9:30 PM

And I should turn off the tv, transfer the baby to her cosleeper, bring my beer and head to bed with the next few chapters of my novel.

I’m tired. Bone tired… in fact, my hip is aching inexplicably when I sit, and the center of my back twinges when I stand. My brain doesn’t focus very well, and pretty soon, my eyes will start closing of their own accord.

But not yet.

My normal bedtime is 11pm. I have an hour and a half until then, so why not take that time to revise—

Dear God!!!

Baby girl, go back to sleep!

Sigh. I guess there is no chance for mommy to be not mommy.

See more progress on: edit my novel

Spinning

My head is in such a disorganized mess. I really should focus on planning my day, but.. well… I’m such a mess. Time slips away. Focus flutters around. Babies cry all day. And I still have to clean the sink.

I wish I could get an impartial view on my life, to see if my stage in life is warranting my inaction and confusion. I feel like I should be doing better at organizing, but I also have a 9 week old baby and a not yet 2 year old toddler. Does that buy me a bit of a break?

See more progress on: Plan my day

It Takes a Village

I had a few hours off of the motherhood thing, yesterday. Not even a whole afternoon, just a few hours, sitting outside a cafe and revising my first draft. It was so nice to be sitting there, not in the mom capacity, not being a mom at all, just being myself… just being an artist and writer. It was like letting the air in.

I revised 20 pages without worrying about nap time or someone waking up, or needing to make lunch or clean up the toys strewn around the living room, or what my toddler is doing in the other room while I’m sitting with a pen and my book… I can’t hear him, so he must be sticking his fingers into a socket.

It makes me realize how important time off is. And how important asking for help is.

I’m not the kind of person who likes to ask for help. I like to do things myself. I like to be tough and independent. I don’t like to admit that I need other people. Okay, that’s my neurosis, but kids aren’t raised just by one person alone. Even for a single mom, it’s not just one person. It takes a village, they say. And when you are a creative mom, you really need to call on that village.

S. took the day off of work and stayed home with the kids. And it was great. I need to ask for that more often. Maybe it takes a village for a mom to raise a novel, too. I need to make my work important, make myself important. I need to make my writing practice explicit. I need to commit to the writing and the revising and the working for myself, and for my family.

Part of that commitment is asking for help to get the work done. It is stating, “I am a writer and I need this time to work.”

Ironically, I am trying to write this entry with a “sleeping” infant and a toddler “watching” a deep sea dvd. And it’s so hard to keep my concentration and train of thought. I know I had important ideas to write down, but the toddler pulled on my hair and the thoughts must have escaped my head through my ear.

Yes. Time off is important. I wonder how much time off? Would an afternoon a week be enough? I was thinking it would be nice if I could get my sister to come and watch the kids once a week on a regular basis… not just when I had a doctor appointment. She could get a chance to know her nephew, he could get a chance to know his aunt, and I would get a chance to write my book.

I could also ask my dad to do the same. A regular afternoon gig. Sigh. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t even have to go far, just to the coffee shop down the street. That’s why I have a laptop, isn’t it?

I get uncomfortable asking people to do that, though. I feel like I am taking advantage of them. And if we had more money, I could pay for a babysitter, but as someone who is struggling because I am NOT working, I feel like it is unfair to take family money and spend it on something that will not bring in more money. See that’s me not taking my work seriously again.

I do believe that eventually I can make money from this, but not if I don’t commit to it, and not if I can’t take the time to put it into writing, revising, getting it published.

Take myself seriously. Declare to the world, to my family, to my community, that I am a writer. Pull on their support to be that writer. And not incidentally, if I declare myself a “real” writer to my community, I need to take myself more seriously, because they are watching, expecting. And then, I must live up to their expectations.

See more progress on: write my book on creativity and motherhood

The Ivy Bean

Here's the Bean in her debut appearance.

I will be very excited if the posting actually works, although there's no reason why it shouldn't. Lots of people post pictures to their blogs. Despite my tech idiocy I should be able to get this in there.

If it works out, maybe I'll start a new blog with the photo a day project I'm trying to do.

All right, I'm just going to post it and pray.

Mothering

I think raising strong, happy children isn’t just about them. At first, I thought it was about providing love and discipline and security and all that, but the more I think about it, the more I think that in order to do this, I have to excercise my own strength and positivity.

I need to look for the good in the world and in myself. I need to see the world as positive. I need to be happy in what I have and who I am. I need to face my own fears and take action. I need to take chances on the things that usually have me cowering in “what ifs.”

Again, I am impressed by the truth that in order to be a good mother, you need to mother yourself. It’s not about giving yourself indulgences that give you pleasure for a minute. And it’s not about being selfish and thinking you are more important than anyone else, but it is about taking care of yourself and your needs and your soul and your body. It’s about showing your children how you take care of yourself. It’s about being strong so that you have more to give your children.

See more progress on: Raise strong, happy children

The Unstated Agenda

I am really good at planning to plan my day.

In my head, I am organizing and arranging—my day, my things, my plans, my writing, my activities, my discussions. But all that arranging stays in my head, abstract.

I have been staring at this table in my livingroom, that I have been planning to move to the kitchen for, oh, 9 months. Everyday I plan to plan to move it, and every day, I do nothing.

I know that in order to put the planning into action, you actually have to make time in your day to do it. It can’t just be a vague, “hey I could do this or that today.” It has to be an active plan. First this then that, then during the first nap I will move the table (or revise 20 pages or cook chili for dinner or whatever it is that is in your plan.)

I know that the vague intention is ineffective, and I know it from my own inaction. I’ve also seen it in the way that S always has these grand plans to get things done but never does any of them. He doesn’t make room in his unstated plans for his days off. The unstated plans are to relax. Watch some science shows or black and white movies, drink some coffee, smoke some cigarettes on the deck, play with the boy, go get the newspapers, take a shower, go have brunch, which leads directly into a some errands, more adventures with the boy, visiting people in the neighborhood and papa-son day with pizza for the boy and beer for the papa, and then to boy bedtime and more movies on tv—but nothing on the to do list. And that’s it. That’s the whole day. Taken over by unstated plans.

Now, this is an interesting thought. The unstated plans. There’s a technical term for it that I learned when I was in Grad School for teaching, but the damn mom-brain has lost the word. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get things done, sometimes, because you’re pretending that those unstated goals aren’t there. But truly, they come first, particularly if they are your routine, right?

I wonder what my day would look like if I took my unstated plans—hidden agenda? Is that the term? Well, it fits. My agenda is my plan, right? And this agenda is hidden from my “planning,” hidden from myself, even. A lot of what’s on that hidden agenda is daily maintenance that I take for granted… email, shower, getting dressed, folding some clothes, finding my shoes that have been kicked under the sofa, putting toys in teh basket, grabbing something to eat, going to the bathroom, getting the kids dressed, changing diapers, playing with them, feedng them, cooking, picking up, and so on. And then there’s the other stuff, stuff that isn’t productive but is really what my lazy butt prefers to do… my message board addiction, my television addiction, my magazine addiction, my sudoku addiction—hmmmm. I’m sensing a pattern here.

I resist my addictions because of the way I feel about myself after giving in to them totally and ignoring my day and goals. I feel lousy. I feel like a failure- but there isn’t anything wrong with any of those addictions, really. It’s just the imbalance they create.

So what if, instead of defaulting to those addictions, I actually put them into my plans? What if I actually put them on my daily todo list, gave them a valid place in my life instead of turning them into a guilty secret of inaction?

Rest is important to being productive. Downtime is needed. Maybe I should respect my own relaxation methods and incorporate them into a productive day.

And not only that, but maybe I should recognize all the little daily things that I do that I don’t technically plan but need to be done anyway. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like my day was getting away from me and so were my plans. Maybe I would feel more productive, more accomplished if I took all this into account. Maybe that would make it easier to accomplish the other things on my list.

See more progress on: Plan my day

The Unstated Agenda

I am really good at planning to plan my day.

In my head, I am organizing and arranging—my day, my things, my plans, my writing, my activities, my discussions. But all that arranging stays in my head, abstract.

I have been staring at this table in my livingroom, that I have been planning to move to the kitchen for, oh, 9 months. Everyday I plan to plan to move it, and every day, I do nothing.

I know that in order to put the planning into action, you actually have to make time in your day to do it. It can’t just be a vague, “hey I could do this or that today.” It has to be an active plan. First this then that, then during the first nap I will move the table (or revise 20 pages or cook chili for dinner or whatever it is that is in your plan.)

I know that the vague intention is ineffective, and I know it from my own inaction. I’ve also seen it in the way that S always has these grand plans to get things done but never does any of them. He doesn’t make room in his unstated plans for his days off. The unstated plans are to relax. Watch some science shows or black and white movies, drink some coffee, smoke some cigarettes on the deck, play with the boy, go get the newspapers, take a shower, go have brunch, which leads directly into a some errands, more adventures with the boy, visiting people in the neighborhood and papa-son day with pizza for the boy and beer for the papa, and then to boy bedtime and more movies on tv—but nothing on the to do list. And that’s it. That’s the whole day. Taken over by unstated plans.

Now, this is an interesting thought. The unstated plans. There’s a technical term for it that I learned when I was in Grad School for teaching, but the damn mom-brain has lost the word. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get things done, sometimes, because you’re pretending that those unstated goals aren’t there. But truly, they come first, particularly if they are your routine, right?

I wonder what my day would look like if I took my unstated plans—hidden agenda? Is that the term? Well, it fits. My agenda is my plan, right? And this agenda is hidden from my “planning,” hidden from myself, even. A lot of what’s on that hidden agenda is daily maintenance that I take for granted… email, shower, getting dressed, folding some clothes, finding my shoes that have been kicked under the sofa, putting toys in teh basket, grabbing something to eat, going to the bathroom, getting the kids dressed, changing diapers, playing with them, feedng them, cooking, picking up, and so on. And then there’s the other stuff, stuff that isn’t productive but is really what my lazy butt prefers to do… my message board addiction, my television addiction, my magazine addiction, my sudoku addiction—hmmmm. I’m sensing a pattern here.

I resist my addictions because of the way I feel about myself after giving in to them totally and ignoring my day and goals. I feel lousy. I feel like a failure- but there isn’t anything wrong with any of those addictions, really. It’s just the imbalance they create.

So what if, instead of defaulting to those addictions, I actually put them into my plans? What if I actually put them on my daily todo list, gave them a valid place in my life instead of turning them into a guilty secret of inaction?

Rest is important to being productive. Downtime is needed. Maybe I should respect my own relaxation methods and incorporate them into a productive day.

And not only that, but maybe I should recognize all the little daily things that I do that I don’t technically plan but need to be done anyway. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like my day was getting away from me and so were my plans. Maybe I would feel more productive, more accomplished if I took all this into account. Maybe that would make it easier to accomplish the other things on my list.

See more progress on: Plan my day

Boys and Wheels

The Monkey Man has found a new love.

Mama, Papa, Ivy and Gabriel were walking down the street this weekend, when we passed a tricycle that somebody had put out on the street with a sign saying "take me."

Let's just say that G was quite enthused. So we walked to brunch, Papa pushing the stroller and Mama carrying Ivy in her carrier and pushing the new trike (thank goodness it had a push bar for grownups-- an invention that is genius). G couldn't take his eyes off of it. And when we got to brunch, we sat in the empty back room of the restaurant where he could explore the thing before we got our food.

He rode the trike home, so proud and excited, yelling all the way at the top of his voice.

All was well and good until we got home and he had to get off the tricycle and go upstairs. Or no, that's not precisely right. He was fine going up the stairs and all, but when we go into the apartment and he could SEE the tricycle, he started having fits. Crying. Screaming. Pulling the thing this way and that, knocking it over. Not even trying to ride it, not wanting to push it anywhere. Over stimulated, we thought. Too excited. We clamed him down with a sippy cup of milk and reading a book and brushing his teeth and washing his hands, since he loves to play in the water. Bed time came and that was that.

But this morning, the fits started again. First when Papa took the trike downstairs so they could go on an adventure, and then again when they came back upstairs. G kept yelling "mine! mine! mine!" even when we assured him he could keep it and no one would take it away from him. He grabbed it and pulled it to him and bonked himself on the head-- or so I assume, because he has the impression of a nut on his forehead.

He wouldn't stop crying. He didn't want to do anything with it. I asked him if he was scared, and he didn't deny it. I told him that he just needed to practice and mommy would help him whenever her needed it. Still tears though. Then I started identifying the parts of the tricycle and the tears went away. He kept pointing at the different parts and I would tell him what they were. Then he could get up and move on to something else.

It's so strange how little guys process life. He obviously loved it, but it scared him.... or maybe he just needed to know more about it. Is this the beginning of a boy obsession? Boys and things with wheels. My brother is going to love it, his only nephew following in his footsteps.

Mess Making and Unmaking

Who ever would have guessed that I would be a housewife? Meet Rowena, the homemaker.

I suck at it. I'm the creative type, the girl who reads a lot of books, who writes poetry and stories. The one who encourages others to be creative and go for their dreams. I'm the teacher, the bartender, the free spirit who likes outdoor music festivals and walking around Manhattan just trying to discover whatever there is to see. I'm the one who shops in thrift stores and has a garden on her fire escape and cooks last minute meals for one and watches lots of tv while painting pictures in her journal, and lives in a constant mess of creative clutter.

But now I have to plan and organize and get a hold of the mess. Now that I stay at home all the time, and cook meals 3 times a day and run around after a toddler who thinks throwing toys, food, books, papers on the floor is the height of entertainment, it is really not okay to live in the mess of the benign clutter that I am used to. I don't even know how to really clean, I realize. I have to research how to do it. Isn't that wacky? Researching housekeeping.

Flylady and Martha Stewart help. Except I am not as dedicated as either of them would have me be. I get the point of shining your sink and washing your dishes right after you're done, but I just don't seem to be able to keep up. The dishes are my nemesis. They never stop, and they just pile up and get worse and worse and then the whole cleaning thing gets overwhelming.

Those of you who have dishwashers don't know how lucky you are. I've been sick and let the dishes go for two days, and it's terrible again. I guess I can't take a day off of housecleaning, even if I'm sick. One of the good things about having a day job is that you can get away from it sometimes.

Ugh. Instead of letting the stupid dishes take over my life and defeat my cleaning aims, I am going to focus on purging. Flylady has an idea where you toss 27 things a day. I like that idea and have been trying to, but don't think I've managed that many things in a day.... unless I count the bag of old tights and socks with holes that I threw out yesterday. I guess I could.

It might be easier to keep things in order if I had less stuff. I really dream of the day when I have a place for everything and everything in its place. I do actually like organizing, but the cleaning always seems to get in the way. At least Spring is a good time to take this on as a project.

Day

I needed to stop a moment and reflect.

I glanced back over my posts and realized how often they were about being blocked or not being able to write or not being... something.

So I wanted to take it from a different direction. I wanted to look at my life the way it is, right now-- not for what it's missing, but for what it is.

So today, I stepped outside onto the deck, wreck that it is from a difficult winter and my lack of attention, and talked to my neighbor over the fence. We talked about babies and the difficulties of living where we live and of how fast time goes and it seems that the last decade has just disappeared while we were living it. Maybe two decades.

And it was warm for the first time in I don't know how long. I didn't even wear a jacket. The leaves on the trees out there were just starting to unfurl, just enough to give the branches a haze of green. I brought Ivy out in her little pink jacket with the embroidered flowers and she looked up into the sky and blinked and then fell asleep in my arms while my neighbor and I talked. Gabriel was inside sleeping, after refusing his nap and being a crazy man all afternoon, then passing out after watching The Backyardigans on Noggin.

Spring is happening.

I have started taking pictures to document this coming year. At least one a day is the plan. And today, I took some pictures of Ivy smiling and of Gabriel holding Ivy and laughing-- before he got too crazy and made her cry.

So that was my day.