to improving the community (and appreciative of the networking that comes with that) packed their bags and prepared to spend two days working through some highly intense activities together.

Much of this is what anyone would expect at leadership training: community assessment exercises, leadership style workshops, training videos, and—as one would assume—a group activity in which we had to build the tallest tower possible from just a few household objects, without speaking to one another while we did.

I enjoy these types of gatherings. I relish any chance to learn about my community and how it could be improved. I always appreciate the chance to meet new people. And as an added bonus, the retreat was held at a beautiful lodge nestled deep in the woods.

But the most powerful part of the retreat, besides how comfortable the beds were, was the chance for interpersonal communication. And connection.

Much of this was choreographed. Numerous one-on-one and small group activities provided a framework for interaction. But one activity in particular created the deepest chance for connection. Before the retreat, we were all instructed to prepare for something called a Self Disclosure. In this, we had to bring something we made or found that could tell our story. Not just our general life story, but the story we most want people to know and yet typically never share.

How absurd is it to ask a group of adults--ranging wildly in age and life stages--to make something that might require a glue stick in order to tell their hardest tale to a group of strangers?

Absurd enough to be effective.

After a very long and intense day of training, and a long day of everyone either silently or vocally expressing their apprehension about the upcoming self-disclosure, we were divided into small groups and assigned private rooms in which we would disclose ourselves.

My group was comprised of six other individuals. We sat in a small, drafty cabin and went clockwise around the circle listening to everyone expound on the story they hardly ever tell.

Now, what was said in that circle will follow me to the grave, but I can at least say this: I came away with a harrowing sense of humility.

After this activity, we were able to meet up with the larger group and enjoy drinks and more casual conversation. But it was clear that whatever happened in each private group changed the overall dynamic of the larger class. Everyone seemed relaxed. Sure, vodka helps, but there was a palpable difference in the dynamics after the Self Disclosure activity was complete.

Despite the cocktails, I couldn’t help shaking the reality of how humbled I felt during my small group gathering.

It isn’t as though I’ve never heard someone talk about struggles far more difficult than my own. And it isn’t as if I don’t fully understand how privileged and lucky I am and have been. But this time I came away with a different perspective. The most startling observation for me was watching how intently everyone listened to one other. No one kept score. No one felt superior.

Or inferior.

This was the first time I was aware of how important it was to value my own struggles. Even if they felt small in comparison.

The easiest reaction to hearing others’ battles--which might on the surface seem more difficult than my own--is to brush off anything I’ve been put through, or anything I will face later in life because I know someone has had it worse. The moment I hear of someone else's adversities, I immediately shut my mouth and silently vow to volunteer at a soup kitchen.

A friend of mine recently told me she's not sure how I handle all the demands of work and motherhood. She claims to feel overwhelmed with her life as a single person without children.

But looking back to when I was single and had just moved to this city, I was extremely overwhelmed by my new job. Later, I felt getting married was a major life transition to which adjusting took time. When I had my first child, I never knew a stress so profound. And then came my second child and I couldn’t understand why I ever felt worn with just one.

I think the natural inclination is to assume I have no reason to feel stressed when I see others are facing more. Why complain when others have it worse? Why not be grateful for every single passing moment because there’s someone out there who would love to have it as good as I do?

Well, for starters, stress is normal, complaining is fun and being constantly grateful is exhausting.

Sure, it is important to keep everything in perspective. To be fully aware of the point of privilege from which I've come. Recognize how good I’ve got it.

But there is danger in dismissing the obstacles I’ve faced in my life because they seem to pale in comparison.

I survived a horrific car accident that could have killed me. But it didn’t. I endured post partum depression, but was fortunate enough to have access to doctors who helped me treat it. And yes, my second pregnancy was difficult and riddled with terrifying possibilities, but in the end, I birthed a very healthy child.

These may be the easiest, tamest problems a person can have. But they are my problems. And I can’t exactly apologize for them. Nor can I deny the value they may provide to another person who is needing a little perspective.

At the closing of the retreat the director placed a large stock pot on a table at the front of the room. She held up a stone high above her head and I knew what was coming. My stomach knotted with homesickness as she began to tell the story of Stone Soup.

But her version was different. She told about how a huckster with the stone was able to get everyone in the town to contribute to a soup, and that together, their ingredients fed the community. The lady who had salt and the man who had carrots couldn’t do much until they put their valuables in a pot together. Everyone's contribution enhanced the soup’s flavor.

This version wasn’t about a devious man tricking a town into believing in magic, leaving my childhood brain to better understand that I can make my own fate. This version was about how everyone brought something different to the table, each contributing just a little to provide a lot. And every level of ingredient, from water to pork, is of value.

The most surprising aspect of the entire retreat was how dramatically the classic story had changed since I was a child.

But that’s just my perspective.



***







Coming this Summer: Harebrained.