Handstands and Motherhood

It was a fairly typical Monday afternoon. My three boys tumbled off the school bus just before three o’clock, suppressed energy from a structured school day emanating from them like skin sweating an overindulged garlic meal.  They careened wildly into the house, shouting & shedding coats and boots and hats. The peace and serenity of taking care of a curly haired & lashed preschooler was lanced like a carbuncle and the pus-like mayhem was about to begin.

Afterschool snacks were the first order of business. Apple slices & yogurt were initially rejected but then begrudgingly consumed. Unfortunately, being a pediatrician’s offspring really does mean trying to meet that daily goal of five servings of fruits & vegetables per day and four servings of calcium & vitamin D. As my 7 year old would mutter, “A real bummer.”

Orchestrating an independent 4th grader’s homework (his accelerated fifth grade math problems necessitated MY use of a calculator) and then actively participating in a 2nd grader’s reading comprehension worksheets and multiplication flashcards was a sprint towards the extracurricular finish line. Sight words for my kindergartner were drilled. Books were read and the backpacks were repacked. This frantic homework dash is purely self-induced of course. Certainly no one forced me to sign my kids up for a myriad of activities. My daughter did not need to take dance class, gymnastics, a nature class and Taekwondo. My two older boys did not need to add thrice weekly swim team practice on top of their 5 classes per week of Taekwondo. The boys did not need to be musically stimulated with piano lessons.

Be that as it may, I was racing to chauffeur the four kids to 3 different extracurricular activities. I also had to squeeze in a packed home cooked meal for the two older boys while their younger sibs were at Taekwondo. Honestly, there are some foggy days when I just want to swing by Mickey Ds and succumb to the convenience of fried salty processed hamburgers and french fries. However, I have not yet broken down. Most likely this is because of the memory of bumping into a patient family at a McDonalds’ in Breezewood, Pennsylvania (200 miles away on a family trip enroute to Washington DC) and being told by the father, “See, our pediatrician feeds her kids McDonalds so it’s definitely okay!” I didn’t realize that an annual McDonald’s visit made me the pediatrician poster child for fast foods!

Consequently, I was a harried tired mother with insignificant first world problems, all of my own doing. I was feeling fractious and grumpy, like a toddler who had the post-nap crankies. My children were stoking my mental furnace by bounding about the house, gleefully screaming and wrestling like hyenas near the Christmas tree. They blithely ignored my initially patient requests to start getting changed into their Taekwondo uniforms. Instead, they were pushing each other around, wiggling like puppies and leaving messes in their wake that I had tidied up minutes before. And as always, I felt like I was going to lose it. The clock was ticking, the extracurricular activity was awaiting and the kids were oblivious to my ballooning temper. I felt my blood start to simmer and fizz like magma.

As a pediatrician, I am very patient and indulgent of my “kids” in the office. Unfortunately, a lot of the patience seems to dissolve when I parent my own children. My kids know what buttons to push and usually I can manage to remain calm when one or two buttons are detonated. It is when the third or fourth child is caterwauling that my temper overwhelms my composure. I counsel myself on all AAP recommendations regarding the discipline of children. I recognize my own parental vices and have made daily resolutions to be more patient and understanding of these four darling hellions. But more times than not, I don’t always succeed. Today, while the kids were squealing, somersaulting and parachuting about my house, I decided to try another approach. I started practicing ujjayi breathing that I use in hot yoga class and then did a handstand for 60 seconds. Amazingly, afterwards I felt calmer with this inversion and the emerging strident tone in my voice was quelled. Frankly, I was thrilled. I found a new outlet for my daily frustrations of raising four strong-willed  opinionated children.

I have already done three handstands tonight.  But no yelling.

Twenty Angels in God’s arms

All of America is heartsick over the news of the Connecticut elementary school shooting. Undoubtedly, every parent feels nauseated and chilled by the evil story that unfolded. As a mother and a pediatrician, I am having a visceral reaction to the loss of TWENTY beautiful innocent lives as well as the adults who succumbed to a mad man’s rampage. When I saw the news on CNN and ABC, I felt doused with icy water and nauseated to my deepest core.

I think I can speak for most pediatricians in my expression of the horror and futility racing through our vessels when we hear such stories. This act of violence and evil counteracts the very premise of our medical practice or vocational mission: to promote the happiness, health and well being of a child. We know how hard it is to raise children, we’ve been in the trenches with all our patients’ parents, and also getting pretty muddied in raising our own children. The initial 4-6 months of sleepless nights (up every 2 to 3 hours to nurse a fussy gassy baby) can dry up the bone marrow of even the most robust parent. When the respite of sleeping through the night finally happens, teething starts. Babies and parents are up again.  And then comes the worry. The worrying about weight gain and weight loss, strange rashes and dry skin, deciphering crying and temper tantrums, development and the possibility of autism. The list goes on and on. As a parent, we put on a cowl of worry the very second that precious squirmy wiggling baby is placed into our arms.

Raising a child to reach the age of 18 (or 22-30 nowadays) is a painstaking gram by gram process. Every ounce of breast milk or formula is recorded in a parent’s mind. Every mustard seed yellow stool and sopping wet diaper is changed with care. Stools that are “atypical” are examined and sniffed and deliberated over. We cheer when our constipated child has finally pooped out that ginormous stool. Some overzealous parents may even do the post-poo-poo dance. I know I do. Every pound and inch is lovingly measured against a doorway or growth chart.

The time and love it took to nurture these 20 sweet angels (and consequently let them fly off to grade school) is what makes me so sad. These Newtown parents have made it through the difficult infant, toddler and preschool stage. The teething has ceased and the temper tantrums have finally abated!  The funny comments and insightful hugs have begun. The sweet smiles and fragrant kisses abound. Kindergarteners and grade school kids can be so much fun. They recount the silliest stories and have a way of regarding the world that always turns the cloudiest day into sunshine. The parents were on the precipice of enjoying soccer games and Little League practices and gymnastics meets. They were rearing to race to piano lessons and clap at tuba recitals! These children were starting to read in Kindergarten and dreaming of changing the world in first, second and third grade. They may have had their own aspirations to be a teacher or musician or doctor or athlete. At the age of five or six, the possibilities are endless. This slate was starkly wiped clean and young lives were called home much much too early.

These families have had their guts wrenched out of them. They will be burying their little ones in lieu of attending holiday pageants and stuffing striped stockings. My heart grieves with them, but cannot possibly comprehend the keening sorrow and despair they are going through. I will pray for them now and nightly. I will hug and kiss and squeeze my four spicy dumplings with my own arms tonight.

Toddler and preschooler idiosyncrasies

“Sometimes,’ said Pooh, ‘the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”
― A.A. Milne

This quote is so quintessentially true about the love and joy instilled by children. Children are such little gigantic souls, brimming with energy, spices and emotions. They can be such a ray of sunshine to a doleful humdrum day. They can surprise you with their bliss or lift your spirits with their hope. A child’s smile can turn a stressful workday into such an inconsequential thing.

Conversely, they can also puzzle me with their litany of idiosyncrasies. When I became a new mother of a toddler, I was frankly unprepared for the many flavors of frustration, anger, and downright grumpiness that a bambino can unleash! The myriad of quirks displayed by little ones can be bamboozling to the unsuspecting parent. For instance, no amount of medical training ever prepared me for the terror of post-nap crankiness! Certainly this is not a medical terminology, but all four of my kids experienced it with the force of a hurricane during their toddler and preschool years. At times, it could be so torrential that I would much rather skip the nap than face the post-nap sequelae.

I also was initially unschooled by the concept of “redo’s” or “repeats.” Sometimes, when my toddler or preschooler was unsatisfied with the way events played out, they would frequently demand a “redo.” This meant several reproductions of original events until deemed satisfactory to my 2 or 3 year old at that time. When I first started parenting 8.5 years ago, I used to try my best to dissuade such replays to occur, thinking that I would be setting a pattern for bad behavior if I was lenient. However, with more experience and waning sanity, I learned to better choose my battles. Perhaps my little one needed to feel a sense of control in a world where someone bigger was always in charge. Perhaps they needed to assert their overflowing independence. Perhaps they needed to establish a place in our larger busy household.

Today, it is simply easier to advise my 3 older boys line up behind my current 2 year old so she could be the first to go through a door, get in the car, leave the house. The boys don’t mind appeasing this bossy little lady and we candidly do not have the time for a 30 minute temper tantrum before Taekwondo or rushing to the school bus stop! For a 3 month period, my 2 year old also demanded to be the sole person in our household to turn off the light to every room we exit. She currently needs me to stand in a specific spot every morning after brushing her teeth and curly Q hair so she can look in the mirror, fluff her hair and say, “Pretty!” She needs me to sit in a particular seat at the dinner table and recite a precise phrase after reading certain Pinkalicious books and sing her bedtime songs in a categorical order. If the ABC song comes before Itsy, Bitsy Spider, I will be on the receiving end of her self-riteous anger.  I think she feels comfort and reassurance in order and decorum according to her 2 year old standards. As a mother, I need to sacrifice a slice of my own autonomy to placate her sour & salty quirks. I am constantly improvising and redirecting. Last night I had to bust out the “Santa Clause is coming to Town” song to curtail an impending tantrum and resort to scatologic   humor to evaporate those tearful oak brown eyes. She had rewarded me with a giggle, ” You are so, so funny, Mommy!”

Honestly, it can be difficult to differentiate between what is typical for the idiosyncratic 2 or 3 year old, and what is pathological or developmentally abnormal. The navigation of this period can be overwhelming for many parents, especially a neophyte but also for a well-seasoned mother. When in doubt, it is always important to ask the child’s pediatrician.