Who is the source of stress here?

Sometimes I think I should rename this blog 'fumbling through motherhood'....I've spent many an hour racking my brains over the source of my child's meltdowns in the morning on the days I go to work and every night when I make dinner. They began around 12 months old and now, at 29 months continue on a mostly daily basis.

I know some of it is fatigue and hunger and some is the stress of being away from me or the prospect of being away from me. I've tried just about everything to solve the issue - given my undivided attention upon returning home for 10-15 minutes, put on Sesame Street, created art projects to be done 3 feet away from me, put on music, read books in between chopping vegetables, yelled, ignored, given time outs. Nothing has made a difference.

In the last week I decided it was time to return with a serious bent to my yoga and meditation practice. I've been so aware of how off-kilter I've felt since the beginning of the year. Frankly, I find myself miserable to live with, I can't even imagine how the other two people in this house can deal with it.

So, I've gotten up between 5:45 and 6am and tiptoed downstairs where I've done 45 minutes of yoga, 5 minutes of breath practice and 5 or 10 minutes of meditation. What I've noticed is a marked change in my sense of balance. I feel better. I feel like Sarah on a good day.

In my meditation I often visualize sitting on the dock at the Eckel's Camp, a place I would go swimming with my grandparents as a child. It is probably the place that I most equate with happiness and safety. My time there, usually with my grandparents, was filled with nothing but joy. Now, when I close my eyes, I can feel, see and smell the surroundings - cool pine needles crunching as I step on them. The weathered wood of the dock that is warmed by the sun. The sound of the water lapping against the shore. The feel of the vinyl seats in my grandparents subaru.

The person that I most wish I could talk with about my role as a mother is my grandmother. A person, who, it seems, had endless patience and the deepest well of happiness I've ever known. I so wish I could travel back in time, staying the age I am now, but being with her when she was 65 or 70 so we could talk about just how she did it.

So, in my meditation I imagine she is sitting with me on the dock, holding my hand. I can so clearly evoke the feel of her hands, the texture of their skin, the spots that peppered their backs and the smell of her paquin hand cream. I try to allow myself to feel the same sense of patience that I always perceived she had.

What I've found is that the first few times I did it, I just dissolved in tears and sat a wept as I (tried to) meditated. Now, I can feel a sense of peace as I sit with her.

The most interesting thing is that in these days when I have felt more balanced, my child has not had the meltdowns. Yesterday she was meltdown free. This morning, when she asked me if it was a mommy-ella day and I said, no it was an ella and friends day, she said a small 'oh' and then brightly 'ella and friends! yay!' I dropped her at daycare with nary a tear.

So, is her behavior her or me? Was I looking to the wrong source for the meltdowns? It will be interesting to see how things proceed. If I keep up my practice will her behavior be better because she senses mommy is more even keel? I'm sure there'll be hiccups and some meltdowns are inevitable, but if nothing else, maybe this practice can help me to respond better when they happen. That alone makes it worth it.

One of those weeks

You ever have one of those weeks where it feels like one more thing will just be the straw that breaks the camel's back....and then that one more thing happens?

I'm there. This week I sat down to do some back of the envelope calculations about next year's daycare costs vs. what I am likely to earn teaching...yeah, so that leaves us $4K in the hole from daycare alone, let alone my salary not contributing anything to cover other household costs. That's just depressing. I am not someone who wants to be home full-time with kiddos, but I can't say that I can justify putting them in daycare to lose money so I can do a job that I'm not so thrilled with either.

Then, we have a major family event in the works with my father-in-law's parkinsons which has taken a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse. Over the course of a few weeks he has gone from fairly functional, living a regular life, to hospitalized and now in rehab and unlikely to be able to come home - can't walk, feed himself or even, it seems, think straight anymore. I so feel for my mother-in-law. Her first husband died of cancer in his 50's and I don't think, when she remarried 10 years ago, she ever thought this marriage would also ask so much of her. She is a young 72 with a lot of life left in her (her own mother is still alive at 103) So we are all feeling overwhelmed and sad for both of them.

Now, here I am home for the day and waiting for our final windows to be installed. We decided to have two in-wall, ancient air conditioners removed and replaced with picture windows. The one upstairs went fine. Downstairs brought with it rotted wall studs, a colony of carpenter ants and damage to the major, lower support beam that is holding up the addition of the house. A fair portion of the back of the house is now ripped off and I'm hoping it is all put back together before the end of the day. Somehow this was missed on the inspection so we're stuck with dealing with it and paying for it.

And there you have it, a lot of stuff all at once in life. I guess that's the way life goes. Good stuff can be hard and bad stuff can be hard. Things always work out and everything comes to some kind of resolution whether it is a new baby entering the world and jobs changing, a life leaving the world or renovations you weren't intending to do needing to be done.

March on.