4 words that will change your family

My boy has been going through some stuff -- having nights when sleep doesn't come easily and then stressing about the sleep not coming easily and then getting all brain-spinny about anything sleep-preventative in the room. Every little sound from the big-sound-maker T-Rex neighbors downstairs or the dishwasher or a bird outside can send him, in those long moments, into a spiral of worry and exhausted alertness. 

We are working on it. Slowly. 

One way is with this book, recommended to me by another mom who gets it and several others who know how important sleep, particularly restful sleep, is to kids and parents, particularly single parents who handle the terrors and worries and waking night-hours solo. 

One of the most gripping parts of delving into soothing your thoughts and putting worries away for the night so a kid can sleep is talking openly about feelings -- what makes you feel afraid, what makes you feel excited, what makes you feel worried. We've taken turns discussing daily things that stir up feelings for us and E has asked me to share memories of moments when I couldn't sleep or wanted my mom in the room with me when I was a kid. 

I've always known he was a deep processor, a sage child who could understand relationships and situations without much explanation, even from a very early age. That hasn't stopped me from explaining things to him -- we talked autopsies when he was three, and many big topics from gay marriage to drugs to sex to elections have been covered along the way, too. Still, these newer conversations that use a formula for talking about feelings have broken new ground.

For all my own fretting about his sleep stresses and expert advice and guidance on how to handle it from other parents and natural remedies sprayed on his pillow and possible foods that will help slow his spinning thoughts and fidgety body, I heard him use this formula and got that he can be the guide through this. 

Here are the four words he's been challenged to say, and how one conversation using them shifted a lot for our little family. Including who took the trash out.

Click to read more ...

What I've learned about motherhood as a single mom

Huffington Post asked me to write about the parenting lessons I've learned as a single mom, to be compiled as a part of a series for Mother's Day. I was thrilled to see it at the top of the Parents page and for all of the comments that added to the conversation (maybe not for the debate about whether or not I am really a single parent, but that's a whole other topic...to be covered over cocktails and riotous laughter). Here's the HuffPost link. What follows is the post in full. Happy Mother's Day to those who mother in all ways, and no matter what parenting status you claim. xo

If you ever leave me and turn me into a single mother, I will totally kick your ass. I was joking when I said that to my husband as I stepped into our apartment, loaded down with suitcases and a toddler and exhaustion of managing a Labor Day weekend away on my own. I’d like to say I was intuiting a fracture in our home life, or maybe that the humor was a preparation for the avalanche that would fall, not slowly. But weeks later, when my marriage was crumbled at my feet and I could no longer hold on to my son and myself and still pick up all of the pieces, I realized I was already a single mother. 

 Some friends and people who backed away steadily from it all may say that it takes leaving a marital home or finalizing a divorce to become a single parent. The term is certainly not one I wanted to claim -- I heard that in my sarcasm at the end of a long and lonely summer. But once I did, once I saw what I had to do and how quickly I needed to move to save both my son and myself from more pain, betrayal and uncertainty, I felt the earth solidify underneath us. 

That was more than five years ago, and now I have officially held the title of single parent for twice the amount of time I was a married mom. Once I left and saw the situation more clearly, that I was doing nearly all of the parenting the whole time I had a husband, it shifted how I saw single mothering. It has not been easy. Or simple. Or all bliss. But I love the family I’ve made, the home we’ve created and the kind of mother I am always becoming. 

Here are the some of the very best lessons I’ve learned, re-learned, made up, studied, been advised of and run with in the years I’ve been a single mama.

Click to read more ...

When a kid thanks a single mom

It was my son's second big stand-up gig. The first was in kindergarten, two years ago, and he wore a flashing bow tie my dad let him borrow and used flash cards I made for him to prompt the jokes. He was an avid reader, but the symbols of a crazy deer, a frog in a blender and a talking toilet boosted his confidence and speed when he stepped out on stage in front of the grammar-school kids in the audience.

We'd prepped for weeks for that kindergarten debut, culling jokes from books and kid websites, crafting them with better punchlines and tailoring transitions for his crowd. We wrote a joke about the gym teacher, and I think that the way my son said it with a wink and smile in his intonation helped secure his spot in the school talent show.

It was a moment that lasted for weeks. My heart tha-thunked in my chest while he refined his own schtick, swallowed the nerves like a chewable vitamin and smiled to see the reaction fall all around him. 

I was crushed when the date was finalized for the talent show, set for the exact time I'd be speaking at a conference half a country away. He gave an obligatory "aww" when I told him, but skipped past it, reassured that his dad would be there and my parents would cheer him on and another mother would tape a back-up in case any family videos attempts failed. 

Click to read more ...