Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

There are about half a dozen things that MUST be done at the moment:  dishes that need washing up, my quarter two Human Biology assessment that I’ve got to complete in the next week before my dad arrives for his first visit ever to the UK, cleaning that should be done before said visit, laundry, and so on.  There are also a million and one things I WANT to do in my “me time” this evening: enjoying a glass of wine and finishing up A Brief History of Time, leveling my character in Star Wars: The Old Republic, or perhaps watching a movie I never seem to get around to.  But right now, I’m doing what I NEED to do: and that’s playing with Play-Doh.

Do kids play with Play-Doh because they are stress-free or are they stress-free because they play with Play-Doh?  It seems to be the latter.  I could feel the stress of the day melting away as I concerned myself with the shape of my sea turtle’s shell, thinking to myself how Moo was still too young for such hobbies (she lost interest when she realized it didn’t taste very good) but she totally wouldn’t mind if I played with her Christmas gift in the meantime.   Upon opening the first container I did what any adult with a childhood connection to Play-Doh does:  I brought it to my nose and inhaled deeply.  It instantly conjured up memories from long ago, sitting at the dining room table with my brothers, making a whole world out of our own imaginations and a little bit of colored dough.

I think a lot of the time we forget, as adults, how to properly relax.  Can one truly relax with any form of electronic stimuli? Are we, as adults, destined to shoulder a perpetual stress with no complete release?  It feels that way to me sometimes.   Yet tonight, for the first time in a very long time, all the niggling little “to do list” items went away, that clucking, disapproving internal voice was silenced, and in the void empty of all my adult concerns there was just me, my imagination, and a little bit of colored dough.

A few months ago I bought this box set of classic Sesame Street episodes for Moo, episodes which span the first ten years of the show (1969-1979).  She instantly fell in love as did I, watching some of the very clips that were still in circulation in the late 80s when I was introduced to the show.   However, there is a warning at the beginning which reads:

“These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for adults only, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschoolers.”

What?

It’s something I’ve contemplated over the last few months, watching and earnestly trying to find out why anyone would call these episodes of a children’s show unacceptable.   Was it the children riding their bikes without helmets?  Was it the slightly non-politically correct jive-talking muppets in the “Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School” sketches?  Was it the kids running through an unattended construction site with reckless abandon?  Perhaps.

I know it’s easy to say now without having reached this point in our parenting careers, but Mark and I are adamantly against censoring Maddie.   Years down the line, we would rather buy Moo video games about shooting zombies and have that conversation with her about gun safety and reality vs. imaginary than deny her only to have her play it over a friend’s house, without the opportunity to talk to her about it.   That being said, we’ve paid no heed to the warning on the DVDs.

But it’s a bit disconcerting that we live in an age where even certain children’s television programs are considered to be unsuitable, as if being a kid today means something different to growing up in the 80s, 70s, and 60s.   Roosevelt was taken off the show in the early 80s as his jive-talking nature was deemed to be “racist.”  And do they even do the Spanish segments on Sesame Street anymore or have even those been banned (after all, Americans hate pressing 1 for English)?

It feels like, in a lot of ways, Sesame Street has lost it’s original intention. I’ve not watched a great deal of today’s episodes, but you need only look at the set: they’ve turned Sesame Street into an upper middle class white neighborhood.  Does anyone remember Sesame Street in the 70s and 80s?  Graffiti, old posters, garbage bags and cans, and general scruffiness.  It was a show originally intended  to reach more underprivileged, inner city kids and that’s what Sesame Street reflected: despite being a wonderful kid’s show it was still a fictional street in the inner city of New York City.   Today it feels like we’re all worried our children might be subjected to a small dose of reality before they’re twenty, you know?  God forbid they see litter or graffiti or an African American muppet.

What are YOUR thoughts?  Do we over-censor our “overly sensitive” kids?

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain.

The first time I read that quote I had just moved to the UK, a newly married American girl still in the foggy haze located somewhere between ecstasy and immense stress, and I remember being moved by those words.  If my life wasn’t the embodiment of those words, I don’t know what was.  Surely moving halfway around the world to a foreign land was sailing away from one’s safe harbor, right?

The summer before we became pregnant with Maddie I was distinctly aware I had reached another point in my life of comfortable equilibrium, a time filled with the routine of work and marriage, with a few hours of gaming in the in-between. We had discussed what it would be like to start a family, if we could handle the status quo and the addition of a baby. We toyed with the idea for months until finally coming to the conclusion that we should wait, conditions could be more optimal, and we had to do a few things to do first, like getting my degree and purchasing our first place. That was a cold October day two years ago and, unbeknownst to us at the time, we were already pregnant with Maddie.

Maddie brought us out of that safe harbor, she brought changes to the rut I had been in, she brought to us a reason to explore, dream, discover once again.  All those initial fears we had , the one that kept us from actively trying to start a family, the thought that having a baby meant not completing my degree, meant not traveling, meant not living… how incredibly wrong we were.  Having Maddie doesn’t stop me from earning my Biology degree, in fact she INSPIRES me to do it, to do it well, and to push myself in ways I had not thought possible.   I think of her oftentimes as my muse, the reason for getting my degree, the inspiration behind my photography, the push to become better for betterment’s sake.  She has taught me how to slow down, how to appreciate the quiet moments, how to capture (both in memory and in photography) the small details I used to completely overlook.  And I have done more living in the last year than in most of my life before her.  She taught me how to live, how to breathe, how to see, and how to dream, and became my reason for it all… all starting from the day she was born which, in many ways, was the day I was born as well.

This evening I sat at my desk and looked at Maddie’s keepsake box for several minutes, reflecting on the items therein.  I had already managed to fill most of the box with items I believed I could not part with: my favorite PJs of hers, her first shoes, her hospital tags, the banner of photos I made for her first birthday… all things I had saved as though I could hold onto these fleeting moments all the more for having had so many of these sacred talismans.

Maddie’s keepsake box conjures up strong memories of the numerous brown boxes lining the shelves of the closet when I was little: box after box of artwork and report cards, Popsicle stick houses and wonky clay bowls.  Looking back, my parents always treated everything we brought home as invaluable works of art, proudly displayed around the house and that’s something I want to always do for Moo as well.  Yet I know when the time comes and the artwork starts covering the fridge and piling up along the shelves we WILL have to part with some things that our daughter CREATED … and that’s hard.

Then  I had a thought: what if I could fit eighteen years of her life into this one box?  What if I worked within this 18 x 12 x 12in space to create a gift I can give to her when she’s older?   So I’m going to do just that.  For now it will be those special PJs and hospital tags, later it will be her first report card, and later still the ticket stub to her first concert.  And what I cannot save in bulk I’m going to digitally archive.  It occurred to me I could set aside a memory card, a name both literal and figurative, used only to photograph a painting or small wonky clay pot. It would be forever kept on this card so, when Maddie is older, she can walk through a digital art gallery displaying her life’s work if she so chooses. Just a small contribution in a small box where the richness and wonder of her life is seen, in some small part, in that tiny sock or those pink elephant pajamas that became my touchstones back to those early days.

And memory cards don’t take up much space at all.

Today was one of those days where, after Moo was in bed and all the toys picked up and cleared away, I gave myself a well deserved mental high-five and was able to say “today I did it, today I was a good mother and a good wife.”    Today I maintained the juggling act, today I managed to keep Moo happy and occupied whilst still getting bits of the housework done.  Today we went outside and enjoyed the sunshine.  Today I finished the whole 60 minute workout despite wanting to shut it off halfway through (and again at 40 minutes, 45, 50….).  Today I made good decisions regarding food.  Tonight I am cooking chicken parmesan for dinner, a favorite of my husband’s.  Tonight I relax knowing that my harshest critic, myself, had nothing to say about the course of the day.

I suppose, in a previous life, I never really pictured myself being a stay-at-home mother / housewife (at least, part time).  It never occurred to me that I’d be cut out for anything other than the academic lifestyle: classes, endless degrees, years of devout study, an eventual career.  Yet on a daily basis I am challenged to go to the very edges of my mental and physical endurance… it’s hard.  Very rewarding, but very hard indeed.  Today was one of those days where I managed to do it all. I overcame that nagging voice in my mind that tried to make excuses for why I shouldn’t do my workout today (and I pushed harder because of it). I kept Moo happy despite her overall crankiness due to a runny nose (and possible a cold).  My dishes are clean, my laundry finished, my house orderly.  Moo is bathed, in clean PJs and a clean sleep sack, tucked away in quiet slumber in the next room, and here I sit: laptop in lap on the couch by the window, reflecting on my day.  Next week my classes start at university, and today has left me with a “BRING IT!” attitude.

I’ve started “meditating,” a term I’d use loosely as I’ve not read on the hows, the whys, or the optimal conditions… I’ve merely started doing what feels right.  TurboFire’s stretch classes have left me with a new found love for stretching, so after Moo has gone to bed this past week I’ve made my way upstairs and, in the fading daylight, I stretch, breathe, and reflect.   I let go, in so many ways, and wind down from the hectic day.   Today I was surprised to find myself removed on Facebook by someone I consider a friend, but really… life’s too short to even devote time to the whys and the motivation behind it, which is not the attitude I would’ve had a year ago, or even six months ago.  What happens is not changed by our analysis, our self-destructive thoughts that pick at the ego, that nominate personal flaws for why someone would want to cut contact.  But what I can do, what is within my power to do, is to simply reflect that maybe it doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, and that I am a pretty awesome person regardless.

Today was a good day.