The Reemergence of Erin - Part #3 'Recommended Based On Your Browsing History'

So I’m a confirmation bias kind of girl. 

I like to scour the internet to find some sort of reputable site that supports or provides a rationalization for what I already think I want to do. 

I’ll simultaneously text several friends or groups of friends to run something by them (I don’t do phone calls… yuck).

So between the Google searches and the text-fishing, it’s not so much that I’m searching to find my opinions. It’s not even that I’m searching for a different answer than the one I already think I have. I think it’s more that if, after hearing (reading?) other possible alternatives, I’m still set to dig my heels in and back up the conclusion I’ve already arrived at, then by golly, that must be the right one for me.

And so in light of that fact that my husband and I are in the midst of a divorce, I, of course, went searching the Internet for books for our 5-year-old (her younger sister is blissfully unaware, at just under 19-months-old). What was looking for were not necessarily books for us on how to tell her, but books FOR her... to help her understand what was going on with Mommy and Daddy.

We’ve been in the midst of this whole process for about 4 months. We have sorted out finances and schedules and all of that. We wanted to reach that point prior to cluing her in because if WE didn’t know the answers to things such as who would be living where and who would be with her when, how could we possibly answer her questions?

There were lots of books that involved explanations of Mommy and Daddy yelling, but those didn’t seem authentic since that hasn’t been her experience. Tension? Sure. Passive-aggressive comments? Certainly. But in her recent memory, the yelling (at least in her presence) has been absent, perhaps because we had already resigned ourselves to what was going to happen, thus releasing the pressure and allowing us to just “be”. Which actually concerned me even more. Because we had been getting along so well, would it be even more confusing to her as to why Mommy and Daddy were no longer going to be married and why there would be two homes??

So I did more searching and read more reviews and looked at what I could of the inside pages of different books. And once I had weeded out the yelling books, it seemed like most of the focus for kids her age seemed to be on the two houses aspect as opposed to the relationship aspect. And I’m not sure why that surprised me. I had been racking my brain trying to figure out how to explain vows and love marriage and different kinds of love and families, and here were these books... meant for her, mind you… implying that maybe my focus was off target. That something much more basic would be at the forefront of her mind… the where and the what of where she would be and who with… and what would she get to bring.

I made my purchases - three books - and was simultaneously excited for and apprehensive about their arrival. Excited because then that would be one more thing off the “to-do” list: telling J. But apprehensive because, well then we’d actually have to tell her.

Amazon Prime worked its magic and within a few days, I had my three books. And I read them all to myself. And none of them felt right. The teacher and counselor in me understand why the focus of books for her age group would focus on those concrete aspects of what happens in divorce. The whole hierarchy of needs framework lets us know that if a person doesn’t feel safe, secure, and taken care of, they can’t possibly concern themselves with higher-level concepts like love and family. So for a five-year-old to know where she would come home to and where Mommy and Daddy would be and who would get her when made perfect logical sense.

But it also seemed like putting the cart before the horse.

In order to read books to her about how we would have two homes, we would need to provide the opening. I realized that this had been what I was trying most to avoid. I had hoped the books would fill in where we would undoubtedly mess it up, because I was already feeling like we were going to mess her up. But holding the three books, I realized that we couldn’t get someone - or in this case, something - else to do our dirty work for us. Much like my husband had been the one to tell her about the death of her Papa, which I then provided a book for in the aftermath, we would have to break the ice (“Grandad’s Island”, by the way; it’s wonderful).

Daddy: Honey, Mommy and I have something to tell you.

J: Okay?

Daddy: You know how people are married? Well, Mommy and I aren’t going to be married anymore, but we are all still going to be a family.

J: How come you’re not getting married?

Daddy: Because we just want to be friends and that’s what makes us happier, which means we can be a better mommy and daddy to you and your sister.

J: Okay! *back to playing*

Admittedly, I haven’t even given her the books yet. I hid them when they first arrived (so she wouldn’t see them too early) and can’t remember where that “safe place” was. But since the initial conversation, I have had mini-follow-up discussions with her, inspired by the missing books, about who she will be with and when and about the fact that Daddy will have a new house at some point. And she’s pretty happy about getting to pick out things for her new room at Daddy’s house. So I’ll give the books the credit for getting me to think more about the concrete and less about the abstract. I know we’ll have to get a bit higher-level someday, but for now she can enjoy pumpkin picking with her family (all of us) and picking out just the right rainbows for the walls of her new room and knowing that whether here or there, she’ll always have a family to come home to.

Marking Milestones and Making Memories

If there’s one thing moms are good at, it’s marking time. We take pictures on the first day of school; we keep those lost baby teeth in tiny bags, hidden behind socks and under bras in dresser drawers; we make mini birthday cupcakes in the shape of crabby pattiesfor our SpongeBob loving children. (Just me?)

We’re prepared for every milestone. Except when we’re not. Sure, the expected milestones are easy.  We’ve planned the day that the training wheels come off. We can buy last-day-of-school ice-cream with the best of them. We know the advice we’ll give when they head off to their first school dance. We can almost picture how they’ll look in a cap and gown and, if we could, we would have already made reservations at their favorite restaurant many years ahead. We know who’ll need tissues or a power bar or just the wink or sideways smile to get them through.

You’ve planned well. And then, one day—out of the blue—they ask you to take the glow-in-the-dark stars that it took you hours to position off the ceiling. Or maybe they’ll decide that they’re finished with princesses and firetrucks. And they would rather wear plain underwear instead of the prints with Barbie or Batman. That says you’ve hit an important milestone, maybe even more important than riding a two-wheeler or reaching a double-digit birthday, and you’re unprepared.

And then there are the lasts. The last time they crawl into your bed seeking comfort in the middle of the night. The last time they hold your hand as they cross the street. The last time they ask you to comb or brush their hair so that it looks just right. And you couldn’t possibly mark them because you likely didn’t notice until six weeks later when you thought to yourself, “They haven’t done that for a while.” These moments seem so far in the past when you remember them that marking it feels almost foolish, and even if you wanted to mark it, your child would probably balk, scampering away as if brushing their own hair is no big deal, perhaps even rolling their eyes.

Really, just what is there to do? The former owner of my home, in her nineties, still talks about the circus mural they painted over more than 50 years ago, in what is now my son’s room, marking time through wistful musings. A friend of mine has a piece of wallpaper from her child’s room in a frame on her dresser. I keep a few stars pressed between the pages of a book.

Motherhood can be bittersweet. Try as we might, we can’t catch or catalog all of the milestone moments. And even if we could—the baby teeth that were precious when my son was six— seem a little gross wrapped in plastic in and among my scarves (though I am far from ready to give them up).

I wonder if we do ourselves a disservice with all of the planning and choreographing and preserving. There is a scar on my son’s head to remind us both of the time he fell dancing around the house wearing my high heels.. There are very faint slime stains on both of our couches. Every day when they pour their own cereal, tie their own shoes, and read themselves to sleep, they serve as living reminders of what once was and what one day might be. There were no first day of school pictures in my house this year. Sitting at his desk in his bedroom— that he picked himself, and we built together— didn’t seem portrait worthy. And yet, I know we’ll talk about that day and these weeks and months of remote learning for years to come.

After I took down the stars, we painted and primed the walls together. It took us a whole weekend. We laughed, we grumbled, we handed each other paint brushes and rollers, we took in the product of our labor. The next weekend, when we built furniture for hours, I taught him the difference between a Philips head and a flat head screwdriver and how to balance a board on your knee while tightening screws. We worked shoulder to shoulder and ate a lot of potato chips and sno-caps. I don’t need a photo or a ceremony to know that he’s growing up; his work ethic, combined with the black paint and black furniture he chose, are reminder enough. Had I stopped to think about how to memorialize this tremendous change, I might have received an equally epic eye-roll. More importantly, I might have missed the exact moments I now have preserved in my memory.

The Reemergence of Erin - Part #2 | Wedding Photos

I'm pretty sure everyone knows and has first-hand experience with the moment that I'm about to describe. 

You're a teenager and you're watching some seemingly-normal movie with your parents. Maybe you rented it from Blockbuster or maybe it’s showing on the 2-week free HBO preview. Whatever the case may be, because you’re a teenager and it’s family time, obviously the inevitable sex scene comes on and everyone in the room sort of stops moving and tries not to look at each other. Because you, at the age of 15 can't possibly know what sex is or be interested in it. And your parents don't want you to think about the fact that they have ever had sex, which your mere existence serves to disprove, and you certainly don’t want to think about the fact that they ever have either. And you don’t want them telling you that your upcoming date with that new cute guy from your algebra class is a no-go.

So maybe you did as I did when watching Jack draw Rose “like one of [his] French girls” in Titanic (which I had luckily seen twice in theatres and was thus prepared for) and you got up and grabbed yourself a snack a full 30 seconds in advance of the nudity and resulting steamed-up car window. Something like microwave popcorn that requires your attention in the kitchen for a solid 4 minutes. Pop. Pop. Pop.

The scene is over? They’re out of the car. Whew. Crisis averted. Now let’s go sink that ship!

Jack and Rose

My girls are 5 ½ and 1 ½, so I’m a solid decade away from the above-referenced awkwardness (sorry if you’re in the thick of it on the other side now!). But I guess that was all-the-more reason I was so surprised by a different kind of discomfort. 

It came in the form of Sesame Street.

My eldest daughter has been watching Sesame Street: Old School episodes on DVD for the past 4 months. She has a pretty limited amount of TV-time available to her each day, so the fact that she kept selecting from the same 11 episodes really speaks to the power of 1960s and 1970s public television.

The DVD….

I highly recommend, despite the awkwardness

So when it came time for our trip to the beach for a week, it was no surprise that she wanted to bring the DVDs with her. In addition to the 5 discs we’d been rotating between, she also elected to bring one of the ones we hadn’t yet opened: a 2-hour-long “best of” compilation spanning from 1969 through 1989. Perfect! The first 80 minutes of the disc was full of great stuff: John-John counting to 20; Kermit singing, “It’s Not That Easy Being Green”, Mr. Hooper surfing, Bert doing “the pigeon”. 

My daughter was enthralled.

Morning three of vacation, we prepped ourselves to watch the last 40 minutes. “I Lost my Cookie at the Disco”; Smokey Robinson doing “‘U’ Really Got a Hold on Me” while being groped by a giant red letter-U. All the classics.

Things then got a little rough. 

Mr. Hooper died. This was particularly poignant, as my daughter’s grandfather - her father’s father - had unexpectedly passed away this past May. And much like Big Bird, when he says, “I’ll just give it to him later,” regarding his drawing of Mr. Hooper, Juliana initially struggled a bit to understand death’s permanence. But because I knew about this scene - much like I did back with Jack and Rose - I was prepared for it. So when she remarked, “That’s just like Papa… he’s never coming back, right?”, I was ready. I teared up. I recovered. The scene ended. “Put Down the Ducky” came on to save the day.

But then, a few light-hearted scenes later came the unexpected. 

My awkward “movie” moment with my daughter was not a suggestive sex-scene; it was an unanticipated white wedding. The chords of Mendollsen’s “Wedding March” began to play, and I glanced up to see the typical 1980s pouf wedding dress headed down the aisle, worn by Maria as she walked towards a smiling Luis. And even more to my horror was the look of awe and happiness on the face of my daughter during the subsequent song, "Wedding Pictures", as both the bride and groom each sing (in their heads) about being nervous and wanting to run away, a point that was lost on my daughter amidst the wedded bliss.

Luis and Maria’s “Big Day”

I’ve never been a big pusher of traditional gender roles. When my daughter switched her favorite color from yellow to pink at the age of 4, I was mildly annoyed. When she received a wedding dress costume for her dress-up closet, I wrote a nice thank you but exchanged it for a fire-fighter. I know that J loves the wedding pictures of us that, up until recently, hung in multiple places around the house; her, and now her sister’s, “nap song” has always been her father’s and my wedding song (“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”). She has commented about loving our rings (which neither of us has been wearing since early July). And yet, I guess I didn’t anticipate that somehow, she had picked up on the idea that getting married was something “big”.

Just some of the pieces of “us”

And so watching my sweet little girl smiling at the idea of a wedding... approximately two weeks before when I knew her father and I would be telling her that he and I were no longer going to be married was, well, rough… more so than the loss of Mr. Hooper “just because”... and more so than Jack and Rose’s fateful romance. And maybe it’s because I knew something that J didn’t.

When Mr. Hooper dies, both she and I know that it is sad. As Bob cries to Big Bird about how things will never be the same, J and I both have the unspoken understanding that things truly aren’t the same without her Papa… because we’ve experienced it… together. When my parents and I collectively pretend that sex does not exist, it’s sort of by an unspoken agreement. But when J and I watch Maria and Luis vow to spend the rest of their lives together, there is no common experience, no unspoken understanding. She’s smiling; whereas I’m aware that I’m about to be the one to take that away from her. I couldn’t wait for it to be over; she declared it to be her favorite scene ever. Dammit.

As moms, we all know that there are those moments when our children lose little bits of their innocence. But maybe you’re like me in thinking that it’s going to be the rest of the world that sort of chips away at this… because it can’t be us who do the chipping. But in watching her watch that wedding with a contented smile on her face, I knew that I - and her father - that we were about to rob her of a bit of her childhood innocence. And, truth-be-told, I still have no idea what to say or how to say it, but I do know that it’s going to force our biggest little girl just a bit more out of that “little” stage. 

Always our little girls

Charting A Course Toward Fall

My son is not a schedule kind of kid. Being honest, he’s a not fully in touch with the space/time continuum kind of kid. He’ll look up from a project he’s working on and ask for lunch when it’s far closer to dinnertime.  I’ve renamed his first meal of the day blunch, it’s like brunch without the flair. 

No real schedule—aside from a very relaxed bedtime and a twice a week job taking a neighbor’s kids to the park—has been fine for summer. But with fall around the corner (How did that happen?), we both need at least a taste of routine.  So I made a chart. 

Before you roll your eyes or click over to another post because you can’t read the advice of one more mom telling you how a chart changed her life, give me a minute to explain. First, this chart didn’t change my life; it gave my son a few ideas of things to do every day. He complained a little less and I nagged a little less.

We’ve been through a lot of charts together—potty charts, behavior charts, homework charts—and not all of them worked for us. As a matter of fact, most of them didn’t. I know I said “chart,” and that’s what mine looks like. It’s really just a list of activities. If your children glaze over at the sight of a bunch of beautifully symmetrical squares just waiting for check marks, this idea can be presented in many different ways.

Here’s the basic idea: I pick 15-18 activities for him to do each week. He has to do five every day and do each of them at least once a week. The majority are things my son likes to do or might do anyway on any given day — like walk the dog, ride his bike, cook, or do something creative (and yes, games like Minecraft count). I add a few things that I think he should do, like read or help around the house, and a few related to self-care like taking a relaxing bath or talking on the phone with friends. 

And it’s working. Why?

First because it’s easy for him to be successful; he was going to walk the dog anyway and now it counts! 

Second, he doesn’t have to do the things he doesn’t like to do very often. I’m not going to get him to like reading by forcing him to do it every day; we learned that from our experience with the second-grade reading log.

Third: Self-care! How often do we ask our children to do things that will add to their physical and emotional well-being outside of general hygiene?  

Last, it makes him feel more independent. And with him asking what he can do to alleviate boredom less frequently, I get a break too. 

Cooking 101?

Maybe he’ll get creative with “blunch”

I get that all of this may have to change when school starts as math is non-negotiable no matter how loudly you complain about it — and complain he will. But it’s working fine for now. 

Oh, and there’s a bonus. He asked if he could make me a chart as well. Knowing that I also had assigned tasks made it more appealing for him to do what I asked him to do. And although he insisted that I do things like clear the sink of dishes before bedtime (ugh!) and pick-up all the bits and pieces the dog steals from the bedroom garbage cans, he also included things like “find time to exercise” or “take a walk with a friend.” Not only am I able to carve out a little more time to bloom, but showing my son that I understood who he was and what he might need, gave him the opportunity to think about who I was and what I might need, past being the person who folds the laundry and serves the food. 

Try it. Worst case? It doesn’t work. That’s probably happened a hundred times before. Either way, let me know how it goes. 

The Reemergence of Erin - Part #1 Sunday Solitude

My introduction to baby J - our first

Becoming a mother starts with a series of questions, the first of which is often, “Is that really a ‘positive’??” The questions that accompany pregnancy are often fun, sometimes daunting, but often so clear: “Do we find out the sex of the baby?” “Do I get the epidural?” “Cloth or disposable diapers?” There is a plethora of advice and innumerable opinions - and with the advice and the opinions, an exponentially greater amount of criticism and condemnation. The self-doubt that comes from this is crushing in those early hours, days, weeks, months of motherhood. And then often, unless we choose to continue to engage in advice-seeking (damn those Facebook groups!), things become quiet. And we are left with time and the scary realization that we still don’t have it all figured out. 

Me for instance.

It’s Sunday afternoon and my husband and oldest daughter have just left for the beach. I helped them pack, I waved good-bye as they pulled away, and then I sobbed.

It is the extended-family vacation that takes place in July each year for the past four years. And I’m not going for the second year in a row. Last year it made sense; my youngest daughter was 4 months old and I would essentially be trapped in a two-room hotel room in order to adhere to her nap schedule. This year, though, I had been excited to make the trip as a family of four.

But this year, I’m not welcome.

I have been pushing my husband away for years. And I don’t even know when it began or why, but I know he’s been trying so hard. But I was immune to his pain until it became mine. When I’m in a moment, I tend not to “see the forest for the trees”, an expression I didn’t even truly understand until I used it to explain my irrational behavior on an unrelated matter to a boss a few years back. I become fixated on small things as a way to avoid big things, and this past June, the big things bubbled to the surface. I tried so hard to be the person I thought I was supposed to be that I hid myself from him, and the hiding became my pattern. And because I couldn’t fix the frustration and anger and unhappiness that was just under the surface within me, I tried to fix all the things around me... and I became mean. And the things I criticized him most for were the things I despise most in myself.

Me at age 3-ish

I look at my beautiful baby girl through the monitor and conjure up the image of her radiant smile.

My Lil’’ Z

How does someone go from that level of utter perfection - clean and pure and with so much joy and potential - to becoming someone who hurts those that they love? What sorts of things need to happen to a person to get them there? How did I end up alone at my kitchen counter while half my family vacations without me? How do I, as a mother, keep my girls happy, and radiant, and open to love when all of my own decisions have robbed me of each of those things? These were not the questions in my mind when I, alone in my bathroom, first viewed each of their “positive” lines.

I am alone once more, lost in the realization that as much as I want my children to love me, I would never want them to become me. That instead of trying to change and mold them, it would best serve them if I change myself for the better in order to give them someone worthy of becoming. And how can one rectify that as a mother? How can I help these girls when at a loss for how to help myself? There don’t seem to be Facebook mom groups for this stuff. 

Instead, there’s Bloom Mom Tribe, a place where I can share my sadness, but also my journey. This is the first in a series of blogs I’ll be writing for myself, but for you as well, because maybe we all need each other a bit.

There are many moments of my days that make me smile, as I’m sure there are for many moms. But often, as our own harshest critics, we stifle our doubts and our sadnesses and stuff them down for fear of seeming ungrateful for all we have. And so that’s where I am. And here’s where it brought me. And maybe it’s not exactly where everyone else is, but I’m pretty sure our paths have overlapped at points. So as I navigate the path from being a married mother of two to a soon-to-be-divorced mother of two, join me... and maybe you’ll catch glimpses of yourself from time to time. 

Or maybe not?... but it might make you feel better about not cleaning up the playroom tonight!

The Distance Education Survival Guide: A Crash Course In Homeschooling

When you have a child, some of your most beautiful thoughts are in those sleepless nights late in your pregnancy of what life lessons you hope to bestow on your perfect little miracle. But that beautiful angel grows up and the lessons they require are more along the lines of “trash goes in the trash can” variety than the “invaluable life lessons” moments you envisioned. So, you do what most of us do and you send that precious, starry-eyed baby off to school as soon as humanly possible. And guess what? It worked out… right up until somewhere around March 2020. 

It was then that motherhood as we knew it got way more challenging than we ever thought it could get- that was when every single parent on your street became a teacher (and suddenly began hoarding toilet paper like their life depended on it). 

In the back of our minds, we all knew teaching was hard. What we didn’t know was that sometimes it was our kid that made it hard and not everyone else’s kids. The problem then became “how in the world will we survive until summer,” which blossomed recently into “wait… what do you mean they can’t go back in the fall”? And of course, we all understand the “why” but that doesn’t make the “how” a single bit easier. 

We talked to some seasoned homeschooling moms to get some of their best tips for making it through distance education with a smile on your face, even if you do have a glass of wine in your hand.

Upgrade Your Internet- We all learned pretty quickly back in the spring exactly what our internet bandwidth was capable of and if you haven’t upgraded yet, you should make it a priority. If money is tight, many cities and school districts are helping connect families with low or no cost internet service. Check with your local district for information.

Create Your Own Homeschooling Support Tribe- We are our own best weapon when it comes to conquering distance education and it may very well take a village to get your child the education they need. Check-in with moms in your area to see if anyone is interested in creating a homeschooling pod. Small groups are considered safe in many areas as long as social distancing is practiced and there is a chance your child may learn better in a group setting.

Hire a Tutor- Although it may not be financially possible, many parents are hiring private tutors to fill in learning gaps while distance learning measures are in place. Whether you feel comfortable opening up your home in person or via ZOOM, there are many options out there to make sure no one falls behind. 

Ask Your School District for Help- Many children are struggling with distance learning and if you know your child will be one of them, reach out to your school early and request help. Resources are tight all around, but the school district is obligated to provide services for children who struggle.

Stay Away From Pinterest- We *love* social media just as much as you do, but the “homeschooling” experience isn’t the same for everyone. Pinterest will tell you that you need tin pails of perfectly sharpened crayons and expensive workbooks from world-renowned homeschool curriculums in order to succeed, but you 100% do not. Homeschooling is a unique and personal experience for every family and will look vastly different. And it’s supposed to! The greatest thing about homeschooling is the parent’s ability to customize the experience to fit their child and their situation. You may very well be a “color-coded schedule and behavior chart kind of mom” but you don’t have to be. 

Join a Homeschooling Group- Contrary to the last entry’s advice, Facebook has a ton of groups full of moms just like you who feel bummed out, overwhelmed and super stressed at the prospect of being responsible for their child’s education for potentially the next year and hopefully, those groups also have a handful of homeschooling veterans who have been right where you are and can guide you gently and gracefully into a homeschooling groove you are comfortable with.

If You Need a Device, Apply Early- Schools are being faced with unprecedented budget shortages and if you need a Chromebook or a tablet, look into your school’s lending program, write down the important dates and stick to them. 

Pay Attention to Your School’s Plans for Reopening- In many states, the individual school district is responsible for deciding the best way to reopen and there may be instances where you don’t agree with your district’s decisions. If you happen to live in one of those districts, don’t despair. You have a few options when it comes to being the teacher. Technically, homeschooling and distance education are not synonymous. Homeschooling involves filing with your state to be your own private school. Rules vary by state, but anyone can do it. When you become your own homeschool, you take on the responsibility for teaching your children the curriculum they need to know. If that doesn’t sound feasible, you can also join a homeschool co-op or a charter school. These organizations will provide you with a curriculum and usually a credentialled teacher to help guide you.

Set a Schedule That Works- You don’t have to wake up every day at 6:30 AM if that doesn’t work. You can start school at 11:30 PM if you want. But whatever works for you make sure you do it the same way consistently. 

Although the thought of teaching our own children seems like a logistical impossibility and an educational nightmare, there is a slight chance we will all come out the other side a little jaded and with a lot more respect for those beautiful, amazing teachers in our lives. Just remember, you can take a break when you need to, you can break down and cry when you need to and you can ask for help when you need to. We are all in this together and we are here to help each other.