In honor of my daughter’s first birthday, I am taking this month to tell the story of the wild way she came into the world and our family. You can read the first and second chapters here and here.

It didn’t happen the way it does in the movies – the perky pregnant mom, decked out in her finest maternity wear, standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, suddenly standing in a puddle of water.

The morning before my scheduled c-section, I was lying in a hospital bed, typing an e-mail to a friend, wishing her daughter a happy first birthday, when I felt a rush of liquid pour out of me. Most women in my situation – 35 weeks pregnant and a resident of the High Risk Maternity Unit – would probably figure out right away what was going on.

But after nearly three weeks of intermittent bleeding, I assumed that this odd sensation was more of the same and was surprised when I pushed away the tray holding my laptop and saw that the sheets were soaked with clear fluid.

As the fluid continued to gush out and I couldn’t seem to stop it (despite 30+ years of infallible bladder control and months of Kegels!), it finally dawned on me that I hadn’t, in fact, peed my pants.

No, ma’am. My water had broken.

The two and a half hours between that moment and the one when I first laid eyes on my daughter flew by in a rush of questions, phone calls, and needle pricks.

I immediately paged my nurse – Amanda, a labor and delivery nurse on loan to the High Risk Unit – who came in and administered a test to confirm that my water had indeed broken. “And they told me you were easy!” she teased me.

Amanda called my doctor. I called my husband. He called our babysitter so she could stay with the boys while he made the hour-long drive to the hospital.

Amanda then started to orchestrate all of the moving parts that needed to come together to pull off an emergency c-section: booking an operating room; lining up an anesthesiologist, the neonatal nurses, and the other medical staff; alerting the NICU that a preterm infant was about to join them.

I, meanwhile, alternated among a few different states: excitement, surprise, anxiety. I also did my best to convince my little one to stay inside long enough to let her daddy arrive to help me welcome her.

My doctor – my wonderful, whip smart, kind, talented, tough doctor, the mom of two boys herself – arrived to give me the new game plan. I had had c-sections before, she knew, but she explained what she would do, what I could expect. She talked to me and held my hand while people swooped in and out to get me ready for surgery: Amanda with an extra IV, the anesthesiologist explaining the procedure for the spinal, the nurses who had taken care of me stopping by to wish me luck, wash my belly, make me promise to visit before I went home with my baby.

And then the most important in the cast of characters walked in: My husband. My love.

Within minutes of his arrival, Amanda had him decked out in the costume of the hospital: sky blue scrubs, a giant blue shower cap. And we were off to the OR, the same cold, stark bright room where my boys were born.

My husband waited outside while the anesthesiologist administered the spinal block. I curled my back, held Amanda’s hands, did my best impression of yogic breathing, and felt the needle pinch my back. (It’s really not bad, that giant needle.) I felt the anesthesia spread through my spine while the doctor and nurses rolled me to my side and then flat on the table. Then an uncanny warmth spread down my body into my legs. The medical staff finished preparing the room, my doctor arrived, and my husband was allowed in and took up his position next to me and behind the surgical drape.

Here’s what you might notice during a c-section: dazzlingly bright lights; quiet, efficient voices; lots of noise: suction, humming; pushing; tugging; lots of updates from the anesthesiologist; blood on the floor; blood everywhere. Your nose might itch. You might feel like throwing up from your blood pressure falling. You might tell your husband you love him more often than you would on a more typical Friday morning. Your doctor might ask you how you’re doing and then she might ask if you’re ready to meet your baby. Tugging, tugging, tugging.

My husband and I hadn’t found out the gender of any of our kids in advance. And during my weeks in the hospital, I became convinced that we were having another boy. And I was ready for that. My Three Sons. My Three Musketeers.

So imagine my surprise when the doctor held up our daughter and said in her gentle, happy voice, “It’s a girl!”

A girl. Our daughter.

My goodness. How blessed and lucky.

I spent the rest of the c-section swimming in this sea of fortune: euphoria, disbelief, thankfulness, excitement all washing over me in turn.

At that point, our baby was taken to the incubator to be cleaned up and examined and my husband commenced his patrol duty, shuttling between her and me. (Here’s another thing about c-sections: they get the baby out pretty quickly; it’s the stitching you back up that takes awhile.) Soon the nurses swaddled our daughter and handed her to my husband and then the two of them came over to me.

What a delight, an honor, a gift it is to meet your child, to see for the first time this pink, snuggly, snarfly creature who had made a team of medical professionals jump through hoops for weeks.

And here she was at last: big and healthy and perfect. An Apgar homerun. Not a minute in the NICU for her, thank you very much.

Our daughter. Our beautiful baby girl.

At last.

Baby Sister turned one on Saturday. In honor of her birth, I am taking this month to tell the story of the wild way she came into the world and our family. Please click here to read the first part of the story.

Image by Tydence

Just over a day after I arrived at the Labor and Delivery floor, I “graduated” to the High Risk Maternity Unit where I would spend most of the next 19 nights.

The unit was run by a cadre of smart, efficient, gentle nurses who became friends to me during my weeks in their charge. It was an intensely female place, where women came to bring their babies safely into the world, assisted and cared for, just as they have been throughout history, by other women.

There was Annette with whom I chatted about Jane Austen novels and movie adaptations.

And Nichole who stockpiled animal crackers to give to my boys when they visited.

And Sharon who always found a spot on my left arm for my IV so that I could write with my right one.

And Beth who held my hand that one night when everything suddenly felt like a little too much.

It was my job, I knew, to keep my baby inside as long as I could. But how I should do that, no one knew for sure. So I lay in a hospital bed, an IV in my arm, a monitor on my belly, the thump-thump-thump of my daughter’s heartbeat in my ear.

Watchful waiting, the doctors called it. They watched me, watched the staccato lines my daughter’s heartbeat drew across their computer screen. And I waited.

Every few days the bleeding would return – never as serious as it was the day we rushed from home to the hospital, but enough for my condition to be classified a “chronic abruption” and for me to earn a permanent bed in the hospital until my baby arrived.

And one day my daughter’s heart rate dropped so low in response to my contractions that the doctors rushed me back down to Labor and Delivery, worried about umbilical cord compression and sure that I would have to deliver right away. Her heart rate normalized, though, and, after another nervous-making night, I moved back upstairs.

Despite these occasional breaks in the routine, my time in the hospital was filled with this routine of watchful waiting.

I watched my plans for these weeks of nesting dissolve into a new schedule of visiting hours and babysitters.

I watched the repairmen outside my window. Protected from the January chill by nothing more than stocking caps, coveralls, and the rickety elevator that raised and lowered them along the outside of the building, the two men were my companions during my weeks of waiting.

I watched as the nurses whisked my fellow patients to the delivery room, these other women’s stays on our floor punctuated by squeaking clogs on the tile floor.

I watched the parade of visitors that flooded in after the workday and trickled out again after dinner time. I watched my sons arrive with them, looking at me in confusion, opening and closing the countless cabinets in my room, trying to make sense of this foreign land their mom now inhabited.

But here’s the thing about being in the hospital on bed rest: it’s not really so, well, restful. Between monitors beeping, nurses coming in and out to check vitals and dispense medication, five daily blood tests (man, I don’t miss gestational diabetes), and the general hullaballoo of hospital life, I didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours straight for the whole time I was there.

Good practice, I suppose, for life with a newborn.

So, after nearly three weeks of this watchful waiting, when my doctor decided that, all things considered, it was time to schedule an amniocentesis the next day and a likely c-section immediately afterward, I was ready.

I was so ready, I called my husband to tell him the news and then fired off an e-mail to family and friends.

And then, minutes after my doctor walked out of my room, in the middle of writing another e-mail, my water broke.

Baby Sister will turn one on Saturday. (My baby is almost one! How did this happen?!) In honor of her birth, I will be taking the next four weeks to tell the story of the wild way she came into the world and our family.

Image by koadmunkee

On a sparkling blue Sunday morning last January, I gleefully plopped down on the couch, grabbed a magazine, and stretched my legs out. Husband and the boys had just left for a trip to Kroger and I was home alone for the first time in a very long time.

Bliss.

No sooner had I rested the magazine on top of my 32 weeks pregnant belly than I looked down at my lap and saw a bright red stain slowly creeping across my white pajama bottoms. My heart sunk into my gut as chills swept up my arms to the top of my head. Suddenly my scalp felt too tight.

By the time I got to the bathroom, blood was running down my legs. I sat on the toilet for a minute, trying to catch my breath and then I grabbed everything in sight – toilet paper, my hair towel – to try to clean myself up.

Standing bare-legged and looking at all that blood, I knew something was wrong. I never imagined the worst – that I was losing my baby. For whatever reason, my brain didn’t go there. Instead it went to my wallet, where my doctor’s business card was wedged in between my credit card and a coupon for a free coffee at Tim Horton’s.

I debated whether or not to call her. It was Sunday, after all. I didn’t want to be a bother. But another rush of blood convinced me that I needed her help, that lying on my left side and drinking some water weren’t going to do the trick this time.

I reached my doctor’s answering service and talked to one of her partners who told me to come immediately to the Labor and Delivery unit of Riverdale Hospital.

A few practical problems presented themselves: 1. Husband wasn’t home and wasn’t answering his cell phone; 2. I was starting to feel light-headed and didn’t feel safe driving myself; and 3. The hospital is over an hour away from our house.

Trying to stay calm and proceed rationally, I called our beloved babysitter who agreed to come over right away to stay with the boys once Husband got home. A few minutes later, as I was throwing essentials into an overnight bag, Husband, whose phone was on vibrate, called me to ask for clarification on something I’d put on the grocery list. I filled him in and he abandoned his full shopping cart, grabbed the boys, and hurried home.

Within 45 minutes of my symptoms starting, we were on the road to the hospital.

When we arrived at the Labor and Delivery unit, a nurse gave me IV fluids and placed me on a fetal monitor. She and we were reassured right away by our baby’s lively heartbeat on the computer screen.

Soon the OB resident came in and did a full exam. She ruled out placenta previa – where the placenta obstructs the opening to the cervix – but decided to admit me overnight for monitoring given the amount of bleeding. Her concern – an apt one, as it turned out – was that my placenta was separating from my uterus prematurely.

Husband and I spent the rest of the day on the Labor and Delivery floor, tensing as each set of footsteps passed our open door. Sometimes they’d come in – belonging to a phlebotomist drawing blood to check for clotting factors; a resident checking the sinus pattern on the readout from my fetal monitor; a nurse giving me a steroid shot to help our baby’s lungs, bowel, and brain develop in case of early delivery; or a nurse anesthetist reviewing c-section anesthesia procedures in case I was rushed into surgery – but usually they’d pass by, leaving us wondering what was coming next.

The problem was that nobody really knew for sure: they needed to watch me, watch my bleeding, watch my baby. Watchful waiting.

Husband went home that night to take care of the boys and to line up childcare for the next few days. I napped on and off all night, in between watching the Golden Globes and the Australian Open and visits from more nurses. During one of my naps, a nurse woke me up asked me to change positions. I’d been having contractions and the baby’s heart rate had been decelerating during them.

I didn’t get any more sleep that night.

In the morning, Husband arrived and we resumed our vigil. At about 10:30 a.m., an orderly arrived to take me to see the perinatologist for an ultrasound. As I was whisked through the warren of hallways under the hospital, I hoped that this exam, that these doctors, would be able to offer us an answer and a plan.

After another hour of waiting, we met the ultrasound technician and the high-risk specialist who, though they couldn’t pinpoint the source of the bleeding, agreed that it was problematic enough to keep me in the hospital indefinitely.

Afterward I went back to my room on the Labor and Delivery floor, ate a liquid lunch, and met Dr. M, the perinatologist who would be in charge of my case. He gave us both an answer and a plan: I had a likely placental abruption and would have to stay in the hospital as long as I continued to bleed and/or the baby continued to have heart decelerations on the fetal monitor.

“In other words,” he said, “Welcome to Hotel Riverdale.”

Image by Justin_D_Miller

Back in grade school, I could be off the bus and at my front door by 2:50 p.m., leaving just enough time to change out of my uniform, grab a Little Debbie snack cake, and take a seat in front of the television for that day’s episode of Guiding Light.

During the years I watched it, Guiding Light felt like the perfect escape. Like any good fantasy, the show transported me to a world populated by larger-than-life people (and their long-lost twins, played by the same actress!) doing larger-than-life things (like coming back from the dead, this time being played by a different actress!).

But Guiding Light also taught me plenty, in an after school special kind of way. Watching with my mom, we’d chuckle at the outrageous and ease our way into topics that were far afield from the predictable suburban existence we knew: rape, teenage pregnancy, AIDS. Guiding Light got us talking about these weighty topics and about love and commitment, irresponsibility and consequences.

That was – gasp! – almost thirty years ago, during the twilight of the soap genre. Guiding Light aired its final episode on CBS on September 18, 2009, 72 years after its debut as an NBC radio serial, making it one of five soap operas cancelled in the last three years.

Last spring, ABC axed both All My Children and One Life to Live. AMC, long committed to tackling social issues, signed off in September after a 41 year run. OLTL, which earned acclaim for a groundbreaking homophobia storyline, aired its last episode on January 13^th after 42 years on the air.

Only four daytime dramas remain.

So what burst the soaps’ bubble?  The numbers. Ratings fell precipitously as “women 18-49” turned their backs. But it’s not as though we’ve suddenly lost our appetite for love triangles, alien abductions, and surprise pregnancies. Heck no! If anything, we’ve become hungrier for the schlocky content soaps were long derided for.

And we’re finding plenty of it: in reality TV.

A glance at the Nielsen ratings for the past decade demonstrates the explosive growth of reality television. 56% of the primetime audience is watching reality TV, as compared to 22% in the 2001-02 season. During the day, aggressive, in-your-face options like Judge Judy and The View dominate.

As if the victory of reality over scripted drama wasn’t clear enough, ABC emphasized the point by replacing its venerable soaps with fare dished out by a veritable Who’s-Who of contemporary reality television. The Chew, a talk show about food and entertaining starring Mario Batali and Michael Symon (of Iron Chef America fame), Carla Hall (Top Chef), and Clinton Kelly (What Not to Wear) replaced All My Children this fall. The Revolution – a health and “lifestyle” talk show hosted by Project Runway’s Tim Gunn and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s Ty Pennington – debuted this month.

The demise of the soap opera underscores a deep shift in our cultural preferences away from the narrative form that has shaped art and entertainment since prehistory and toward quick fixes, cheap thrills, and narcissism. Sure, daytime dramas made their names with outrageous storylines, but they also asked their viewers for a commitment that most reality TV eschews.

Ultimately, soap operas gave us 40-year story arcs about families. The multi-generational clans made messes and had to deal with them. Declaring bankruptcy landed characters in more hot water than a cookbook deal could lift them out of. Being 16 and pregnant had consequences beyond giving them a chance at a TV contract. And watching these soap characters deal with the costs of their mistakes came with lessons for viewers.

Now I’m not trying to say that I learned all my values from watching soaps as a kid. And there were certainly plenty of badly behaved soap characters who were unrealistically redeemed or rehabilitated. But I am arguing that the values soaps taught me are a whole lot better than the ones reality TV is instilling in kids today.

The swan song of the soap opera makes me wonder about the type of television that my young children will eventually watch – and that we will watch and talk about together.  It also makes me think about a recent UCLA study that found that fame was the top value conveyed by TV shows – many of them reality shows – popular among pre-teens. (Benevolence ranked 13^th out of 16, tradition 15^th.)

These are the values reality TV is teaching?

Maybe I’ll see if I can find some old VHS tapes of Guiding Light on eBay.

Did you ever watch soap operas? Do you watch reality TV? What, if any, TV do you like to watch with your kids?

Image by RichardBH

I was never that good at coaching – in the traditional sense, at least.

During the nine years I was a teacher, I spent seven as a coach: of basketball, of softball, of lacrosse. The best coaching I did was when I headed up a junior varsity girls’ high school basketball team. My own love of the sport, combined with a solid knowledge of the game, good skills communicating with teenage girls, and a great relationship with my co-coach led to a successful season – in the metrics of fun and wins. The worst coaching I did was when, at a different school, I helmed the varsity girls’ basketball team. I was under-qualified and in over my head. We all knew it – the players, the parents, me – and it was miserable.

My own experiences coaching gave me new-found appreciation for the great coaches I’d had during my years playing basketball. My first basketball coach (not including my dad, who taught me how to dribble and shoot in my childhood driveway) was also my best. He welcomed me onto his CYO team when I was a stick-thin third grader. I remember wearing my black leggings and over-sized red sweatshirt – a tomato on toothpicks – to our practices and working my way up over the years from a glorified water-carrier to the starting point guard on our state championship team. I remember him trusting me enough as a fifth grader to put me in at a crucial moment in a big game. I remember him yelling at me years later when, in that same gym, I wasn’t paying enough attention in a huddle and called our last time-out too early at the end of another big game. (We won anyway.) I remember him sending me a note and my kids three matching Larry Bird t-shirts last summer.

I’ve long since hung up my high-tops and my whistle, but I recently had the chance to work with another great coach.

Last spring I posted about wanting to find a mentor to help shepherd me through the process of becoming a freelance writer. At the end of the post, I casually – and, I’ll admit, pretty tongue-in-cheekily – mused that maybe I needed a life coach. At the time, I didn’t really know what a life coach did, but had started hearing the term more and more (kind of like the way that I have since heard about honey badgers). So imagine my surprise when Rebecca of Altared Spaces responded to my silly aside by telling me what a life coach does – helping people set goals and move past the sticky things that hold them back – and what one looks like – her!

Rebecca was generous to offer me some of her coaching magic this fall just after I launched my freelance career. It was a big moment for me, bigger than I realized at the time and Rebecca helped me see that: I had taken a pretty dramatic step off of the linear path I had been walking for much of my adult life (college, job, grad school, marriage, kids) and placed my own passions ahead of what I thought other people expected of me. I came out as a writer to my friends and family and sent my work out into the world, knowing that rejection and criticism would likely follow.

This step was hard for me and Rebecca and I talked about that. We talked too about things like guilt and the weight of other people’s expectations – not to mention the weight of my own assumptions about other people’s expectations. She – with great skill and gentleness – helped me to unpack those feelings and helped me elucidate almost immediately some of the tendencies I have that sometimes trip me up even while defining who I am. She asked questions and offered me thought exercises that helped me identify tiny steps I could take to move forward.

Coaching with Rebecca felt a lot like talking to a good friend – a good friend who also happens to be smart, insightful, and focused only on you. And that last part might be the greatest gift Rebecca gave me – a chance at a busy and momentous time to stop and think about myself, to be mindful of my goals, and to reflect on ways to get there.

Thank you, Rebecca, for listening, for asking, and for helping me start to unstick the sticky parts.

Who helps you unstick the sticky spots? Have you ever had a terrific coach?

Image by Rhian vK

I have been a parent for four years, four months, and eight days. I’m not sure how many of those days it took for me to realize the only truism of parenting:

There is no one right way to do any of this.

—

We worked on potty training this weekend with our two year old. He was showing all of the signs you read about in parenting magazines: staying dry for long periods of time, showing great (some might even say disconcerting…) interest in other people using the bathroom, excusing himself to take care of his own business. So my husband and I decided that we would try transitioning him from diapers to underwear this weekend when we had little else going on and all of our time to devote to our toddler and lots of trips to the potty.

As I prepared for the weekend – printing out free sticker charts and laundering tiny pairs of Wall-E underpants – I thought back to this same weekend in our older son’s life, a time when I still clung to the wisdom of parenting books and was convinced that there was a single right way to approach most parenting challenges. I got a book touting a one-day potty training miracle and proceeded to put all of us through several hours of tears and pee-soaked rugs. Luckily, I bailed on the “expert’s” plan without doing any permanent damage to my son or myself, but it was still awhile before I stopped reading those books and magazines in hopes of finding a motherhood equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.

As you likely know by now, I am a person who craves direction. I love to follow recipes and check-lists.  And I thought that the approach that had brought me success as a student and a professional would naturally work for parenting too. And, you know, in a lot of ways it did. I followed a plan to help my babies sleep through the night. I relied on a book to guide me through which foods to introduce to my kids when.

But there were two problems: First, I was at a loss when the solution I found in a book didn’t work (see Potty Training,  Take One above). And second, and perhaps more insidious, I thought that success at a method I found in a book meant that I had achieved something as a mother. I had found the way (and, yes, I’ll admit it, although I’m ashamed to: if you hadn’t, it meant that maybe you were doing something wrong).

—

The potty training is going fine. We’re using lots of stickers and eating some extra M&Ms. We’re using our son’s enthusiasm for the “robot” alarm on my iPhone to give us gentle reminders to use the bathroom. We’re also doing plenty of extra laundry and figuring out the very best ratio of vinegar and water to clean our carpet. We’re still trying to decide how long to use Pull-Ups for excursions out of the house.

We’ll figure it out as we go.

And what a relief it is to be able to do that.

Because, you know, there is no right way to do this potty training gig. You might let your kid go bare-bummed through the house. You might let him wear Pull-Ups for a year. You might send him to his first day of preschool hoping he doesn’t pee on the rug in the Book Nook, but knowing he very likely will. And however you do it – however I do it – doesn’t really say much about you – about me – as a woman and a mother.

Because there is no best way. Just the way you do it. And the way that eventually sticks.

Image by Viktor Nagornyy

I know I’m not the first or the only person moved at the beginning of January to reflect on the year that just ended. But, when I saw Tsh’s list of 20 questions for reflecting on 2011 over at Simple Mom, I knew I wanted to stop and write on them.

What can I say? Cliche, thy name is Kristen!

So here goes: Tsh’s questions and my responses…

—

1. What was the single best thing that happened this past year?

A no-brainer: my daughter was born on February 4, 2011, completing our family and bringing us boundless joy with her gaping grins, hearty laugh, and rolls and rolls of fat.

2. What was the single most challenging thing that happened?

I spent the weeks before my daughter was born in the hospital on bed rest due to a placental abruption.  Having to leave home – and especially having to be away from my sons – was emotionally devastating, even though I knew that being in the hospital was the best thing for me and my baby.  Luckily, my husband, my mother, and our terrific babysitter rallied together to shower our kids with love and attention so that that wild month now feels like a wacky memory instead of a wound.

3. What was an unexpected joy this past year?

I’ve found the transition from having two kids to having three much easier than I found the transition from having one to having two (and much easier than the transition from being childless to being a mother).

I’ve also discovered a heretofore unknown love for – wait for it – crossword puzzles.  That’s right: I am a wild child.

4. What was an unexpected obstacle?

I developed shingles when my daughter was six weeks old. Trying to find ways to care for her, her brothers, and myself, all while recovering from a c-section, presented me and my husband with another unexpected medical challenge.

5. Pick three words to describe 2011.

Chaotic, surprising, exciting

6. Pick three words your spouse would use to describe your 2011 (don’t ask them; guess based on
how you think your spouse sees you).

Busy, overwhelming, successful

7. Pick three words your spouse would use to describe their 2011 (again, without asking).

Hectic, exhausting, fun

8. What were the best books you read this year?

Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Middlemarch, by George Eliot

The Gift of an Ordinary Day, by Katrina Kenison

The Blue Jay’s Dance, by Louise Erdrich

Abide With Me, by Elizabeth Strout

9. With whom were your most valuable relationships?

My husband, my kids, my parents, my sisters-in-law, my local friends (That last one was a bit of a revelation for me. Since moving to the Midwest four years ago, I have sometimes resisted the idea of creating a life here. This year, though, I felt increasingly attached to and grateful for the handful of good friends I’ve made here.)

10. What was your biggest personal change from January to December of this past year?

I went from being a full-time stay-at-home mom of two to a part-time work-at-home mom of three.

11. In what way(s) did you grow emotionally?

I think I’ve gotten more resilient this past year, more willing to really be okay with “good enough,” to strive for excellence rather than perfection.  There are still days when I want to throw up my hands and go back to bed, but there are more than ever before when I look at the chaos, sigh, and smile.

“Oh well” has become a mantra of late.

12. In what way(s) did you grow spiritually?

That’s a tough one and an area of my identity I struggle with. I continue to be fascinated by spiritual memoirs (Dani Shapiro’s Devotion is one of the few books I read and reread) and resonate deeply with stories of people of faith who are trying to forge new paths of devotion for themselves and their families.

13. In what way(s) did you grow physically?

I became a runner – and continue to challenge myself daily by lugging around the world’s largest 11 month old baby!

14. In what way(s) did you grow in your relationships with others?

The challenges of the past year have only strengthened my relationship with my husband. After years of dating and years of marriage (Sunday was our 8th anniversary!), I can honestly say that I am more in love with him now than ever before. I’ve said it before: there is something profound and magical about seeing your partner as a parent to your kids that deepens and expands the contours of your love for him.

15. What was the most enjoyable part of your work (both professionally and at home)?

I cherish the balance that my writing gives to my life. Making time for myself and my words each day brings a dimension to my life that I deeply value.

16. What was the most challenging part of your work (both professionally and at home)?

Having been a teacher for nine years before having my kids, I am unused to the uncertain pitching life that freelance writing dictates. Also, working part-time and at-home, I sometimes struggle with flipping the switch between being a mommy and being a writer. Not surprisingly, I suppose, these two critical parts of my identity aren’t really separate, even if I’d like the time that I devote to each one to be delineated somehow.

17. What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?

That’s easy: the Interwebs! (How is it that I go online to look up a recipe for whole wheat bread and end up researching which one of our hand soaps has parabens in it?!)

18. What was the best way you used your time this past year?

This summer, my husband and I started going on weekly date nights. We put the kids to bed, our babysitter arrives, and we head out for a late dinner. Having that time to catch up with each other – and to eat a meal in peace! – has been a tremendous gift to me and to our relationship.

19. What was biggest thing you learned this past year?

There is enough of me to go around for all of us – including myself. (Thank you, Rebecca, for helping me see that.)

20. Create a phrase or statement that describes 2011 for you.

All you need is love – and a good night’s sleep.

—

May your new year be filled with good stories: the ones you live, the ones you read, and, where applicable, the ones you write.

Image by MShades

The following is a Public Service Announcement on behalf of all children celebrating a birthday this week or next.

My birthday is on Saturday.

Christmas Eve.

Growing up as a Catholic kid who went to Catholic school in a largely Catholic community, I sometimes felt like my birthday got lost in the Christmas shuffle.

Now that I’m a grown-up – I’ll be 35 on Saturday – I don’t put as much stock in birthdays. I get to spend my day with the people I love most: my husband, my kids, and my parents. And that’s all I really want this year (well, that, and Ann Patchett’s new novel…and maybe a gift certificate for a massage). Sure, we’ll be going to vigil Mass and making merry with our extended family that evening, but I’ve – mostly – gotten over the fact that I share my big day with an even bigger one.

Nevertheless, I think back to birthdays past and would like to offer a few gentle, tongue-a-little-bit-in-cheek suggestions to those of you who might know a kid whose birthday might be eclipsed this year by Christmas and/or Hanukkah:

1. Don’t forget his birthday! Sure, it’s Christmas. And it’s Hanukkah. But it’s also that child’s birthday. And he only gets one each year. So send him a card or give him a call and show him that you celebrate him too. I have an uncle who always remembers my birthday. His call each year means a lot to me, even in my ripe old age.
2. If you give her a present, please don’t use wrapping paper with Santa Claus or dreidels on it. Yes, I know that that’s what’s on your dining room table right now. But please make the effort to dig out the paper with the cupcakes or balloons on it.
3. By all means, please do not send him a card that reads, “Merry Birthday!” I got that card a few times as a kid and never found it quite as funny as the sender did.

Image by TheChanel

This year Christmas falls smack dab in the middle of Hanukkah.  This fact would have meant nothing to me as a child.  Now it means a lot…

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Please click here to read the rest of this post, in which I wonder about how to instill a sense of wonder in my interfaith kids during the holidays, at Altared Spaces, the recently revamped virtual home of my good friend Rebecca. I am thrilled to share my words on Rebecca’s site, where she offers her beautiful reflections and scrumptious food for thought on parenting, faith, and living a life full of questions.

Thank you, Rebecca, for inviting me over today.

Image by Jessica.Tam

I balance awkwardly on the edge of the tub, my daughter sitting on my knee, lunging for the yellow duck just out of her reach. I turn on the faucet and let the water run into the white plastic basin with its baby-shaped contours.

When my oldest – now four – was a baby, we had a temperature gauge that fit over the faucet and told me if the water was the right temperature.  Its batteries long dead, it still covers the spout, rubbery and padded, a reminder of a time when I didn’t trust myself enough to decide whether the water was too hot or too cold for my baby’s bath.

I pump two squirts of soap into the tub.  Colorless, creamy, eco-friendly, it swirls in the running water, dully opalescent.  No bubbles for my sensitive-skinned girl. (No, Calgon will not take her away.)

I turn off the water, wriggle the towel off of my daughter, blow raspberries on her tummy for good measure, and lower her into the tub.  As the water meets her toes, then her bottom, then her back, she looks at me with an expression of confused delight, her eyes narrowing then widening, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth and then expanding as it takes over her face.

I kneel down on the floor next to the tub and go about my business as she goes about hers. I start with her face, my soft white washcloth gently scrubbing away the remaining bits of dinner’s spinach from under her nose. Her ears are next, and, always, I ask myself and her, “How can someone so small have so much ear wax?” Then her neck, her arms, the smuggled lint and crumbs between her fingers.

As I move to her legs to address the detritus collected between the rolls of fat on her thighs, she begins her maneuvers: as though she’s powering an invisible bicycle, she jogs her chubby legs, churning the water and splashing it onto her belly.  Her arms join the dance, her fingers spread wide, smacking down on the water.  She is laughing now – at the mess she is making, at the glory of being a baby, naked and free.

I gently scrub her wisps of hair as her wild rumpus reaches new heights, her kicks causing a tidal wave that ejects her rubber animals from the tub. I jab and parry, trying to get her clean, rinsing the foam from her head and the traces of soap from her skin.

I sit back up on the edge of the tub then and spread her hooded frog towel over my lap. Expertly tucking the frog’s head under my chin, I lift her out of the water, her limbs still swimming, and hug her against my body. I wrap her in green terrycloth and stand to bring her into her room.

As we rise, she catches a glimpse of herself in the large mirror over the sink and laughs at the funny frog baby in the mirror. At her water-soaked mama. I laugh too, at her, at how delighted and delightful she is, at how easily she laughs.  I bury my nose in her neck and inhale the perfect babyness of her: the clean, non-smell smell of her soap.

She laughs. I laugh.

It’s bath night.

Which routines with your kids do you cherish?  Which ones do you dread?