She wakes up and launches herself into a project– a homemade book about mermaids, say, or a paper castle built of tape.  Engrossed in the creative act, she protests my demands that she get dressed and ready.

It’s 8 am and the battle-lines are drawn.

I live at the mercy of Time.  One eye on the clock, I rush around the kitchen in my nightgown, packing lunches and scrambling eggs, gathering stray mittens and socks.  I’m always anticipating the future, trying not to be late.  Using a crude combination of bribery and threat, I wrangle both girls into snowsuits and boots.  Every day, it’s an act of sheer will.

“Who wants a gold star for Morning Cooperation?” I ask sweetly.

If that doesn’t work, my voice deepens to a growl–”Mommy’s patience is very small right now.  It’s only the size of a pea.  Let’s get ready RIGHT NOW before it disappears!”

Usually the toddler starts wailing, but at least we get out the door.

I herd both children into the car, buckle them into their seats, and blast the Mary Poppins soundtrack.  Then I run back inside to throw on some pants and brush my teeth.   Those three minutes to myself are sacred, but they come at a cost.

Our morning has not been harmonious.  I haven’t respected my daughter’s internal rhythms, honored her desire for art and play.

This conflict is familiar to many parents:  adults need to be on time, and young children hate to be rushed.  Kids want to live in the moment, be curious, have fun.

What if we tried to be more like them, instead of working hard to turn them into us?  Can we resist imposing the time-bound world onto their wild imaginations?

I imagine a day when my children run free, completely unscheduled.  No meals, no clothes, no plans, no bedtime.  I see them roaming the house in their pajamas, playing, fighting, making messes.  Eventually, they’d get hungry and tired, even bored.  Maybe they’d ask me for food, or a video.  But I’d already have checked myself into the Retreat.

I’m not sure when I turned into a Time Taskmaster.   Certainly it wasn’t in the early weeks of the Baby Cave, when there was no separation between day and night.  The newborn woke every few hours for milk, whether it was 3 a.m. or noon.

Together we inhabited a drowsy gray world without any boundaries.  I stayed home and nursed on demand, trying to sleep when she slept, as the books advised.  I didn’t schedule anything– or not anything pressing.  My life was elemental, reduced to the basics of human survival:  eat, sleep, love.  But I also felt unmoored from myself, confused and antsy.

Sometimes I envy the mothers wandering the Co-op with their infants in slings, moving as if they were underwater.  This is my own projection, of course.  Who knows what constraints of work, money, childcare, and time press down on them?  But nostalgia washes over me for that murky world of new motherhood, before I started rushing around town.

“Mommy, are we late?  Are we very late?” asks Ava.  We’re running across the parking lot for gymnastics class, ten minutes behind schedule.  I hate being late.  For me, it’s a point of honor, a form of etiquette.  Punctuality keeps society functioning.

But it can become a compulsion.  I don’t want to work my family into a state of stress over ten minutes.  I’m teaching my four-year-old to race the clock, and she’s learning fast.

The preschool charges $1 a minute for late pick-ups.  I understand the punctuality policy, but it fills me with hectic anxiety.  Rush to get ready, rush to drop-off, rush to teach yoga, rush to pick-up!  How can I face these deadlines with a spirit of equanimity?

My friend Maria lived for years in Costa Rica.  Her biggest culture shock from New England life wasn’t the snow or the people, but the fixation with time.

“In Costa,” she says, “everyone is late.  They simply don’t worry about it. Manyana, manyana… ”

Here, Maria refuses to be a slave to time.  I see her savoring the slow walk uphill to Kindergarten, holding her daughter’s hand.  Unapologetically, she’s told the teacher that they may often be late.

Meanwhile, I’m sprinting back to my car to squeeze in another five minutes at my laptop.  My constant rushing derives from a fear of scarcity.  I’m afraid that there’s never enough time.  Never enough to sleep, work, write, run, make love, or fit in everything in a given day.  My worry forces me to live in the future, always anticipating.  I haven’t accepted that the unfolding present is the only reality that ever is.

But children are the Zen masters of the present moment.  I could memorize Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, or I could witness it unfolding in my kitchen.  My girls are here to be my teachers, if only I could let them.  Unburdened by the planning-thinking-monkey mind, they surrender themselves to their play.

Carmen strips naked and runs laps in her ballet shoes, throwing a “dance recital.”  She doesn’t know or care that it’s 7:30 pm– time for bath and bed, the exorable routines to which I desperately cling.

What would happen if I relented a bit in my role as Family Timekeeper?  Would we never get to work or school or anything again?  Probably not.

From now on, I want dance the fine line, live the tension between punctuality and presence.  After all, time plays tricks on parents. People with older children often tell me, “Each day feels long, but the years fly by.”

They’re warning me to savor the moment that’s happening right now.  The madness, joy, and exuberance of Two and Four.  Can I follow my children’s lead, and stay (mostly) on time?

Jazz, sexy cocktails, garlicky treats, and good friends made for a fun evening.  In Vermont midwinter, everyone’s thrilled to get out of the house.  But no one was as happy to see each other as me and my man. Voila!

Child-free and lovin' it

On the velvet banquette

preschool classroom magic

Here it goes.  A week and a half with no school. All the moms are out and about with their kids, sledding at the park, walking around town.

Luckily for me, today was blazing sunshine and 40 degrees.  Warm enough for no mittens.  Warm enough to take off jackets.  Warm enough to promise Spring in the snowmelt, the returning songbirds.

I took the girls sledding at the park and then we played with friends on the jungle-gym and swings.

A and her preschool buddies played “BAD GUY EMERGENCY”– an exuberant, inexplicable game of running, chasing, shouting, and waving sticks.

The big kids generously included C, who couldn’t quite keep up, running behind bundled in her snowsuit on short, toddler legs.  Because it was sunny and gorgeous and everyone had a touch of Spring Fever, we stayed on and played more favorite games:

1. Hide and Seek

2. What Time Is It, Mrs. Midnight

3. Paw-Paw Patch

4. Sail the Boat to the Caribbean (Mommy invented this game, although she didn’t actually WANT to go down there.  For once, she was content to be exactly where she was, in Vermont, in the sun-filled moment).

No more cubbies till March 3rd

Back home, A and C frolicked like spring lambs out on the porch while I made phone calls.  C runs daily porch laps in her sock feet, shouting, “Mommy, it’s almost spring!”  She loves to run unencumbered by snow-boots.

I’m smart enough to know we have another month and a half of Vermont winter ahead of us.  Another big storm or two.  More battles over snowsuits and mittens and getting outdoors in bitter cold winds.

But I’ll take this thaw when I can get it.

As my mom wisely says:  ”Preview of coming attractions.”

V-day is also B-day at our house

My daughter is obsessed with holidays.

She still plays “Christmas Eve” with her sister, wrapping up dolls and toys in scarves and placing them under a “tree” made of chairs.

Just when I’m grooving in my New Year’s rhythm, the stress of December firmly regulated to the past, I hear a delighted scream:  “Look, Santa’s sliding down the chimney!”

Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about Christmas again for another ten months.  But after a short breather, Valentine’s Day is suddenly upon us.  Ava decides she wants to make Valentines for a few special friends at preschool.

“Well, honey, you’ll need to make them for ALL the kids in your class– so no one feels left out,” I tell her.

I think this is an official school rule, as indeed it should be.  I remember childhood Valentine’s Days consumed with hope and disappointment.  We’d cover cardboard with red paper and glitter, creating personal letter-boxes for our anticipated torrent of mail.  By second grade, I understood that quantity of Valentines was a measure of popularity.

Our class ballerina, Natasha Price, found her mailbox overflowing with notes.  She coolly tucked her blonde braids behind her ears and placed the envelopes in her backpack, unopened.  I received only a generic Snoopy card from my best friend.  Instantly, I regretted the anonymous handmade heart I’d sent to my crush, Trevor Randolph.  Did he know it was from me?  Why had I been so stupid?

Back then, Valentine’s Day was a strategic game of anticipation and risk.  By high school, the Key Club Flower Fundraiser elevated the stakes to a new level.  For only $1, you could send a red, white, or pink carnation to the person of your choice, to be hand-delivered, very publicly, during class.  In hindsight, this tradition seems a cruel prank, something out of an Eighties clique movie like “The Breakfast Club.”

The carnation colors had unspoken but clear significance.  Everyone knew that Red meant Love, White meant Friendship, and Pink meant Passion.  The established, in-crowd couples sent each other red flowers, while girls exchanged platonic white stems with their pals.  I always longed for the thrill of an anonymous pink carnation, delivered during first period Algebra- and requiring transport through the concrete halls for the rest of the day.

From behind my locker door, I watched raven-haired Michelle Smith, the most popular girl in ninth grade, blushing and giggling with her sidekick, Tiffany.  They coyly compared their big bouquets like two brides.  Those lustful pink petals bloomed in the gloomy corridor like rose quartz in a mine.

Now that I’m a grown-up, Valentine’s Day is still tinged with exclusivity and longing.   It feels contrived, and offers yet another opportunity for mothering guilt.  I haven’t baked pink heart cookies for the preschool class or completed a haphazard card-making project with my girls.

A week ago, we managed a trip to the Dollar Store for doilies, ribbon, and glue-sticks.  I let go of my usual mess-aversion and let Carmen go wild with a pair of kid-scissors and some glue.  Blessedly, my girls haven’t inherited my perfectionist streak (yet).

Mothers may try hard to orchestrate the perfect holiday experience, but the truth is:  young children are content with very little.  I sat down and joined in the craft fun, working on a heart card for my own mom.  Harmony reigned until the Toddler Monster got bored and grabbed for her sister’s project.  Screaming and hair-pulling ensued, and I still haven’t finished my card.

Part of me wants to dismiss Valentine’s as a Hallmark holiday for young lovers.   Originally named after an early Christian martyr, St. Valentine’s Day became associated with courtly love during the Middle Ages and the life of the poet Chaucer.  Today it’s evolved into the consumer focus of the dull month of February.

At worst, the holiday smacks of crass commercialization-a marketing push to buy more bad chocolate and cheesy cards (or to feel lousy about being alone).  At best, it’s an opportunity to shower affection on our loved ones–  especially the neglected spouses.

The cynic in me sneers at the clichéd trappings of Valentine’s Day-  the dozen sweetheart roses, the diamond necklace, the candlelit dinner.  But I can’t fool myself.  I’m a romantic at heart, and wouldn’t mind being swept off my feet Cinderella-style.

Lately I’ve been concerned about Ava’s new fascination with Disney princesses and the outdated gender messages they convey.  Do I want to start teaching my daughter (at age 4) that a woman’s true happiness and fulfillment come from a prince?  But then I recognize a similar impulse in myself.

“Why do you like princesses?” I ask Ava at bedtime.

“Because they’re pretty,” she replies.  “And magic”

To feel pretty and magic.  That’s what a married mom of two young children wants in the depths of a cold, recession-addled, Vermont winter.  No need for jewelry.  I’ll settle for a hot shower and a single pink carnation, symbol of passion.

Tune into VPR tonight at 5:55 pm to hear my latest commentary, “Married, With Children.”  You can also listen online at www.vpr.net.

If you miss the broadcast, I’ll post it on my blog later.

joy ride in the box-car

Yesterday I zoomed up the highway to Norwich, VT. The VPR studio is in the basement of the King Arthur Flour Bakery Store and Headquarters.  Here, you can sample warm, delicious treats like buttery herb biscuits and cinnamon raisin bread.

You can buy fresh-baked cookies, homemade sandwiches, and hot coffee or chai, and browse the amazing selection of baking supplies– from pizza stones to colorful casseroles to gourmet cake mixes and more.

I came home with Vanilla Sugar Cookie mix to make with my two little naked Sugar Kitties.  Also a decadent chocolate cake mix for an important upcoming Aquarius birthday.  This sweetened the fact that Mommy was gone all day and didn’t come home till after Wed. night yoga class (guilt-ridden, but renewed and elated!)

Maybe the super-moms bake all their cakes from scratch, but King Arthur mixes are the next best thing.

Meanwhile, A and C have been grooving in their cardboard car, making Valentines and playing Fairies.  C is Tinker Bell and A is Silvermist.  Disney’s Cinderella is also a new obsession.

Part of me is disturbed by the outdated gender messages in the Princess Culture.  Part of me thinks it is harmless and fun.  I don’t need another parenting issue to worry about right now.  C is making it through Potty Training and sometimes sleeping in her crib all night (she gets a sparkly pink star when she does.  The stars add up to… possibly a new video to rent?).

As usual, I’m figuring it all out as I go along.

Munch, Death in the Sickroom, visipix.com

It’s the opposite of Oprah’s favorite book, The Secret, which (I think, since I’ve never read it) reveals that positive energy attracts positive.  This is “the most powerful law in the universe.”

But how can one keep a cheerful mood in the face of:

1. PMT (premenstrual TENSION, as the British call it– much more accurate than PMS)

2. Pink Eye (goopy, itchy infections in BOTH eyes, making the windows to my soul swollen and red and altogether hideous).  Can’t wear mascara.  Embarrassed to go out in public.

NO Carmen's in here!

3. Two sisters in a FIGHTING PHASE.  I don’t know why, but A and C have been at each other’s throats since I came home from New York.  Screaming, crying, shrieking, hitting, shoving, pulling hair, grabbing toys, destroying artwork… Last week there was not a moment of peace.

4. Discovering that my laptop SCREEN is cracked.  Yes, somehow my new-to-me PowerBook G4, a hand-me-down from my web-designer brother, has a big crack in the screen.  Did C get her hands on it (most likely scenario)?  Did it get banged around between home and the library?  Either way, there is no reversing the damage and I am BUMMING.

5. No more WRITING GROUP– my beautiful Tuesday night creative salvation is over, as T. is now working that shift.  How I miss Suzanne and the others!

6. Getting stopped by the COPS driving home from the library.  Couldn’t find my registration.  Turns out my inspection is overdue.

7. Friday YOGA class attendance dropping off.  Why?  Is it too hard? Too easy?  Too much Ashtanga?  A bad time for most people?  Not enough music?  Has everyone found other yoga classes they prefer?  Should I give up teaching and devote myself to my writing?

8.  Speaking of which, I have to write 14 BLURBS on Cosmetology over the next few days for my online writing job.  Or rather, Charlotte Day (my web-content alter-ego/ PEN NAME) has to write them.  It’s vaguely like being in college, the constant weight of papers hanging over my head.  Except I am now (luckily enough) getting paid for them.

On that note, I’ll stop complaining.  I am blessed to be working, to have my health (mostly), and my beloved family.  I said this blog was NO CRYING, JUST WRITING and I will stick to it.

Maybe I need to go to bed and read more Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now.  But not before I take out the garbage and recycling and wish and pray for this snowball of bad luck to melt.

dreaming of dominica

right now i am unenlightened and would give anything for:

1. a nanny

2. a guru

3. a personal chef/housekeeper

4. a massage

5. inspiration

6. the Caribbean

7. inner peace

8. Springtime

9. a talk with my Dad

Brooklyn Bridge sunshine

It feels like another lifetime.

Last weekend I was in New York, walking around downtown with my yoga mat.  I hung out in a cool coffeeshop in Tribeca called Pain Au Quotidien, drinking a bowl of Cafe Au Lait and reading the New York Times.

I bartered for a knock-off hobo bag on Canal St and bought some gummy sharks and butterflies for A and C at a candy shop in Chinatown that also sold 50 flavors of dried fish:  Tuna Cube, Thai Scallop, Shredded Cod Stick…

I sat alone and savored a steaming bowl of Pho– rice noodles, broth, shrimp, fresh basil and bean sprouts and lime.

I walked back and forth across the Brooklyn bridge twice, the whole city laid out before me like a mirage.  What freedom– to walk everywhere, and never need a car!  The best part was staying in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass: a newly hip neighborhood in Brooklyn that my friend Robin calls “the jewel of New York”).

Her apartment is serene, a writer’s paradise– spare and modern with an orange couch, a bamboo tree, and huge windows with views of the two bridges.  I felt like I was in a boutique hotel, but with a friend, since Robin welcomed me and made me tea and cooked me eggs and walked me to Kula Yoga Project for my workshop.

The yoga left a great deal to be desired, unfortunately.  Nearly 40 advanced yogis sweated it out shoulder to shoulder in a dark studio.  The teacher drew the curtains and I felt like I was practicing in a windowless, airless dungeon.  My urban claustrophobia consumed me, and I never felt the spacious calm that happens during a blissful yoga class.

Doug Swenson may be an Ashtanga Master, but the ability to perform crazy-advanced poses doesn’t mean you have the gift of teaching them.  I found the workshop atmosphere competitive rather than compassionate.

But I have no regrets.  I spontaneously took a trip BY MYSELF– out of my comfort zone, away from my family.

It’s true– absence makes the heart go fonder.  I put into practice my favorite quote:  ”How can I miss you if you never go away?”  I missed the girls terribly on Friday night during the darkest hour of the urban yoga, and even thought about coming home early.

But once I passed the 24 hour mark, some internal shift occurred and I was my own woman again.  What should I do with myself?  I had no plans– I wandered the city.  I drank more than my usual share of caffeine and buzzed on the New York energy, which is a constant hum, a pulse running beneath everything.  I questioned my life and my geography, why we choose to live in Vermont.  Then I enjoyed a casual dinner party at Robin’s apartment with some artistic, intellectual New Yorkers.

I came home renewed and full of ideas, love and gratitude.  But re-entry was hard.  Much harder than I’d expected. The house was trashed.  Both girls hadn’t slept much and were sick with bad colds that turned out to be raging ear infections.  Monday morning found me at the doctor’s office, in a little cubicle with A and C.  Outside it was 35 and pouring cold rain.

“Back to life, back to reality…” goes that 1990s dance song.

Now, it’s five degrees here and I’m trying to figure out how to get A and C outside.  I dream of going back to the city for a Kula flow class, bringing the girls to the Bronx zoo, getting a date in Chinatown with T.

Maybe this spring?

Child-free, 2003

Then the children pounced on us–crying for attention, pulling us apart.  They couldn’t bear to see us kiss, focused only on each other.

What evolutionary instinct makes offspring disrupt their parents’ intimacy?  The way our girls carry on, you’d think snuggling threatened their very survival.  Maybe the behavior is a relic from Neanderthal days, when constant adult vigilance protected babies from predators.

But the irony is that “the parents’ relationship is the linchpin of the family.” So claim the authors of Babyproofing Your Marriage, three married moms who want you to “laugh more, argue less, and communicate better as your family grows.”

I’ve read this book many times, underlined and quoted it, carried it in my purse.  I believe that “nurturing the marital relationship is central to our children’s sense of security and happiness.”  But it’s a complicated task.

Honeymoon, 2004

Several of my friends are getting divorced.  One college pal revealed over Facebook that she’d be flying solo to our reunion.

“I’m divorcing my husband,” she wrote.  “But don’t feel sorry for me– it’s the best thing I’ve done in years.”

Another friend has two children the same ages as my own.  A look of horror must have crossed my face when she told me her husband had moved out.

“Hey, it’s going to happen to half of us,” she shrugged.

I know the statistics.  Americans– who revere the institution of marriage– have the highest divorce rate in the Western world.  Many of my aunts, uncles, and favorite celebrities have taken a ride on the D-train.  But my own parents stayed together for 35 years, and I assumed that granted me immunity.

Baby on Board, 2005

Let me back up:  I have a strong marriage.  But raising babies has challenged us to the core.  Many recent studies show that marital satisfaction drops– often steeply– after children arrive.  A few generations ago, “Baby Makes Three” was a recipe for happiness, but not anymore.

Today’s parents are overworked and overwhelmed, too busy and too tired.  With our child-centered lives and intense, hands-on parenting, we’re putting nearly all our energy into our offspring.  Before long the relationship slips into Autopilot.

Oprah says you can have a romantic date-night at home after the kids are in bed.  Turn off the phone, light the candles, and fall in love with each other again.

Is it really that easy?

Hands full, 2007

NO.  How can we leave the kitchen in shambles?  How can we snap out of Mommy -Daddy mode and channel the old, free selves?  The girl who loved to dance at dive bars, shake her long hair till it flew.  The boy who once walked the red Hollywood carpet, surfed big waves at dusk.

He was a rock-star songwriter in a muscle car.  He won gold medals and drove cross-country eight times.  That girl would jump naked into any water– even the Connecticut right after ice-out, her bare skin flushed, face lit with exhilaration.

Winter Solstice drew them together under fierce northern stars.  Who can help them find each other again, the way they first did by a cranking woodstove, in a hunting shack by the cedar lake?  Ice four feet deep and all their clothes on the plywood floor.

“Let go of the past,” says my husband.

“You can’t go back,” says my mother.  ”You can only move forward.”

“Kill the ghost of your past self.  Surrender to the chaos and wonder of parenthood and embrace it wholeheartedly,” says Babyproofing Your Marriage.

It’s good advice, but I’m bad at surrender.  I like being in control, which makes me hard to live with.  I’d rather chart a clear course of action, check off tasks on my marriage-enhancing to-do list.

I remember my father shaking his head in disapproval when my aunt and uncle divorced.  “They stopped trying,” he told me.  “Marriage takes hard work, and they were tired of working.”

That was the only marital advice I ever received from a family member.  Back then, I thought I understood what he meant.  I remember childhood nights lying awake while my parents fought, head burrowed under the pillow to muffle their angry voices.  Once my mother threw a galloon of milk at my father– it bounced off his leg and glugged white onto the red linoleum.

Now I want to fill in the gaps.  How did they survive the emotional pain of arguing?  What hard work helped them through conflict and into compromise?

But we each live in what poet Louise Gluck calls “the privacy of marriage.”  On the outside, everything’s fine.  Behind closed doors, couples are struggling.

One friend says that most marriages have bad patches– a hard few months, even years.  But they’re not necessarily headed for the D-train (that sleek black engine, always waiting on the platform).

“We were in a dark place for two years,” my friend admits.  “But we made it through and we’re stronger for it.”

I want to follow her lead, though sometimes I fear we’ve displaced our intimacy onto our children.

My daughter strokes my eyebrows at bedtime.  “An ear nibble,” she begs, giggling.  “An ear nibble, and an ear bite.”   I oblige, taking her soft lobe in my mouth as she melts into irresistible laughter.

The toddler has already nursed to sleep, her free hand patting my cheek.  These girls love me effortlessly, sensually, but it’s a fleeting thing.  Another eight or ten years and they may withhold their affection.  They may return my embrace with an embarrassed half-hug, the way I grudgingly hugged my parents when I was a teenager.

Children eventually grow up and away. In the meantime, a marriage can starve from lack of intimacy.  If you neglect it for too long, it will wither like a houseplant.

“We didn’t make it,” said one friend.

“Our ship has sailed,” said another.

I wish them all the luck in the world, and try to plan another date-night.

Family Time, 2009

Not a great mom.  I don’t have the patience or cooking skills for that.  But a good mom– one who gets her kids out playing happily in the snow.

I got this ingenious idea from A’s preschool teacher.  SNOW ART!  All you need are some old poster paint bottles filled with hot water, and a few sticks.  The activity lasted 10 minutes tops, but C loved squirting paint onto a mound of snow.

It’s the first time Mommy has ever given her free rein to make a big mess!

A, the self-described Artist, enjoyed painting with a stick.

way better than sledding

Then we built a Snow Fort together and played in it for a few minutes before bare hands got too cold (C often refuses to wear mittens).

When we came in, I didn’t manage to bake banana muffins, but did offer a healthy snack of cheese and crackers and raisins.

But maybe my good mom-ness was negated later– when I dragged my suddenly sick, coughing four-year-old to the Co-op, bribing her with a chocolate-chip cookie.  All because we were out of black tea, and I couldn’t stand to be home alone all evening when T. was working.

Those long, dark winter evenings alone.  Cabin fever. Claustrophobia. More Max & Ruby and Bunny Noodles.

Nothing like a bustling grocery store to lift my spirits and get me pumped up for bedtime!

I am an Artist

SNOW FORT!