February resolution wrap-up

Time management. What a joke. Yeah, definitely not a successful month. If anything, my time management is worse than it was at the beginning of the month. I suppose it's a work in progress ... better luck as the kids get older, the weather gets warmer (so they play outside more and need me less), and I achieve some level of peace.

matthew

February 27, 2001. Lou and I had gotten up early in order to be at the hospital at 7. We had found out the night before that the baby I was carrying had died, and we were having labor induced. The labor took a while to get started, and we (helped out by our awesome nurse, Michelle) filled out papers and made decisions and thought about things that never occur to most parents to even consider. Did we want a service? Would we have our child buried or cremated? What funeral home did we want to choose? (I forget which one we went with - it's in downtown Beverly - but they treated us very, very well.)

Finally, labor kicked in, and our tiny, beautiful son was born. We named him Matthew William, after Lou's grandfather and my uncle who had passed away a couple of years before. He weighed just over 2 pounds, and every tiny little feature was just exactly like his father's. Three children later, I've still never seen a more beautiful baby. (Although the rest of his body was riddled with defects, his face was perfect.) We spent the rest of the afternoon holding him, rocking him, singing to him. There was a lot of crying - and a lot of laughing. Helped out by the amazing nursing staff at Beverly Hospital, we made that room, and those few hours with our firstborn child, into a temporary home. When it was time to go home, we placed our baby in the nurse's arms. The next time we would hold him, he'd be in an urn - and we will never see him again, except in pictures.

And then we went home, to restart our lives without him. And that was very hard, because life goes on. Time passes, other people forget - and fair enough, because they didn't hold him. To the rest of our friends and family, he was just a dream.

Time did pass. Lou and I grew stronger together, and soon there was another baby on the way. And then another, and finally one last one. All beautiful and special in their own way - but none of them the one I can never hold again. I wonder sometimes - what would he be interested in, what would he wear, how would he act, at the advanced age of 5?

But that's only sometimes. Because something beautiful happened as time went on and Matthew's brothers and sister arrived. Somewhere along the way, I found peace. I realized that to wish away what had happened to Matthew would be to wish away the child I love - for his strength and courage in hanging on as long as he did, for his generosity of spirit in letting go when he did, so we never had to see him in pain. (Is that anthropomorphizing? Ascribing feelings, thoughts, and willful action to a 7-month fetus? If so, so be it. I believe that my son had a personality, and that he loved us and wanted to be with us as much as we loved him and wanted him.) I came to see Matthew as someone to live up to - one more person who makes me want to be the best mother and person I can be. I can still mourn the dream that died with my littlest baby, but I know that I would not have wished life on him the way he was - and I would not have wanted him to be anyone but who he was.

Happy birthday today, little boy. We love you!

the trouble with self-improvement

This year, being the "first year of the rest of my life", as defined by not having any more babies, feels like the year of self-improvement. I have my resolutions, and am trying to also work on being a better friend, a better parent, and an all-around better person. But the problem with that is beginning to reveal itself. I'm so focused on improving myself that all I can see are the flaws. Flaws in how I look, how I act, the ways I choose to spend my time, the ways I parent—and they begin to seem so obvious to me that I think everyone else must see them as clearly as I do. Which has made me feel a little prickly and insecure these past few weeks.

So the challenge is to keep working on the things I've marked as "needs improvement", and leave the rest alone so as not to get too overwhelmed or down on myself. And to be aware that I'm hyper-sensitive right now to everything I perceive as being "wrong with me"—but that doesn't mean that other people are. (And going back to my post of last week ... remembering that other people spend a lot less time thinking about me than I do!)

brotherly love

Earlier this morning, Charles was playing "nosy-nosy" with Veronica (or trying to, as she didn't get the game and wasn't comfortable with his face so close to hers). So I asked him to play "nosy-nosy" with me instead. You can guess how that went over. Next I asked him to play it with Greyson, and that idea also got shot down.

A few minutes later, Greyson got up and, shoulders slumped, started toward the stairs. I asked him what was going on, and he said he was sad, and he could only tell me why upstairs. But Charles couldn't come because Charles had made him sad. And once we got to their room, he told me that it had really hurt his feelings that Charles wouldn't play "nosy-nosy" with him. And it took about 20 minutes and several attempts to make Charles play the game with, kiss, or hug Greyson before peace and harmony was restored.

So cute! Paradoxically, it made me happy that Greyson was sad—it's nice to start seeing the love and affection of his brother matter to him.

the best part of my day!

My favorite moment in the day is last thing before I go to bed, when I poke my head into the kids' rooms and watch them sleep. They're so peaceful, and often in such funny positions, I just love to take that moment to stop and enjoy them. Most of the rest of the day I feel like it's "go, go, go", but that one minute is my time to really slow down and pay attention to the fast-vanishing little babies in them. The round cheeks, the way they snuggle their loveys, the way they sleep—Charles so determined, sleeping hard; Greyson absolutely conked out, like he was running full tilt and suddenly, boom!, was asleep. Sometimes you can even see what they're going to look like when they get older. Just that fleeting moment when something around the mouth, or the eyes, and you suddenly see the big boy, or even the adult, inside the toddler.

They really are just the cutest things ever, when they're asleep.

movie reviews

Watched a couple of new movies recently. King Rat, based on the book of the same name by James Clavell; and This Is Spinal Tap. King Rat is an excellent book (based, I believe, on the author's own experience in Changi prison camp during World War II). And the movie was very true to the book ... in sequence. But of course quite a bit had to be cut out, both because of the time at which the movie was filmed and in order to keep the run-time of the movie down, and the cut bits were never quite filled in. Much like Presumed Innocent, it struck me it would be hard to watch King Rat without having read the book and still follow the sequence of events.

Spinal Tap I had, of course, heard quite a bit about, and expected quite the farce. Unfortunately, the movie is a little on the dated side. The "mockumentary" isn't quite so funny in these days of VH1 Behind the Music et al., and of course the whole movie is truly grounded in the '80s—which are looking pretty old 25 years later! Definitely well worth watching, but didn't leave me rolling in laughter.

book report IV

I've finished a bunch of new books lately. Some have been good, but none have really bowled me over.

Four Louis L'Amours—Buckskin Run, a delightful collection of short stories. Most of them I would have loved to see as full novels. Night Over the Solomons, a book of short stories set in the Far East during World War II. Okay, but not stellar. Westward the Tide, which I liked quite a bit. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a wagon train! And The Iron Marshal, which was a nice departure from your standard western. The protagonist was unusual, the main villain was unusual, and the whole story really had a nice unique flavor to it.

I reread These Thousand Hills, the final installment in A.B. Guthrie, Jr.'s western series, and was disappointed. I don't remember it (or the prequel to the whole series, The Big Sky) as being quite as boring and non-compelling as they were this time around. It's a shame, really—but I suppose that's the way series go.

I finally finished a Civil War book, Gray Ghosts and Rebel Raiders, on guerrilla warfare in the South. It was definitely readable, but not gripping. I figure it'll be a good reference work.

In new fiction, I was a little disappointed. I read Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, which had been recommended to me by several women. And it was a good book. Imaginative and well told. But it wasn't amazing. It was like a sandwich—nice and light, tasty, but not filling, and easily forgettable.

Even more disappointing was Year of Wonders, a novel about the plague. It's very unusual for me to pick up a book in a bookstore and buy it, and since I usually base my decisions on the cover art, binding, and the summary on the back, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when it wasn't an amazing book. But I was. I'd really been looking forward to it, and was quite pleased when it came up in the rotation. And it wasn't a bad book. There were things I quite liked about it; particularly a series of passages as the main character studied the hands of those who had died of the plague, and thought of the capabilities that had lain in those hands and been taken away with the death of the person. Those were a very nice touch, thought-provoking and poignant. But there was very little else in the book that was new or truly unique. Most of what happened was what you'd expect. And since the book opened with a framing device that made the events of the plague a flashback, you already knew who had died and were left with the question of why keep reading when you knew it was going to be depressing? I think it was an unfortunate choice of devices, since the opener didn't grab you so hard you couldn't have let go if you wanted to.

(Refreshingly, I also read the movie companion to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which impressed me all over again with the dedication and vision of the filmmakers and made me wish I could be one of them for the rest of the series.)

listen more, talk less

Recently I've been feeling a little down—I'm a part of all these different groups, but I'm not an integral part of any of them. And while I have a lot of superficial friendly acquaintances, it doesn't seem like any of them are particularly interested in being better friends with me.

And the truth is, of course, that there's a reason. I talk a lot. A lot. A really lot. And it's usually about me. Much of the time while the other person is talking about them, I'm thinking more about how I'm going to answer than I am about what the person is saying. I'm terrible at asking questions regarding what the other person just said; instead I often try and let them know I understand their point by an illustration from my own life. Not the clearest way to send that message, and a bit pedantic and self-centered, among other things.

So reminder to me: Listen more. Talk less. It can't hurt, and may well help.

inherited traits

Speaking of "systems"—I've been noticing a few of mine pop up in the boys. Last night at dinner, Lou pointed out how Charles often finishes all of one kind of food before moving on to the next.

The other day, I was watching Greyson color. He carefully laid out all his crayons on a line, then made sure he used each one. And once he had used a crayon, he put it in a new line. This is classic me—although I used to do it with the big box!

So Lou asked if the boys had any of his traits. (Mentioning how he thinks I am more quirky than he is. Hm.) Moments later, when I was trying to drag both Greyson and Lou out of the bookstore, only to have each of them stopped and distracted at least three times on their way out, we had that answer! Also, there's the way I have to turn the TV off if I want any one of the three of them to hear what I'm saying. (You're saying these are all common 2- and 3-year-old traits, aren't you? So maybe it would be more fair to say Lou has the boys' traits? :))

well, THAT didn't work

My blog from the past week is pretty much reflective of how much I got done. (Don't see any blog posts? Exactly my point.) So clearly that time management plan is not getting me anywhere.

So, new week, new plan. I think this week I'm going to total up the number of hours that I'm home and ready to work (so today that's 12—made my list at noon, figure I'll be up till midnight), and then choose a number of tasks matching that number of hours that I plan to get through, and each hour I'll try to knock something off that list. I may not make it through all 12 (for example) items, but at least I'll make it through some, and I'll have some of my prioritization out of the way before I start, reducing the number of items to choose from. Plus, I'll be able to evaluate each hour what's going on in the house, so I'll know if I'm able to take some time and write, or have to do something like laundry that doesn't take as much concentration. I'll have to keep a master list of things that I need to do over the course of the week and beyond. And still keep trying to knock out the "systems", as they really are more time-wasters than anything else. Doing a surprisingly good job at that, actually, considering I've been using these little systems since I was 11!

naps

This week has been a complete disaster from a time management standpoint. Partially due to my usage of my free time, but in a large part because the boys' nap schedules have gone seriously awry. Out of 10 days thus far in February, only 4 of them have contained good naps.

Basically, about a week ago the boys started back up with the hours of maniacal play in their room before finally consenting to fall asleep after several episodes of being yelled at. This sounds good, because it means they're upstairs for a good long time ... but I never know how long, and I'm always listening for what they're up to, which means I can never settle down and actually get anything accomplished. After the first few days of this, I pushed naps back by a couple of hours, which helped a little. So now I'm trying a more permissive approach. I give them an hour or so to get it out of their system, then go up and remind them that it's time for sleeping. I tell them that they can take another half-hour to settle down, but then I expect to hear them sleeping for at least two hours. I think something in the concrete time-frame, coupled with the chance to play together by themselves without being yelled at, is helping. I hope so! A few more days of these shenanigans and the house may actually fall apart!

February resolution

And it's time to start my new month and new resolution. This month: time management. And oh, do I need it.

I'm trying out a couple of basic theories to start with. One, not surprisingly, is to stick with my ever-present lists. Nothing helps me marshal my thoughts and keep my life in order than a good list. Or 10. (Ever hear that Go-Go's song, "Girl of 100 Lists"? Yeah.)

Second thing, moving a little more toward a radical change. To try and keep up with the laundry, I'm going to attempt to do one load every day, instead of waiting until the hampers are full. Ideally, it should take less time to load, wash, dry, and put away one load of laundry a day than save up and have several loads to do at a time.

The third one is going to take some mental effort. I'm going to do away with my systems. (That sound you heard was Lou choking on his Coke.) That's right. All the little mental systems, the rigid "randomizations" I practice, the little tricks and games I play in my mind to keep things more fun—out the window. (I just burst out laughing because I realized I've already started my "dishwasher-unloading" system tonight, completely forgetting that systems are out now. Yeah, this is going to go well.) From now on, it's finish one task before starting another, no multi-tasking if I can help it, and prioritize rather than randomize.

Good luck to me. Should be interesting. :)