Zen Mama Wannabe

Messing Up

I mess up on things a lot.  Especially with this parenting business.  That is why I am a wannabe.  I could tell you all the many ways I screw it up and you would undoubtedly cringe at a lot of them.  I sure do in hindsight.  I’m either the dreaded helicopter parent swooping in too often or too soon OR I don’t pipe up enough, especially in dealings with other kids.  The “Oh, let them work it out – that is how kids learn” philosophy is great in theory, but leaves me feeling conflicted and doubtful most of the time.   And above all I think, you never want to be a parent doubting yourself.

There is a balance – a fine line between helicopter and hands-off, and I for one, don’t have it down.  Mama definitely ain’t got her groove.  Maybe that is what makes me feel the worst.  I feel I should.  I wish I did.  But it still seems like a minefield I am carefully navigating – and yes, sometimes things do blow up in my face. 

Today I saw my son struggling, playing with these other two boys at the park.  My guy just wanted to play catch.  These boys insisted on Monkey in the Middle – and my son was put as the monkey.  He never could knock it down – thus remaining in the middle – and meaning he never got to even handle the ball.  How much fun is that? 

I could read the look on my son’s face.  He was not happy, and his good-natured way was slowly evaporating.  Do I jump in?  Insist or “suggest” that they play it differently – I know, how about the old fashioned way where you just throw it to each other and catch it and everyone gets a turn?  Too dull these days? One of the boys (the alpha kid if you will) was becoming a bit aggressive in his teasing (torture).  But perhaps I am just over-protective? 

I did nothing (not proud of it – just telling you the story).  It was one of the other boy’s mothers that stepped in and changed the dynamics of the game.  She (a schoolteacher so perhaps a bit more experienced – or just better – than I) could see that my son was miserable and felt the other boys were now acting mean-spirited. 

Maybe it was better coming from her – because it didn’t look like a mom stepping in protecting her son.  Maybe it was worse it didn’t come from me because after all, I saw my son’s struggles and didn’t respond to it. (What kind of message does that send him?)

At the end of this playdate, the final incident happened.  It was over a game of tag my son didn’t want to play.  We were getting ready to pack it all up, but Alpha Boy wasn’t quite ready for it to end.  He insisted they play and that HE would be IT, but then at the last second, yelled, “Not IT” making the second boy IT, who seemed confused by the sudden change in events, but quickly reached over and tagged my son.  My guy looked bewildered; he had stated it pretty clearly he wasn’t playing, but now somehow seemed to be in an active game of tag.  He stood there for a couple seconds, clearly not sure if he should just go along, you know be a good sport and play this game being forced upon him. 

This time I stepped jumped in. “Hey Buddy," I yelled. " I thought you said you weren’t playing?  Well, anyway – it is time for us to go.”  Ah – saved at last.  My son ran over to me and gave me a hug, but really he was hiding the fact tears were now spilling from his eyes.  “I was just so confused,” he admitted in a muffled voice.  As was I – and told him so.   He wasn’t alone there.

It had been long enough at the park with these boys – for both of us.  The negative undercurrent I had been sensing this whole time was also being felt by him and he was starting to lose it.  He buried his head in my chest as the tears kept coming.  I comforted him for a minute, but then saw the other boys starting to walk over.  Trouble brewing.  “Ok, Buddy.  Deep breaths. Pull it together.  You don’t want them to see you cry,” I told him, helping him wipe the incriminating evidence off his cheeks. 

Suddenly Alpha Boy was there.  “Is he CRYING?" he wanted to know.  This Zen Mama Wannabe stood tall.  “Oh, he just got something in his eye,” I told him.  My son’s head jerked back, startled at my less than honest response.  But when he looked up at me, it was all over his face: pure relief.  My heart cracked a little.  Alpha Boy wanted to know if it was a wood chip 'cuz that had happened to him once.  Situation adverted.

On the walk back to the car, my son surprised me by stopping me to say, “Thanks, Mom.  You know, for what you said back there.  I really appreciate it.”  Ahh – my heart melted back together again.  All the way home all I could think was thank you.  Thank you for this one time letting me get it right. 

When Did it Become All About the Food?

“Max can eat fruit, just no strawberries or purple grapes as they don’t seem to agree with him.  Crackers and gold fish are fine but no popcorn as the kernels stick in his teeth and it becomes a whole thing.  Trust me.  Meat and cheese roll-ups are fine, just no turkey as I think it has too many chemicals for their little bodies.  And no juice please, as we don’t do juice after 2pm.”

I am listening to Max’s mom go on and on, having no clue why she is telling me all this.  Max isn’t moving in, he’s not coming to stay with us for the weekend – and then it dawns on me – she is telling me this for the upcoming playdate we have scheduled this week.  A regular playdate – something that lasts roughly 2 hours, give or take.  Seriously?  Am I going to have to take notes??

When did it become all about the food??  Kids today can’t together for a few hours without eating?  This is what we are teaching our children?  Get-togethers and playdates = food? 

A good friend and I had been discussing this a few months earlier -- at the start of the Little League season, when the snack sign-up list got passed around.  Not only, she informed me, did they have to sign up to provide snacks for the games, but for the 1-hour practices as well.  She watched each week as some of the kids were more interested in the snack selection than learning the fundamentals of the game.  Do you find something wrong with this picture?

Was it this way when WE were kids?  I sure don’t think so, and neither does HotCrossBuns whose playtime growing up sounds an awful lot like mine.  What has happened between then and now – other than the rapidly increasing rate of obesity in kids? 

More importantly, what are we teaching our children – because WE are the ones that are creating this insanity obsession with food.  We are the ones insisting our kids have all these snacks at their extracurricular activities – and their playdates.  We are the ones sending forth the message that they can’t make it an hour or two without eating something and that water just is not enough to quench their thirst and re-hydrate them. 

Maybe it is one thing to focus this intently on snacks and food now – after all, most (but certainly not all) young kids are running around, burning off the extra fuel – but what happens when they become the slow-moving teens you hear so much about?  The population of teens that spends so much of their time slumped in front of a computer or video game.  They are hardly active yet have been conditioned (by us!) to eat throughout the day.  You don’t need a PhD in Nutrition to figure out what happens next. 

So what do I do about Max?  Have water and apple slices available if hunger strikes? Maybe, just maybe this Zen Mama Wannabe thinks, the playdate could be about FUN and not FOOD.  Not sure what Max’s mom would make of that – but it might be interesting to find out. 

Playdate Postpartum

It was one of THOSE kind of playdates – the 3 martini kind, that is if I was the 3 martini type – and I’m not, but I think you get the point. 

For starters, in no particular order, their babysitter nonchalantly showed up 45 minutes late to pick Tina up.  No, that doesn’t lead me to drink, but when you are anxiously – or perhaps eagerly – awaiting the pick-up time, and it comes and goes with no sign of anyone, 20 minutes passes, then 30 minutes, and still no car pulling up in your driveway, you can’t help but wonder “Did they forget?  Did they think I was taking her home instead?  Are they lost?  Or am I spazzing out for no good reason?” Usually I think the latter, which is probably why I didn’t call on cell phone number given to me to find out where the heck she was.

It was one of those playdates that started off promising, but quickly deteriorated and before long, my little girl came and got me to say that Tina was being bossy and wasn’t letting my son play – and it was HIS playdate. He got so frustrated, that when he was telling me all about it, he started to cry. A serious cry – no crocodile tears here.  So great – my son is in tears, his friend Tina is not being nice and quite frankly looks like she could care less about the whole thing.  But we get through this part, and with some help, they are soon playing together – more or less.  Then the paper thing happens.

They go outside and start riding scooters and trikes on the deck.  Tina decides she is going to be a policeman and hand out tickets.  (Yes, I know all this because I’m discretely hovering; after the fiasco a little while before, I am taking no chances).  I see Tina run back in the house, hear her tear up some paper, which I assume she is getting from her backpack, and then run back outside to issue the “ticket.”  I’m thinking this is a cute little game.  I’m thinking, my kids would have just used make-believe tickets and how cute to make up real ones.  Until…much later, when I realize that the paper that she has been tearing up is MINE!  My papers – stacked in a pile on the corner of the dining room table.  Important papers.  Not legal documents, not the end of the world (in the big picture), but important to me nonetheless.  I am stunned.  You just rip up other people’s stuff, without asking first??  Papers from a table top, stacked neatly in a pile, that aren’t yours?

Then I saw my son’s report he had just brought home – his big book report, a month-long project at school, his first big one of this type, an A+ report I was planning on saving forever (yes, I’m that type) and it was torn too. Ok, in honesty, it was only one of the pages  – one of his illustrations, and it’s not like it was ripped to pieces; the top corner was ripped off.  But still!!?!  I’m now ready for Martini #1.

When I talked to my kids about it afterward, to make sure they know that kind of behavior is neither cool nor acceptable, I asked where all these little ripped up “tickets” were now.  My daughter knows where they are – and goes out and brings me a band-aid box that had been on the top shelf of our medicine cabinet only hours before.  Yep – that’s where the torn up paper is, but where are all the band-aids that were in there?  Neither kid knows.  Whose idea was it to use this band-aid box?  When they told me I started seeing red again.  Who takes something from someone else’s medicine cabinet, empties the contents of the box, and then uses it to put the torn up tickets in there?  Again, cute idea – but you don’t go into other people’s medicine cabinets!  Period.  When they are seven, it’s band-aids; but what is it going to be when they’re ten or twelve??   This would have been Martini #2.

Martini #3 would have been right after the babysitter showed up, when I went down stairs to get Tina and found she was standing buck naked in my daughter’s room (with underpants on – at least) ready to put on Princess gowns and play dress up (this is something that thrilled my Little One to no end – she probably can’t remember a better playdate her brother has had – for HER anyway).  My son has gone off at this point, searching for his basketball to shoot a few hoops.

I have been working with our 4 year old on how when you play dress up, you put the Princess clothes on OVER your regular clothes, that it is neither necessary nor appropriate to strip down to your bare skin.  So to see 7 year old Tina standing there in this manner really shocked me. This is NOT what you do on a boy-girl playdate.  When I later tried to tactfully gauge what my son saw or didn’t see, he told me, “Yeah, I asked her if she was a Naked Princess.”  Great. 

As I stand there embarrassed over this turn of events, the babysitter tells Tina it is time to go.  Tina says something to her and slams the bedroom door.  That happened again when the babysitter tried to talk to her and again, I just stood there speechless.  Why didn’t I step up and politely but firmly let her know that in OUR HOUSE we do not slam doors?  Then again, why didn’t I confront her on the torn up papers? Why did all the carefully thought-out words of wisdom come AFTER she left?  Was I so desperate for the playdate to go well that I forgot my job of being a good mom?

Tina hugged my son goodbye and I suppose it all ended on a good note – other than the fact I felt driven to drink.  The fact that I didn’t shows amazing control.  However, was I the Zen Mama I so want to be?  Oh no, my friend, far from it.  I literally saw RED when I noticed my torn up papers and it took the whole playdate (and longer) to be able to breathe again and look at it from a calmer perspective.  Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t able to speak up with the door slamming – because I was biting my tongue so hard from the other stuff, I was scared to let go. 

How would have a real Zen Mama handled it all?  This Zen Mama Wannabe is almost scared to ask.