A series of run on sentences on going back to work

Because of the way I eventually react to change, I figured my kids would have a reaction to my working every day my first week at the new job. And then working many days since then. It's so different, being gone from them some days more than I'm with them. It's not what I want--I don't want to be working full-time, having someone else with my kids all day. This is temporary though. I'm working a lot during orientation and then that will change quite a bit. But in the meantime. . .

I understand it both intellectually and viscerally and yet it remains a mystery to me--how our mental and emotional and even physical states can be so affected by uncertainty and stress. Is change by nature, by definition, stressful? I should look that up. It probably is. Something about our mammalian selves relies on routine and safety. When something shifts, I bet there is a series of chemical reactions inside of us. Except not in a clear, linear fashion that draws easy-to-follow correlations between cause and effect. That would be too easy. It's more a big collage of layered stuff gooped together.

It came the first day I was home alone with them. Last Wednesday. The day of atrocious whining, clinging, kicking, snatching, fit-throwing, et al. Of course it did. That's what being the mom means. The big emotions come pouring out onto you because you are a safe place. The roost. The center. Where it all began. I should have known that they would save their tantrums for the day I stayed home with them. I hung a swing from our apple tree (pause: wow, we are so lucky) and the kids loved it. And fought over it. My son worked himself into a frenzy, trying so hard to be patient and wait for his turn. He used his words, saying "It's my turn now, Cleo!" And he screamed and raged and spun and just lost his shit because she would not get out and I would not make her get out. And maybe also because I went back to work?

I'm so happy to be back to work in this new old job. It feels like just what I need. But it's hard to leave my kids. And it's hard not to take it all personally--all their big moods and saying they don't want to come home and crying about going to Stephanie's. That's all because of me, right? Not necessarily because my going to work is a bad thing (although maybe it is for them) but because my going to work changes the schedule, changes the flow of our days and weeks. And that is so hard.

Why did I choose now to go back? Why did I want to be a stay at home mom in the first place? I am not selfless--both choices were for me, ultimately. I wanted to be with my kids. Be the one taking care of them, taking them places, feeding them, watching them grow. One of my co-workers told me, before I went out on maternity leave the first time, that it didn't really matter who took care of the kids when they were babies--I should save my time at home for when they were older, when they needed me more. I stayed home because I wanted to experience it. To see how it changed me. And because I knew the chance would not come again. . .though of course it did come again, only so close on the heels of the first time that it's really been one, long experience rather than distinct phases of motherhood. That's why I stayed. Because I'd always wanted to.

Well, not always. When I was in my 20's, utterly defining myself by my cool job and what it felt like to work so hard I told  one of my best friends, already a parent and staying home, that there was no way I could stay home because I would be so bored. By the time I was in my 30's, aching to have kids and wondering when it would happen, I suspected that I wanted to quit my job and just be a mom. Just. What a word. Just be a mom because I didn't think I could do both things well and because I couldn't imagine how two working parents with commutes would manage to hold shit together once kids arrived. So I gave up my big job and became someone different. A mom of twins. And then the mom with two sets of twins. A mom on Zoloft. A mom who did as much yoga as she could and started writing a blog and despaired over the constant state of mess in the house and looked for ways to numb out to the many gaps between what I expected parenthood to be and what it was.

Why did I go back? Because I tried last June and then quit before even starting because my colitis flared so bad I knew I couldn't handle the stress. Because I saw the job get posted again and it felt like, if I waited much longer, I would never go back. Because I lost so much of who I was before--job that mattered to me, living in the city, single, not a mom, with an income--and I wanted to see if I could recapture some of it by going back to a place that had been such a part of me. Because I kept finding myself yelling at my kids. I no longer felt like my being the main person they were with all the time was serving any of us. I had lost the ability to see the forest and the fucking trees kept getting in my way and pissing me off. Because I get to speak Spanish in this job and I can't think of another more effective way to get my Spanish back. Being bilingual was the thing I was most proud of, almost two decades ago. ....holy shit, I have to catch my breath on that one. Two decades? No wonder I'm rusty.

That's a lot of reasons. One last, big, huge one is the fact that I feel death all around me lately. Not like it is coming for me. Not in a way that makes me afraid, exactly. It's more like. . . I'm 39. My parents and aunts and uncles are getting older. My friends have lost siblings and battled cancer, some winning and some conceding. I have four children. Four is a lot. Do I think we're all going to somehow make it through all of this unscathed? Quite the opposite.

That's dark but that's how I feel. I'm feeling the heaviness of humanity--I guess this is how I  experience having four additional hearts beating outside my own body. I didn't know I was scared. . .but it turns out that's part of what I feel. Afraid. Vulnerable. Mad. Out of control. And yet somehow numb because I can't deal with feeling all of that stuff all the time.

So back to work I go. To a work that puts me right in the thick of grief and loss--because I'm walking around with the spectres of those things anyway. And because this is the job I should have done years ago--the job I would have done had I sat down and listened to the quiet voice inside answering the question I didn't think to ask. What do you want to do?

Short and sweet

From this morning:

Parenthood gives me the gift of appreciation. Right now I'm lounging on the couch under a cozy blanket, reading the Mt Diablo magazine that keeps getting delivered to our house despite our not having a subscription. Drinking warmed up coffee and eating Trader Joe's biscotti, hearing the white noise machine rain falling in the big kids room. I've been sleeping on a mattress on their floor for weeks and the hardest part has been not getting even a moment to myself in the mornings. Often they've made their way to either side of me on the floor so getting up to go pee has been their wake-up. Having this almost-silence, this slice of time to myself, is a balm.

From now:

The kids are at Stephanie's and I've been craving them for hours. Maybe because I am working and want to worm my way out of things I need to do. Maybe because I'm going to a play with my brother tonight so it will be many many hours away from those sweet faces. I need to buy dog food, the kitchen needs to be cleaned, I'm doing my timecard, So much to do and I know as soon as I see them my heart will be soothed. And as soon as we get home chaos will ensue.

Birthday

For my 39th birthday, which was this past Tuesday, I got myself a job. I spent the day getting oriented to some systems I helped put together. The walls of the conference room were made of glass so people periodically walked by and, if they noticed me, many gave looks of surprise, glee, confusion. Wait. . .what are you doing here? Are you back? I am back.

I went back to work again, for the third time since becoming a mom. The first time I pitched a project management job after giving up my full time management job--I did that for a year and then got laid off. The second time I went to work for a new employer, in a related field and with people I knew well. I am still doing that job. This last time I went back to my old company, in a role new to me. I took the job I have wanted since shortly after I started working there, back in 2003. I am a Family Resource Coordinator and I will be supporting families in their grief as they contemplate the loss of and lose loved ones. I will be talking to them about organ donation and asking them to consider making the choice to donate on behalf of someone they loved who is no longer able to make that decision. Or, in the blessed instance when someone did choose organ donation before his or her death, I will be supporting their families as they honor and sometimes adjust to the wishes of their people. My heart feels full at the prospect of doing this work. What an incredible honor.

Years ago when I worked in Placement, aka the organ allocation department, my shift started at 7a or 7p. For the morning shifts I'd wake up at 5:30, hurriedly get ready and get on the road, driving east from San Francisco towards downtown Oakland. Often I'd be on the lower span of the Bay Bridge as the sun was rising. The world felt silent and I was alone in my car, in a space between selves, on my way to a job that often took all of me. Those sunrises were gifts the world gave me to say Yes, my dear. Keep going this way.
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Tuesday was my first day at the new job. Wednesday was an all-staff meeting--they hold two a year. The last one I attended was February 2014, fresh from maternity leave, newly hired into the project management job and already pregnant again though I wasn't telling anyone yet. Because good grief woman, didn't you just have some babies??

The meeting this week was fun and energetic and a great way to come back--seeing lots of people all at once, getting and giving hugs, feeling at once at home and outside. I watched as people received their 5 Years of Service awards, their 10 Years. I remembered when they were hired. Now I'm at. . .my first year of service again, though it's really my twelfth, with a one year break. I'm new but I'm old. I was a boss but now I"m not. I was 25 when I first got hired; I'm 39 getting hired for the second time. I've lived a lot of life in between and most of those years, most of that life, has been spent making organ donation happen in some capacity, at some level. I'm good at it. I love it. It's what I do. I've missed it. I've missed the me I was. I am so glad to get to be a part of the work again. I might not get to be the me I was, not in the same way, ever again.

During a break at the meeting I got into conversation with another woman new to the organization, new to my new team. She described herself as having been a stay at home mom and said "not like you." Wait a second. That's the first time anyone has said that to me. Did my identity change that quickly? I mean, it was just last week I was spending most of my waking hours, and actually all of my sleeping ones, side by side with these children. I know it was just conversation, not judgement, but it made my head spin a little.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I drove home on 680, heading north with the sky darkening, red tail lights holding me back from my kids. My heart full and sad and confused. This week I spent more time away from my kids than with them, for the first time ever except for the time I spent in the hospital last September. I didn't really miss them during the day but driving home I missed them so much, couldn't wait to get home to them,. . . and I felt so different. Alive in a different way than I've felt for a long time.

Why do we do what we do? Whether it is work or play or staying home to raise kids (which is both work and play and quite frankly a whole host of other things that make defining the experience damn freaking hard). Is it for the money? For the prestige? For the community? For the pleasure? For the challenge? For the learning opportunity? For the benefit of the kids? For the good of the family?

This work is the most human thing I've ever done--it brings me closer to what it means to be a person than anything else. Except for parenthood. They are both heavy and holy. So I'm going to do them both and see who I become.

Disneyland

We took the kids to Disneyland but what I want to talk about is sleep. We joined a gym last month, as a family, in part because they have a decent-seeming day-care but what I want to talk about is sleep. I do not have a one-track mind but thoughts of bedtime creep into all sorts of spaces these days.

Before we left for Disneyland it seemed like we were starting to make some progress in the bedtime routine, which is essentially Cry It Out, Toddler Edition. Which feels like a gyp because sleep training more than once sucks. Which may be a reason not to do it, but I'm not there yet.

Six weeks had passed since the cribs went away and almost every night since had included screaming and crying and multiple wake ups. We kept changing things, little things and bigger things, and it kept being bad. So we decided we needed to pick something and stick with it, crying bedamned. We told them, the Bigs, that we would be locking the door. Even though they say "Don't lock it!" before we walk out, which is heart-wrenching. Even though the thought of someone locking the door when I'm sleeping in there makes me claustrophobic. We didn't get them out, even if they cried and screamed. Which they did, though really mostly one of them did. We left the door locked all night and would unlock it around 5 am, expecting one or both of them to walk back to our bed at some point and sleep another hour or so there. It was getting decent. At least to the point where I didn't actively dread bedtime. At least I think that's how it felt. . .a week has passed and I can't remember because it's bad again.

In Disneyland the six of us slept in one room--the little twins each in a pack n play, and one of the big twins in each queen bed with a parent. Cyrus and I had a four night slumber party and that kid slept like a baby. Or like another type of being that actually sleeps deeply. . .like a cat. We all went to bed at 8 pm and slept until 6 when we would start waking up and head to the park for a magic hour. We napped together, though my husband and I would take turns sneaking out for a little alone time during nap time. The point is, there was not one second of fuss over bedtime. It was the best part of a really fun trip. The Magic Kingdom provided many moments of magic for us--the kids loved it and only got scared a couple times. I smiled many times but the pure, sweet moments came every time I would wake up in our family room, see the smudged bright lights of California Adventure reflected in our window through the open curtains and hear the quiet breathing of every member of my family. Such peace.

I have more to write but there's a pile of sand on the kitchen floor, a blender full of broccoli puree on the counter and a series of other tasks to be at least contemplated during this hour of no children. I've missed this space and all of you who read. I'll be back soon.

On gratitude

Our friend and old roommate Grey owns a foam and cushion store a few blocks from where we live now. Comfiest beds and pillows ever, I swear they will change your life. ( Foam and Cushion )
Last week my dad and I walked the four kids over in the red wagon so we could visit, get out of the house and help him find a new mattress. We are quite a sight in the tall red wooden Radio Flyer wagon--it has four seats with seat belts, big fat tires and a long metal handle for pulling. It's the best.

When we walked into the store the kids were initially shy. They soon warmed up, unleashing themselves on the displays, climbing onto and into beds, pulling down signs, running and laughing. They are a mostly good-natured wrecking crew.

A customer came in a few minutes after we did--she was an older woman. Older than I am but not old. She started talking to Grey about her pillow order and the details of the cover and the sewing, casting glances at the kids now and then. No smile. After a couple minutes I joked "Don't worry, you don't have to take a toddler with your cushion."

"I would gladly take one," she replied. "My daughter has had three miscarriages."

Oh.

You might expect the next line to be "And that's when I remembered how lucky I am." or "Then I felt grateful and resolved to enjoy the moment."

No.

"That is so hard," I said. "I'm sorry to hear that."

We smiled at one another and she smiled down at the kids.

"Good luck to your daughter," I said when she left.

I know to feel grateful. That's been part of my life-view for decades and in many ways has and does serve me well. I love my life. I know things could almost always be worse. I know bad things happen all the time. I know, deep in my bones, that having four healthy children is a blessing. . .and it could change anytime.

When I worked in organ placement, the department responsible for allocating organs to the people on the waiting list, it was part of my job to read the story of how someone died. Over and over again. People died in all sorts of ways--unlucky accidents, incidents where you thought "well that was dumb!", violent ways, peaceful ways. Healthy people who ate right and ran marathons and then died of strokes out of nowhere. Kids. Mothers. Everyone. No one was safe. It's hard to write that down in this space because it feels so. . .scary and sad.

In that old job we had our own black humor about things--a way to get through the day. One of the things I used to joke about was how my kids would be wearing helmets all the time--even to walk down the street. "They'll be made fun of but I don't care!"I would say. "Too bad. Safety first."

That job hasn't affected my parenting in the ways I expected. I let my kids do all sorts of risky and dangerous things. They climb ladders and go way up on the big kid playground. They handle tools. They jump from the top of their small book case onto a pillow below. They run down steep hills. Most of these are deliberate parenting decisions--we are letting them discover their abilities. We don't put them up on something they can't climb to themselves. We tell them tools are not toys and tell them how to respect them. They fall and get scrapes and bonk heads and we are nearby or right there, trying to help when needed, encouraging them to try to help themselves when they can, soothing them when they cry. I don't promise them that we can keep them safe.

All of this has been happening for months so it surprised me to notice that my past work experience was affecting me in a different way. Without going into the really long version of the story, my sister and I got in a big fight back in November. Very unusual for us. There were many layers to this fight and it took us until recently to forgive ourselves and each other and move on. Thank God. A world where we are not friends is an upsetting place.

During those months of not really talking the self-knowledge was flying in my face faster than I could keep up. The upsetness wouldn't leave. I couldn't get past it. I was vulnerable and confused and mad. Why? What was tripping me up here? What was my part? What was her part? What was I hurt or scared by? What could I learn from this?

One of the main things I landed on was how much it scares me when I feel like she can't see the good parts of her life. When I feel like she's getting caught up in the difficulty, in the struggle, and can't find her way back to gratitude. Wait a second. Then I saw that I was scared for myself in the same way.

It scares the shit of me when I can't find my way to gratitude. Like I'm tempting fate. Don't you know what could happen, Megan? Quick, feel grateful so you don't regret it!

Well damn.

I am quite good, one of the masters even, at a shrug and an easy, comforting remark when people comment about how hard something is in my life and how well I handle them. My health crises, mainly. And now my many children.  You have your hands full! Oh, I'm so sorry you were in the hospital. You are so strong! I don't know how you do it.

"Eh," I often say. "You have your hands full too. One child or four children, they take up every bit of energy we have, don't they?" or "The days in the hospital were quite restful. Like a spa."

I believe those things--I'm not lying. But those are also choices I make, to see the good side. To find the gratitude, to move past the pain. Because what else can you do? I want to get beyond the shit, not live in it.

I have worked hard to cultivate a life of gratitude and awareness. It's not an accident of birth or a lucky roll of the dice that I am strong. I choose to be strong.

I love my life. Love it and cherish it. This is not to say I'm dancing up and down the streets right now singing "Woo hoo! I have a great life and I love it!" Clearly not, especially these days. I mean I recognize and honor that this is my one life. I am the only one who gets to live it. There will never be another Megan Doherty Shaughnessy Bondy. Just me. How lucky am I. I want to revel in it, taste it, dance with it, embrace it and think about it. I want to be a liver.

The anger and the bitterness and the despair isn't pretty. It's new for me to even make space for it. Lots of people don't want to see or hear that part because. . .well, for so many reasons. It's scary. It's ugly. It's hard or impossible to fix. It makes people uncomfortable. It feels that way to me too! I hate having to sit in the bad feelings. I want to fix it and move on. To shrug it off and get to the next place that feels better. Or eat half of a wheel of Brie with Wheat Thins until the pain goes away.

So I'm in a new place. A hard-won place. Last week I said to my yoga tribe, a group of twelve kick-ass, smart, powerful women whom I've known for a year, "It just keeps dawning on me that no matter what coping mechanisms I have, or how much help I get or how much self-care I practice or how many life hacks we implement, it just stays hard. And I don't know what to do about that!"

I am learning so much. To see how scared I've been all these months where I can't consistently live in gratitude. So scared. Like I'm just asking for it. To see how taxing it is for me to stay in the hard and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I want it to be easier, but it's not. I want to be able to shrug and smile and say something cute and funny that makes light of the reality of taking care of four toddlers. Often I can, but not always. Sometimes I need to bring out the dark side and slap it down on the table where everyone can see it.

Welcome to the table. There's room for everyone.

Madness

The toddlers are killing me. I woke up this morning pissed, after being pissed for every moment that  I was awake last night (which was a lot of moments). As I dragged my flannel-PJ'ed self to the kitchen I was stopped by the blazing sunrise of pinks and lavenders shining through the dirty windows of the laundry room. I stopped and beheld. The beauty of the natural world coming at just the moment I needed it. I said thank you and asked to be better today.

All I do is yell these days. Because I often can't seem to help myself and because what I really want to do is slap the %$#&*! out of my kids. The urge to hit them is fiery and strong within the muscles and fibers of my arm.  The times they spit in my face, despite my telling them over and over and over not to. Watching my daughter take a handful of her lunch and fling it on the freshly washed floor, for no apparent reason except the fact that she is two and this is the kind of shit they do. My son biting his sister for the hundredth time. It's these things and endless other things, big things and small things. It's the constancy of four small people who inhabit a developmental stage that tells them to explore the world, its consequences. To defy. I can't fucking stand it.

My siblings and I were sometimes spanked as kids but rarely. I got slapped across the face once, mostly due to that easy-now-to-imagine cross-section of adult challenges and kid pushing-of-buttons. My mom has brought it up to me over the years, how horrified she was, how horrified and scared I was. I don't remember it at all.

I don't plan on hitting my kids and I'm surprised and appalled by the fierce desire to do so. When I walk into the room and see my daughter standing in the middle of the dining room table holding two candlesticks with the candles in her mouth I mostly want to say "Really?" with an eyebrow raised. Or "What the fuck, are you seriously doing that right now?" It could even be funny, if you weren't already on the verge of being pissed. If you weren't sick because of all the coughing you take in the face. If you weren't combating the craziness you feel after a day, and then days, of being consistently ignored. The table dance didn't make me want to hit her. Actually the deeper I get into this essay the harder it is to remember specific moments that bring up the urge. There's a freedom in admission I guess.

I don't hit but I do grab them roughly. And I do yell. A lot. Last night as I brought the bigs back to their beds for the second time I yelled "This shit has got to stop!" because I felt so helpless and tired and mad. Like we're getting it wrong but I don't know how to get it right. I am so done by the time bed time rolls around. . .but now we don't get to be done. It is no longer easy to put them down. Now it is a fight, a struggle, a cajoling. And it lasts anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours with them finally falling asleep only to then get up and come back to our room two to three times a night. They end up in our bed for good around 5 am and as one snuggles into me I want to say "This is my time to not be touched. I am done. I can't do this another second," and I skootch ever closer to the edge of the bed. My bed that is no longer mine.

My anger has always been something I struggle with. I don't like feeling it--it makes me uneasy. So I swallow it and become Ice Queen and shut down. Which looks like calm on the outside. Oh yeah. . . .remember how I have that autoimmune disease that wrecks my guts? Weird.

I'm also very hard on myself.

I'm also a natural problem-solver. This makes me great at certain jobs because I'm always looking at how things work, diagnosing the problems and figuring out how to make the system work better. Some of this is because I somehow got programmed, or was born with, the idea that there is a right way. A right way to be married. A right way to parent. A right way to seat the dining room of a restaurant. Pretty much a right way to do anything. I have been working on easing up on this for the past several years, even before the kids arrived.

This toddler sleep situation is causing me problems. I keep having to tell myself that there is not necessarily a right way to solve it. That there might not even be a problem that I need to solve--we may just need to be patient and wait it out. It's only been a month. I get caught up in the shame of doing it wrong when all I want is to do it right. I want them to know how to sleep so that when they're older they have that ability. And so that right now when they're young their brains and bodies get the time they need to grow and rest. And so that I don't completely lose my shit at them for anything they do because I am just so tired. Tired in general and tired of the bullshit that comes with parenting toddlers.

My dad spent the first half of the day with us today, as he does most Wednesdays. He is always good about telling me what a good job of parenting I'm doing, which I appreciate. And as we sat in the wrecked kitchen after putting them down for a nap (with a locked door for the two-year-olds which resulted in no crying today as opposed to the two hours of screaming three nights ago) I cried a little, in exhaustion and relief, and talked about this essay and about how much I yell at them lately.

"Just so you know, you didn't yell at them at all this morning."

I'm not sure I noticed that so I was glad to hear it.

Maybe it's because I started writing about it. . .

Maybe it's because we got outside. . .

Maybe it's because I had an extra set of hands. . .

Or maybe most of it is out of my hands entirely and I just have to keep breathing. Keep trying. And give myself a break because there is not just one right way.

On sleep

Our Bigs learned how to climb out of their cribs a little over a week ago and whoa. Life has changed. Over the past year Stephanie, our stellar babysitter, mentioned a few times being surprised that they hadn't already done it. They're such good climbers and more than once had swung a leg over the rail, testing things out. My guess is that having a partner in crime right there next to you takes some of the need to escape away--you already have company while you're laying in your cozy bed so why climb out?

The first time they did it I was out of the house--I already forget where I was because it happened over five minutes ago so its place in my memory banks has been long erased. My in-laws were visiting and my husband was home from work. When I returned Grandma told me the story of hearing Lily and Cyrus laughing and talking and goofing around. . .right up until they came out of the room crying, apparently freaked out by their new-found freedom and the falls that accompanied it.

The details of the last several days are already fuzzy--like I said, the memory--so I can't tell you if things were immediately different after that first escape. Did they start climbing out every time right away? Not sure. I think so because we soon changed their cribs to the toddler bed style-- leaving one long side of the crib open so they can climb in and out at will. After one night Lily asked us to change hers back. . .though she continued to climb out every nap time and bedtime.

I've been dreading the escape from cribs for a while, mostly because my son doesn't love to sleep. I love to sleep. Two of his sisters, Lily and Daphne, love to sleep. Cleo is in between--she cries when we put her down but falls asleep pretty quickly and then doesn't want to get up. Daphne asks to go to bed and snuggles in with relief once we lay her in her crib. Lily has been a solid sleeper since shortly after we brought her home from the hospital. Cyrus, like his dad, would prefer to stay up as late as possible. My husband didn't nap as a child and didn't have a bedtime. When he told me this when we were dating I was horrified--our children would be napping for sure! Not only because kids need sleep but because I already knew, before any kids had even arrived, that I would need that break in order to maintain some semblance of mental health. And boy was I right. . at least in terms of the mom's sanity piece.

People have expressed anything from surprise to admiration to shock when we mentioned the fact that our kids napped at the same time. How did we do that?

We don't give them a choice, I said. Because I would probably be dead if they didn't.

Over the past week and a half we had a few days where the big kids didn't nap at all. Other days when it took over an hour for them to fall asleep--and that took having a parent, usually my husband, laying down in the room with them. The days when two would be asleep and then, just before those two woke up, the other two would fall asleep were the worst. You couldn't go anywhere or do anything and you didn't get more than a few minutes to yourself. Boooooooo. Seriously, the napping in sync was a necessity for us. For me.

We sleep trained our son. Three times. Have I written about that already? I think so but I can't recall. It was awful. He sobbed and screamed--the longest he went was 45 minutes. I lay in bed in our room next door (in the old house), my heart cracking at the sound of his anger. Fear? Loneliness? Anguish? Despair? Who knew? He was a little baby and crying was his way of communicating. It was so hard to listen to and eventually, after 45 minutes, I went in to get him. He stopped immediately and was happy as can be. Damn, I thought. Now I'll have to start all over tomorrow and those brutal 45 minutes were for naught. We did it twice in the old house and then once again in the new house. The impetus for the final sleep training session was the night I went in to get him for the fourth time-and I almost slammed his little body onto his mattress in despair. I was so tired. Pregnant. Needing to get up to take care of these two nine-month-olds in a few more hours. . .and just could not go on like that anymore. The most helpful and life-saving parenting advice I've ever received has been the kind that says something like this;

You are allowed to take care of yourself. You can't be a good mother if you're draining yourself dry in the process. It is the right thing for your family if it's the right thing, the necessary thing, for you.

I don't read a lot of parenting books. I talk to my friends who are parents about things like sleep and eating and potty training, though I've done that less since getting out of the teeny tiny baby stage the first time. I like to mostly go with the flow, pay attention to their cues and figure things out on my/our own. Sleep was probably the first topic that I learned to keep quiet about, mostly because people had such strong opinions about it. One major strong opinion was anti-crying it out. And I didn't want to hear it. Because my heart already hurt about it. I already doubted whether it was the right thing and I didn't want to feel worse listening to parents who didn't let their kids cry.

There is a lot written about mommy wars. I have two main thoughts about them. One, we women can often have a hard time building each other up rather than tearing each other down. And I do think that the wisest thing I've read about the infighting among mothers is that the more time and attention we spend fighting each other, the less time and attention we're paying to the parts of the system that are broken and breaking. Two, being a parent has me in super-judgment mode almost all of the time. Even before I can spare a second to judge anyone else I've already spent five hours judging myself.

Am I disciplining enough? For the right things? In the right way?
Am I feeding them healthy enough food? Have they had a variety of colors and textures this week?
Am I treating them fairly? Paying enough attention to each of them?
Are we doing the right thing in terms of school and childcare?
Do we let the cry or do we go in and soothe?
How embarrassed should I be that my daughters' hair is not brushed?

It is a role that you can't get right. At least not all right. We will make mistakes and we won't know what they are or what the consequences, if any, were until far off down the road. It is hard and fun and silly and crazy-making and full of judgement. Actual, true judgement where we are finding ourselves seated in the thrones from whence the values and rules get decided.  Which doesn't mean the rules will get followed, or even that the values will be taken in. But we are the deciders. . .for now. For some things.

Because I have four kids and I've had them so close together I can see that they are inherently different when it comes to sleep. Which doesn't stop me from wondering what else plays into it--their hospital stays, their birth order, the way we've changed and grown as parents. This adds another layer to the peer discussions about what works and what doesn't. What works for one kid, and one parent, won't always work for another. How tricky is that? It's like giving each other management coaching when we all do very related, similar jobs, in different offices with different employees and a different set of goals and measurements of success. Well! I say we just offer what we've seen and done and try to do it in a way that says " I see you are trying and worrying just like I am. I wish you luck, sister-warrior-boss lady."

My house is silent now. And as I've written many times before, the silence is perfection. It vibrates throughout the rooms. In some ways I live for these moments these days.

The final thing I will say, for now, about the climbing out of the cribs is that this change has been way bigger for the kids than I ever imagined. There is so much more crying and fighting bedtime now that they aren't contained. It reminds me how much they are growing and learning and taking in all the time, every minute. Their brains are growing, their bodies are growing and becoming more agile, their awareness of themselves and the world around them is changing every day. All of this without having all the words to describe what it feels like to suddenly not be sleeping in your crib anymore.

As we try to figure out how to respond, how to help them still get sleep so they have the energy to do all this growing and learning, I try to remember to say to them

You're safe.
We're here.
You can go to sleep and when you wake up, I'll still be here.