name: Maria Bergius Krämer

age: 35

current city: Malmö, Sweden

living situation: I am married with one child, a daughter born in October of 2003.

occupation: Priest in the Church of Sweden

how do you structure your time and space? Both my husband and I work full time, but since my husband is a teacher, his days are shorter and less weird than mine are. I usually take our daughter to school, and he picks her up. In general, he is the primary parent. He is gone way less than I am, has shorter days (almost no evening work) and does not work on the weekends.

Our daughter also is enrolled in the after school program, since school ends at 1:00 p.m. She is picked up at 4:00. Sweden subsidizes this heavily. During her life we have never had to pay more than 150 dollars a month for daycare or kindergarten.

We have always been careful to give each other “own-time”. We see a lot of friends and do things together, but also make sure that both of us spend time on things we enjoy on our own. For example: I am off on Fridays, and even though the personnel at the daycare clearly state that when a parent is off, the child should be too, I have always claimed that time as reading/studying time, and let her be at the daycare center that day. On these days, I tend to pick her up a little earlier, but still. She is happy with her friends, and I get my space.

Since our daughter was four months old, we have always made sure that she is okay with being looked after by others, as long as the evening routine is observed. This has given us opportunities to go out to see movies, et cetera.

Regarding our space, we live in a small apartment right in the center of the city in a bohemian, multi-cultural neighborhood. We moved here when our daughter was four. It was a deliberate choice. Before, we lived in a big suburban semi-attached house with a garden. For many, that must be the ideal place to bring a child up, but not for us. We disliked the commute, which forced us to buy a car; we disliked being away from friends; and most of all, we disliked living somewhere where our child would only encounter one kind of people – semi-affluent ethnic Swedes. So we moved, and living here we are so close to everything that we do not need the car anymore. Our daughter sees different ethnicities every day, plays with friends from Lebanon and Bosnia, and we have a 24-hour pharmacy right around the corner. We had to throw away lots and lots of things to fit into our three-room apartment, but it works, and we are happy here.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? This was a tricky one. Our daughter is becoming quite independent. They say that six-and-a-half-year-olds are mini teens, and that is very true. She argues with us, and rolls her eyes and stomps away, but at the same time, she is super inquisitive, helpful, and sweet. I would say I am still in the spring of motherhood. There are new things to be discovered every day, new growth and development. We do creative things, bike all over town, shop, and laugh a lot.

But to be sure, challenges abound too. I think I, along with most mothers, carry a lot of guilt for not spending enough time with our children. And yet, there has to be balance. There are mothers who find fulfilment in spending all of their waking hours (and some of the sleeping ones too) with their children, but I am not like that. And she is not like that either. It is difficult finding your own way when it clashes with many expectations and ideas about what is right. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? We have led a harmonious and peaceful life for quite some time. We found our places and roles after a period of winter, the long and difficult first three months of our daughter’s life. It was difficult getting used to being parents, and she was always ill. Never seriously, just constantly sniffling and coughing and unhappy. But it all changed. Provocatively enough for some, it changed when we stopped breast feeding and taught little baby to sleep through the night in her own bed. I know this is not for everyone, but it saved us.

-what season(s) might your future hold? I look forward to a lot of things. There will be stormy times and peaceful times. Our daughter will alienate herself and hopefully come back. It is all meant to be. I hope there will be a summer, a beautiful season when growth is not as explosive and turbulent as during spring, when there is time for conversation and relaxation and sipping lemonade in the shade. When she is old enough to enjoy being with us just because it is us, not because she has to.

And yes, I look forward to the autumn of motherhood too. Sometimes my daughter claims that she does not want children, and I hope she changes her mind. Whomever she meets in the future, I hope that person will love her as much as I do and give her security and fun and adventure and tenderness.

favorite family activities: We do a lot of creative things together. One day we build a tee pee for our daughter’s barbie dolls. another day, she and I make bead necklaces. The next day she wants our help with the bow and arrow she is making, and we often go to a couple of friends’ houses to play and have dinner. We live a very social life with friends visiting often. We play board games and go to the park.

favorite solo activities: When I am alone, I leave the house to walk the city. I go in and out of stores, gathering inspiration more than shopping, and I sit at cafés and watch people. At night, I am usually found in front of the computer, chatting with friends and reading blogs. Or my husband and I sit in our corners on the couch and read books, every now and then sharing something interesting, while drinking tea.

source(s) of inspiration: I draw inspiration for motherhood from friends, my mother, and the Swedish controversial mothering guru Anna Wahlgren. She is very outspoken, and sometimes I cringe when I read her books, but in many ways we have found that her advice has been sound and helpful.

best MakeShift moment: Sometimes, being a priest puts a lot of strain on families like mine that come from non-churchy backgrounds. It is difficult for our families to understand why I have to work each Christmas and Easter. We, too, want to spend that time together as much as possible, which has caused some interesting solutions to be worked out. One year, when I had enlisted my husband to be a reader in the Christmas midnight mass, we had our daughter sleeping in the vestry (priestly wardrobe). The year after, during the Easter vigil, she slept while we carried her from home, to my office, to the church and all through the vigil (where the organ played at it’s loudest and bells were ringing), and from the service to the Easter party afterwards. She was still asleep when we put her to bed at two in the morning, and had no recollection of it at all the day after. The things poor pastors’ kids are put through! *smiles*

find maria on the web:

• priest girl: http://prastflickan.blogspot.com/
• priest girls’ sermons and stories: http://prastflickealster.blogspot.com/
• clergy chicks traveling blog: http://clergychicksatraveling.blogspot.com/

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

i was sitting in a marriage and family therapy class a few years ago when my professor handed out a rollins and feldman  graph entitled marriage satisfaction across the family life cycle.

the graph we saw in class, which was a more detailed version of the one above, showed that marital satisfaction is at an impressive high for newlyweds. satisfaction steadily decreases when children hit the scene and begins to rise again at the point when the children launch.

the members of our class were indignant. most of us were parents whose children were still at home. “we’re happy!” we protested defensively. “our marriages are satisfying!” we argued.

yesterday, i read this recent new york magazine article entitled all joy and no fun: why parents hate parenting. sited in it are a number of studies like that of rollins and feldman that examine the stress that children bring to marriages. but the article examines many similar studies that essentially assert that parenting diminishes happiness for individuals too. in other words,

“as a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns.”

author jennifer senior proposes a number of potential reasons for the inverse relationship between parenting and happiness. one is that along with children come dramatic and momentary shifts between intense joy and intense frustration. another is that while parents love our children, perhaps we are not so in love with the day-to-day tasks of parenting. another is that our country’s less-than-stellar childcare and family leave provisions contribute to parents’ worry. and finally, perhaps the most comically stated reason is that “[children] are a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit.”

i cannot deny that there is spark of truth in the above musings. motherhood is not all snuggles and tender i love you’s. in the time that it has taken me to write this post, for example, my children have:

• argued over a harmonica
• drawn all over themselves with brown marker
• face planted into a cardboard playhouse (the bird)
• systematically spread my fabric collection all over the house (the monkey), and
• taken all of their clothes off.

but still, i really do love my life. i do not think i am in denial. i just think that there is more to life than day-do-day happiness. apparently, i am in good company. daniel gilbert, a harvard psychologist who is also a father and grandfather, asserts that “what children really do is offer moments of transcendence, not an overall improvement in well-being.”

sociologists kei nomaguchi and melissa milkie studied the costs and rewards of parenting and concluded that mothers are often less depressed after having children. like gilbert, nomaguchi and milkie “sought to understand not just the moment-to-moment moods of [their] participants, but more existential matters, like how connected they felt, and how motivated.”

perhaps many studies on the impact of children on marital and personal satisfaction yield such dismal results because the kind of rewards that come with parenting, like most things that are unspeakably beautiful and important, cannot be easily described, categorized, and charted. but i relish the transcendent, existential meaning that my children have helped me to recognize. and to share this experience with my husband is something that i truly cherish.

we may argue over whose turn it is to read llama llama red pajama to the monkey for the five millionth time but even as we do this, we know that we are participating in some sort of divine mystery. we are tapping into something that is bigger than we are. we have lost much of our free time, it’s true. but we have traded it for a fierce and boundless love.

ode to silly bands:a tragic misuse of iambic pentameter

 they are but rubber rings of glee displayed

on  sweaty preschool children’s legs and arms.

each birthday party’s now a place to  trade,

a golden sun for an emerald lucky charm.

“you’ve let them plunge headlong into this trend?”

said a friend to me with much disdain and gall,

that my children’s elbows no longer bend

and no pink skin peeks through the loops at all.

so as to keep this killjoy grump at bay

i didn’t speak the merits of the strands:

fine motor work and interactive play

employed to chain and share those silly bands.

what’s not to like about this market niche?

but that i’m not the one who’s getting rich!

first name: Jenn

age: 32

current city: Chicago

living situation: I live with my husband, Tom, our one-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and our six-year-old pooch, Rowdy, in the neighborhood of Logan Square. Despite the smaller square footage that is often inevitable in urban living, we have loved starting our family in the city and I will continue to maximize every square inch of our condo (you’re welcome, Container Store) so that we can raise Elizabeth as a city-dweller.

occupation: first grade teacher

how do you structure your time and space? Sometimes it feels like I’m “juggling” time and space instead of “structuring” them. My husband’s work schedule changes week to week, which created quite the juggernaut when it came to finding childcare. After countless phone calls, emails, and conversations that ended with “this just doesn’t seem to suit our needs, thank you for your time,” I scoured our neighborhood parent email list for any insights. This led us to a small, cheerful, and cozy daycare that is not only two blocks away, but also totally flexible and responsive to our crazy scheduling needs. The daycare has been an absolute lifesaver, and I love knowing that Elizabeth is already part of a little community of kids (that’s the teacher in me).

Because I am a teacher of young children, my work days are pretty much saturated with the needs, quirks, and personalities of kids, so I am very careful to handle all student-related issues at work (or on the bus on the way home – I begrudgingly decided that adding my work email to my phone can make my commute productive) so that I can focus on the needs of my own child when I’m home.

At home, my husband and I have made sure to keep Elizabeth’s bedtime consistent and the bedtime ritual short and sweet so that we can have time to actually sit down to dinner together after she’s in bed. I love this time of day. It’s our chance to have face-to-face talks and just unwind after a busy day of working and parenting.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? First of all, it’s always dangerous to ask a Chicagoan anything that pertains to weather! That said, a clear blue sky shines outside my window and the flowers in my pots on the balcony are blooming like crazy, so I’ll choose to forget that I live in a city where winter’s grip can be paralyzing.

Today’s blue sky is perfect for where I am in my life these days. I’m off work, enjoying so many little moments with Elizabeth: her first steps; her symphony of babbles, coos, and first words; and the unbridled excitement with which she greets each day. This is like having another maternity leave, although this time it’s with a baby who is, to be completely honest, so much more fun than she was during my actual maternity leave (plus, this time I’m not fretting away about milk supply or frantically calculating how much sleep I might get if I go to bed right now). I love having the time to take long walks with my husband, Elizabeth, and our dog; opportunities for extended coffee & cocktail dates with friends; and time to hit the gym on a regular basis. The only challenge of this season is knowing that it will end!

-what season(s) preceded this one? During the months right before and immediately after Elizabeth’s birth, I was in a holding pattern for a while: straddling those last cold, dark days of winter and the early blossoming of spring’s promise. When I was six months pregnant, my youngest brother, Will, died in a car accident. He was only 19. The shock, the sadness, and the emptiness took my breath away over and over again. Will died in late March, just when winter was ending, but it felt like winter was all around me, despite Mother Nature’s signs. It turns out that Elizabeth, who was born less than four months after Will died, was my spring: full of promise and potential; always growing; constantly blooming. I, of course, have nurtured her, but she also nurtured me out of those dark days into a peaceful and abundant spring. I deeply miss Will every day and I know that I’ll never be completely the same without him, but Elizabeth has been my redemption.

-what season(s) might your future hold? “In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” So said Albert Camus. For a few months after Elizabeth was born, I thought about this quotation a lot (it was a preferred badge during my graduate school phase of “decorate the apartment with quotes”), and I thought that Elizabeth was, both literally and figuratively, the “invincible summer” within me. But, as my grief over losing my brother has dissipated a bit, my perspective has become much broader. I see that not only Elizabeth, but also my husband, my siblings, my family, my friends, my love of my career, and—most importantly—my own spirit and resilience in the face of a cruel winter are the seeds for future summers.

favorite family activities: Our family is scattered across the country, so traveling continues to be a favorite pastime, baby and all. We also love taking walks, visiting our friends around the city, and taking advantage of Chicago’s plentiful parks, most especially the swings!

favorite solo activities: My husband indulged my fascination with photography and gave me a great camera—a Nikon D3000 DSLR—for Mother’s Day, so I am beginning to learn more about photography. I really enjoy seeking out small moments of interest or beauty and snapping a photo. I love reading, although I don’t do as much of it now as I used to. Oh, I am also a very amateur urban gardener with a nice collection of flower pots adding color to my balcony.

source(s) of inspiration: My husband, Tom, is an ER Nurse at a Level 1 Trauma hospital that serves some of Chicago’s poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods. He sees patients who are at the lowest possible points in their lives. He always reaches out to them with humanity and grace, finding great joy and meaning in his work. I stand in awe when he tells me about his days at work.

My sister, Elizabeth is younger than I am but I look up to her a lot. She has never been afraid to be wholly true to herself, which is precisely why we named our daughter after her.

best MakeShift moment: My best MakeShift moment occurred the first time I traveled solo with Elizabeth. I was feeling together, organized, and on top of things after wrangling a car seat, Snap ‘N’ Go base, diaper bag, breast pump, and eight-week-old Elizabeth through the ticket counter, security line, and drop-off point for the X-Ray machine. As I reached to take Elizabeth out of her seat, I saw that she was absolutely covered in poop. It was everywhere. As I went to grab her car seat off the conveyor belt so that I could put her down and regroup, the TSA guys said, “sorry, ma’m, you can’t take that off the belt once you’ve put it down.” So, I looked at him with a withering look and said, without a trace of irony, “Oh, so you’ll hold her, then?” Needless to say, I got the car seat back. (And I learned that it’s not a bad idea to pack my own spare shirt when tossing an extra Onesie in the diaper bag.)

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

a mailman nearing retirement laments that he will miss reading the series anonymous love letters that have made their way to his “dead letter file” over the years.

a frazzled therapist leaves her abusive husband to start a new small town life.

an infamous, preppy, womanizing, frat boy-bigot-turned-radio-personality goes missing, and nobody seems to mind.

a beloved former school teacher with a mysterious past opens up an unconventional smoking cessation clinic.

these are a few of the eccentric characters in jill mccorkle‘s carolina moon, a 1996 national bestseller that made its perfectly-timed entrance into my world just a few weeks ago.

i enjoyed the book, which is no surprise given that mccorkle considers lee smith to be her mentor and harper lee’s to kill a mockingbird to be the supreme example of literary genius. but the real gift to me was the interview with the author included in the back of the book. about the structure of carolina moon, an interwoven collection of narratives and letters voiced and penned by a handful of bizarre characters, the interviewer asks,

“the structure of this novel is perhaps its most striking aspect; reviewers seem to either applaud its ingenuity or criticize it as confusing. if you could do it over again, would you have changed the way you handled the plot structure?”

to this question, mccorkle replies,

“no. it really is the novel I wanted to write. if I had had the luxury of an everyday writing schedule it might have turned out differently, but this novel was written during a very busy time and there was no way for me to shape the story as if it was one big lump of clay. i was making tiny little pictures and hoping that eventually they would all connect.”

as someone who writes sermons during a “very busy time,” and as someone who dreams of publishing a book someday, i was simultaneously inspired by mccorkle’s answer and curious as to what she was doing in the years preceding the 1996 publication. could she have perhaps been the mother of small children?

i found my answer on the writers write internet writing journal, where in a 2000 interview mccorkle explained,

“before my children were born, i had the luxury of–if not a daily schedule–at least a more structured schedule. now i just write whenever i can get the time. i’m constantly taking notes and writing smidgets of things, because, in desperation, that’s the only way i can get there.”

well jill, (can I call you jill?), thank you for this bit of honesty. clearly you “got there,” and so then just maybe i can get there too.

maybe we can all get there, whether we have writing aspirations or not. after all, aren’t we all, as mothers, simply making tiny little pictures and hoping that eventually they will all connect?

[for publication information about carolina moon, see the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.] 

as my parents tell the story, i began begging them for piano lessons just a few weeks before i turned four. when my requests persisted long enough to surpass the lifespan of most preschool whims, they took me to my first lesson. i had four different teachers in 13 years, during which time i discovered that i inherited the “playing by ear” gene from my great aunt billie. this discovery corresponded with my prideful refusal to practice and my less-than-enthusiastic attitude toward reading music… but i digress.

now that my little monkey is living out the last few weeks of his third year, i find myself hoping that he will clearly articulate or exhibit some sort of special interest in something. i don’t expect him to be a prodigy, nor do i want to usurp all of his free time (and mine) with a slew of resume-building activities. i do not want to enter him in pageants or groom him for the u.s. olympic swim team. but i do feel responsible for introducing him to activities that he might enjoy and arenas where he might experience success. these expectations seem reasonable enough, right?

but bordering on ridiculous is my somewhat unreasonable dream that one of my sons become a bluegrass fiddle player. this dream is merely the resurrected form of my own desires to play the fiddle. these desires died a painful death after a three-month fiddle rental and the fact that the excruciating series of cat mating sounds that followed caused my husband to question his decision to marry me. i now surround my children with bluegrass fiddle music and take every opportunity to impart to them my appreciation for its beauty. in my more generous moments, i have even been known to expand my hopeful projections to include instruments such as the banjo and the mandolin.

even so, i agree with ayelet waldman, who writes in her book, bad mother, that “the point of a life, any life, is to figure out what you are good at, and what makes you happy, and, if you are very fortunate, spend your life doing those things” (205).

it is my job to help my children do this. it is not my job to raise little people to fill the gaps in my own talents and sense of happiness.  i know this. and i know how to use the cd player to fill my home with bluegrass music, and how to play the piano by ear (thank you mom, dad, and great aunt billie). what i am less sure about is how to weave together the monkey’s leanings and my instincts, how to avoid over programming him and under programming him, and how to help him gracefully accept the inevitable failures that are mile markers on the way to success.

thoughts?

first name: Amy

age: 30

current city: Jackson, MS

living situation: Our family consists of my husband, my three-year-old girl, two labs, a tabby cat, and me.

occupation: I am a stay-at-home-mom and owner/sole seamstress of a small children’s clothing line called Brownie Goose.

how do you structure your time and space? This is something that I struggle with on a daily basis. I wish I had the right answer and a better way. I try, try, try to keep my “business time” away from my home time, but since my “office/sewing room” is at my home, and I am a stay-at-home mom, this becomes quite difficult. I try to only sew when my child sleeps. But this has become quite difficult as she is getting older and not wanting to nap as often or as long. Sometimes I will sneak to my sewing room when she is preoccupied with books or blocks or baby dolls, but then I am always questioning myself and  thinking that I would rather be playing with her.

I recently started a day that I do nothing but worry about household duties. Wednesdays are the days that “the maid comes.” Don’t get jealous; I am the maid, and I spend every hour of Wednesdays doing laundry, dusting, vacuuming, loading and unloading the dishwasher, and cleaning toilets and tubs. So far, this has worked well for me. Since I have the whole day set aside, I focus and usually do a good job of getting it all done.

With my business, certain times are busier than others. I try hard to take time out of the week to do something fun for my daughter and me so that it isn’t always work, work, work. But, unfortunately at the end of the day, just like every other business owner (and I use the term business lightly since I don’t have a store with employees and such) I lament that my work is not done. I will lie awake in bed making lists in my head of things that must be done the next day, emails that need to be returned, orders that must be shipped, et cetera.

My favorite time of the day is when my husband gets home from work and we take the dogs and my daughter on a walk. We do this every afternoon, barring torrential downpours, (although we have been stuck in a few of those, but I love the rain, so I never mind) and other cases of extreme weather. I think this keeps me sane.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? I am right on target with this summer season. I am enjoying the extended daylight, more time with my family (dogs included), the lightning bugs, the chance to play in the water, popsicles, and later nights. This time always makes me smile because it reminds me of when I was young. My business is between two busy seasons, and so I have a lot of down time in which I am thoroughly enjoying the calm before the storm. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? I think I would have to say winter. I don’t care for cold weather, and I think of winter as being very dark and dreary. I spent a lot of my time hung up in my business instead of with my family, where I should have been. I never regret things. Instead, I just am thankful for the lessons learned. For now, I know how I don’t want my business to run my life. I spent countless hours in my sewing room into the wee hours of the night running myself ragged and spending more time worrying about things than I should have. Unfortunately, a miscarriage is what woke me up. In the dark, dark month that followed my miscarriage, I did a lot of soul-searching and trying to figure out where I wanted to be in life. Thankfully, I learned that at the end of the day, it is not my clothing line that defines me, but my family. So, with this newfound insight, I changed a few things with my business and will now be running it differently… I hope.

-what season(s) might your future hold? I hope that spring and fall are in my future. I love both of these seasons, mostly because of the beautiful weather that they bring. It is always rejuvenating and refreshing for me. I have a lot going on in the next few months to a year. I am excited about every last stinking thing too.

favorite family activity/activities: As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoy our afternoon walks with the dogs. I am a huge animal person, and this activity calms me like no other. At the end of our walks (since we live on a cul-de-sac) we always tell our daughter she can get out and walk, and it brings such incredible joy to me to watch her walk, run, or skip down the street, carefree, with her hair blowing in the wind. This sight, along with the dogs’ wagging tails, always makes me smile.

My husband and I also like to renovate, which is a blessing and curse sometimes. But it really is fun getting down and working and building and creating spaces that are ours. I am super-duper lucky that he is as handy as he is! Did I mention that my fabulous sewing room was done all by him? Yes, he is fabulous.

favorite solo activities: Oh, I love to read. I can sit with my nose in a book for hours. I also love to sew, obviously, and can sit in front of my sewing machine for hours at a time with music in the background and be just as happy as a bug in a rug. I also can sit on a beach from sun-up to sun-down with no problem. I grew up on the beach, and am now land-locked so this is something that I miss.

source(s) of inspiration: I’m inspired by thunderstorms and music. Makes me sound like a hippie, huh?

best MakeShift moment: When I am in crunch-time with my business, and orders must be completed by certain dates, I have to throw the whole “sew only while she sleeps” rule out the window. Instead, I bring her in my sewing room and let her have tea parties…with actual water. Usually I do not allow the water, but on certain occasions, I do. I put down towels and just let her play. Water keeps her occupied for very long periods of time. She will usually sing songs, and it is so sweet to hear her while I am sewing away.

find amy on the web:

• blog: http://amysnorris.blogspot.com
• business: http://www.browniegoose.com

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

the monkey fully embraced life in the mountains. he spent the month clad in silly bands, lanyard necklaces, shoes that were perpetually wet from creek walking, and a wide, sticky, ice-creamy grin. nothing spells camp like tight sweaty ringlets, the constant talk of  counselors and fellow campers, and a slew of silly songs playing on repeat inside an almost-four-year-old head.

meanwhile, the bird picked up his new favorite hobby: throwing rocks in the creek. he replaced his barely distinguishable babble with real words that actually made sense in context, and thereby joined fellow toddlers throughout time and space in demonstrating for their elders what a miracle the human grasp of language really is. he had his own pair of perpetually wet shoes and his own allotment of silly bands (thanks to the monkey). like his brother, he waltzed into clubs every day to a chorus of counselors’ welcomes.

is is possible that my children did an entire years’ worth of growing up in one month? from certain angles i took in their shaggy hair and occasional nonchalance and imagined their impending teenage years. i saw that what my friend steve says is true: “with parenting, the days go by slowly but the years go by quickly.”

or perhaps it was my own relaxed, campy persona that gave me pause to take a broader view of my children and their progress. with both children in childcare for the first time, i found myself hiking on mountain trails, practicing yoga in a local studio, and sipping coffee on the porch. this time afforded me a glimpse into a future stage, with increased spare time and possibilities.

parenting’s relentless onslaught of joy and duty seems to evoke a delayed sort of processing. there is no time to sift through the realities of one stage until the next stage is dawning. i have been a parent for almost four years now, but this recent preview of the future is the first real glimpse i have gotten of life beyond babyhood. i was able to remember what i liked to do before i had kids and imagine a life that will return me to those things someday.

but for now i am content to re-enter our memphis routine — the onslaught of  joy and duty. however, i do this with the new knowledge that though the days go by slowly, the years truly do fly by, carrying the sweet sounds of baby babble with them.

so sorry for the infrequent posting lately. i am spending the month of july in the mountains with my family.

besides the fact that it takes longer to connect to the internet here than it does to put a hyped-up almost-four-year-old to bed, i keep getting lured away from the computer by scenes like this:

i will return to my regular posting in august, but until then, please nominate yourselves and others for my “mothers of invention” feature. the questionnaire and my email address can be found in the sidebar to your right.

also, we’ll kick off the upcoming school year with a second volume of the “dancing in the kitchen mix.” if you have music suggestions that are upbeat, kid-friendly, and do *NOT* lend themselves to saccharine and mind-numbing hand motions, please send them my way!

i’ll be using this blog break to brainstorm about future post topics and other creative ideas for this space. please feel free to make suggestions regarding future content.

hope to hear from you soon!

there are many common narratives in the collective story bank of motherhood, each with its own familiar plot and phrases. who hasn’t told or heard a “stuck child” story, complete with words such as

“…and then i realized that [fill in name of small child] had accidentally locked himself/herself in the bathroom.”?

and now, in an age when  modern mothers are increasingly appreciated and accomplished in the workplace, the “vocational turning point” story is becoming a collective throng. it often goes something like this:

“that day, when [insert chaotic clash of work and home life] happened, i knew i needed to change the way i was working.”

as it happens, these two prototypes converged for me last friday night. the bird was singing his own familiar tearful chorus as i showered and got ready to be the liturgist at the final montreat women’s connection worship service. after learning that it is virtually impossible to simultaneously hold a child and don a dress, i allowed him to use my leg as a teething biscuit as i hurriedly applied my makeup.

just as i was feeling smug about the fact that i would have a whole fifteen minutes to go over my part in the service after i dropped the kids off at my mom’s house, the monkey declared that he needed to tee tee. he did his business, and then, so as not to be outdone by his brother, he instantly deteriorated into a fitful rage that reportedly rendered him completely incapable of pulling up his own pants. i calmly closed the bathroom door and told them that he was welcome to come out once his pants were no longer around his ankles.

in his tornadic attempt to liberate himself from captivity, the monkey accidentally turned the tarnished brass lever above the knob on the old mountain house bathroom door. he was locked inside, and getting more panicky by the second.

my friends and temporary roommates calmed the (now hysterical) bird and hovered outside the locked bathroom door with these  necessary tools:

• a knife
• a spatula
• a phillips head screwdriver

meanwhile, i finished buttoning my dress as i walked outside and scaled a bear-proof garbage bin to get a look inside of the window. a neighbor strolled by and inquired as to why i was five feet above the ground, wearing a towel on my head, leaning at a 45 degree angle, peering into a window, and scaling the house’s exterior wall. he reported that in all of his 30 years of living across the street, he has never seen a person exhibit such behavior.

five minutes later, the monkey, who is apparently remarkably stellar at following my directions (when he feels like it), unlocked the door and waltzed out of the bathroom *with* his pants pulled up. i hopped down from my perch, shuttled the kids to my mom’s house, proceeded to the service, did my part without any major incedents, and moved on.

except that i haven’t really moved on. though i am new at telling the “stuck child” story, there are a zillion other stories that coincide with my attempts to maintain my identity as a person who works, albeit part-time, outside of the home. i’ll spare you the details of the “calling poison control” story, the “writing on the walls” story, and the “submerging daddy’s shoes in the bathtub” story. just know that all three of these plots unfolded while i was trying to fulfill obligations pertaining to my job as a minister.

i don’t know what sorts of shifts i will make in the way i structure my work life, but there will be some. and to the neighbor, who marveled at the site of a young mother living out the particulars of her own “stuck child” story, i have this to say:

if you look closely, you will find that mothers all around you are desperately trying to climb “the wall”. they can be heard pumping during conference calls. they can be found supervising third grade math homework while working on their own coursework. many are simply trying to shower for work in relative peace. women’s roles have changed during the last 30 years, but “the wall” is still there. when old challenges crumble away, they are quickly replaced by new ones.

i might be the first person you have seen shouting instructions to a three-year-old from a lofty perch. but i am by no means the first woman to employ flexibility, strength, and a sense of humor while creatively solving a problem and wearing a cute dress!