And the winners of the Bambino Mio heart print cloth diaper covers are:
Krystal, LauraJ, Kimberly W., Leigh M., Valerie M., Holly, Josh, Beryl, Cierra, and Serena F. I have sent y’all an email with details.
Thank you ALL so much for participating. Have a beautiful Valentine’s Day with your sweet babies. I will be making heart-shaped cookies with my daughter….
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Not Enough Words for “Friend”
I’m from Canada. Up here, we’ve all heard that the indigenous people in the far North of our country, the Inuit, have hundreds of words for snow. Because snow is so important in their culture, they need to distinguish between hard-packed snow, fresh snow, snow in a blizzard and light snow, to name just a few possibilities. When your lives depend on something, you name it carefully and in great detail.
There are not enough words for friend in the English language. We can say friend, best friend, very dear friend, friend-of-a-friend, old friend, new friend and acquaintance. But that doesn’t begin to cover these special people in our lives who support and sustain us, laugh and cry with us, but aren’t exactly part of the family.
It seems like the mainstreaming of Facebook has rendered the original word, the one word we do have, almost meaningless. With a click of the mouse, you can ask to be ‘friends’ with almost anyone, whether the two of you share any kind of relationship or any important experiences. I mean really, does anyone actually have over 1000 friends?
But we do need to call the important people in our life something. Where would we be without them? Especially when we’re trying to raise our children, continue to be present with our partners and sustain some kind of independent self identity? We count on our friends in countless ways, but what do we call them that would do justice to their tremendous and specific significance?
What do we call the:
1. Friend whose daughter is a year older than yours and tells you what to expect from the age that’s just around the corner. This friend gave you the low down on kindergarten and had some great advice about easy to eat foods for kids with wiggly teeth. Being one step ahead of you, this friend had already thought up the whole Halloween Fairy story before your daughter even went trick-or-treating. For those of you without this specific friend in your life, the Halloween Fairy is a kindly fairy who drives a pumpkin car powered by candy. Kids who leave the Halloween Fairy almost all their candy to help her drive her pumpkin car receive a gift. It’s the fun of trick-or-treating without the ongoing battles about eating candy.
2. Friend who works with your husband. You don’t know her very well but she’s got a great sense of humour and you seek each other out whenever you’re both stuck at a work party.
3. Friend who gives you all her daughter’s hand-me-downs. I do mean all. The woman likes to shop and is very good at laundry. Your daughter is always well dressed and you don’t spend a dime. Sometimes you even have leftovers to share with other friends who don’t have this kind of benefactor in your life. Friends like this help you to stay home with your kids by dramatically reducing your budget and saving you time.
4. Friend who asked to drop her son off at your house if she went into labour with her daughter before her parents arrived from out of town. What an honour. The parents eventually arrived in time, but each night you took the portable phone upstairs at bedtime so you’d be ready for her call brought you two closer.
5. Friend who got your husband his first full-time job when the two of you had just moved to the city, recently married and jobless.
6. Friend who wanted you to be her doula but decided not to tell you she was in labour because it was happening at the same time as your first marathon and she knew how hard you trained. Her daughter was born at the exact moment you crossed the finish line and has a special place in your heart.
7. Friend who your child loves like her favourite aunt. You know that if your daughter ever enters an awkward teenage stage that involves not talking to mom, this friend will be your go between.
8. Friend who you used to see lots of but don’t anymore because you’re at different stages of life but you still care about each other deeply. You hope your paths will cross more often sometime soon, but for now you treasure whatever time you do get to spend together.
9. Friend who breastfed her son or daughter at the same time you were breastfeeding one of your children. You may not be part of a community that believes in offering each other’s children milk from a collective source, but the bond formed while breastfeeding at the same time is a deep one. You’ve shared full and satisfied babes, frequent night wakings, being able to quickly and easily comfort your children and finally weaning. When you breastfed in public together, it made mothering through breastfeeding both normal and sacred.
10. Friend who was one of your husband’s best friends growing up and quickly developed her own special relationship with you as soon as you met.
11. Friend who wasn’t afraid to suggest that your child needed medical help. This friend is especially dear because your son was tongue-tied and although your midwife suggested the tongue-tie would resolve itself, it was actually very difficult for your son to breastfeed. Most other friends who saw you and your son struggle through breastfeeding said kind and supportive words, but it was this friend’s advice that you really needed.
12. Friend who goes on vacation with you and your family three years in a row and even seems to enjoy herself.
13. Friend who drives you crazy but you still hang out with her on a regular basis although you’re not sure why.
14. Friend who makes you two separate dinners when your second child is born after checking to make sure the time she was going to drop off dinner was convenient for you.
15. Friend who was a very dear friend once upon a time and is not in the picture anymore. Neither of you is sure what happened, but continuing your friendship is more painful than not seeing each other anymore.
16. Friend who trades babysitting with you. Both of you are invested in raising each other’s kids because you both love them too.
17. Friend who goes for a run with you in the middle of winter, even when it’s so cold out that your eyelashes are freezing together. Even when she has to peel children off her legs to leave the house.
18. Friend who finds it easy to be glamorous.
19. Friend who organizes all the girls when it’s time for a night out.
20. Friend who moved away to Panama for two years but didn’t sell her house with its backyard kitty-corner to yours. Now she’s back and both your families are delighted and the kids are plotting a double ladder so they can scale the fence that separates them and play whenever they like. This is not just a neighbour.
21. Friend who entrusted you with the only spare key to her apartment when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
22. Friend you can call when your husband’s feeling down and needs to be invited to go mountain biking by her husband. You do this for each other.
23. Friend whose name you don’t actually know but she gave you a hug after you and your daughter were almost hit by a car when your daughter was an infant in your arms. Whenever you see this friend around thee neighbourhood, you are deeply grateful.
24. Friend who calls himself your brother. This friend is a contractor, complete with steel toed boots. He is your son’s first mentor. If your son’s not home, he’s probably in this friend’s living room, watching cable and hanging out. This friend does not eat organic anything, but he loves your family and can always be counted on.
25. Friend who hired you to work at her baby shop when you were desperate for a job but didn’t want to leave your clingy child behind. This friend gave you the first pay cheque you earned in years and the dignity that goes with paying at least a little of your own way.
26. Friend you worked with at summer camp. From the moment you met, you clicked. Sometimes you wonder if she’s now a mother too. Someday you’ll look her up on Facebook.
These are a few of my favourite friends. Most continue to be an important part of my life. But even those who have moved on are still an essential part of my story.
They have names, their very own names, of course. But I think they also deserve a special title that defines the depth and significance of our relationship. Something to give our friendship a context. I realize this would be confusing because each of us is at once many different friends to many different people who are, in turn, all kinds of different friends to another whole different set of friends. But it’s an important puzzle that I think we should work on.
Our family moved from our home in Toronto to Northern India for a year when I was in high school. We learned enough Punjabi and Hindi when we were there to know that the uncle who is your mother’s youngest brother has his own special title. And that every person who is your senior – from the gentleman selling mangoes at the market to your classmate’s mother — should be addressed as “Uncle” or “Auntie,” out of respect.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, one of my best friends, originally from Mexico, started calling me ‘comadre.’ Every time she called me that, she was promising to be another mother to my unborn daughter. She was letting me know that I could depend on her to go shopping for maternity clothes with me and to baby sit when the time came. As my comadre, this friend was also entitled to give me advice about prenatal nutrition whether I asked for it or not.
I was recently a bridesmaid for a very dear friend. When I started counting back to grade nine, when we met each other, I realized we have been friends for twenty years. So now she’s my faithful-friend-of-twenty-years. But it’s not just about the decades we’ve stood by each other. This woman is one of my best friends because of the experiences we’ve shared during those years together. We wrote a play together in grade twelve. The play was awful, but writing it together was wonderful. So she’s actually my faithful-friend-of-twenty-years-and-co-author-of-a-lousy-play.
At Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, my husband and I are called by our respective families to drive long distances to take our places at our family dinner tables. No matter how long the drive or how treacherous the driving conditions or whether we’d rather go on camping trip with our immediate family, we almost always attend. It’s Christmas (or whatever holiday), after all and it’s family. This is what you do.
I vote we name our friends more deeply and more specifically so we can summon each other to the table, so to speak, whenever the need arises. As I explained to my husband who stayed home and took care of the kids, of course I needed to make three five-hour trips from Ottawa to Toronto for my friend’s wedding. This was my faithful-friend-of-twenty-years-and-co-author-of-a-lousy-play. And I was one of her bridesmaids.
We say ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ And this is true. But it’s also true that it takes a village of friends to keep a woman going through the challenges and celebrations of life that motherhood brings. And these friends are each special and unique. Sometimes they stretch us. Sometimes they make demands on our time and energy. Usually they listen to us. And they definitely deserve names of their own that tell a little bit about who they are to us. A name to introduce our story.
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Hey, loving mamas. Bambino Mio is giving away TEN new heart print Miosoft cloth diaper covers to ten lucky winners!
Here’s how you enter the giveaway: leave a comment below with the size cover you’d like:
Newborn: Less than 11 lbs.
Small: 11-16 lbs.
Medium: 16-21 lbs.
Large: 21-27 lbs.
X-Large: 27-34 lbs.
Good luck! You can learn more about Bambino Mio at www.bambinomio.com.
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This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on how to positively shift gears in your relationship or marriage. To enter the giveaway for Project Happily Ever After, please leave a comment below–with your own Happily Ever After tip, or your own example of feeling very hopeless and frustrated, or, what do you want from your partner that you’re not getting–whatever resonates for you.
Guest blogger Julie Geen discusses the book Project: Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage when the Fairytale Falters with author Alisa Bowman. Part memoir, part self-help book, Bowman spills every ugly detail of her marriage struggles, including secretly planning her perfectly healthy husband’s funeral (the wake included all of his favorite beers, butternut squash soup, and lamb on a stick). She gives a ten-step plan addressing everything from communication to sex, offering hope for “divorce daydreamers” everywhere.
Alisa Bowman
Julie: You wrote something that cut me to the core. You said, “Now that I’ve allowed myself to love him again, the misunderstandings and disagreements are excruciating.” And you talked about fighting not being the end of the world. That was really powerful for me, because I realized when I read this that that is my biggest fear. If I really love this man and open up to him and let him know what I want and need, what I like and how to please me and he doesn’t respond, I’m going to be…well, I’m going to have to go far far away and never ever love again, or something.
Alisa: I think there is a leap of faith that you take. And part of it is the faith that your partner is not going to leave you, no matter who you become. And no matter how you fight. You never have one hundred percent certainty. We always have some fear in our souls. You have to try not to focus on that and have faith that as long as I’m being a good me, he will be a good him, and everything will move to a better place. There’s no guarantees, and it does require vulnerability. It’s like taking off armor. You feel like you’re walking around naked for awhile.
Julie: Yeah. I’m definitely getting that feeling.
Alisa: You share intimately, back and forth. And you did that when you first met. But you did it naturally then, because you were newly in love.
Julie: Worst case scenario, if it doesn’t work, I at least gave it my best. I would live through it if it didn’t work out.
Alisa: Women go on after they are divorced, for sure. And you’re definitely going to get divorced if you don’t try. So you might as well try, and then you’re a stronger person if you end up going there anyway, right?
Julie: Exactly. I have nothing to lose. I might as well try. You also mentioned in your book that even if your marriage hadn’t worked out, that this was a good process for you because you ended up working on yourself. You clarified who you were through this process, whether or not he followed you.
Alisa: I did. You learn how to be a leader in your marriage, and then you learn how to be a leader in life. And so the rest of my life really came together after working on my marriage. I changed my career, I improved a lot of my friendships and got rid of others. I was able to identify toxic things I didn’t need in my life anymore. There’s a certain amount of self confidence that comes from it. I even improved my relationship with my mother. I learned how to communicate, I learned how to forgive, I learned how to be assertive. That will take you anywhere in life you need to go.
Julie: That’s true. The first marriage counselor my husband and I went to said that marriage brings your greatest wound to you for healing. I hated it when he said that. But it turned out to be very true. It just feels to me like this is really spiritual work of a sort. I feel like every wound that I have in my being has been exposed in this relationship. This is a lot harder work than demanding yoga poses.
Alisa: So true.
Julie: This kind of work means scouring your insides and giving up pride.
Alisa: Exactly. Pride is probably the biggest one.
Julie: That’s the one that’s tripping me up right about now. You also talked about guilt versus anger. I have such a hard time admitting that I have any needs at all. Somehow it’s just ingrained in me that I’m John Wayne-I’m tough, I don’t need anything from anybody. And the truth is, I do have needs. Ugh. When I stand up for myself, and when I ask for what I need, if it inconveniences anyone in the slightest, I feel dreadful guilt, and if I don’t ask, I feel anger. And none of this was a huge problem until I became a mother. You mentioned something that I don’t think is talked about very much, which is that we as women are more emotionally and physically dependent upon our partner, if we have one, when we give birth. And for me, that was so difficult.
Alisa: You didn’t know how to deal with it because you weren’t used to asking for help. Some women become financially dependent, too. So they are dependent in every way on their spouse. And that’s a devastating thing if you don’t know how to communicate. One thing I’ve tried recently is thinking about how when you help others, it makes you feel good.
Remember that and then say you’re giving someone else a gift by letting them help. I found with my husband (and this may not be true in every marriage) that he loves being appreciated and helping me as long as I make a fuss about whatever he’s done for me. And his heart’s desire is to be adored. You can kind of think of it that way and it helps. It is hard when you want to be independent and strong and tough …you do feel really vulnerable when you lean on other people around you and allow them to help you.
Julie: That makes good sense. Where is your marriage now? How’s it going?
Alisa: I would say it just constantly gets better. When I wrote the end of the book, I’d rated it an eight, and that was three years ago. I guess I’d have to rate it a fifteen, even though it’s only a ten point scale. You take two steps forward and one step back. I’m never going to be the person who tries to be the poster child for a happy marriage, because there are definitely moments where it’s a challenge.
Saving your marriage is not like running a marathon. You never really cross the finish line. It’s a lifelong process. You have to keep yourself aware and address the issues and never sweep them under the rug or wait for them to go away or for the magical genie to fix them for you. Your marriage will keep getting better and better. At least that’s my experience.
Julie: You really helped me see that marriage is a process, rather than a place you arrive. Your last sentence in the Bonus Section is “ A marriage is never cured. It’s a lifelong project. Get over it.” That’s what I needed to hear.
Alisa: We want to believe in the soul mate myth. I call it a myth. Some people argue with me. But I really do feel like it’s a myth. You meet someone who is basically compatible with you and you marry them. And then you have these ideas like, wow, I was wrong. I didn’t marry the person I was compatible with. I must have been young or on crack. You create all these reasons about why you were wrong and you screwed up.
But what happens, I think, for most of us–not including the people in abusive relationships or relationships where there are addiction issues–I feel for most of us that if we left our marriages and went back out there, what we would find is someone else that we were basically compatible with and we would start all over again. We might work it out with that next person, we might not, but we would encounter all the same problems or at least a different set of problems.
Living with somebody and having children with them and growing old isn’t easy. Can you imagine if you had to spend the rest of your life with your sibling or your college roommate? Living with someone for life isn’t easy, even though we expect it to be. We believe in the soul mate myth.
Julie: When you put it that way, it’s damn unnatural thing to do.
Alisa: I think it’s beautiful that we manage it at all, isn’t it?
To enter the giveaway of Project Happily Ever After, please leave a comment below–with your own Happily Ever After tip, or your own example of feeling very hopeless and frustrated, or, what do you want from your partner that you’re not getting–whatever resonates for you.
Julie Geen is a freelance writer, mother of two and still married, despite being published in Ask Me About My Divorce. Look for her in Tarnished: True Stories of Innocence Lost by Pinchback Press, to be published in spring of 2011, and on her new blog at www.juliegeen.com.
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[ 19 comments ]
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on how to positively shift gears in your relationship or marriage. To enter the giveaway for Project Happily Ever After, please leave a comment below–with your own Happily Ever After tip, or your own example of feeling very hopeless and frustrated, or, what do you want from your partner that you’re not getting–whatever resonates for you.
Guest blogger Julie Geen discusses the book Project: Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage when the Fairytale Falters with author Alisa Bowman. Part memoir, part self-help book, Bowman spills every ugly detail of her marriage struggles, including secretly planning her perfectly healthy husband’s funeral (the wake included all of his favorite beers, butternut squash soup, and lamb on a stick). She gives a ten-step plan addressing everything from communication to sex, offering hope for “divorce daydreamers” everywhere.
Alisa Bowman
Julie: You talked about some other things in your book that I found so interesting. You made me want to get a bikini wax, and I’m someone who went years without shaving anything. I started thinking, though, you pay more attention to anybody when they get a new hairstyle.
Alisa: I think in the sexual realm of advertising, even today, it gives the impression that you wear lingerie for the guy. People think of bikini waxes as something you do for the guy. Like you’re doing it for his sexual pleasure. But in a long term marriage, it really does become about what keeps the woman in the mood. Because it’s a lot harder for the woman to get in the mood than the man. This isn’t universally the case, but a lot of times it is. I find my husband couldn’t care less about seeing me in lingerie. He’s just happy to see me naked. But I wear lingerie for me. And I do the waxing for me. It’s all about things that make me feel sexy or want to have sex.
Julie: In a way, you’re courting yourself, aren’t you?
Alisa: Exactly. I think a lot of these things we’ve been taught are good things, but we’ve been taught to do them for the wrong reasons. Whatever makes you feel good about yourself, whatever makes you feel sexier is going to help you get in the mood.
Julie: It was such a shock to me that I ended up in this typical situation of being married with kids and, I have to be honest, I seem to be against having sex with my husband. I don’t wanna. And I always told myself that I’ve done everything right. I married the sensitive ponytail, guitar- playing guy. I never believed in this Mars/Venus stuff. I always thought he and I would make our own way, that we wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’ve seen so many make. I’m really surprised to find my husband and I are not special, we’re not different and we are in a place that I think a lot of long term married people find themselves. I’m shocked.
Alisa: We never think it’s going to happen and it does. It’s helpful to know that it’s so common.
Julie: It is. And I really appreciate your honesty in talking about all of this. I think it’s so necessary to talk about this stuff so people don’t feel so alone. There were parts of your book that brought tears to my eyes. You wrote about the experience of having your marriage deteriorate and losing your attraction to the man you loved, and I’ve had those same feelings of loss. So, what are your suggestions for rekindling the damn romance?
Alisa: Like I said, I think a lot of it starts with you and feeling sexy again. As moms, and as we get older, sometimes we let that go. It’s really important to do the things that make you feel good about your body. I don’t think these things are necessarily universal, but for me it’s exercising regularly and eating healthily and relaxing. I relax by meditating, but it might be different for somebody else.
For moms, getting enough sleep is so important. It’s hard to put sex on the calendar when all you want to do is sleep. This is one way where men and women are very different. At the end of a stressful day, a guy might think he wants to have sex and go to sleep. And at the end of a hard day if she’s exhausted, she’s hoping he doesn’t want to have sex because she just want to sleep. I do think that’s a fundamental difference. It’s not universal, but it’s true for the most part.
But other than courting yourself and making sure that you are healthy, the other thing is not to wait for desire to strike, because you could be waiting for the rest of your life. Desire surfaces less and less if you’ve been married a long time, especially if you are a parent, especially as you age and your hormones change… and so we had to put sex on the calendar. We had to figure out how much was right for us. Ideally for us, it was once a week. For another couple, it might be once a month. You have to talk with your partner and find an ideal minimum. And then schedule that minimum. Then you’ll do what you need to do to get yourself in the mood on those days. For me it might be bikini waxing, reading some erotica. I started writing erotica and reading it to my husband. Wow! You can think outside of the box. There’s so many ways to get the spark going.
If you still have trouble with attraction, a lot of that has to do with problems in your relationship. Because attraction really isn’t this magical, mystical thing. If it’s not there, maybe you’re feeling resentment. Maybe you’re not feeling honored or adored. A lot of times for women, we need to feel uniquely adored. So if you’re not feeling that, it’s important to teach them how to do that for you. I think romance isn’t really what a lot of us have been taught to believe. It’s not flowers and chocolate. When I talk to a lot of women, they know their husband loves them when they do something special for them.
Sometimes when my husband sees me working late at night, he’ll clean the house. He’s not cleaning the house because he cares about the house, he’s cleaning the house because he knows I care and I don’t have time to do it. I think that’s romance. We have to find out what’s true for us, and put our ideas of feminism aside. For me, I love when he works on my car, or works on the house. Those things with hammers. It’s important to admit to yourself what you really like.
The other thing about attraction, is that our minds want to get negative. Our mind is going to constantly play a negative recording about our spouse, and it does this about life too. It’s going to be remembering all the negative things that person did, all of the bad things, going back through years and years of resentments. It can really help to force yourself to have a positive recording. And I don’t mean that in a fake way that isn’t true. A lot of times we zero in on the negative and ignore the positive, so if you can look for reasons to love your spouse it’s helpful. My husband might do a zillion great things in one week, and then I’ll notice the one thing that he doesn’t do. It helps to focus on the positive.
Julie: That’s so true. Whatever you focus on grows in your head. If you focus on the negative, that’s what’s going to grow. I feel like this is all basic knowledge about life and marriage that I somehow missed. I didn’t know how much work, or action is required to stay in a good place. I somehow got the idea that if you are in love, everything falls into place. I’ve been very surprised. I think what you say about feminism now being about us picking what’s true for us as individuals is so true. And if that’s a bikini wax, great. What I’m trying to do is get honest about myself about what I really truly want from a partner. And I don’t know the answer to that right now. But your book helped me focus on that question. What do I want from this poor man? Because he’s not going to figure it out on his own. It’s my job to figure it out.
Alisa: Right.
Julie: Right now, I feel like I need a lot of patience while I figure out what I want. And I need him to learn how to really listen to me. And I need more help around the house. There, I said it.
To enter the giveaway of Project Happily Ever After, please leave a comment below–with your own Happily Ever After tip, or your own example of feeling very hopeless and frustrated, or, what do you want from your partner that you’re not getting–whatever resonates for you.
Coming this week: Part 3
Julie Geen is a freelance writer, mother of two and still married, despite being published in Ask Me About My Divorce. Look for her in Tarnished: True Stories of Innocence Lost by Pinchback Press, to be published in spring of 2011, and on her new blog at www.juliegeen.com.
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[ 16 comments ]
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on how to positively shift gears in your relationship or marriage. To enter the giveaway for Project Happily Ever After, please leave a comment below–with your own Happily Ever After tip, or your own example of feeling very hopeless and frustrated…whatever resonates for you.
Guest blogger Julie Geen discusses the book Project: Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage when the Fairytale Falters with author Alisa Bowman. Part memoir, part self-help book, Bowman spills every ugly detail of her marriage struggles, including secretly planning her perfectly healthy husband’s funeral (the wake included all of his favorite beers, butternut squash soup, and lamb on a stick). She gives a ten-step plan addressing everything from communication to sex, offering hope for “divorce daydreamers” everywhere.
Alisa Bowman
Alisa: Well, we were at our lowest point in the marriage. I don’t know if you can get any lower than finding all these unusual ways your husband can conveniently drop dead and planning the funeral. I was also planning our divorce, and thinking about which lawyer I would hire, and I think once you start walking through that door, it’s hard to go back. I went to my friend for advice, and she told me I hadn’t really tried everything to save my marriage, and I couldn’t give up until I tried. She was right. I’d tried screaming, crying and saying I was miserable, which really isn’t the same as trying.
Julie: For a long time, I didn’t know that crying wasn’t the same thing as trying.
Alisa: It’s got so many parallels to life. When your marriage is bad, you’re kind of waiting for a revelation or a divine moment….like waiting for a genie to pop out of a bottle and give you three wishes.
I’ve had that same sensation when I’ve had troubles elsewhere in life. Like even trying to get my book published. I really wanted that genie. I had to get over it. I have to make it happen myself. And I think the first place you have to go to improve your marriage is to say: my spouse isn’t going to have some wonderful turnaround and suddenly be the person I want to be married to. My problems aren’t going to magically go away. I ’m going to have to do something about it. That’s the first step to making things better.
Julie: The stories you tell about your husband are really painful.
[Examples:
-Bowman had a C-section. She was released from the hospital on her birthday. Her husband spent that evening at a party that she could not attend.
-Bowman and her husband got into one of their biggest fights when he lost his job and then proceeded to spend their Babymoon savings on a ski trip that he took without her.]
You do it in a beautiful, funny way, but nobody would have blamed you for divorcing him. That’s what gave me so much hope about my own marriage when I read your book.
Alisa: It’s interesting. Some of the feedback I’ve gotten from readers basically accused me of not having a bad marriage. But I’m pretty sure these people are in very abusive relationships. That’s a situation where I would say, “It’s doomed–get out.”
Julie: There’s a line, it’s true. Nobody would advocate staying in an abusive relationship. I think your book is still something to try, because you’re not going to know if your partner is able to change unless you step up and communicate.
Alisa: Exactly.
Julie: And then if your partner doesn’t reciprocate, or escalates the abusive behavior, then you know. Some of your solutions seemed to be very old-school, like compliment him, touch him, smile. They are the sort of things I’m incredibly resistant to. Did you have any battles with the feminist side of yourself?
Alisa: Oh, yeah. I had battles with the side of myself that just didn’t want to do it. Whether you call that “feminist” or you call that the part of yourself that says “This isn‘t fair…why should I be the one who works on the marriage, he should do it.” I still have those battles. But I had to talk myself through it. I’m married to this person that I’ve chosen and I wake up every day and chose to stay in the marriage. Do I want this to go on like this forever, or do I want to do something about it? And I can choose to be cold and withhold sex, and I can chose to be snippy and all of these negative things…or I can choose to be warm, and affectionate and complimentary and I can be polite. It’s really all choices.
It’s not the same thing as being a doormat. I think that’s why it isn’t against my idea of feminism. I think most people would describe me as being a very strong person and I know where my line is and what I’m willing to accept and what I’m not. I know what makes me happy. I think what goes on in marriage is that when things get so negative, everything starts getting on your nerves and it’s hard to chose your battles, so everything becomes a battle.
If you can work on it and warm things up, and say “Thank your for unloading the dishwasher” and tell yourself “it’s okay if he never thanks me, I can thank him.” You get past all the little stuff. And then you can focus on the big things. There are definitely times where you want to stand up and say, “That’s not acceptable.” And there’s other times where you say, “I’m going to forgive that, or even if it’s not fair, I’m going to warm things up and that way we’ll both be happy.” It’s like sorting those things into categories.
To enter the giveaway of Project Happily Ever After, please leave a comment below–with your own Happily Ever After tip, or your own example of feeling very hopeless and frustrated…whatever resonates for you.
Coming this week: Parts 2 and 3
Julie Geen is a freelance writer, mother of two and still married, despite being published in Ask Me About My Divorce. Look for her in Tarnished: True Stories of Innocence Lost by Pinchback Press, to be published in spring of 2011, and on her new blog at www.juliegeen.com.
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Caroline Leavitt is a bestselling, eight-time novelist. She’s also a mom, a vegetarian with vegan aspirations, an unabashed chocolate lover, and a wonderfully warm and generous being.
She’s also brave; compassionately taking on subject matter that fascinates us all, but can be intense. For instance, in her latest book, Pictures of You, she follows the story of two women who collide (literally, in their cars) one dark night. Only one walks away with her life, but it is a life forever marked by this chance tragedy. She also becomes involved with the husband and young son of the woman who died in the crash. Although we all hope this becomes a seamlessly happy ending, it’s more like the sloppy, messy, human, frustrating, yet transcendent thing we generally call life.
I was fortunate enough to land an interview with Leavitt. I hope you enjoy it (and her delicious dinner ideas, too). And guess what? You can win a copy of Leavitt’s book by leaving a comment below (hopefully with a tidbit of your own of advice on how to preserve creative time as a mama). Feel free to check out her blog, Caroline Leavittville.
1. What inspired you to write this book?
Pathology. I’m phobic about driving, and even though I have my license and I renew it, I have not driven since I was 16 for fear of causing a crash and killing someone. I wanted to write about it to see if I could heal it–so I became fixated on a car crash and how it effects the people involved. (It didn’t cure me of my phobia, but I did get a novel out of it!)
I also was really interested in the whole idea of how well we really know the ones we love, and how we choose to see what is going on in our lives.
2. You’re a mother. Did being a mother help you when you were depicting the relationship between Sam and his mother?
Absolutely. I came late to motherhood and it’s been the most profound thing in my life. If I had know it would be this amazing, I would have had children earlier–and more than one! I wanted to think about the different ways we parent our kids. Both April and Charlie and Isabelle all present different ways of parenting for Sam to respond to–and I loved Sam. He wasn’t really like my son at that age, but it still felt comforting to be writing about a young boy.
3. The plot hangs on a very striking occurrence; I often find that truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes when I’m writing, I feel worried about launching a story based on an instance that seems improbable–and yet life constantly shocks me with its amazing, wild plot twists. How do you navigate that as a novelist?
Oh, what a great question. I think it has to do with the character’s realizing that it’s a coincidence and that it’s weird or strange. That keeps the reader in the reality. If the character doesn’t acknowledge or comment on it, the reader then thinks, “Ah, it’s the writer showing off!”
4. Where do your characters come from? Are they inspired by people you meet, or in other ways?
I wish I knew. They just seem to arrive with an image and they the more I write them, the more alive they become. I try to never base them on real people, though a lot of Sam’s asthmatic childhood and his feelings are mine. I guess it’s like Flaubert, who used to say Madame Bovary was him. Although I have not been in the situations my characters have been in, I know the feelings.
5. You’re such a dedicated, prolific writer. Were you always that way, or did you build up your discipline over time? We’d love some tips.
I was not always that way. I started out writing only when inspiration hit, then when I hit my twenties, I got panicked that I wasn’t working hard enough. I’ve now reached the point where I know I have to sit down and work 4 or 5 hours a day in order to keep the subconscious sort of primed. I know, too, that it isn’t always easy, and like my favorite John Irving quote, that I am almost always feeling that I am losing control of the material, that I am writing way over my own head, and that I am totally lost. But soon, the rubble clears, and things begin to make sense!
Tips? Sit at the chair and write. Don’t despair. If you feel blocked, rewrite a page you love, or even put it in a different font so the material will look differently to you!
6. You’re a vegetarian leaning toward vegan. What are some of your favorite home-cooked vegan meals? What does your son like?
My son, alas, is a vegetarian who does not like vegetables. We’ve told him he can eat meat or fish but he does’t like that either. He eats carrots, arugula and he loves the fake veggie meats! He is ridiculously healthy though, and has not missed a day of school–not since preschool! I try to puree veggies in the tomato sauce for pasta and in black bean soup!
He does, however, adore Ethiopian food, which has been impossible for me to recreate at home. I love to make soups–I puree everything into black bean soup–butternut squash, tomatoes, lots of garlic, hot peppers.
7. What advice would you give to mothers who want to get back into writing, or write more regularly?
When Max was born, I had his bassinet by my desk. I’d write two hours and then he’d wake and I’d play with him for a few hours, then he’d go back to sleep and I’d write again. You can find the time–even an hour. Even a half hour every day. Motherhood to me, made me more creative. (I was worried it would make me less.) I honestly think because of being a mother, my work has taken on a new dimension (or maybe that is wishful thinking!).
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Hey, mamacitas. Enjoy Kate Hanley’s 6 tips on how to enjoy and not stagger through the holidays with family…and leave a comment below with your best tip, for a chance to win Kate’s book, The Anywhere, Anytime Chill Guide. You can also stay in touch with Kate at her website, www.msmindbody.com.
Six Ways to Stress Less At Holiday Family Gatherings
by Kate Hanley, author of The Anywhere, Anytime Chill Guide
One of the hallmarks of the holidays is eating at least one meal with as many family members as you can assemble in one room. Even though they’re designed to be celebrations, these family gatherings are often a lot more stressful than they are festive. I’ve got a liberal brother-in-law who loves to talk politics—loudly—with his most conservative sibling. And my beloved 90-year-old grandmother just can’t seem to help herself from commenting on my hair or my outfit; even after almost 40 years the smallest slight from her can still set my teeth on edge. That’s the thing about family—the emotions involved are so strong and so deep that the people we know and love the best also push our buttons the most.
Since I started practicing yoga and mindfulness nearly 15 years ago, I’ve been paying more attention to what happens at my family events, to see if I can apply some of the tools I’ve been learning in my practice to my family interactions. Because I love my family. I don’t get to see them enough. And I inevitably feel guilty about getting so wrapped up in my own reactions to the quirks in our family dynamic that I miss the opportunity to enjoy—or even be fully present at—the party.
Here’s what I’ve figured out: I can’t change anyone’s behavior. My brother-in-law will always talk politics at full volume, my grandmother will always care about my appearance and point out anything that’s not up to her high standards. But I can change the way I react when my buttons get pushed. It doesn’t mean I spend the entire time giddy and happy and carefree, but it does mean I’m more tolerant of my loved ones and of myself when I do find myself wanting to roll my eyes, or to push away any of my own emotional discomfort by eating or drinking too much.
Below are some of the self-care techniques I use to stay a little more grounded and a little more open to the wonderful chaos that only a family gathering can produce. Some you can do before you go, some you can use when you’re sitting at the table (without raising any eyebrows). May they help you make this holiday season feel a little less chaotic, and a little more charmed.
1. Get grounded. Every major mind-body tradition considers the earth to be a source of strength, support, and energy. When you’re sitting at the dining room table and the wheels are turning in your mind, bring your focus back in to your body and help steady yourself by bringing the soles of both feet flat to the floor.
2. Stand by your mantra. Before you head to the gathering, decide which family quirks you’re dreading the most. Then resolve to repeat a calming mantra whenever your stress trigger happens. Your mantra can be any word or short phrase that’s meaningful to you, whether it’s something formal, like ‘Om’ or ‘Amen,’ or something simple such ‘peace’ or ‘bless his heart.’ Whatever mantra you choose, taking a few moments to repeat it silently before you react to whatever is pushing your buttons gives you a chance to collect your thoughts—making you less likely to over-react.
3. Accentuate the positive. Before you leave for the event, take a few moments to name the parts of the day you’re looking forward to—such as eating your Mom’s apple pie, seeing your favorite cousin, or playing with your niece. Then if anything happens to spike your stress levels, make it a point to focus on the things you like. Changing your focus from something upsetting to something enjoyable can snap you out of a downward spiral in mood.
4. Practice the art of letting go. There are acupressure points known as Letting Go in your upper chest, and stimulating them facilitates the release of troublesome emotions, deepens breathing, and promotes relaxation. You can do it in your car before you go inside or even in the bathroom if you need help during the festivities. To find the Letting Go points, feel the tips of your collarbones on either side of the notch of your throat. Walk your fingers out to where the collarbones end—the Letting Go points are located three finger widths below that end point. Now that you know where the points are, press two or three fingertips in to them (it may be more comfortable to cross your arms over your chest) and breathe naturally as you do for a minute or so. You don’t need to go for the burn—think steady but gentle pressure.
5. Remember your heart. Whenever you need help staying tolerant, take a moment to lay one hand over your heart. This simple gesture reminds you that you do indeed have a heart and helps you react with love instead of frustration. If anyone in your family catches you doing it and looks at you funny, just tell them you have heartburn.
6. Blow off steam. If you ever feel yourself coming close to saying something you’ll regret, de-stress with an exercise derived from yoga’s lion pose. Head in to the bathroom, and sit up tall on the toilet (hey, whatever it takes, right?). Clench your fists, squeeze your eyes shut, and tighten all the muscles in your face, then open your eyes and mouth wide, splay your fingers, and stick out your tongue and exhale with a loud whisper noise. It drains tension out of the body and expels anger, and helps you express what you want to get off your chest without actually hurting anyone’s feelings.
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Giveaway!
My Mama’s Love: Celebrate Green Gift Set
What better way to introduce a mom to green-living and natural baby care, than to give the gift of My Mama’s Love’s Celebrate Green Gift Set? It includes amazing, healing tools for a new (or seasoned) mom or dad-all into one kit.
The gift set includes:
Celebrate Green Book:
Great ideas for celebrating eco-savvy holidays. Written by two awe-inspiring, amazing eco-friendly mamas: Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell Lipson
Kiss My Boo Boo:
An all-natural alternative to Neosporin – in a twist-up, roll-on tube.
Lullaby Love-4 ounce :
For infant, toddler, or adult massage. Aids in relaxation, naturally.
Complete Skin Ailment Curative-1.70 ounce :
Our wonder rash, eczema, diaper rash, cure-all cream.
Burn-Out-1.70 ounce :
Because the second most common accident for children is a burn. Mommies and daddies will be happy to have it, too.
Bug Off Me :
Because bugs can be effectively repelled without any chemicals, and we’ll prove it!
Mama Nose Best:
We call it Vicks without the ICK. An all-natural decongestant.
Hyland’s Colic Tablets
Here’s how you enter to win:
Like My Mama’s Love’s Facebook page…
and leave a comment below letting me know that you did.
Thanks!
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“Kimochis, Toys with Feelings Inside,” Giveaway!
We’re giving away
1 Cat and 1 Mixed Feelings Pack
AND
1 Cloud and 1 Mixed Feelings Pack
Kimochis…Toys with Feelings Inside® are unique, fun, educational plush characters that help facilitate positive communication between children and their parents, caregivers, and peers and help cultivate social and emotional learning.
Feelings can be messy, especially during the holidays, and Kimochis™ can help kids and parents cope and handle their feelings! Using Kimochis™ is a playful, safe, and effective way for children (and adults!) to learn how to identify and communicate feelings in positive ways. When kids can communicate their feelings, they gain confidence and self-esteem, and they stay connected—even during emotional moments.
For younger kids, Kimochis™ help teach how to identify feelings. For older kids, they help teach positive ways of expressing their feelings and communicating with parents, friends and family.
My children LOVE their Kimochis. My 9-year-old daughter has Cat and Cloud, and my 6-year-old son has Bug and Huggtopus. I first became aware of Kimochis when my son was 3; he was having a lot of trouble with big, overwhelming feelings, and I was confronted with my own powerlessness when I tried to help. Learning to identify feelings, to choose them, and to be reminded of their fleeting nature, helped Nathaniel SO much.He loves his “Buggy” and sleeps with him every night. We’ve come a long way since then.
Mom confession: I have learned along with the kids. Nobody taught me how to navigate my feelings when I was a kid–they only told me to “Cheer up” or “don’t make such a big deal out of …” or “shake it off.” I was also punished for having the feelings that I had, and intimidated into disowning them, which (hello!) reliably leads to confusion, depression, and overwhelm. Giving my kids the gift of validation and acceptance has helped them to weather the emotional storms of childhood.
To enter this giveaway, please like the Kimochis facebook page, and leave a comment below with your preference: Cloud or Cat prize pack. I also welcome tips on how you help your kids to navigate their experience of strong feelings.
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