Great Expectations

By Kelly

If you want to know what kind of day I’m having, you need ask only one simple question: Has the baby napped?

If yes, then I’m having a glorious day, abounding in productivity and sprinkled with  sunshine and rainbows.

If no, then I’m having a frustrating day, thick with clouds and whining. Of course, it goes without saying that I’m not getting anything done with a cranky toddler grasping my knees, so you might as well expect leftovers for dinner, because who can cook with Her High Grumpiness at the helm?

At least, that’s how it used to be. But after months of living at the whim of a baby, I decided to take back control.

I acknowledged I couldn’t control Teyla’s sleep – but I could control my attitude. I decided to make peace with my inefficient life and forget about having a chunk of “me” time each afternoon. I downsized my To Do list. I slowly learned to expect less from my day and much, much less from myself. And with my attitude thusly adjusted, I found life to be joyful again. When the baby woke up after another 20-minute nap, I would sigh, shelve the frustration and resolve to enjoy the baby.

Behold, the power of expectations.

When Corey and I were newly married, most of our fights would end on the battlefield of expectations. Seems I had them for our relationship, and I held him responsible for meeting them. Problem was, I never communicated them. Or so he claimed. My response tended to be: How can I communicate something that is so ingrained I don’t even know it’s there? My expectations only materialize to me when they aren’t met.

Still, it’s not a fair thing to do to another person, expect them to meet an expectation you can’t even verbalize. Ever since, I’ve tried to do a lot of introspection when I get frustrated or hurt or angry. Is it truly someone else? Or are my expectations slightly out of whack?

Thankfully, I had a few years to practice this before we had kids. It’s proven invaluable in parenting. Thus, when the baby makes it a practice to avoid taking naps, I try to adjust my expectations and hopefully, reap a happier mental state.

But darn it if those initial expectations don’t just keep coming back. Which is why I was annoyed this weekend when Teyla didn’t nap, even though she’d only been consistently taking real naps – which are defined by baby sleep experts as naps that are at least an hour in length; any less, and the baby’s brain doesn’t have time to reboot and renew – for a week. A week! And already my expectations about what my life should look like have reformed.

This parenting stuff. It’s hard work. Especially when the baby doesn’t nap.

I’d love to write more, but my husband’s home, and he expects dinner.

Kelly always expects to blog daily at her personal blog Love Well. But if the baby doens't nap, she expects to put the writing off for a day or two.

To Parent like Dumbledore

By Kelly

My brother got me a set of Harry Potter books for Christmas. It was a good gift, seeing as I somehow managed to escape the whole Potter phenomenon. I had just been telling my husband that I would really like to read the series someday -- which, now that I think about it, is probably how it came to be under our Christmas tree.

Naturally, I've been riveted ever since I started "The Sorcerer's Stone." I'm on "The Half-Blood Prince" now, which is book six in the series. I can't say this reading binge has been particularly good for my children, who've heard me say, "as soon as Mommy is finished with this chapter," with alarming frequency the last few weeks.

But it has done this: It has given me a new role model. I've decided I want to parent like Dumbledore.

I want to interact with my children the way Dumbledore interacts with Harry. He's kind and patient and wise. When Harry rants, Dumbledore waits. When Harry asks too many questions, Dumbledore gently reminds him that answers will come in time. He seems impossible to frustrate or fluster. I doubt Dumbledore would ever shout at the students of Hogwarts, "Hurry up and finish your breakfast! How many times have I told you, we've got to go!"

No matter what's going on around him, he maintains an aura of strength and authority. He obviously cares for Harry, but he isn't about to let him skip detention when he defies a teacher. He is supremely powerful, as is befitting one of the most powerful wizards of his time, yet it's power held in check. It's a power he controls, not a power that controls him.

I say this, of course, because I often find myself parenting in an opposite vein. I am harried and distracted. I don't listen well. I feel controlled by outside circumstances, like I'm always reacting instead of acting.

So, for the next few weeks, I'm going to keep Dumbledore in mind as I go about my day. I'm the kind of person who responds best to real-life scenarios, so reading about his interactions with Harry, although imaginary, are helpful to me. I'm going to try, with God's help, to mimic his example.

Also, the ability to work a good quietus charm would come in handy once in a while. I wonder if I could get my hand on a semi-used wand anywhere?

Once she finishes the Harry Potter series, Kelly will resume blogging at Love Well.

Election Night Urgency

By Kelly

The electricity of election night is palpable.

During my years as a newspaper reporter and editor and then a TV news producer, I spent many election nights in cold, windowless newsrooms, which, on election night, fairly buzzed with adrenaline, bad coffee and jokes that remain, to this day, unprintable. (Why, yes, I was known as The Run-On Queen. Why do you ask?)

It was a little intoxicating, frankly, the long hours and the breathless pace and the access to power. Every third person was on the phone with a candidate or political pundit. The newsroom desk was usually occupied by someone doing an on-air piece. The bank of TVs behind the assignment desk was blaring and insistent. I stayed – heck, everyone stayed – until the bitter end. I usually drove home around 3:00 AM, every nerve in my body still tingling. It took me days to come off the adrenaline high.

Every once in a while, when someone finds out what I used to do with my life before kids, they’ll ask me if I miss it, if I miss the news business and the rush that goes with it.

On election nights, I miss it.

But then again….

Last night, instead of sitting in a control booth and whispering the latest election numbers into an anchor’s IFB, I sat in a dim nursery and cuddled a tired baby. Instead of talking on the phone to Mr. Important’s media spokesman, I watched Connor earn his gold belt at karate graduation.

Instead of feeling important because I took the pulse of the nation, I felt humbled because I am someone’s whole world.

Maybe I don’t miss it after all. After all, there’s urgent. And then there’s important.

I’m just starting to learn the difference.

Kelly also blogs at Love Well, which is both the name of her blog and her motto for living. Sometimes, it takes an election to make her remember that.

Bedtime Thoughts

By Kelly

The kids wouldn’t go to sleep tonight. They sat in their beds and read books and played Legos and skittered down the stairs to suggest that they might sleep better if they could just get some scissors out of my office and create a pretend computer out of paper before turning in for the night. The air was full of whispers and giggles and "thunks" that shouldn’t have been.

The baby was no better. At seven months old, she’s like a tiny Dora the Explorer, always on a quest to discover something new. “Carpet. Plant leaves. Dirt in the mouth! Say it with me.” Even though she’d been awake since 2:30 – or more likely, because she’d been awake since 2:30; over-stimulation, anyone? – she wasn’t the least bit interested in sleeping. She squirmed through my attempts to nurse her, she lurched toward the floor where her blocks beckoned. She spit up, for good measure. She made a spectacular dirty diaper, for even better measure.

And I just wanted them all to go to sleep. “Be sweet little children, and give Mommy her hour of alone time before her head falls off.”

Then I remembered this quote from Anna Quindlen about her years as a parent.

The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Ah yes. The next thing. I'm a master at looking ahead, especially on nights like this, when I'm solo-parenting. Dinner, bath, book, bed. I have no energy to soak up the details. I'm just trying to survive.

But that's no way to live.

So the kids finally fell asleep, and I fell onto the couch to record this: a lesson on living in the moment. Because when I read this post in a few years, I won't remember the exhaustion. I won't remember the march through the bedtime routine.

I'll remember the giggles and the smiles and the trusting faces. I'll remember how much I love being a mom.

It's worth it. Even when they won't go to sleep.

Find Kelly also blogging at Love Well.