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Self-discipline

May 6, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 2 Comments

Now that Spring is (supposedly) here, we should be able to enjoy warm weather and sunshiney days.  It also means that the outside restrictions I accepted for Lent are over now.   I am free to eat what I want, when I want.  This should be good news for me; instead, I find myself struggling.

It turns out that I am not as strong in the area of self-discipline as I would like to be.  Having good choices dictated to me by an outside authority is a lot easier for me than governing myself.

When giving the opportunity, it turns out that I generally don’t make very good choices for myself.  I would rather eat what tastes good in the moment, instead of eating something healthy that will actually make me feel better.  I would rather comfort myself with food than get to the heart of my problem.  I do not make the choice to find out what is really bothering me when I can grab a piece of chocolate instead.

As I try to figure out life after Lent, I need to figure out how to live between the extremes of denial and permissiveness.  Just like I try not always to say “no” or always “yes” to my kids, I need to figure out a way to say “yes” and “no” appropriately to myself.  The problem is that I am so exhausted by the work of disciplining my kids, it is hard to work up the energy to do the work of disciplining myself.  However, if I am unhealthy physically and psychologically, then it is hard to discipline my kids well.

Even while writing this post, I find myself unable to come up with any definitive answers.  But I am glad to have this place to make a commitment to continuing the work of finding a way to say “yes” and “no” appropriately to myself.

photo by donald judge

You can find more of Melanie’s musings here.

Filed Under: Parenting, Spirituality Tagged With: , , ,

Moms and social media: Is the tide turning?

April 8, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 2 Comments

I met up with a blogging friend last week and asked her how she was doing.

“I’m…good.  I think.”  This was not the reply I was expecting.  It turns out that she had just that morning made the decision to take a three-month hiatus from all social media (twitter-ing, blogging and facebook-ing).  While the decision had not come easily, she found herself feeling pretty good about it once she finally made the decision to do it.

For me, her decision followed on the heels of another announcement by a blogger that she was going to be cutting back on her blog commitments.  We wouldn’t be able to find her in her usual place because she wanted to take some time to see what other kind of writing she could do.  What could she accomplish if there wasn’t a word limit?  What would happen if she had the freedom from a weekly deadline?

Both of these women express questions and desires that I myself have been exploring.  While I came relatively late to the mom-blogging scene, various connections have allowed me to make writing commitments for multiple internet locations.  Blogging allowed me to find my voice, to satisfy my love of writing and my egotistical need to speak and feel heard.

Now that I have found my voice and experienced the thrill of being heard, I feel stretched thin by my many and various blogging commitments.  I feel something bigger and deeper wanting to make its way out of my brain (a book?  a story? an essay?), yet with 4 kids, 2 personal blogs and 6 other blog communities, I simply cannot find the time to sit down and see what is inside me.

For how many mom bloggers is this the case?  We jumped on the mom blogger bandwagon, excited about the various opportunities to express ourselves in many different ways.  Now how many of us, having found our voice and, in many cases, an audience, want to pull back from social media commitments to see what other kinds of writing we are capable of?

James Franco told Politico, “Social media is over. Still up there. Going down. You heard it here first.”  With the impact that social media has had on civil uprisings and revolutions of late, it is hard to believe that this is the case.

In the case of mom bloggers, however, is James Franco on to something?

Time will tell.

photo by tosaytheleast

You can find more of Melanie’s musings (at least for a little longer!) here and here.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: , , ,

Understanding hunger.

March 25, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 4 Comments

Lately I’ve been feeling a little…empty.

My husband and I have started doing the South Beach Diet for the past week, in an attempt to address a few addictions to sugar and late night snacks.  We also have in mind the fact that we have a couple beach vacations planned for the summer and both of us would rather not feel self-conscious for an entire week at a time.

What I have learned about myself through this experience is really amazing. I knew that I was turning to sugar to pick me up when I felt tired.  Physically, I knew I was craving sugar throughout the day.  I just had no idea that I was using sugar to boost me up emotionally through so much of the day as well.

The kids are fighting and no one wants to listen?  How about a few peanut M&Ms to cheer you up?

The house has been officially labeled “disaster-area” and supper needs to get on the table but the kids are fighting?  It might not solve your problems,  but go ahead and grab a few bites of ice cream on the sly.  That will definitely lift your spirits and might just get you through the next couple hours until bedtime…

You’ve just dropped off all the big kids so the morning is “yours” but you feel lonely, depressed and/or exhausted?  Surely it isn’t too early to have a chocolate chip cookie and see if that will do the trick to satisfy your soul…

That last phrase is really what makes me stop and consider.  How much importance have I been giving to food?  I remember telling my husband that I loved meal times because I could eat and feel better at the end of the meal.  The problem was that I often didn’t feel that good at the end of the meal, because I used sugary treats to give myself “closure.”  Unfortunately, I think that closure was as much for an emotional boost, as a physical one.

So now we are eating “healthy.”  Just a few complex carbs for me (since I’m still nursing), and a lot of protein and vegetables for both of us.

In some ways, it has been great.  My husband and I are working together in planning meals.  I feel more like we are a team. I enjoy trying to come up with the tastiest meal combinations i can, given the limitations our diet gives me.  I feel like I am learning to taste and savor my food, because I know that I will be hungry again shortly.

I also find myself thinking a lot about hunger.  Is it really so terrible to be hungry?  I just finished reading a book about Valley Forge.  The soldiers were forced to eat “firecake” most days, when no other food was available.  One soldier told another that once all he and his group had left to eat was a squirrel’s head.  In response to his listener’s disbelief, he says, “long as you get a smidgen of grub, like firecake or squirrel head, every day, you’ll last for months.”

We can last for months on a lot less food than we eat every day, every meal.  This means that the hunger, the hollowness that I feel, both physically and psychologically, is not from starvation.

In this season of Lent, I’m (trying to be) glad for the hunger, for the emptiness I’m experiencing.  I want to think about “need” and about “want.”  I want to be conscious of my void.  Now that I’m not using food to fill the void, what am I using?  Is it something healthy?  Something more satisfying than a handful of M&Ms?

I really hope to be a healthier person at the end of this experience, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and psychologically.

We shall see.

“For it is written, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

photo by Victor Bezrukov

You can find more of Melanie’s musings here.

Filed Under: Spirituality Tagged With:

Television IS drugs…and that’s okay with me.

March 2, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 2 Comments

We used to share a garage with a car that had a bumper sticker that read, “Television is drugs.”  The funny thing to us about this was that we always suspected the car’s owner of using recreational drugs.  Obviously, if you are going to turn to drugs, television should not be your drug of choice, according to this family.

Lately, we have been spending more time with families who do not own televisions.  This has made me question our own television practices.  Are we doing some kind of damage by letting our kids watch the occasional TV show or movie?

On further consideration, I don’t think so.  Our kids watch a minimal amount of television, compared to the national average.  We have a family movie night on Sunday nights.  Throughout the week, my older kids may end up not watching any television at all.  Computer time is also hit or miss, since the kids only occasionally ask to play games on the computer.  Overall, we never allow more than 1-2 hours of screentime total each day.

I do let my 3-year-old son watch a show or a short video when he gets home from preschool.  In my opinion, he has had a fairly intense morning of navigating the world of the classroom.  As a transition from school to naptime, I let him relax in front of the “boob tube.”  I think he deserves a mental break and a chance to unwind.  Everything he watches is “educational” or at least geared for a preschool level.  If he isn’t actually learning while he watches, he certainly isn’t watching anything inappropriate.

My husband and I also enjoy unwinding in front of the television in the evening once the kids are in bed.  When the clock says,”8:00,” there is nothing I want to do more than plop down on the couch and let my mind and body unravel from all the stress of the daily demands of life with four kids.  Since I still manage to read three or more books during the week, the kids are healthy physically and psychologically and our house is clean enough, I don’t think that I need to feel guilty about this.

Some people drink, others smoke, others may choose other ways to unwind or relax.  At this point in my life, television is my drug of choice.  And, so far, the kids and I are just fine.

photo by phrenzee

You can read more about Melanie’s life choices here.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Parenting Tagged With: ,

How do you know if a bone is broken?

February 23, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 4 Comments

#1 – Do not ask Google.  If you type in, “how do you know if a bone is broken?” you would think that you would find wise and calm(ing) advice from fatherly (or motherly) doctors telling you to stay calm, don’t worry and go ahead and get an x-ray to be sure.  Instead, you will find a wide variety of gruesome and harrowing tales from people with absolutely no medical experience whatsoever.  These people apparently are looking for a platform to share about the time they broke a bone; they way they knew that usually involves some kind of bone sticking out, or an arm dangling to their knees, or some other picture you will never be able to erase from your mind.

#2 – Do not ask the teacher.  Even though you have a great relationship with your child’s teacher, and even though she seems to have a great deal of wisdom and experience in a lot of areas, it turns out that she did not take a class in identifying broken bones.  If you try to ask her for advice, she will just look at you like you have lost a few marbles and you will lose the little bit of credibility as a parent that you have managed to scrape together this year.

#3 – Do not ask your husband.  He will come up with some kind of crazy idea about going to sit and wait for an appointment with your pediatrician for two hours or more.  Do not even think about going to the doctor’s office.  This path only leads to insanity.  Instead, trust your instincts to go right to the emergency room.  You know that the only way they can tell if a bone is broken is with an x-ray.  Since you will have to wait two or more hours for an x-ray, do not “pass go;” go directly to the emergency room.

#4 – Apparently, do not ask the emergency room doctors either.  It turns out the children have a part of their bone called the “growth plate” that does not show up on the x-ray because it doesn’t have any calcium (?!).  Since the admitting nurse just told you an incomprehensible story about her daughter’s broken finger (broken on the growth plate) that grew up deformed and may or may not have had to be re-broken in three places, this will not fill you with confidence.

The Answer?  You can only trust your mama instincts.  Everyone talks about these in those magazine articles about the kids who would have died from some dire disease if it weren’t for their moms battling it out with the doctors, because these moms knew that there was something wrong with their child, even if the doctors thought those moms were crazy.  You may have wondered if you would ever be able to trust your instincts if it ever came down to it with one of your children.  It turns out that you can, you do and you will.  If you believe your child has a broken bone, you will do whatever it takes to get someone to listen to you and take care of that little tiny bone.

Can I get an “amen”?

Photo by Trace Meek

Find out the “rest of the story” here.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: , , , , ,

How do you measure the life of a woman?

February 10, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 3 Comments

My grandma died.

The thought that keeps running through my mind is this: how do you sum up one person’s life? How do you encompass all that one person was in your thoughts and in your memories?

Daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, neighbor, confidante, immigrant, citizen, church-member…

I didn’t know her in all of these roles, and I only had a partial comprehension of her in some of these roles. A focus on one particular aspect of her life seems to leave out the richer, deeper, more complex aspects of her character and person. I am at a loss in my loss.

To further complicate matters, she had Alzheimer’s so my perception of her is further clouded and obscured by the ways that she became the person she was not at the end of her life. Angry, demanding, even violent–these are things that would never have been true of my grandma in her full mental health. Of course she should not be remembered this way, but the memories are there and they persist.

We had a time for sharing with just the family the night before her funeral.  The stories I heard helped me to start to understand the person that was my grandmother.

Daughter: My grandma’s mother died when she was only 13. Her father was not an easy or tolerant man.I  think that she may have had a hard time under his parenthood. When she met my grandfather, her father forbid her to date him. This led the two lovebirds to carry on a relationship by mail. Like a great romance novel, the mail carrier would hide my grandpa’s letters in a designated spot for my grandma to find at her convenience. Her father eventually changed his mind and allowed the relationship, which meant that my grandma eventually became a…

Wife: Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after their marriage that trouble began brewing in Germany.  My grandparents had a special hiding place in their barn for refugees passing through.  They hid cheeses and other supplies in their cupboard beds.  One day, my grandpa had to hide under the floorboards beneath the dining room table when German soldiers came to conscript my grandpa into their army.  My grandma feigned ignorance of the language and kept saying my grandpa was out in the field.  Later, she was able to win soldiers’ favor by promising them bits of cheese and tobacco.  After the war, she joined my grandpa in leaving family to head to America for the promise of a better life.  She brought with her three daughters born within three years of each other, who knew her as…

Mother:  She may not have been the most affectionate of mothers, but she did an amazing job balancing the tasks of homemaker, farmhand, cook, housekeeper and mother of five.  I wonder how it felt not to be able to give your kids everything you would like to give them, or even everything they need.  One time, she determined to give her kids the vacation they “deserved” by joining a friend in borrowing a two bedroom camper for the two women and their 11 kids.  Unfortunately, a glitch with the campground meant they needed to figure out a way to move that camper by themselves.  Somehow, they kept everyone fed, relatively happy and, eventually, got that camper moved.

She also spent time watching Monday night football with my uncle, jumping up to get him a tissue anytime “her team” scored a point against his.  She loved competition, which meant she loved winning, especially at games like aggravation.  She loved winning so much, she would even do her best to win when she was…

Grandma:  There was never any question that her eighteen grandchildren were welcome at Grandma’s house, where the Froot Loops, chocolate milk, popsicles, and sugar cookies flowed freely.  With a barn containing furniture for playing house or just hanging out (as long as you didn’t mind sitting with mice), and a rope swing for added excitement, a huge swimming pool to cool off from summer’s heat, dress-up clothes galore, and an odd assortment of random toys,”Grandma’s house” was synonymous with “fun.” While the barn and pool had to stay behind when she sold her house, the dress-up clothes and random toys were still available when she became…

Great-Grandma:  As you can imagine, eighteen grandchildren can provide a lot of great-grandchildren (nineteen with two more on the way).  It may be just a little bit hard to remember all of their names (particularly when there are those of us who insist on choosing such unusual names).  My daughter will remembers my grandma offering her windmill cookies.  In my daughter’s mind, they will always be cookies that came straight from The Netherlands, instead of the local grocery store.  I think that memory is particularly special to my daughter because “oma” insisted she have more than just the one cookie that mom said she could have.

Generous, faithful, devoted, sneaky, loving, hard, hospitable, demanding, comic, and believing.  These words and these stories only begin to touch on the complex and wonderful woman that my grandma was.

I miss her.

You can read more from Melanie here.

Filed Under: Nostalgia Tagged With: , ,

Be water, my friend…in Australia.

January 19, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 1 Comment

Lately?  I’ve been thinking about moving to Australia.

The consistent feeling of being out of control is starting to get me down.  Here are just a few of the things that seem to be outside of my control these days:

The neighbors above us have three dogs.  Since it is so cold outside, they let the dogs outside, leave the front door open and run back up to their warm apartment.  Since it is so cold outside, the dogs are choosing to do their business on the front walkway.  Where my kids have to walk to get to our van when we go to school.  Nice.

The road I take every day to drop the kids off at school is fairly narrow, particularly with the snow affecting the effectiveness of people’s street parking.  Why do drivers consistently think they should drive in the middle of roads like this, even when we need to pass each other?  I have nowhere else to go, yet the other driver refuses to yield and make room for us to pass each other.  I try hard not to be a cranky driver but dealing with this situation three times a day is wearing my patience a little thin.

Michelle Obama is waging a passionate war against childhood obesity (which I support).  The schools send home newsletters reminding parents that their kids need to exercise during the day.  Yet the school has cut out recess as a result of the cold weather.  Surely there is a way to allow kids to run around the gym for 20 minutes a day (which is a deplorable amount of downtime for elementary kids).  It is no wonder that my kids come home and start bouncing off the walls when they haven’t had any time to run around and burn off energy during the day.

My husband read a book about Bruce Lee in which he proclaims the virtue of being “like water, my friend.”  I have tried to espouse this philosophy my self.  Surely life is better when you flow around obstacles and obnoxious people, instead of letting them get you down.  Unfortunately, after a little while, it starts to feel like there are more rocks and boulders than room to flow freely.

I’m trying to work on this because I recognize that I need to take control of my own feelings and attitudes.  Sometimes, however, I just want to move to Australia…

Surely I can “be water” in Australia…

photo by RachelH_

You can find more of Melanie here.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: , ,

Midwesterners, ho!

January 11, 2011 By Melanie Myatt 3 Comments

“Look guys!  We’re about to go down a really big hill!” my son exclaimed on the way to my aunt’s house for New Year’s Day.

What you need to know is that we were in Michigan for the holidays.  The flat part of Michigan to be exact.  The “really big hill” wouldn’t even be that much of a thrill if you were on a sled, let alone in a car.

This is one of the drawbacks of raising my kids in the Midwest, if you ask me.  Since I grew up in the Midwest, I know what it is to be mocked for thinking that any legitimate snow skiing can happen in a state like Michigan.  I wasn’t introduced to mountains like the Rockies until after college.  The Midwest may be a wonderful place to grow up for a number of reasons, but having a firm grasp of elevation and incline is not one of them.

We are in a limbo time right now, waiting for my husband to finish his doctorate before he gets a job, hopefully teaching in a college or university somewhere.  When he sends me links to various job postings for consideration, I find myself thinking as much about the effect each place will have on my kids’ future identity as how I feel about living there myself.

If he gets a job in California, sure it means we will be far from friends and family, but even more to consider is that our kids will grow up to be Californians.  There is nothing inherently good or bad about that, but it is a truth to consider.  They will grow up thinking it is supposed to be summery and warm at Christmas.  Air conditioning will be a necessity, not a luxury.  Strappy sandals and shirts will be the uniform, instead of flannel-lined jeans and fur-lined boots.  Instead of cross-country skiing, surfing would be the activity of choice.

Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest:  each region has a distinctive identity and characteristics that my kids will pick up and align themselves with.  As a Midwesterner married to a Southerner, I know the cross-cultural work that has to be done when those worlds come together.  I will always stand a little apart from the rest of my husband’s family, no matter how many “y’alls” i throw into my sentences.  My husband will always stick out at my family’s get-togethers, no matter how nasally he pronounces his words.  We are products of our regional cultures.

The question is: am I comfortable enough with my regional identity to raise my kids in that same region?  Maybe what I should be asking myself is, am I comfortable enough with my own regional identity to move somewhere else and have people show me the shortcomings and weaknesses of being a Midwesterner?

This is going to require some thought.  At this point in our economic condition, the choice may not be mine.

photo by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL

You can read more from Melanie here.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With:

Help! My eight-year-old likes a boy…

December 16, 2010 By Melanie Myatt 2 Comments

I had deluded myself into thinking this school year was just like any other.  Then I saw a letter my daughter was writing to her friend.  (What?!  She left it sitting out…I didn’t even know what it was when I started reading it…Honest!)  It described a boy in her class that she thought was “cute.”  Then I found out my mom had already heard about this boy and my daughter’s crush.  What was going on?  This is not the way I wanted our relationship to be, particularly as we head into boy-awareness.

She finally mentioned in passing that her “friend” had told the boy that my daughter liked him, in spite of being sworn to secrecy.  My daughter didn’t like the way the boy was acting after finding out this bit of information.  She was starting to think that maybe she didn’t like him that much after all.  Some of his “cuteness” was wearing off.

I know the days of hearthrobs and heartaches are coming.  I just thought we would be starting closer to age ten than eight.

I want to do a good job preparing her to navigate the turbulent waters of boys and, eventually, dating.  But I don’t know if there is any other area of parenting in which I feel so inadequate.

We ended up having a nice conversation about this season of her life being a time to figure out what kind of boys she likes.  Does she like boys who are good-looking, even if they don’t have a nice personality? Does a great personality make up for less than the best looks?  Does she like someone athletic or someone who prefers to do home-chemistry experiments?  Now she can take the time to figure out what kind of boy she likes, when she doesn’t have to worry about the pressures of dating.  I even shared with her that I wish I had taken the time to figure out what kind of boy I liked before I started dating.  She seemed to appreciate my honesty. Then she asked me what we were having for supper.

For now, the embers of her crush seem to have died out, to my great relief.  Hopefully, we have a little more time to continue to develop our own relationship, before she begins a more serious relationship with someone else.

This much I do know:  when she enters the dating world for real, I will have tissues, my shoulder and the cookie-dough ice cream ready and waiting.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

You can find more of Melanie’s writing here.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With:

Routine.

December 13, 2010 By Melanie Myatt 1 Comment

I just made my 198,675,234th peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I cut up some fruit and put everything on a plate for my son.  Then we find his “paci” and bunny and I tuck him in for a nap.  Now he is asleep and it is time for me to have my lunch.  This is what we do…every. single. day.

As we headed back to Chicago from a tender Tennessee Thanksgiving, I felt myself dreading the same old routine:  Get up in the morning, shoo everyone out the door for school, come home and try to tackle my insurmountable to-do list, pick up one, eat lunch, pick up the second, pick up the third, come home and keep everyone sane until suppertime, then bedtime.  Same, same, same every single day.

As I thought about my longing for “different,” I realized how much my kids depend on everything being the same.  As much as we all visiting family for the holidays, the change in routine makes each kid as temperamental as a Hollywood starlet. Because each day brings unexpected surprises, there is a subtle sense of unease and restlessness underneath the excitement and enthusiasm for all that is new.

Some days all I want to do is change the furniture around, take a new route to the bus stop, or dye my hair with crazy pink streaks:  anything for something different, a change that can wake me up and remind me that I am alive and I have an identity beyond being somebody’s mother.

As much as I like change for the sake of change, I have realized that one more parental sacrifice that I make for the sake of my kids is to keep everything the same as much as possible.  Pizza Fridays, bedtime rituals, Saturday morning cartoons:  it is the routine of our lives that makes the kids feel safe, secure and content.

The days will come (I hope!) when I can live a little more on the edge, days that will stretch long and free when everyone has moved on to their own lives.  I can guarantee that when (and if) those days come, I won’t be making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore.

Photo by {N}Duran

You can read more Melanie on her personal site here.

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