What We Are

I hosted one of my older mothers' groups here a few days ago. Was struck by the growing individuality of the three kids that came to the house. One of them enjoyed arranging plastic cups according to color--blue with blue, red with red, and so forth. Another was touching and studying people's shoes and socks. A little girl of 17 months sat at the brick fireplace and patted the spot next to her and said "Mama," urgently asking her mother to sit with her; she did this again when she sat on an old blanket. I won't reveal my son's favorite activities, although I will say that they involved electronic gadgets.

What's so special about all that? Just the idea that even young toddlers develop a passion for certain things. Will those passions translate into lifelong obsessions or are they just a fleeting fancy that will disappear in a few months? How much is a toddler an individual already?

It's easy, as a proud parent, to become convinced that one sees the individual emerging in one's son or daughter at 12 or 13 months of age. I've seen various signs that indicate my son will be sociable, but not extremely outgoing; that he will love to discover how things work; that he will enjoy a good laugh. Beyond that--can I really say what paths he will follow in life? It would be wrong to assume he will become a computer scientist just because he loves computers. He's obviously attracted more to the flashing lights and the online alphabet games we've discovered than to the inner workings of the computer. And it should be remembered that he relishes emptying plates out of the dishwasher and stacking them on the floor as much as seeing A,B, and C appear on the computer screen.

I know that one of my roles as a mom is to introduce him to as many different experiences as possible in these first few years, and to foster in him the ability and the desire to become a well-rounded person. But it's still fascinating to observe the particular passions that different young children develop, and to wonder--why shoes and socks for this little boy, and cups for another?

I Can Do It

I was hard on Eric Carle, in a post from several months ago. I said that the reason for his enormous popularity, in the realm of books for very young children, escapes me. I said that because I considered most of his books to be extremely dull, including that hugely popular one, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Now I do see what the fuss is all about: his books appeal to a child's need for rhythm, bright colors, and unusual sounds and activities. Three of my son's favorite books are by Carle: What's For Lunch?, in which a cardboard monkey swings on an actual string throughout the book; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has plenty of small holes for little fingers to poke at; and From Head to Toe, which has pictures of animals engaging in various activities, like a gorilla beating his chest. The first time my son saw me acting out the part of the gorilla, a smile of delight overtook him, as if he couldn't get over this crazy thing his mom was doing; of course, I've acted out that part joyfully and vigorously ever since, just to spark the same reaction in him; and he's started to slap his hands against his own chest in imitation. My husband has commented on the dubious utility of teaching my son to act like a gorilla. This is true; but look how far it's gotten me in the last several months...at any rate, the words repeated over and over in the book, "I can do it, I can do it!" present perhaps the most positive message of any of the books my son has, and he seems to respond more joyfully to this book than to any other book in his collection.

So I extend my apology to Mr. Carle. He has performed a noble service to this generation, and one or two previous generations of children. I wish there were several dozen more authors like him, people skilled at writing books for babies and toddlers. Instead, I know of only a handful.

10,000 hours

In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule--the idea that to be good at anything that requires mental stamina or concentration, like playing classical piano or programming a computer, someone has to pass the 10,000-hour practice threshold. If you've pursued your craft for at least 10,000 hours, he writes, studies show that you will have a chance of being a major success. But if you haven't, chances aren't nearly as good, even if you have boatloads of talent.

I wonder how much this applies to motherhood or fatherhood. In one of my mothers' groups, a mother of several children told us, "It gets easier after your second child." This would seem to validate the 10,000-hour rule, at least for raising babies and toddlers. A mother of two children would have put in at least 10,000 hours after three years, assuming she cares for her kids about ten hours a day, seven days a week. (For most mothers of babies under one year of age, it's a lot more time than that.) So that by the time her two oldest kids have passed through babyhood and one of them has also passed through toddlerhood, that mother, according to Malcolm Gladwell's theory, would have become a master at her "craft."

What happens, however, when you only have one child? And what happens after toddlerhood, when the problems you're facing are so different that the experience you've gained in the first three years might not help you that much?

I suppose that part of being a good parent, when you don't have those 10,000 hours under your belt, is realizing and accepting early on how much you don't know, and finding several sources of information to refer to--especially, mothers and fathers who've been through it already. One of Gladwell's main theses in Outliers is that a community of influences shapes successful people--that they are always the products of communities, not just gifted individuals who tried hard. I would say that's equally true for good mothers.

Short-short Post

I said that I would write shorter posts for the next few days, about three days ago. Instead I've been spending more than half an hour each night on these. Tonight I'm going to spend two minutes.

We're finally in for some good weather for the next several days. And my house is finally clean and somewhat well-organized (spent most of today cleaning it up for a mother's group gathering here this afternoon). This Memorial Day weekend will be about enjoying time with family. Minor, minor postings coming up.

Another Reason to Freak Out

In the first chapter of Outliers by the ever-popular Malcolm Gladwell, he describes how children born in the first months of the calendar year tend to have a sizeable advantage when it comes to being chosen for sports teams, or being classified as "gifted" children in their first years at school. The reason is quite simple: as young children, they are significantly older than kids born in, say, October or November. And though the discrepancy in age narrows, obviously, as they get older, by being labelled as gifted or talented early on they are given special boosts that the other kids don't get, and are treated as special. This means that they come to think of themselves as special, and probably try harder because of it, and so on.

When Gladwell examined the rosters of many trophy-winning sports teams (where the cutoff date for age was at the beginning of the calendar year), he found, over and over again, that the majority of players were born in the months January-April. And apparently, studies show that the proportion of students labelled "gifted" who were born in the first part of the year is skewed in a similar fashion.

I cannot help but think: my god, yet another thing to stress about? What do the parents do whose children were born in November and December? (I was spared this one particular source of stress; my son was born in March.)

There are those who say, "talent will out." But the fact is that if someone is talented in a certain arena where the competition is fierce, this little advantage could make a huge difference down the line in whether someone's daughter receives a soccer scholarship to a prestigious university, for instance, or whether someone's son receives the math award in high school that gets him noticed by college recruiters.

There should be a staggered enrollment, with separate classes for students born in January-June and those born in July-December, at least until age ten. It's wrong to compare a five-year-old's performance to those of other five-year-olds who were born eight or nine or ten months earlier. Maybe this particular "revolution" could occur without much bloodshed, because I don't see why many people would be in disagreement with it.

Pre-Preschool Prepping?

I stumbled upon an article this morning by a woman describing how difficult it was to get her son admitted to one of the San Francisco preschools of her choice. She said the admissions process was longer and more rigorous and the refusal rate higher than it was when she and her husband applied to college and law school. And in the end, none of her preferred preschools accepted her child, except one that enrolled him in their summer program but not the rest of the year. Luckily, during that summer the boy managed to convince the preschool that he was worthy of admittance to the regular program; so it wasn't her hard work scoping out different schools, interviewing people and filling out long admission forms that got her son enrolled to one of the top schools, the mother said; it was her son's own charm.

Reading the article sent me into a mini-panic. I haven't done anything to research preschools up to now. I realize that if the good preschools in San Francisco really are that selective, then I have to start the search now...but I'm also thinking, wait a minute. We're talking about preschool here...so I'll start looking but I refuse to get dragged into that mode of thinking which freaks out at the thought that my son won't know his multiplication tables and won't already be reading Lord of the Rings by the time he starts kindergarten.

Hard to Write

Obviously, from what I've written recently, the last couple of days have been difficult. But for reasons of privacy, I don't intend to divulge the details here.

Suffice it to say that it's a bit tough to keep going with these daily postings. To make up for that, I'll keep it short, for the next few days at least.

Being a Mother

Was reminded today, twice, that the mere fact of being a mother does not guarantee greater sensitivity towards other mothers. Mothers have agendas like everyone else. Mothers do not automatically develop a greater capacity for compassion or intuitive thinking; some of them wear "motherhood" like a veil or a crown of thorns, and cannot be reached, in a sense, until they take those off. And for other mothers it's even simpler than that: they were insensitive people before they had a child and nothing magically changed when they gave birth. I do not believe that "motherhood changes you," as I've heard so often. Indeed, what often happens when one is overtired is that one becomes even more oneself (in a negative sense), and mothers spend most of the first several years of motherhood being overtired.

On the other hand...

I was also reminded today, more than twice, that some mothers are wonderfully sensitive towards other mothers; they look in your eyes and without speaking, their look says, "I understand. Are you okay? If you really need me, I'm there for you." And I'm talking about some mothers that I barely know.

Life is funny that way.

Questioning Art

It's been a tough day and admittedly, I'm virtually brainless at this point. But I'll spew out a few words about the "Birth of Impressionism" exhibit, now open at the de Young Museum.

The boy and I went there last Thursday. I bought a family membership the day before for ninety-five dollars, knowing that I would be seeing his one exhibit at least three times; I have no doubt the yearlong membership will be worth it.

And it was a wonderful experience zipping through the exhibit with my son in a baby carrier (something that will be a thing of the past before too long--he weighs almost thirty pounds). We only spent twenty-five minutes looking at the art, and he was just as fascinated by the lights overhead and the circular couches in the middle of the rooms, covered in plush red velour like something one would expect to find in a 19th century artist's salon--but he did point at a Renoir, perhaps the most famous painting in the exhibition (and of course, I forget what it's called), and gurgle something.

I like the de Young--the interior that is, I'm not as enamoured of the dour brown exterior as some San Franciscans seem to be. The exhibit is not huge--but that gives one even more of a sense of dancing through rooms filled with light and life, exploding with color. These paintings are astounding--even if one is bored by the love affair Americans are having with French Impressionism, this has to be granted, after seeing this exhibition. I walked away from the exhibition believing the world is a better place than it really is (something T.E. Lawrence said about listening to Beethoven, I think).

It's true that the Impressionists were considered rebels in their own time--and whether or not they've become as mainstream as, for instance, the next "American Idol" winner--and I think they probably have--seeing an exhibit like this forces one to think about the progression of the visual arts, and all arts, really. Up until the mid-twentieth century, the movement was mostly towards greater abstraction and indeterminacy (a wave which began with the Impressionists). By sometime in the seventies, the field had been broken wide open. All art was accepted and all art was questioned.

Today the pendulum could swing in either direction--realism or abstraction--and it often does, in a single artist's work.

More on all this tomorrow, perhaps.

Contemporary Fiction--Anyone?

I just finished re-reading Alice Randall's Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, and I'm struggling through her latest novel, Rebel Yell. In an earlier post I celebrated Randall as one of the most important American writers alive today (having only read one of her books) and I still believe she's an important writer because of the unusual and significant subjects she tackles and the interesting manner in which she handles them (her lively wit and lyrical style engage me enough to keep going with her, through novels that are repetitive and unfocused in places, and have not much of a sense of structure). But I think this says something negative about the quality of fiction writing today, rather than something dramatically positive about Randall.

We don't have anyone on the level of a Steinbeck or Hemingway or Baldwin among our contemporary writers, in my view...and I don't place Randall in that category, either.

I say that, knowing that my reading of contemporary fiction has not been exhaustive. So I say that hoping to be proven wrong in the near future.

Blogging, Limited

I've just decided that this blog will end on its one-year anniversary, which is, I think, August 5th of this year.

It feels right to limit it in this way. Unless one has a particular political axe to grind (and I do not), endless blogging is an exercise in self-advertising and not much more.

I set myself the challenge of writing something in this blog every day, partly to see if, as a beleaguered new mother, I could be disciplined enough to adhere to a daily writing schedule--however flimsy and limited. I've succeeded at that.

I also wanted, as I indicated yesterday, to keep a blog that celebrated not so much the traditional joys and sorrows of motherhood, but the particular joys and sorrows of being an older mother, as well as the more abstract joys and sorrows experienced by this person who writes, and who happens to be a mother. I've only partially succeeded at that. Hoping for better in the next few months.

Finally, I wanted to keep a daily record of events for my son to have when he turns, say, fifteen or sixteen. He'll see a portion of his life that would have remained much more obscure to him if I hadn't bothered to go through this exercise. In that sense, I've succeeded, but I wonder how it will feel to him to know that I've broadcasted his life in this way. I've tried to keep silent about the more intimate details of our life together, but I don't know that I've always succeeded.

From here on out, the focus will be much more on the random walks--whatever ones we manage to take--and less on the like-wow, how-neat-is-this aspects of motherhood; I'm still hoping to write an atypical mommy blog...though I'm not totally disappointed that the like-wow factor often crept into my writing (after all, being wowed by one's progeny is one of the best things life has to offer).

San Francisco, Foot by Foot

I've attempted to keep the focus, in this blog, on two things: (1) being an older mother, and (2) taking random walks in San Francisco and writing about its more hidden, surprising aspects.

I've done alright with #1 (although recently the focus has been more on motherhood in general, not on being older); as far as #2 goes, in recent weeks I've failed miserably at taking random walks with my son. The reason is, he's walking.

What I mean is--we walk, ever-so-slowly, down a sidewalk, for twenty feet or so--then he's attracted to a pigeon and wants to follow it across a busy street, so I have to pick him up and carry him to whatever park or indoor attraction I've planned to visit. (This happened today.) Yes, we take random walks, but so far, have only managed to walk half a block at a time...and he hates sitting in a stroller these days. I suspect things will improve in this regard--the more he's walking, the more we'll go on longer walks and the more (perhaps) he'll want to sit in a stroller at the end of the day. For right now, though, I have to accept that my ground's-eye view of San Francisco is in half-block increments...maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Windy, Cloudy, Rainy

One of those three words describes just about every day this spring in San Francisco. What am I saying--this spring, stretching back into last fall.

We're really due for some beautiful weather here.

That's all for today--saving myself for the short-short story-writing, which is building steam--eighteen stories completed now.

Planet Baby, Part 2

On the theme of "reclaiming" my life--at a playgroup one of the mothers said her late-afternoon ritual is to put her feet up on the couch and read a book between 5:30 and 6:00 while her son plays at her side; at that time her boy was around fourteen months old. My son is now fourteen months, and I have not been able to incorporate this pleasant ritual into our daily routine. Not from lack of trying; at around 5:30, I'd like nothing better than to kick my feet up and take a break from running after my little man on the go. Today I put in a DVD and told myself I was watching one of my half-hour art lectures (I bought a series of lectures on the history of European art, in case someone missed the earlier post) no matter what. The little one didn't protest; he simply pushed buttons over and over again on the DVD player, fascinated by the fact that he could push buttons and make different things happen. In theory, I could find a way to watch that video even when my toddler's in the room (buy a different shelving unit for the TV and the DVD player, for instance); in practice, I'll probably give up the idea of watching TV between 5:30 and 6:00 and try a book instead. Tomorrow I'm aiming for 2 or 3 pages, at best.

Planet Baby

I'm below-par right now, in terms of energy level, and it's late, so will keep this brief.

I recently reset the backdrop on my computer screen, from the planet Earth as viewed from outer space, to a picture of my son when he was around 8 months old. Something all-too-symbolic about that, of course. "You're officially a mother when you use your son's picture as your screen backdrop," my husband quipped when he saw the photo; but it also symbolizes the fact that my son is now, if not my whole world, then at least, a very significant planet in my solar system...and he's certainly filling up my view-screen, on most days.

I know that this is, to some degree, imbalanced. I also know that if I work out a balance where my son has to recognize that my entire life does not revolve around him, it will be healthier for both of us, in the long run. We've taken baby steps (pardon the pun) in that direction--and he's definitely showing signs of growing independence, for instance, he goes off and reads a book on his own for a few minutes, or wanders away to pick up something in a distant room and bring it to me (this morning it was the lamp off of my desk in the bedroom). I also know, however, that toddlers generally assume that the lives of the people around them do, in fact, revolve around them; and they never stray far from Caregiver #1 (usually Mommy).

On that inconclusive note--must get to bed.

Colds, Unlimited

My toddler has had a cold for the last month and a half. That is, he's had successive waves of colds--at least three, by my estimation--and a cough that hasn't gone away since early April. This morning, when we was coughing and sneezing to beat the band, after having shown some improvement this weekend, I was ready to climb the walls from worry, fatigue and a sense of helplessness.

It's amazing what a little information will do for morale. During this afternoon's visit, the pediatrician told me that on average, children between the ages of one and three years will have one cold a month; after that, they will have around one cold every three months, and by the time they enter kindergarten it's usually down to around one cold every six months. By then their immune system has built up enough antibodies to fight all but the nastiest viruses. She said it was common for babies or toddlers to have coughs lasting weeks or even months. She said his lungs sounded perfectly clear and his ears looked good. She also eased my mind in relation to when I could take him to playgroups and public events--best to wait 48 hours after the start of the cold, and that was more for his overall stamina, not so much for reasons of contagion. (If he had a fever, that would be another story, she said--definitely keep him home then.)

I went home heaving a huge sigh of relief. They should pass on this information, about the frequency of colds in toddlers, to all new and expectant mothers; it's one of those essential yet little-known tidbits of knowledge that could ease a lot of mothers' minds in a big hurry. No, my son is not developing bronchitis or asthma or pneumonia; no, he will not cough forever, or start coughing up blood. No, I'm not a horrible mother because my son has been coughing for so long. And most importantly, he will be healthy again, soon.

She also told me that he's teething--the tops of two molars are poking through, and the molars are notoriously painful when they come in. Which means that we could be in for rough nights for the next two months. But forewarned is forearmed, and I know I can cope.

It's when your car's heading downhill fast and you don't know if it has brakes any more that you can start to lose your mind.

Grouchy but Happy

Today was the Bay to Breakers race. Both my husband and I felt an intense desire to leave the City for the day. I love odd, quirky events, street theater, guerrilla performance art and all that jazz as much as the next Joe Schmo, if it's done with imagination. A big "if." I saw more guys in tutus and girls in tight shorts and t-shirts with "funny" statements on them than I care to remember, as I traversed the City (for unfortunately, I had an event to attend on the other side of town at 1 pm).

San Francisco is losing its pizzazz. Although for the last twenty years or so, the Bay to Breakers hasn't had any pizzazz, so it's not really this one race's fault. The Bay to Breakers is just one symptom of a general illness. The city does not know how to do "quirky" any more. That is, people still attempt to act nonconformist, but end up looking remarkably alike in their supposed nonconformism. I don't know what the cure is--except, a few really good guerrilla performance art companies, like the one I was very briefly involved with in the eighties, Contraband. Done the right way, guerrilla theater can poke holes in the stodgy conformity of any culture, even San Francisco conforming-nonconformist culture.

Since I wasn't prepared to start a guerrilla theater troupe this afternoon, I did make it out of the City with my husband by around 3:30--down to Mountain View's Shoreline Park, where the conformity doesn't pretend to be nonconformist...my fourteen-month-old son was blown about by the wind, but seemed to enjoy himself; and once again, my husband and I contemplated a move south at some point in the distant future.

The only problem is: I still love San Francisco. Despite appearances.

The Mothers, United...

My two older mothers' groups are still going strong; one of them now has more than seventy members. That's an unwieldy size for any sort of playgroup with children involved, obviously, so we've divided into five sub-groups; the one I'm in, mothers over forty with toddlers between 13 and 16 months of age, has had two gatherings so far, in two different San Francisco parks. We appear to be a dynamic bunch of people, with interesting professions (those who are employed) and a lot to say to each other. The value of this sort of group, to any mom with a toddler or a baby, cannot be overestimated.

What I'm thinking now (although I hesitate to say it out loud because it would mean a lot of work, and a kind of work that I'm not exactly in love with), is that these mothers' groups should organize and demand that attention be paid to the atrocious quality of most San Francisco schools. The largest mothers' group in San Francisco is Golden Gate Mother's Group--though it's by no means the only one--and it alone has almost 4,000 members. That really is a political force to be reckoned with. If just thirty percent of them lifted a finger to fight for better quality schools in San Francisco, change (on a small scale, at least) would surely happen.

It's one of those tempting ideas that could suddenly take over one's life, so I'll move forward very cautiously on this one.

Coming Attractions

Met a charming three-year-old girl at a local playground today. (I won't specify as to which one; suffice it to say that it was a nice one.) I was playing hide-and-seek with my son, baby-style; I disappeared from view inside a small plastic structure and said "Where's Mommy?"; he lifted a flap and saw me and giggled. That's a great form of hide-and-seek for the average tired mom, of course; no motion involved for me, oodles of fun for the boy. The three-year-old, a slight girl with a wide-open expression and big, impish grin, started opening a different flap and looking in; I leaned over and said "Hi" to her, in a funny voice, and that was enough to make her beam with pleasure and keep doing it again and again. The next time my roving kid and I were in the structure, she actually popped inside with me and stood in the corner; I poked her gently in the stomach and said "I see you" or something similar, and she responded with a chortle of delight.

"What's your name?" I asked. She said something that was incomprehensible to me; maybe she'd been trained by her parents not to respond with her real name, or maybe that was just her three-year-old pronunciation. A few minutes later I asked how old she was, and I think she said, "Three."

The thing that knocked my socks off wasn't so much her winning smile and easy, friendly manner, although those things were wonderful; it was that moment when my son and I walked past her and she was pretending to take a phone call from someone. She wasn't holding a toy phone or anything of the sort; she was just leaning against a play structure, talking in a very businesslike way into an imaginary telephone.

It reminded me of how much I love that age in children. Their imaginations take flight at any moment; they are in love with the world in a way that only three and four-year-olds can love it.

However, the downside is the degree of loneliness and fear they can experience at any moment...precisely because their hearts and imaginations are so huge, especially when compared to their ability to process information, they are vulnerable. This little girl suddenly told me in a whisper, and not in response to any question I'd asked, "I want to go home." I looked over at the silent person sitting on a bench, presumably her caregiver, who never said a word to her or even smiled the entire hour or so that we were there. "My mommy's waiting for me at home," the little girl continued, her voice sad, or at least, wistful. I can't know exactly what she meant--was she expressing a wishful thought, i.e. she wanted her mom to come home from work early; or was it true and for some inexplicable reason she was forced to remain with this unsympathetic person for the time being?

I'll never know. But that little girl reminded me, not just how much I love that age; she reminded me how incredibly precious our little girls and boys are--not just my son, or my friends' sons and daughters, but all these miraculous beings that we pass on all the playgrounds.

Mediocre Schools

I wrote earlier in this blog about the ridiculously high cost of preschools in San Francisco. Today I reviewed the achievement statistics for San Francisco schools, at least, the public schools; they were ridiculously low, with only a few exceptions.

San Francisco is, by and large, a city of rich people, at least when compared with the rest of the country. Why are the public schools performing at such a sub-par level? The only answers I can think of: most of the rich are sending their kids to private schools or are finagling their way into the best public schools. I also believe that a large percentage of the rich that live here do not have school-age children; at least anecdotally, a large percentage of those that do end up leaving San Francisco and heading south or north, to Marin or Palo Alto or Los Gatos, when their children reach the age of four or five. So the quality of San Francisco schools remains mediocre and no one raises much of a fuss about it.

I don't profess to be more noble than the rest of the population. We might choose to move south. It's hard to say at this point. But even if we do--the basic problem is there, stretching out like an ash cloud over my son's future. For it will be a future in which the United States is, more and more and more, a country of have-everythings and have-nothings. And the violent society this will help foster will impact every single one of us. I can't hide from that ugly fact by moving my son out of San Francisco, or moving my son into a private school within the city's borders.

Passion, Unlimited

We've been, the husband and I, talking to our 13-year-old (my stepdaughter, his daughter) about the importance of developing a passion for some particular endeavor, then pursuing it with great energy. It's important for her to hear this...but also, perhaps, a bit intimidating for her. She's more of a generalist at this point...and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way at all.

What I think I want to tell her, the next time we have one of these "little talks" about life, is: Don't worry right now if you still like to do a lot of things...but it's important to do all of them with passion. To explore with passion. My son, like most toddlers, has a knack for this. I've learned something by watching him play. His latest passion is to point to the letter "z" on one of his blocks in the living room, then march over to the alphabet I've posted on the dining room wall and touch the letter "z," while emitting a shout of delight. He's in love with the alphabet...and with the connections that he's suddenly making.

What else did I try to do as a graduate student, but attempt to make connections--and to pursue those connections with a passion? I'm not sure I succeeded--in other words, I'm not sure that the connections I pursued were all that worthwhile; but that's beside the point. When I finished my thesis, all I could think about was "Now I finally have time to write--anything I want." And though my parents' illnesses then the birth of my child postponed the fulfillment of that passion, I'm sure now that it will be fulfilled, one way or another.

The best gift we can give our children, perhaps, is an understanding of the importance of passion--not blind passion, of course, but something much more exciting and rewarding.

Excitement, Limited

Almost every time my little one is particularly excited in the evening, he has also crashed, literally--falling in some minor way or having some other mishap. Usually it's not serious at all; a couple times, he's cut his lip or gums (though not so badly as to require a trip to the emergency room, thank goodness). Tonight was the second one of those two times. He cut his lip falling in the kitchen, not badly at all--the bleeding stopped in a few minutes; but it's never enjoyable to see the front of a toddler's mouth covered in blood.

At these times, it becomes painfully obvious that any parents worth their salt need to learn how to rein in a child's wilder mood swings...it's easier said than done of course, especially where a toddler is concerned. And to some extent, toddlers have to fall, in order to learn how to control themselves. But the parent has to make sure, at a minimum, that those life lessons are only moderately harsh.

If I knew the perfect formula for allowing just enough freedom and providing just enough in the way of protection and restraints, I guess I would be marketing that right now. I don't. I just walk away from a day like today thinking: I have to, have to, find a better balance for my own kid.

Upper Noe Blues

Today the little guy and I went to the poshest play area I've yet encountered in San Francisco--the Upper Noe Recreation Center. The playground has thick padding on every play surface except the sandbox (not like the tanbark and cement from my childhood) and it also features an indoor tot playspace, open 3 to 4 Mondays and 3 to 5 Tuesdays through Fridays. We missed getting into the indoor area today because it was Monday after 4, but peeking through the window, it looked enticing.

The boy wasn't feeling up to par, however--even on the swings, he was staring into space for much of the time; and he started crying almost immediately when he fell on his side on the spongy surface of the outdoor play area, even though it really wasn't much of a fall. His big thrill was opening and closing the large metal gate--but every time I pulled him away from that activity, he kicked his feet and almost screamed in protest. He'd missed his afternoon nap, for a couple different reasons; but I don't think that explains it entirely. When we got home, his mood rapidly improved, and he was fine again after dinner.

I think there are certain days when we assume the tots need to run around outside, and our assumption is just wrong. It was cold and windy in San Francisco today; my son probably felt like staying at home, moving chairs around and rearranging books on every accessible bookshelf.

Mother's Day, Revisited

I think I did celebrate Mother's Day last year, but I have no memory of it. Too sleep-deprived, no doubt...I probably celebrated it with a bubble bath and a prayer that things would be easier by Mother's Day the following year.

And they are; there's no question that they are. At this point, it's not quite so much about survival as it is about balancing each day with enough activities to keep my son occupied and entertained, and enough down-time for Mommy to keep her from losing her marbles. And though I'm getting closer to a good balance, I can't say that I've got things completely worked out yet.

But I don't want to sound like one of these contemporary "getting things done" efficiency gurus. My son is my real Mother's Day present, let's face it.

One More for Sandra

I haven't rented Sandra Bullock movies as I intended to after the Oscars...I haven't seen Speed, or any other film she's done besides Crash. But as I said before, I admired her Oscar speech this year, I admire the fact that she speaks fluent German, and I admire her gutsiness. And now I definitely admire, not so much the fact that she adopted a black baby from New Orleans--any celebrity could have done that; I admire the way that she's handled it so far.

Somehow she kept the whole thing under wraps until just recently. I think she did it by spending a lot of time focused on her baby and not on anything else (including the sordid details of her husband's adulterous lifestyle). As we're both 45 and new moms, I feel a certain kinship with her; I know that she could hire an entourage of nannies and helpers, but it doesn't seem like she's chosen to do so. In her Oscars speech she spoke movingly about her own mother; she has a tough road ahead of her just coping with being a single mom and handling all the stresses that are bound to come up in relation to her adoption; but she seems to be made of a resilient fiber that will weather the storms; and based on those photographs of her baby in People magazine, I'll bet he is, too.

And though any celebrity could have done what she did, the fact is that no major white celebrity has ever adopted a black baby from this country. That says something about us as a culture, I think.

Perhaps the day that we become a truly multicultural society is the day when all our children are loved equally.

Whiskey and Milanos

Terrible to admit it, but there are those days when I am simply counting the hours until my son goes to bed, and this was one of them. It's not that he was especially bad today; it's just that I woke up tired and never got my wind back. And with fatigue came some gloomy thoughts about how my life is disappearing into a long dark tunnel lined with diapers, mucus and pureed prunes, and echoing with the music of "Wheels on the Bus."

Right now I'm eating Pepperidge Farm Milano double chocolate cookies and drinking Glenfiddich, and somehow, things are looking brighter. (I've broken two of my rules for the blog with this post--never whine about my personal life and never advertise any brand names whatsoever. So be it.)

Modernism, Again

Completed the tenth short-short story today. The brevity, the intensity of saying something in one or two pages means that the basic situation has to be explained in about one paragraph. I think I'm managing to do that, although I don't really know yet. The stories have to sit for a few months, then I'll read them over.

I'm also attempting to suggest an entire world without actually describing it. That's Hemingway's old trick--or he tried for that in some of his stories, with mixed results. I think it works well in The Sun Also Rises, less well in some of his writing. It also works excellently in In Our Time and A Moveable Feast.

Hemingway is a problematic figure for many contemporary writers, because he seems to have been such a nasty person at times. I can't speak with any authority about that. All I can say is that he and Joyce (and/or Proust) serve as bookends for a particular era in fiction writing, where Joyce is the macro view and Hemingway is the micro. What I mean is that Hemingway is all about interiors and internal suffering, and Joyce is all about interactions between people. Joyce's universe is well-populated, whereas Hemingway's characters always live in the desert (in a psychological sense).

I love this era (modernism) for encompassing and comprehending two such disparate writers (not to mention Woolf, Stein, Beckett and so forth); the richness of that era for fiction is startling when one considers the paucity of excellence in our own period...but it's late and I need to continue this rant some other time.

Freedom and Family

Following up on yesterday's post--I do see my son chafing against some of my rules and restrictions: not playing with the utensil holder in the dishwasher, for instance, or not touching the electronic control buttons for the oven--whenever he does those things, I tell him "No," unequivocally, pick him up, and put him down on the rug in the corner. What surprises me is his reaction--he knows so clearly that he did something wrong that he waves his hands in the air and cries out in a special way. This is very recent behavior. While he's chafing against those restrictions, I think he's also, in a strange way, expecting me to do something about his transgressions--expecting me to hold him back, even. And whenever I can, I catch him before he's actually touched the utensils or the button on the oven, look at him and shake my finger--and he usually walks away. When that happens I try to lavish him with praise.

I guess I'm surprised that even at his age, discipline is such an important element of our relationship, and that he often reacts so favorably to it. But I have learned that it's also very important not to keep saying "No" all the time--to find more creative and positive ways to handle problem behaviors, whenever possible. I'm more convinced than ever that at any age, a child will soak up as much love as you can give them, even when it comes in the form of some firm (but mostly positive) discipline.

Toddlerhood and Adolescence

One of my books on raising toddlers talks about the similarity between that age and adolescence: at both ages, the child is desperate for independence and chafes vigorously against the constraints imposed by parents while at the same time, he or she needs constant reassurance that they are there to offer guidance and love when needed. Which makes the relationship between child and parent especially ambivalent at these times.

We have both a toddler and an adolescent in the house...ambivalence squared. But we're soldiering on.

Moms, Electrons

I've been so immersed in mommies, playgroups and playgroup organizing lately that when I was at a playground this afternoon with my son, and found myself sitting near a couple other mothers while my son played in the sand, I had no desire whatsoever to strike up a conversation with them. It was more like an encounter between electrons, I must admit: I don't think these fatigued-looking mommies wanted to talk to me, either. We all probably would have said yes to taking a bubble bath, however. Though not necessarily in the same tub.

Sunday Evening 9:30 pm

I've organized two separate mother/baby playgroups now--one a behemoth with 68 members and counting, the other a manageable 7 mothers and their babies/toddlers. As mentioned recently, the first group threatens to eat up far too much of my personal time, although I've recently divided it up into five smaller groups and have arranged for other moms to lead four of those groups.

What's also happening is--my mind has become far too focused on all things mommy-related. The very thing that I started this blog to help prevent seems to be happening, in spades.

This afternoon, thanks to my husband, I did manage to sit in front of a computer for forty-five minutes and write (a short-short story)...it felt wonderful.

I need to get back to that--every day, during nap times if possible. And right now, I need to be with my husband.

The Scary Part

So many things about being a mother of an almost-14-month-old are wonderful. And yet...sometimes I catch myself counting the months. "14 months...16 more months to go." 16 more months until I'll have a whole morning to myself, 5 days a week (that's when I plan to enroll him in a daycare for three or four hours a day).

The scary part is, sometimes I wonder if I'll have the stamina to survive and properly take care of him until then. It sounds pathetic, in that I have a wonderful husband, as well as an extremely competent babysitter who takes care of him for three hours once a week. And my son's getting better, a little better, at entertaining himself for short stretches of time. But there's no getting around it--keeping up with an active, hefty one-year-old is hard physical labor.

And I'm probably more tired than I've been in a while. I haven't been good about napping or resting when he takes his naps, recently...nor have I been getting to bed early enough. Just a little bit less sleep, and I fear that I'll make a mistake that I'll always regret; I know that it takes just a few seconds of misjudgment on a parent's part for an accident to happen.

And yet--I also know that it's wrong to think this way. It's wrong to keep thinking about the scary parts.