Day Thirty-Two: Mindfulness, Multitasking, and Motherhood

Two years ago, I became a mother.  It's hard to capture the profundity that the addition of this role has on a person's life.  That first moment when you hold your new baby in your arms marks the moment that absolutely everything in your life changes, and you can truly never go back to the way things were.

Before I was a mother, I was a novelty seeker.  I filled up my life with experiences, education, and travel.  I took impulsive road trips without set destinations.  I hiked, and kayaked, and did yoga.  I stayed in an untouchable village in India.  I earned a Master's Degree while living in Boston.  I played the flute.  I lounged in hot springs at the base of a volcano in Costa Rica.  I spent two years as an AmeriCorps volunteer working in rape crisis centers.  I went on a camping safari in Kenya.  I learned to knit.   I climbed a Mayan pyramid in Mexico.  I taught classes at the local community college.  I saw shows on Broadway and in London.   I watched the sunrise above Table Mountain in South Africa.    I worked at MIT in Information Systems.  I swam with sharks and stingrays in Belize.  I attended protests in Washington D.C.  I worked as a flower gardener on a college campus.  I went rock hunting in Nova Scotia.  I spent 100 days going around the world on a ship.  Everyone of these experiences was wonderful, but there was always something missing.

The moment I held my son in my arms for the first time, I knew that I had found the missing piece in my life.  Some level of anxiety and urgency that I had been carrying with me disappeared and I found a peace that I had not previously known.  This sense of peace has been a constant since the moment my little Liam was born and I became a mother.

Liam

However, the transition from novelty seeker to mother has not always been easy for me.  While I had prided myself on my sense of adventure, mindfulness, self-care, and freedom prior to motherhood, it quickly became clear that the very foundation of how I had lived my life needed to change.  Gone were the days when I reveled in all of the possibilities that were available to me and I could choose how I wanted to fill my time.  Guaranteed free time became non-existent and every activity had to be done with full awareness that it might be abandoned part way through in order to care for my baby.  If my son was sleeping or content and I did have a free moment to shower, cook, clean, or do laundry, my focus would continue to be split between Liam and what I was doing.  The mindfulness I used to enjoy while completing tasks had been replaced with the sense that I was constantly multitasking.  The umbilical cord might have been cut, but there is an invisible bond between a mother and her baby that keeps her attention anchored to her child.  Try as I might, I could not wrench my attention away from my son to be fully present.  I struggled.

Liam

Except, when I was able to be fully focused on my son.  During these precious and frequent moments I experienced a sense of mindfulness that was sweeter than anything I had ever known before.  I drank my son in with my senses and was filled with wonder at the very sight of him.  His expressions and movements could bring tears of joy to my eyes.  When I was fully with him, enjoying the present moment we were sharing, I was fully at peace and filled with joy.  These moments together are sweeter than anything I have ever known.

Gracie

Enter my sweet little Gracie.  While I have fully adjusted to the sense of being constantly on call and being flexible about how I get my own needs met, I now have the needs of two babies to juggle.  With my second child, I have been blessed with the easiest, most adaptable baby.  She takes long naps during the day and sleeps basically through the night.  Liam, on the other hand, is now into everything.  While he is much more independent than he used to be, he is also much more apt to get himself into trouble.  So while I have double the potential for beautiful, mindful moments, I feel badly that I simply do not have the opportunities for one-on-one time for Gracie that I had with my firstborn.  After Liam and my husband have gone to bed, I savor the brief window of time I have with my little girl before she falls asleep for the night.  Then I take a few moments for myself before going to bed.

So tonight, after a full day celebrating Liam's birthday with family and friends and Gracie asleep in her swing, I contemplated my need to have a novel experience and decided to attempt a candle meditation.  With my gaze focused at the candle in front of me, I tried to clear my mind and focus my full attention on the flickering flame.    I spent a full fifteen minutes seeking out the mindfulness that I used to know but could not keep my focus away from my daughter's peaceful breathing a few feet away from me.  

While initially, I was frustrated and continued to try to force my focus back to the candle I eventually gave up, gathered my sleeping baby into my arms and tried it again.  Miraculously, with my daughter cradled against my belly, her home for those 9 months, I was able to experience a different kind of mindfulness.  While I was still fully aware of my baby girl, she felt like a part of me once again and I was able to incorporate her into the meditation.  My attention no longer felt split in two places when she was against my body.  Instead, we had a beautiful, mindful, loving novel moment.  My post-motherhood novel experiences might not be as glamorous and exciting as before, but sometimes they are exponentially more beautiful.  

Day Thirty-One: Character Cake!

Being the mother of a two year-old comes with certain responsibilities.  While last year, my son was blissfully ignorant about the whole birthday party, presents, cake thing, this year he is a well practiced birthday connoisseur!  In fact, the end of January through the end of March is the "birthday season" in our family.  There are a whopping SEVEN birthdays to celebrate within this time frame!  And these aren't the birthdays of random extended family members...  These are the birthdays of all four of his grandparents, his aunt who he  stays with twice a week, and his mother!  So needless to say, Liam has practiced his singing, eaten cake, and ripped wrapping paper like a pro in the weeks leading up to the culminating event of the "season!"  He knows what to expect, and Mum-Mum had better make it GOOD!  

Finding an appropriate birthday cake for Liam has posed somewhat of a challenge.  You see, just days before I was in the hospital adding an eighth birthday and a few weeks onto next year's "birthday season," Liam and I were at the allergist due to an apparent reaction to food dyes that was first discovered when he was eating...  a birthday cake!  So not only was he expecting a tasty, fun cake, but it was going to have to be dye-free.  Yikes!

And, like most two year-olds, Liam has his favorite characters.  There's Bright Red Elmo...  Bright Yellow Big Bird... and Bright Orange Ernie...  Thankfully, there is one other favorite - A lesser known character aimed as much at adults as children.  And that character is BLACK AND WHITE, Shaun the Sheep!  Phew!

So in the days leading up to his party, I scoured the web to get ideas about how a person with absolutely no experience with character cake baking and very little artistic ability might make a decent Shaun the Sheep cake.  In the process, I learned all about gum paste and fondant and cake pan molds and saw some absolute works of art...  Way, way out of my league!  But eventually, after looking at several simpler versions that were out there, I came up with my design and purchased my supplies.  I was ready to create Shaun the Sheep...

With a little help from Betty Crocker, I baked the necessary cakes... and some extra to ward off disaster just in case, and set to work creating my basic shape...

The beginning of Shaun's Head...

And some angel food cupcakes to accommodate the low-fat diets of several of the party goers and allow me to make a "pasture"...

Angel Food "Pasture" Cupcakes

With both white and chocolate butter cream frosting made and ready to go, I started the decoration process.  Amazingly, it went well!  So, with disaster averted, I created a second sheep with the extra cakes.  In a moment of inspiration, my husband turned Shaun's random flock member into the baby sheep, Timmy... 

The Flock

I had fun, gained some knowledge and confidence, and fulfilled my novel experience for the day!  But, most importantly, Liam recognized who his cake was supposed to be and loved it!  He was so excited, in fact, that after identifying who the cake was and blowing out the candles, he immediately plucked Shaun's eye off and ate it!  Oh, life with a two-year old begins!  And I love it!  

Day Thirty: Late Night Snack!

Finally!  While neither of my children are back to 100%, both Gracie and Liam seem to be feeling better.  Which has allowed this mother to breathe a sigh of relief today, as it looks like the worst is over.  Gracie is keeping her food down and her cough no longer sounds like that of a 90 year-old smoker and Liam can sleep on his back once again!  It is time to relax and celebrate!  

Wait...  Did I say relax?  Silly me...  What I meant to say, is that it is time to start serious preparations for Liam's birthday party this weekend.  So, while Liam enjoyed the cupcakes my mother and I threw together for his party at daycare, we went into serious party shopping mode.  And, while buying party hats, cake ingredients, and those little blower thingies that I don't know the name of, I maybe, just maybe snuck in a little treat for myself!

"little blower thingy"

So after everyone but Gracie and I were in bed, I pulled out my late night snack...  Ben and Jerry's Late Night Snack, that is!  You might recall my cravings for comfort over the past few nights?  Well, for me, nothing says comfort like a pint of Ben and Jerry's!  And the best part?  They always provide an opportunity for comfortable novelty.  This time they are giving me chocolate covered potato chips.  And let's face it, it doesn't get much more novel than that without seriously flirting with grossness!

Not Late Night Snack...  But not bad, either!

At the time of my purchase, I was unaware of the drama that had been brewing about this particular flavor.  So as I told people about my plan for novelty, expecting some level of surprise in their response, I was consistently met with, "Oh.  Jimmy Fallon's ice cream flavor?  You know about his feud with Stephen Colbert?"  Ummm...  Nope.  As we cancelled our cable television subscription after the birth of our son, I find that I am often a bit out of the loop.  

So while I don't know all of the history or drama dealing with this flavor, I DO know what I like.  And this ice cream was mighty delicious.  In fact, I kind of ended up eating the whole thing...  Directly from the pint...  With a spoon...  So much for the Great Postpartum Defrumping!  But it was GOOD!  And we are all feeling, much, MUCH better!  Thanks, Ben and Jerry!  You guys are better than therapy!

Day Twenty-Nine: Stumbling Through the Night...

Thanks to the events of the past few days, I have discovered that there is a good reason interrogators use sleep deprivation as a form of torture!  Now, you may remember from earlier posts that I am no stranger to poor  or interrupted nights of sleep.  However, staying up most of the night to monitor my poor, sick, two month-old daughter for the past several days, while alternately soothing my poor, sick son when he wakes up stuffy, unable to breathe, and crying for his "mum-mum" has led me to an all time low!  It's amazing to me that I am still standing, though even that I am not doing particularly well and have the bruises to prove it!

So, it is in this zombie-like, sleep deprived state, that I have kicked off the birthday celebrations of my now two year-old son!  Two years ago today, at 4:03 a.m., my son was born and I became a mother.  Given the time he decided to arrive in this world, I should have known that I was permanently kissing a good night's sleep goodbye!  However, despite my sleep deprivation, it is clear to me that this is an auspicious occasion that deserves as much enthusiasm as I can muster.  So I sang "Happy Birthday" about a thousand times on request, greeted my extended family for an impromptu dinner out, and helped my son practice saying "I'm two, off the wall!" (a phrase he came up with all by himself!  And, really, truer words have never been spoken!)

All this forced energy came with a price that I am paying for now!  For the second night in a row, finding a novel experience has felt more like a chore than an inspired, fun activity.  All I want to do, (other than sleep), is throw on comfy yoga pants and hang out with my good friends, Ben and Jerry!  This scenario is lovely, familiar and comfortable...  but not novel in the least!  I guess the lesson here is that I become a comfort seeker in times of stress, and my desire to seek novelty vanishes!

But novelty seek I must!  So, the same criteria as last night applied:  no movement, no thought, no stress!  While aimlessly surfing the web, I stumbled upon StumbleUpon!  For those of you who are not familiar with this website, StumbleUpon matches your interests with sites on the web that you might enjoy.  As you "stumble," or look at their suggested websites, you can give each one a thumbs up or a thumbs down and the program refines its suggestions from your feedback.  You can also "discover" new websites others might be interested in and network with like-minded people to see their suggestions.  Honestly, despite my exhaustion, I found this service to be really cool!  In fact, I just might have stayed up a little bit later than I had to because I was so sucked in!  Given my level of exhaustion, that is saying a lot!

So, if you have never tried stumbling, I would recommend checking it out!    I have added the StumbleUpon widget to the sidebar of this blog.  (It's the one with the little blue "SU"!)   Not only will this allow you to try "stumbling," but you could maybe, just maybe recommend my blog, too!  (I'm going to blame this absolutely shameless hucksterism on my severe level of sleep deprivation!)  

In conclusion, despite my resistance, I once again benefited from doing something novel.  And the key was to tailor the novel experience so that it was within limits that I could tolerate and benefit from.  If I had decided to jump out of an airplane tonight, or take on any sort of frustrating task, I think the results would have been very different.  However, the good news is that novel experiences come in all shapes and sizes, and with a little creative thinking I can find one that is just right, no matter the circumstances.  I challenge you, dear reader, to do the same!

Day Twenty-Eight: Canasta!

Some days, any additional commitments, beyond those of the basic needs of my family, feel overwhelming.  Today was definitely one of those days.  So as much as my commitment to this experiment has overwhelmingly affected my life for the better, the utter exhaustion I have experienced today has made it hard for me to be motivated to do anything above and beyond what we need for survival.  Let me put things plainly:  Today I am not feeling it!  

To explain, let me give you a brief rundown of the last 24 hours...  I will make this as brief as possible:

Liam = Sick...  Hacking cough.  Is not able to breathe through his nose, and subsequently has a hard time sleeping while lying flat.  For the past few days, I have had to drive him around to get him to nap and overnights are miserable.  On a happier note, tomorrow is his 2nd Birthday, so I am busy preparing for his party this weekend and my mother is, (thankfully), in town and staying with us.

Gracie = Sick.  Hacking cough leading to violent projectile vomiting followed by gagging and choking.  Can't breathe well through nose.  Considered going to ER last night but snowstorm made travel treacherous so after consulting with the doctor we took shifts staying awake with her all night and saw the doctor today.  Just to be told to continue monitoring her 24-7.  

Me = Exhausted, stress case.      

Gracie being "steamed" in the bathroom at midnight...

So guess how psyched I was to seek out novelty tonight?  Yup.  Not very...  I knew that if I had to, I could cop out and chalk Gracie being so sick for the first time up as a novel experience.  However, a commitment is a commitment and with my mother, husband, and best friend all at the house this evening to help share the load with the kiddos, I figured I could come up with SOMETHING.  

Given my mental and physical status, it was absolutely imperative that this novel experience not be stressful...  or too far out of my comfort zone...  or require me to move...  or think...  So, after borrowing some brain power from my mother, I decided that my novel experience for tonight would be to learn how to play Canasta.  The only problem was that not one of the five other people in the house knew how to play.  After reading through several versions of the rules of the game on different websites, I determined that my brain was not functioning well enough to understand what it was I was supposed to do.  Therefore, I figured my best bet was to jump into a game online and learn as I go.  Which is exactly what I ended up doing!

After I grasped the basic game play, I actually found this experience to be enjoyable.  As I sat up with my sleeping babe, I was able to zone out a bit while still being able to remain vigilant to her needs and listen to her breathe.  The distraction from my worried thoughts was very much welcomed, and it allowed the time to pass quickly during my overnight shift.

Still, today's novel experience took a great deal of effort.  I have noticed that my motivation to seek novelty fluctuates with the events of my days.  On good days, when I get enough sleep and my basic needs get met, I tend to feel excited and enthusiastic about my quest for novelty.  However, on days when things are not going my way, novelty seeking ends up feeling like a burden. Unlike food, shelter, and sleep, experiencing novelty is a bonus.  Novel experiences are kind of like the icing on the cake of life - not essential, but it sure makes the whole thing taste better!  

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs argues that your more basic sets of needs have to be met before you can tackle the higher order needs.  As a mother, I feel like most days I am just trying to hike up Maslow's pyramid as high as I possibly can go.  Oftentimes, I don't get very far...  (It's staggering to me how long it can take to simply feed a toddler one full meal!)  However, today I got stuck at the bottom of the pyramid, only barely able to meet the basics for myself and my family...  Finding a novel experience to do on a day like today was an unnatural leap up the pyramid...  the motivation was not really there.  However, I still found that I benefited from the effort.

So now, dear readers, it's off to bed for this very tired mama!  I am very much motivated to have the novel experience of 8 full hours of sleep.  It is doubtful that tonight will be the night, but I am always willing to give it a try!

Day Twenty-Seven: Speech to Text...

For today's novel experience I am currently trying to use a speech-to-text program to write my blog post.  So I am sitting here, wearing a headset and talking into a microphone, looking rather ridiculous so that I can share this experience with you, my dear reader.  I have no idea how useful this will be to me in terms of my blog.  As I look at the many, many errors popping up here I'm unclear whether or not the editing process will eliminate any time saved!  However, I've been meaning to try this technology out for my private practice for a very long time.  Nothing like a commitment to having multiple novel experiences to move this to the top of my to do list!

There's an additional reason I chose this as my novel experience for the day.  Yesterday's moonrise has really left me thinking about the impact of technology on our lives...  for better or for worse!  As more time passes, I continue to be struck by how profound an experience the moonrise really was...  In my life, I have spent countless evenings and untold hours in front of the television while the moon has risen outside of my window night after night.  When I recount the most important and memorable moments in my life, exactly NONE of them have happened in front of my television.  I have been entertained, distracted, amused, and educated by television programming, but I have never had an experience that has come close to being as important as the moments when I am actually participating and experiencing my life.  Yet, night after night I have chosen the television over the countless other activities available to me.  

As a result, I find that I am a little bit annoyed with myself for this decision and the time that I have lost that might have been better spent doing other things.  Today, not only am I feuding with my television but I have been feeling quite disenchanted with technology in general.  In some ways, this is unfair and more than a little silly.  My life has benefited from technology in untold ways for as long as I can remember.  Like anything else, technology is a tool, that when used properly can enhance one's life, but when used too much or in harmful ways can be a detriment to individuals and society at large.  So to remind myself of the benefits of technology, I decided that today was the day to load my speech to text software and get back in touch with my techie geek side!

So here I am, trying out a tool that potentially cuts down on the amount of time I will spend writing progress notes, reports, emails, blogs, articles, etc and in theory will allow me to spend more time interacting with my family and experiencing my life.  It can allow me to hold my sleeping baby in my arms while writing this blog or communicating with other family and friends by email.  This is the positive side of technology...  

That is, if I can actually get this program to work!  So far, my laptop has protested having this loaded on, the program has frozen, and the dictation has rebelled from being used directly in blogger...  Add to this the fact that the program will need to learn my voice over time in order to be accurate and so far this whole experience has been an exercise in frustration!  That being said, let's try a little experiment, shall we?

At the time of my son's birth, I was using a quote-a-day calender from the Dalai Lama and I have since had the quote for his birthday hanging above my desk.  I am going to read this quote and leave the results as is.  Let's see if the words and meaning can survive speech to text!  Here we go:

"insight from the Dalai Lama if a person has never encountered love toward himself or herself from any quarter it is a very sad thing but it separately to meet even one person will show unconditional love and acceptance and compassion if he knows that he is an object someone else's affection and love is bound to have an impact will be appreciated because there is a steed in himself this active level start catalyzer-that"

Vs.

"Insight from the Dalai Lama - If a person has never encountered love toward himself or herself from any quarter, it is a very sad thing.  But if that person can meet even one person who will show unconditional love - simply acceptance and compassion - if he knows that he is an object someone else's affection and love, it is bound to have an impact, and this will be appreciated.  Because there is a seed in himself, this act of love will start to catalyse or ripen that seed."

I suppose it's a start!  Like most novel experiences, the first attempt is bound to be less than perfect and needs to be repeated for any sort of mastery to occur.  So, dear reader, the jury is still out on the usefulness of this program, but I am reminded that technology does have its place.  So, on that note, I will wish everyone, and the steed inside of them, a very good night!

Day Twenty-Six: Moonrise

Finally, it's Springtime in Maine!  Yes, I know...  The temperatures remain frigid, the forecast is frightful, and the ground is still covered in snow.  However, today marked the Vernal Equinox - the official first day of Spring!  And when you live in Maine, ANY indication that the weather might finally become warmer is a cause to celebrate!  

In addition to the excitement of Spring, yesterday we experienced the full super moon...  At least that is what I hear!  While others were checking out the appearance of the largest full moon in 18 years, I was homebound doing tubby, reading books and soothing one baby or another to sleep.  While I had missed the moon in all its full glory, I had it on good authority that it would continue to be spectacular today.  Therefore, it was imperative that I make up for what I had missed the day before!  This opportunity for novelty was far too good to pass up!

In considering the ways I could make this moon viewing novel, I realized that I had never intentionally viewed the moon rise up over the horizon line.  Now as a disclaimer, there was a time in my life when I spent 100 days living on a ship circumnavigating the world.  It is quite likely that I have seen the moon rise over the ocean at one point or another.  However, while I remember intentionally catching the sunset on an almost daily basis I have no recollection of a moonrise.  And there is something about doing an activity with intention that makes it feel that much more novel and special.  So this morning I decided on my novel experience for the day:  I was going to watch the super moon rise over the ocean on the vernal equinox.  I figure that even if I HAVE seen a moonrise in the past, I've packed enough novelty into this experience that it can not be challenged!

A little bit of research made it clear that this may take some planning.  The moon was set to rise at 8:34 pm, and because today was the Vernal Equinox the moon rise is due east.  One would think that living on the East Coast you could drive to any old beach to see the moon rise over the water.  However, as I figured out my plan for the evening, it became clear that finding a beach that faces due east was going to be quite a challenge.  In consulting with the map, and with my husband, who seems to have memorized the layout of the entire state of Maine, it seemed that our best bet for a due east viewing was actually 30 minutes north of where we live.

So, at 7:30, with Liam and Gracie both bathed and dressed in their PJs, we piled into the car in search of the moonrise.  It took some amount of trial and error, but with ten minutes to spare we were parked facing due east and looking over the water.  I am not exactly sure what I had expected, but as we stared out toward the horizon into the dark my husband pointed to an orange glow right at the horizon line.  At first, I thought that it must be ambient light from a nearby town, but as the orange glow grew brighter and higher I realized that it was the moon.  And honestly, watching that moonrise was one of the most spectacular things I have ever experienced.  The pictures could never do it justice.

While I was truly awe struck by this experience, I am left with a nagging question:  how is it that I have never done this before?  I have lived on the East Coast all of my life, and near the ocean for a large percentage of that time.  Unlike the sunrise, the moonrise occurs during a window of time when I am typically awake.  How have I missed this?  What on earth have I been doing?

And then there is the second question...  Where was everyone else?  Before witnessing the moonrise, I was aware of two other cars that had parked along this stretch of Easterly facing ocean.  Now, having done our research this was clearly the best view around, and prior to the actual moonrise I was surprised that other people had thought to do the same thing.  After seeing the actual event I can not believe that there were so few people there.  Where IS everybody?

The answer, of course, is that most people were in front of their televisions and/or computers.  Which is also where I've been for the 10,000+ days that the moon has risen without my awareness.  Before the advent of technology, I would imagine that a supermoon rising on the Vernal Equinox would probably have been given more attention.  It seems that as a society we have become out of touch with nature, and I am struck by what we have lost.

That being said, how did we pull off this experience?  Well first, I did a Google search on my smartphone to discover when and where the moon would be rising, then I pulled up Google Maps on said phone to look at the local coastline and figure out where we could view the moon rising over the water, then we used the GPS navigation on the same smartphone, (plus the compass feature), to find the best location for viewing.  After parking, I pulled up Google Skymap, an app that lets me point my phone toward the sky and tells me what celestial objects I am looking at, to locate exactly where the moon would be rising.  Upon the moonrise, I turned my phone into a camera and took photographs, which I then uploaded directly to Facebook after statusing about what I was doing...  While my husband drove us home, I fielded emails and comments about my photos and status from friends around the world... again on my smartphone.  Technology played an integral part in our process to make this experience happen...

Is there a moral to this story?  I am honestly not sure...  but I know that I am changed from this experience.  And I KNOW that this will not be the last moonrise I will be witnessing!

Day Twenty-Five: Beauty is Pain...

As any new mother will tell you, their morning routine and rituals change significantly after having a baby.  Gone are the days of long, leisurely, steaming hot showers and thirty minute hairstyles...  Instead, the new mother learns to take a shower in a matter of minutes, (seconds on particularly bad days!), and the wash and go hair style takes on a whole new meaning...  

For this new mama, I had barely figured out how to keep my toddler safe long enough for me to take a five minute hot water run-through before the brand new baby set me back to zero.  Lately, anything beyond the basics of shampoo and soap has slid to the point of becoming a novel experience in and of itself...  Thus, while wearing a skirt at the beach yesterday in celebration of the warmish weather, I let the wind whip through my hair...  and realized that I was feeling a similar sensation around my ankles...  Yikes!  Clearly it was time to re-institute my commitment to the Great Postpartum Defrump...  The question was how was I going to make this happen?

First, some background for those who have not been initiated into the world of the new mother's shower...  A mother of small children who wants to be able to shower on a regular basis, quickly learns that it is IMPERATIVE to become as efficient and organized as is humanly possible.  You see, every moment spent in the shower is a privilege that can be taken away without notice.  Therefore, the act of showering is transformed into a highly hierarchical routine with the most essential acts coming first and all non-essential acts being placed at the end of the list.  As a result, the probability of completing a task is directly proportional to its place in the hierarchy.  

Now this mama lives in Maine...  If you've never been to Maine in the winter let's just say that it tends to be a bit on the frigid side here.  If I leave the house at all, I am typically insulated from head to toe with only my eyes subjected to the frigid air.  I am also blond...  Unless someone is looking closely, (which hopefully they are not), no one will be able to tell whether I've shaved my legs or not.  So, shaving my legs is at the very end of my shower hierarchy.  Add to the equation the fact that I have not one, but TWO very needy, (but lovely), children, and I have about as much of a chance of shaving my legs as I do of winning the Power Ball!  

That being said, there are several compelling reasons to remedy this issue:

1.  I am very much committed to the Great Postpartum De-Frump

2. I live in a beach town, and

3. Summer is just around the corner!

So, clearly I needed a solution that was highly efficient, effective, and could be fit within the many confines of my life as I know it. I briefly entertained the option of having my legs waxed by a professional.  However, the probability of me getting to the spa is even less likely than that of getting through my shower.  (And, let's be honest here...  If I actually get the time to go to the spa, I am going to be lounging in the steam shower, sipping my ice water with blueberries, and getting a massage!)  As the spa option was ruled out, I instead decided that my novel experience for the day would be to try to wax my legs myself at home.  

Now it is appropriate to note that this experience is novel to me on two levels:  One - I've never had my legs waxed, and Two - I've never waxed anything myself.  Prior to having children, the pain rumored to be involved in this process was never worth the time I would save by not having to shave my legs.  However, I have since gone through natural childbirth, with no pain management, on two occasions.  On one of these occasions, I had to be induced, which made the contractions particularly frequent and awful, was in labor for 23 hours, and ultimately gave birth to a 9 lb 3 oz baby.  I reasoned that if I could tolerate that level of pain, waxing my own legs should be child's play.

So, with my son and husband asleep and Gracie content in her swing, I microwaved my sugar wax as instructed and set to work.  

And, yes, it was a painful process... it is clearly not for the faint hearted!  But it was faster than it would take me to complete my pre-baby shower routine... And it is rumored to leave my legs hair-free for weeks!  If this is true, then I truly might have hit the new mother jackpot!  I guess I'll find out in a week or two.  In the meantime, there's one less thing on the shower hierarchy list and one more item on the list of novel experiences that might not remain very novel!

Day Twenty-Four: From Trash to Treasure...

For as long as I can remember, I have been a seeker of "things"...  As a child, no matter what setting I was in, it seemed there was something for me to find.  At my grandparents' house in Michigan it was fossils;  At our summer house in New Hampshire it was frogs and salamanders.  At my own house it was hide and seek with my neighborhood friends.  And at the beach it was seashells and sea glass.

Today, as I continue to seek out novel experiences it strikes me that things have not changed all that much.   Though the things I seek out are sometimes different, I am still a seeker at heart.  And so, it seems, is my son...  

In a sunshine inspired moment, I decided to take my son and daughter to the beach by myself today.  So after strapping my daughter into the front pack, I let Liam run.

After realizing that seeking seagulls to bring home is a futile act, he turned his attention to the ground and started handing me his treasures:  a rock, litter, seaweed, a clump of sand, a shell, and some sea glass...

While I have given up many of my childhood collections, there are still few activities I enjoy more than walking on the beach looking for sea glass.  There's something about a piece of trash, thrown into the ocean by a careless hand, that comes back to shore all smooth, polished and gorgeous from its time in the sea, that inspires me.  I love the transformation sea glass must go through, from trash to treasure, and it's become a metaphor for the perseverance and resilience of my clients, my loved ones, and myself.  I keep bowls of sea glass in my office as a reminder that we can make something positive come out of the negative things that happen in our lives.  There's a saying that's oft repeated in the therapy world that when life hands you lemons, you should make lemonade.  Apparently, when humans hand the sea their trash, it makes sea glass.  

I left the beach with my son's treasures in tow and, when I was later emptying my pockets, was inspired to find a novel experience that could utilize these found items - in particular the sea glass.  My many walks on the beach have led to quite the stash of sea glass sitting in ziplock bags in my aforementioned basement so I had no lack of materials to work with.  As is my habit, I turned to the internet for inspiration and found my idea for the day:  wire wrapped sea glass pendants.

While I did not have the perfect tools to work with, I had some left over wire, wire cutters, basic pliers, and enough sea glass to make thousands of pendants.

After finishing my first sea glass pendant, I found that I was hooked!  I think I may have found a new hobby!

So in closing, I am struck once again by Temple Grandin's theory that all human beings have a need to seek.  Whether a person is a novelty seeker or not, I wonder if we all are happiest when we are actively searching for something.  Or perhaps, at the most basic level, whether we are looking for sea glass or looking for novelty, we are actually seeking out happiness.

Day Twenty-Three - Make Mine a Guinness... Float!

It's Saint Patrick's Day!  Today is the day that I celebrate my deep inner conflicts...  Let me give you some background...  In most families, a teenager could rebel from his or her parents on Saint Patrick's day by getting drunk.  With my mother, I could stage a more effective March 17th rebellion by reveling in my Irishness!  You see, I am half Scottish.  Needless to say, I get the Scottish genes from my mother, whose parents actually immigrated to the US from Scotland before she was born.  And if you know a Scotsman, you know that Scottish pride is fierce!  Thus, you have Mike Meyers proclaiming that "if it's not Scottish, it's crap!"  Just look at the title of this book, (which I actually own, by the way...)

Yes, we're a humble, modest bunch!  So, while I grew up being dressed in the token green that is required for survival when you live just outside of Boston, I believe my mother did so somewhat grudgingly.  Imagine my surprise when a little bit of genealogical research led to the surprising discovery that I have an oft neglected quarter of the Irish in me!  (And, another quarter of me is English!  Oh, the conflict!)  So today I stage my once a year rebellion against my mother and celebrate that Irish quarter that has been so sorely ignored!

Therefore, my plan was to find a novel experience that pertains to either Ireland or St. Patrick's Day.  So, after getting my family dressed in green, my son stashed away at daycare, and my daughter to sleep I did a quick Google search to see what traditions I could find that did not entail bars or churches.  Here is what I learned...

Option one:  plant peas.  In the Northeast, St. Patrick's Day is the time to start peas from seed...  Kind of cool, but sadly not novel for me.  Option two:  pinch someone, (affectionately), who is not wearing green...  Hmmm...  I vowed to find a way to do this as I thought it could be fun, IF I know the person well.  Not so sure about going up to a stranger and pinching them.  I can see the police log now:  Local therapist arrested for assault after pinching a stranger on the street, (affectionately), for no apparent reason... Yeah...  Nope.

So, I decided that if the pinching thing didn't work out, I might have to stray from the theme. After all, finding someone I know very well who isn't wearing green leaves my experience up to chance.  And let's face it - It's hard to say if you still have the luck of the Irish when you are twice as much Scottish!  With that, I threw myself into the myriad errands and chores I needed to try to get done and lost sight of novelty until my toddler-free time had almost run out.  In desperation, I raided my cupboard and found Rooibos, or Red Bush Tea that my mother had brought me from South Africa.  Perhaps this wasn't very "green" of me, but I suppose that even the Irish have their original roots in Africa!  So, I brewed a cup and brought it with me on the road.  

And while this was novel and tasted good, it just wasn't INTERESTING to me...  You see, I'm finding that my standard for a novel experience has changed a bit.  There are things that I do or try that ARE novel to me, but don't have a "novelty feel."  If I am not fully engaged by my experience or don't get some sort of thrill it just doesn't seem right to count it.  I'm sure I'll need to take the easy road some days, but the rooibos tea kind of bored me, truth be told!

So, apparently the half-Scottish, Irish person can be lucky after all!  My husband, who is much more Irish than I, came home from the gym without a speck of the green on his person.  So I pinched him, explained myself, and got an indignant response that he HAD been wearing green earlier.  But sorry, rules are rules!  And, while very temporarily amused, again it just didn't do IT for me...  

So, I was left wondering if I was going to have to settle or would I think of something else.  As my husband prepared our dessert of rootbeer floats, I was hit with a memory-fueled inspiration!.  Sometime in the past at some restaurant or other I had discovered the existence of  the Guinness Float.  And as my Irish luck would have it we had both cans of Guinness and vanilla ice cream in house!  So after all was quiet and everyone was asleep, I pulled out my special Guinness glass in honor of the occasion and made myself a float.  After toasting my Irish brethren I took a sip...  And it was good!    So, on that note let me leave you with a final thought...

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back.  May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.  And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.