Category Archives: guilt

May 1, 2012 · 4:32 pm

Books, Goals, Guilt, and Gratitude

Shopping at amazon.com is too easy.  They don’t even put me through the hassle of entering the last four digits of the credit card I have on file (believe it or not, I don’t have it memorized).  I just click a few times, the order is placed, and as long as I spend twenty-five dollars (e-a-s-y), the shipping is free.

What did I buy this time?  Books. I bought “Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood” by Anne Enright and “Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, The Bad and the Scary” by Jill Smokler.  I purchased both books for opposition research (ha!).  I’d like to write a book about motherhood, too, so it makes sense to see what others in the field are doing.

I read an interview online with Anne Enright and then read an excerpt from her book, which made me want to weep (happy weeping) because her writing is so brilliant and honest.  Jill Smokler is a mom who started a blog, built a brand and then wrote a book.  Now she’s buying cute book tour outfits, doing the morning talk show circuit, and probably shopping around Hollywood for a movie deal.  I’m sure she’s really nice and a great mom, but I kinda hate her.    (Jealous Mama alert!)  I just hope if there’s room in the world for a Scary Mommy, then there’s room for a Runaway Mama, too.

Just so you know, I bought both of these books in hardcover.  This Shopaholic Mama wasn’t going to wait around for paperback, and the Kindle versions weren’t much cheaper.  Lately, I’ve been reading books the old-fashioned way.  I still love the way a book feels in my hands, and besides that, my Kindle is getting old and I want a new one.  (Mike, if you’re reading, Mother’s Day is just around the corner.)

Here are the other books piled on my desk and bedside table just waiting for a lazy, rainy, kid-free, dish-free, laundry-free, blog-free day (i.e. never):

“How To Get Your Kid To Eat…But Not Too Much” by Ellyn Satter.  This book had promise until page four.  In talking about a young child’s early food experiences, Satter wrote:

“Very few adults would be willing to deliberately do something that would hurt a child’s feelings or lower her self esteem.  But that happens all the time in feeding.  It happens because adults have their own hangups about eating and play them out in the way they feed their children.” 

That was as far as I got with that book.  Go ahead, tell me I didn’t give it a chance, but I think I’m smart enough to know that I’ve reached the maximum limit of guilt that one Mama can handle.  Reading that passage brought me straight back to the baby food aisle where I would buy 20-30 jars of Earth’s Best baby food per week and subject Dylan to pureed spaghetti with cheese or vegetable beef pilaf.  He hated all of it, but I was a New and Isolated Mama, and I didn’t know what or how else to feed him.

“The Magician’s Assistant” and “The Patron Saint of Liars,” both by Ann Patchett.  My friend Colby, who works in publishing, sent me these books after a conversation we had about Patchett’s “Bel Canto,” which is one of the best books I’ve ever read.  I started “The Magician’s Assistant” a few months ago and it’s wonderful, but I got sidetracked by, well, motherhood.

“The Weird Sisters” by Eleanor Brown.  I don’t know much about this book, but I kept hearing about in the blogosphere, and I succumbed during a fierce shopaholic moment in Barnes and Noble.  I love buying books as much as I love buying $58 t-shirts at Anthropologie.  I’m not sure when I’ll read it.  Maybe after Riley goes to college.  That will be around 2027.

“Raising A Sensory Smart Child” by Lindsey Biel and Nancy Peske and “No Longer A Secret: Unique Common Sense Strategies for Children with Sensory Motor Challenges” by Doreit S. Bailer and Lucy Jane Miller.  Every time Dylan’s OT recommends a book, I buy it immediately.  Doing so gives me a sense of control over a situation of which I have none.  This is what happens when I try reading these books: (1) I get confused because sensory processing disorder is so freakin’ complicated and intangible to me, and (2) I cry.  I have a lot of guilt – still – about not diagnosing Dylan sooner. My sanity and emotional well-being depends on these books’ indexes occasionally being browsed but their pages rarely being read.

“The Space Between Us” by Thrity Umrigar.  I started reading this gem of a book because it was chosen for my next book club meeting.  I’m enjoying it every time I have a few minutes to read a few pages, but I have no babysitter the night of book club, so this one, unfortunately, might join the Ann Patchett books and “The Weird Sisters” and be read in about 15 years.

There are at least a dozen more books stacked on the lower shelf of my bedside table, but those are so far down on the queue that I’m not going to write about them (or think about them or look at them).  In fact, my 2012 gratitude journal is strategically resting on top of them.  That’s been gathering some dust lately, too.  Shit. Or, as I try to say around the kids, sugar snaps.

April 5, 2012 – I’m grateful for the abundance of books in my life…whether I read them or not.  I’m also grateful I had the chance to give two large bags of children’s books to my cleaning lady who is going to give them to her church. (ß Paying it forward!)

What books have you bought, read, not read, hid and or given away recently?

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Filed under books, food issues, gratitude, guilt, Jealous Mama, jealousy, sensory processing disorder, Shopaholic Mama, shopping

February 23, 2012 · 11:01 pm

Prepositions

Sometimes Dylan mixes up his prepositions when he talks.  For instance, he’ll say, “Mommy, are you happy at me?”  What he means is, “Mommy, are you happy with me?”  He usually says this after he’s gotten into trouble and wants my approval.

Here’s another one.  “I’m tired from doing this.”  What he means is, “I’m tired of doing this.”  He says this when he’s feeling lazy and doesn’t want to do stuff like put on his socks and shoes, practice his writing, or take a bath.

“Dylan talk” is endearing, but Mike and I are trying to put more effort into correcting him, which isn’t easy.  Another thing Dylan says a lot is, “Stop teaching me.”

Last night at dinner, he proved he’s been listening.

At least a few nights a week, I make a family dinner for the boys and me (Mike works too late to participate).  It’s an attempt to get them to eat dinner at the table instead of in front of the television or Xbox and an effort to get them to try new food.

My strategy with family dinner is simple.  I put a variety of new (hard) and friendly (easy) foods on the table and the boys can choose to eat or not eat whatever they want.  There’s no pressure, but they know there’s a reward for trying something new.  I even dimmed the lights and lit a candle for last night’s meal!  The menu included:

Macaroni & cheese

Chicken nuggets (two kinds)

Carrot sticks & hummus

Apple slices

French fries with ketchup and ranch for dipping

Yogurt covered pretzels

Yogurt squeezers

I know what you’re thinking: These are all friendly, kid foods!  Not in my house, my friends.  Riley sat down and began grazing immediately.  He ate some hummus, apples, chicken, and yogurt.  It wasn’t a big portion, but he tried a few different things. Conversely, Dylan pushed everything as far away from his plate as he could. Next, he smelled the macaroni & cheese with suspicion because I cooked a different shaped pasta than he usually eats (different pasta, same cheese sauce), and then he left the table.  He walked out on family dinner.

I’ve done a lot of reading on sensory issues and picky eating, and one thing I read time and time again is toavoid conflict at meal time.  It elevates anxiety and makes it even harder for a child try something new or eat at all.  As much as I wanted to force him to come back to the table (or lock him in a closet*), I kept my mouth shut.  Then I heard this from the other room:  “Mommy, I’m tired of you.”

Ouch.  What he meant was, “I’m tired of you trying to get me to eat new food.”  Ask anyone who knows me well and they’ll tell you how much I love and live for my kids, how heartbreaking it is to me that my child’s diet is so limited, and how desperately I want to help him overcome the physical and behavioral challenges that are keeping him from enjoying food.

As I sat at the kitchen table thinking about what just occurred and wondering what the hell to do next,  it occurred to me that although his words stung, at least he got the preposition right.

Riley, on the other hand, needs some coaching.  He got up from the table next, and as he left the room, a mischievous smile spread a across his face and he said, “Mommy, I’m tired from you.”  Thanks, Riley.  I’m tired, too.

p.s. Two hours later, Dylan tried the “new” macaroni and cheese, and after all the drama, he declared, “I love it.”  Was it a food victory?  Yes, but the path we took to get there didn’t feel victorious at all.

*Dear new readers, I would never actually lock my kids in a closet.   Or hurl them out a window or strangle them with floss.  (I may have written about these unpleasant thoughts in previous posts).  It’s just my way of expressing the emotions that some many all Mamas feel.  Don’t worry, I almost always feel guilty as soon as I say it.

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Filed under family dinner, food issues, guilt