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While visiting some friends this weekend, I was asked whether my whole life had been turned upside down since the arrival of our daughter 3 months ago. Certainly many things have changed, but I realized my answer just as they were asking.

Life has slowed down a bit, but my life was already slow and relatively quiet. Not many of my daily activities have changed dramatically. I wasn’t working full time prior to her arrival and I had been spending time with kids in homes for the last couple of years. I am used to tracking the sleeping and eating habits of a baby. And most importantly, I don’t have a plan to speed my life up again now that she’s a little older. While I haven’t been specifically preparing for a child for the last 3 years, I think that my routines have helped me get ready for the mundanity that parenting can be. So I already knew what a slow, quiet, daily life looked and felt like. Lucky me.

But what about all of the fast-moving, powerful, ambitious people in our country who become parents? Their experiences must be like walking quickly on a people-mover at the airport and then down-shifting suddenly when they are thrust off of it. For the first few seconds, it feels disorienting and if you’re not careful, you might fall over. Just imagine if most of your life was spent hurrying along and then <wham>, a kid comes along. Now you have to be satisfied with not leaving the house for a while or venturing out for only a short time.

While the advent of a new person with new demands and so much helplessness can be stressful in itself, being very unused to the daily monotony of early parenting can cause its own unwelcome stress. Feeling alone and trapped with unrealized expectations can make the first few months seem never-ending. So I have a couple of tips from this lazy mama to help you cope with quiet and solitude.

#1 Find a radio station that you like

Keep some type of news or music on during the day. This can keep you abreast of what’s going on in the world and keep you company as well.

#2 Practice being bored

What happens when you can’t move or do things? Does your head explode? Practice being bored before you find yourself with a sleeping kid on you and no way to reach the remote. Sit quietly and think. Look at your child’s face. Smile to yourself. Sigh. If your body is still, can your mind be still too?

#3 Have a day (at least one) where you DON’T GET ANYTHING DONE

You’ll have more of these than you’d care to think about once there is a little one in the house. Stay in your pajamas all day. Watch endless hours of TV. Don’t cook dinner. Have cereal. Take a nap. If someone asks you to go for a walk, tell them you can’t. Have nothing to say when your friend calls and asks what you’ve been doing that day. The real challenge for this one is trying not to feel guilty about not doing anything. Mama said there’d be days like this. But here’s a news flash: You’re not worthless if you didn’t “use your time wisely” to reorganize your sock drawer or clean under the bed.

Just as our worth is not determined by the price of our clothes, it is also not determined by our completed check-lists.

Having realistic expectations about the structure of your new everydays will only help you feel more steady when you come to the end of that people-mover and find yourself at home with an infant.

“So, are you all ready for this baby?”

How many times did I hear this as my due date drew nearer?

I was asked about all of the necessary supplies that having a kid entails. Do you have a crib yet? What carseat have you decided on? What’s the theme for your nursery? What baby carrier do you prefer? The Ergo or the Moby? (For the record, I have neither)

I was asked whether I’d be breastfeeding or not. I was asked if I’d be working. I was asked if I would be subscribing to any particular parenting philosophy. These all sound like questions that are aimed at ascertaining my preparedness for parenting, yes? I think maybe…no.

The philosophies and the stuff and the politics of parenting can be important at times, but what takes up my daily parenting agenda has nothing to do with them. While I think that there is a limit to how much one can prepare for this role, I think that our “normal” preparations can actually leave us quite unprepared. And they may even make matters worse by making us think that we somehow are prepared when we have neglected the more important task of preparing ourselves.

The silly email forward that I received that asked Are you ready to have kids? After you read this, maybe not goes through a number of interrupted and perverse examples of how frustrating parenting can be. And while there is much to roll our eyes at on this list (putting a live octopus into a bag?), it might be more helpful than a registry list in getting our minds around the idea of parenthood.

So without being too glib, I’m going to compile a short list of helpful and perhaps stressful points of preparation:

#1 HOLD A CRYING BABY

Even if you have hung out with your friends’ kids or nieces and nephews, everyone knows that when a kid starts to cry, you hand them back to their parents. Yes? Yes. But if you are planning on becoming a parent, you had just better hold on to them and see what happens when you can’t give them away. Some parents have never even held a child before they have one of their own. Amazing that that’s not part of any birthing class.

#2 PRACTICE BEING CALM IN STRESSFUL SITUATIONS

If you are preparing to be a parent, then it’s going to be imperative that you keep your cool (refer to point #1). Since we can’t reason with babies or bribe them into being quiet, we have to get used to the fact that they will be upset and we will have to do our best to help them…WHILE NOT ALSO BECOMING UPSET.

Practice patience in line at the post office even when you’re running late. Think about breathing deeply when the person next to you on the bus is arguing loudly on their phone. And just think, you don’t live in either the post office or on the bus, so these stressful situations will eventually end. Sometimes they will in parenting too, but sometimes they’ll last longer than your commute to work on that dang bus.

#3 KEEP YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF YOUR TOP PRIORITY

What does that mean Katie? It’s the same as the old adage about taking care of yourself while you’re taking care of your kid. But I don’t just mean finding time to take a shower. I also mean finding time to reflect on what’s working FOR YOU. I think a lot about what might help my daughter’s days go smoothly. I want her to be as calm as she can be because she seems to enjoy that more- but more importantly, I ENJOY IT MORE. I’m the one who has to be sane. She can lose her head several times a day. If I wasn’t taking care of my mental state and looking out for ways to make my days more enjoyable, I’d be joining her in a chorus of wailing.

Just like when we fly, the flight attendant stops by our row to make sure that, if we need them, we put our own oxygen masks on before putting them on our kids. Take their advice in life as well and put on your own oxygen mask first.

So while I do generally think that it’s very difficult to prepare for this weird task of parenting, I also think that there are ways to do it that I have only noticed in retrospect.

Luckily I have held a crying baby and I’ve always been good at being a little bit selfish.

Kids are noisy. I feel a little badly for my neighbors right now because my kid is only 3 months old and she’s already, on an average day, louder than me. Because of their noisiness, it can be easy to feel the need to compete with them on a loudness scale.

 

But just ask any parent who finds themselves yelling more than they’d like and they’ll tell you that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Drawbacks of yelling:

#1 You have to get louder and louder to get your kids’ attention. If telling turns into yelling, it becomes background noise for kids.

#2 It gives you a headache.

#3 It makes you feel badly about how you’re communicating with your kids.

#4 It’s not that effective. They don’t even seem to listen to yelling all the time, so how do you amp it up after that?

#5 Your kids learn to yell back.

#6 THEY DON’T KNOW WHEN YOUR YELLING MEANS THAT THERE’S AN EMERGENCY!

This last one is the most important to me because I want my yell to MEAN SOMETHING! If I do it all the time, it’ll just be any other yell when it comes to a more serious situation. But I want to be clear that when I see my kid chasing their ball toward the street and I YELL, “STOP!!!”, she’ll stop. I don’t ever want to run the risk of her tuning me out when it’s uber important that she hear me simply because she’s heard me yell one too many times. I’ll be the mom who yelled wolf…and everything else I ever wanted to say. She will never believe me when the wolf actually comes around. Gobble gobble.

While all of the reasons to keep your voice down (including the shushing of the librarian) are completely valid as well, I want to be safe rather than sorry and save my raised voice for a time when it REALLY IS NEEDED!

Welcome to 2 days before Christmas! For many of us, that means that our vacations have begun (or are about to)! Hooray! It also means that many parents are getting close to the one huge day of gluttony that is December 25. It means a rest from requests: “Can I have a puppy for Christmas?”. It means plenty of gleeful shouts and some disappointment when they discover that the dog is out of the question. The end of the year brings many other thoughts for parents as well. Charitable giving increases by about 1200% (caveat, I made up that number) in the last few days of the year. We get our giving in before tax time right after we give so much to our kids. Let’s introduce the giving to them as well!

There’s plenty of talk about gift giving from kids to friends and family, but why not also introduce the idea of gift giving to strangers?

Get one, give one.

My daughter is just 2 months old and already some lovely Christmas presents have been bestowed upon her. My husband and I are not getting her anything this year, but once she’s a couple of years older, we fully plan on implementing the Get One, Give One idea. Since Christmas tends to be an orgy of gifts and since kids seem to be the focus of this orgy more than adults, we are going to introduce the idea of giving older toys and goodies away to other kids. When she receives a present, she will need to choose something from her own stash to be given away. This way we’ll be stressing the idea of donation and reuse as well as keeping our house from getting inundated with toys. Win-win! An eye for an eye! A gift for a gift!

As I’ve said before, giving the gift of gratitude and the gift of giving (!) are really the best parts of the holiday season. As we grow we tend to learn this, but our children often forget or are not taught what a joy giving can be. If it’s a regular part of their holiday and growing experience, maybe they’ll learn to appreciate it more quickly and share in even more joy during the holidays.

Maybe you can start with a smaller ratio this year. You could talk about giving 5 things away or one thing for every year of age of your child. It doesn’t matter the number. As with our charitable giving, we give what we can. So should it be for our kids. Let them give what they can and help make the holidays happy for your family and for other families as well!

Happy Holidays!

 

I might like the Dog Whisperer a little too much. We just recently added the National Geographic channel back into our TV lineup and I’ve seen a few episodes that have reacquainted me with Cesar’s philosophies. In my opinion, so much of what I hear from him about dogs applies to kids too. He certainly talks about the importance of training the owners, since so many of the “problems” in the dogs are influenced by the energies and habits of their owners. With parents and kids it is much the same way. If you are anxious and stressed, then there’s a good chance that that’s the energy you’ll be giving your child. If every bump or cry or want is met with immediate & nervous attention, then not only will your child learn that that is the proper reaction to bumps and cries and wants, they’ll also start to learn that gasps and anxiety are normal ways to react to most things. Similarly, if you tend to be a calm parent, then chances are better (though not certain) that you’ll pass on some calm to your kids.

Just as dog owners and parents teach habits to their pets and kids, they also are responsible for setting firm boundaries. How many episodes have I seen where owners are afraid to take their dogs on walks because their pups are too aggressive toward passers-by and other dogs? Or that families have to segregate their dogs from their children because the dogs just can’t be trusted around the kids? Changing your life when a pet or a child comes into it is a natural thing, but changing it so much that it’s grossly inconvenient for you and your family is quite another. What these pet owners were lacking was conviction and boundary-setting.

Boundaries: Invisible Fences

You’re reading a book to your son. Your daughter comes up and tries to take it from you. You redirect her and invite her to listen along, but tell her that she can’t have the book right now. She tries again, this time taking it from your hands. This little dance of take and get back goes on for a few minutes before you give up, apologize to your son and offer him a different book to read. No boundary.

You are checking your email on your iPhone. Your son comes up and asks to play a game on it. You tell him that you’re busy with it right now and that he can’t have it. He asks again and again and again and again. Eventually you give it to him or you put it away before you’ve had a chance to respond to that email. No boundary.

When we let kids get what they want after we’ve told them ‘No,’ we are reinforcing the fact that our boundaries are completely for show. The line in the sand might be there, but you can walk on either side of it. In the same vein, when we avoid situations where boundaries are needed, we are complicit in neglecting the teaching of them (like putting away your iPhone so that neither you nor your son can use it- no fair to you!).

How do we solve this problem then? Let’s return to the iPhone…

#1 Do you have rules about iPhone use?

Are they even allowed to play on it? If they are, when are they? Only when you don’t need it? Only when you’re out at a restaurant? Only once their homework is done? What are the boundaries that you’ve established?

#2 If they are sometimes allowed to use it, but just not right now…

They need to be warned that if they continue to nag you for it, they will not be allowed to use it when you’re done with it at all. That iPhone belongs to you, gosh darn it!! Don’t let them dictate when and if you can use it. You tell them when and if they can use it.

#3 If they are never allowed to use it…

Try not to be showy about it being out and around, but you don’t have to keep it hidden from them when you’d like to use it. That shows them that it really does belong to you and isn’t just something that you have to sneak or hide from them. And also that you set the rules regarding its use. No meant no and continues to mean no. But no doesn’t mean no for mom since it’s hers. Don’t let them trick you with that, “But you said I couldn’t use it, so why can you?” stuff. It belongs to me, that’s why I can use it.

With younger kids (toddlers and pre-schoolers), simply moving them away from things you’d like them not to touch or moving the things away from them is the way to go. That doesn’t mean that you should keep a breakable vase out just so you can use it as a teaching tool. But if you’d like them not to drool on or mangle a certain book, don’t always put the book on a high shelf. Keep it down on the floor with you and simply move it away from them when they get to it. Tell them that that’s not for them to touch, show them what they can touch, and let the book be. Repeat, repeat, repeat until they eventually get what you mean.

And just like that you have built some invisible fences that will help you keep the boundaries in your house in place.