Tag: parenting

parenting, publishing, Writing

Happy Birthday to Sardines!

sashikaufman

I love birthdays. I usually make mine into a week-long event. I like to share food and drinks with friends or drag everyone who’s willing to a minor league baseball game or to the beach for the day. But book birthdays are more like your very first birthday. It’s about more than just celebration -they are about the actual work that goes to bringing something into the world.

I wrote this book thinking about the things kids carry with them every day when they go to school. Sometimes it’s the small things; a squabble over the last frozen waffle. Sometimes it’s big things; parents who are fighting, sick relatives, bullying they may experience at school or in their homes. As a teacher I try and always remember that the things I think are most important are often not the most important things for my students.

I dedicated this book to my kids, who at the time of writing this are in 2nd and 7th grade. This book is about finding your people. Some of us are lucky enough to find them in middle school, like Lucas my main character. For some of us, probably most of us, it takes a little longer. In the past 2 years my kids have had to change schools twice -due to the delicate art of moving during a pandemic. And I, with my fingers crossed and my helicopter-parenting able to deploy at a moment’s notice, have had to watch as they navigate finding their people. It is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time.

Today I officially send this book-baby out into the world. It is wonderful and a little terrifying all at the same time. I hope my book finds the kids who will love it and enjoy it just as it is. I hope it makes someone feel a little more seen and a little less lonely. I hope it serves as a reminder that our people are out there, sometimes hidden in plain sight.

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Nature, parenting, Random musings, School, Sneaky Motherhood

The Joy of Fewer Choices

sashikaufman

 

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In a week and a half my son’s beloved preschool will reopen -with extreme precautions including temperature readings before they can enter their classrooms. I’m a teacher. I could keep him home with me. He’s been home with me since mid-March -longer even than my maternity leave when he was born. But I want him to go back. I want this for all of us. I think. Sending him back to school feels terrifying; not because of the virus necessarily, but because it’s a choice I’ll make. Despite what we may see on the news about people rioting to get their choices and freedoms back, I really haven’t minded having most of mine taken away.

Run to Target on a school night to buy some new socks for my kid? Dash to the grocery store because we’re out of someone’s favorite cereal? Take five extra minutes to get a coffee somewhere? The answers have all been so clear for the last two and a half months: no, no, and nope.

I started out in mid-March somewhat terrified of what my life would be like trying to balance my job, teaching middle school, with taking care of my 10 and 5 year old children. There have been some moments of extreme frustration for sure. There has been way more screen time than usual. But there’s also been baking and science experiments, art projects and family movies. Every day we went out and found a new trail, a  frog pond or a tide pool. There have been countless forts and fairy houses. 

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During this quarantine time I’ve been reading The Giver by Lois Lowry with my 7th grade students. This incredibly prescient book describes a society where choices, freedoms, and even strong emotions have all been eliminated in favor of safety, security, and sameness. The book’s main character, a twelve year old boy, learns that things in the past were different and rebels against The Community to forge his own path. In my 16 years of teaching, I’ve probably taught this book 10 times. And every time I’ve struggled to understand how members of the community could be satisfied with their limited lives, devoid of excitement, freedom and choice. This time I’ve read the book differently. 

As much as I miss my extended family; hugs from my mom and dad, snuggles with my niece and nephews. As much as 6 feet apart walks with friends aren’t the same as long dinners and ice cream cone walks on the beach…..I’m going to whisper this part….I really haven’t missed that many things all that much. I definitely don’t miss the pace of my pre-quarantine life. I used to rejoice if I had 20 minutes of downtime. My to-do list spanned two pages. My weekends were full of things I had to do. Also, I got squirrely with anxiety if I had too few things to do on a weekend. This time in quarantine time has helped me become comfortable with less doing and more being. I am hugely grateful for that. 

 I am also aware of the enormous privilege I have to enjoy quarantine in the ways that I have. I’m still being paid. I have plenty of food. I have access to technology, and I live in a beautiful place where a hike in the woods or a walk on the beach is only minutes away. 

Sending my son back to school feels like the beginning of the end of this time. There are positives for him, for me, and for my daughter whatever we decide; whatever we choose. I’ll be able to devote more time to wrapping up the year with my 7th graders. I might be able to get through an online teaching session without my son insisting on a snack or needing me to find the scissors. My daughter won’t have to share her zoom time with her little brother. 

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In spite of these things I can’t help feeling loss and a little lost.  Having my son around, with his needs for snacks and scissors, uno games and one-on-one basketball, keeps me out of my head, protects me from my anxieties. My daughter is old enough to give me plenty of space, but I’m not sure I want it. With space comes choices; things to do, to accomplish, to check off my burgeoning to-do list. We adapted to this quarantine world, I made schedules, we had a calendar, we made a giant chocolate chip cookie and bird feeders. Some days I counted the minutes until movie-time at 5:00, but 5:00 always came. I don’t know how to end this piece, any more than I know how to close this strange chapter of our lives. There’s no cure, no vaccine as of yet, but we are all starting to emerge, starting to make choices again. I am hopeful and I am scared and I guess I’ll just have to live that way, for now. 

 

parenting, Uncategorized

So Much Depends on a Sweet Potato

sashikaufman

“This sweet potato is burned!” my daughter said dramatically, holding up the offending bit of brown on her dinner.

“No it’s not, it’s just cooked. It tastes fine.”

“No, mommy, it’s really burned. I just ate some of it and it’s really burned!”

So I took it from her hand, ate a bite, and pretended to gag and fall out of my chair and die. Standard parenting stuff, right? Not tonight. Tonight my daughter decided that I am never to tease her again, about anything, ever. This is a childhood whimsy I’m not prepared to humor, not even for a night to get her to shut up and go to bed.

Tonight we went several rounds with her lashing out at me and then demanding a hug in her angry voice. Telling me that it seems like I don’t care about her and then having a hysterical crying bout in her closet.

“It seems like you might be ready for bed,” I suggested. This was not well received, as you might imagine.

Oh, and did I mention it’s the first night of Hanukkah? Whether or not you have children it’s impossible to miss the dramatic rise in the emotional barometric pressure this time of year. If you do have children, you can enjoy the fun of watching tiny little emotional pressure gauges explode right in front of you.

And who can blame them really? Everything about this time of year is about anticipation, excitement and potential happiness in puppy-sized packages. This is the happiest, happiest, happiest time of year and it’s everywhere! No matter how low key your holidays might be, the world is essentially a giant three year old drinking red bulls and snorting pixie sticks.

I haven’t figured out a way to translate this into language my seven year old will understand, assuming she’ll let me speak to her that is. But I think it’s important to find a way to explain to her that we are all spinning in the holiday maelstrom, at least until January 2nd.

Reading, Sneaky Motherhood

One Story to Rule Them All

sashikaufman

A couple of months ago I read this story about about a woman who tells her two young children a sanitized version of the plot of Game of Thrones as a way to get through meals in restaurants and long car trips. When she tells them about the fate of the characters and the various plot twists, they forget to argue over the last breadstick or kick each other under the table. This is genius.

When my daughter was a little younger bath time was fraught with drama; mostly around washing and drying and combing the knots from her hair. To get through the fun times I found myself resorting to long Baby Squirrel stories or Anna Marie Bananacake stories. The Baby Squirrels are your archetypal mischief makers and Anna Marie Bananacake is a girl who never wants to wash her hair until birds and other wildlife begin nesting in it. You get the idea. The point of the stories was to hold her interest long enough to accomplish the task. Therefore they often dragged on interminably over the details. Eliana never minded. She loves a story. But pretty soon I minded. I would have rather poked my eyes out with a fork than tell another Baby Squirrel story. Luckily she developed more of a tolerance for bath time and does most of the hair washing herself. Also, we turned to audio books. I’m perfectly happy to listen to the same stories over and over as long as I don’t have to be the one inventing them on the spot.

But this recent article got me thinking about the power of stories, about their ability to soothe and transport us. Stories allow us to focus on the struggles and challenges facing others in the face of our own difficulties; whether that’s a huge sticky knot of hair or something worse. I also wondered what stories I know well enough to recount the way this woman clearly knew Game of Thrones. I could probably do parts of Harry Potter, and all of the Grapes of Wrath -though I’m not sure that would interest my five year old. I wish I knew Tolkien better; I think the adventures of Sam and Frodo would be ideal. Any ideas? What stories would you tell if it meant you could eat your dinner in relative peace?

Sneaky Motherhood

Once Around the Sun

sashikaufman

SunToday my little boy is one year and one day old. He’s one. I’m aware of this milestone in a very different way than with Eliana who is now 5. The perspective I have with Avi is that I know after one it all starts to go so quickly. That first year is full of firsts. His first winter, spring and summer. His first boat ride, his first holidays, his first parade, etc. All this summer I thought about how last summer I was doing everything while pregnant, waddling to the beach, waddling to the fairs, eating a lot of ice cream. Full disclosure; I do that every summer.

The days are getting shorter and darker now. The sun at three in the afternoon feels like it’s just clinging to the sky, sinking below the trees.  Last year at this time I was afraid that the darkness I experienced after my first pregnancy would return with this one. And it hasn’t, it just hasn’t.

This year has brought tests of my parenting and myself as an adult in ways I could have never imagined. I’ve found strength in myself that I didn’t know was there. I’ve felt more love and also more loneliness than I’ve ever known before. All in just one trip around the sun.

Nature, Random musings, Sneaky Motherhood

Like an Unnatural Woman

sashikaufman

I’ve been a food shopping human for long enough to know that the word “natural” means just about nothing on a food label. Everything is “natural” these days from Greek yogurt to gummy bears.  And I honestly don’t care that much about the perversion of the word to sell everything from cheese puffs to chicken nuggets. But there’s another place where the word does bother me and that’s when it’s used to describe childbirth.

I had my second child just about 4 months ago and following his birth I went to what I call “baby class” just as I did with his now almost 5 year old sister. This class is run by an incredible organization that facilitates new mom’s groups, breast-feeding groups, and childbirth classes.

As I sat in the first class and listened to each mom share a bit about her birth experience I realized for the first time what I would realize many times in subsequent classes; that my perspective as a second-time parent would change pretty much everything, including way I related to my classmates. I listened again and again as nearly every woman there (who didn’t require a c-section) stressed how great she felt about having a “natural” childbirth. And if she did have a c-section there was a lot of regret about having missed out on natural childbirth -I’ll drop the quotes at this point because I hope you get my point -the word means everything and nothing.

I had a natural childbirth when my first child was born. My daughter came into the world after 31 long hours of labor. I told myself all along that I was open to using whatever pain meds I felt were necessary. I’ve never been a martyr when it comes to pain. But through out the experience I just kept feeling like, well it’s not so bad now. I suppose I can take it a bit longer. And then I couldn’t. Then I was in the final hour sitting on the medieval torture device known as a birthing stool and explaining to my midwife (by screaming and growling) that there had to be another way to get this baby out. I think I actually told her she was going to have to “reach up there” and pull it out herself. I know I’m not the first, or last woman, to feel this way. That was my natural child birth experience.

And even though I nourished that same morsel of pride about the drugs/interventions I’d refused, childbirth, that time, was something I felt I only barely survived. I did not feel especially positive about the experience, nor empowered by it. It did not help matters that a week later I fell into the chemically imbalanced world of post partum depression –which I spent the next few months trying to claw my way out of. My brain and hormones went there completely naturally. And it would take the so-called unnatural world of anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants to help pull me out.

Before post partum depression I never would have described myself as someone who lived with anxiety. Now I can’t imagine how I didn’t see it. My whole life I’ve managed my anxiety and I’ve managed pretty well. Most people who meet me or know me would not describe me as an anxious person (that’s how good I am at managing and that’s how little people really understand about anxiety). I know I spent a lot of time managing and strategizing around anxiety. That was living my life naturally.

I feel very lucky to live my life differently now. I guess I think that this line we draw between ourselves and the natural world is pretty fuzzy. We are of nature and a lot of our so called man-made products make life a lot better and easier for ourselves and even occasionally our fellow creatures. Don’t get me wrong we do a lot to foul up the planet for ourselves and our co-inhabitants but I’m pretty sure a sweet and powerful epidural isn’t high on that list.

So back to baby number two. After the hell I went through post partum I still ended up wanting another one. And the one thing I knew about this experience is that I wanted it to be different than the first. I did a lot of things differently. I front-loaded some of the meds that helped me after my daughter was born. I arranged to have my placenta encapsulated to I could eat it after my son was born (talk about natural!!!) And I arranged for my parents to help out for an entire month after the birth.

But ultimately, the thing that really helped me have a completely different birth experience was that epidural.  The first five hours of my son’s birth were strikingly similar to my daughter’s -the contractions this time even faster and more intense. Once I had the epidural everything changed. I was able to laugh and joke and be myself. I was able to be present with what was going on in my body even though I wasn’t able to feel every ripple of every contraction. I asked my mom to join me in the room as he came into the world because I wasn’t worried about her worrying about me. And as I pushed -yes you still have to push and it’s trickier when you can’t feel as much of your body -him into the world, I sang. Yes, I sang a Johnny Cash tune. Because why the hell not? I felt good and powerful and present with my body. And those words are so much more important and meaningful to me -whether or not they are natural.