EFT-Does it Work?

Ok I’m going to try this on myself for 30 days. Tune in to see the progress. My goals are to lose weight and enhance my mood. Today is the beginning.

Fresh Air Fund Experience

Our Fresh Air child arrived on a hot summer afternoon. As the host families waited with signs, balloons, nervous chatter and laughter dotted the suburban mall parking lot. Families called one by one and greeted the children as they exited the bus. Everyone wished everyone good luck and greetings “have a good time” abounded. The sense of community was evident and could warm a heart. It is this warmth that I hope to remember even in the dead of winters to come.

We’ve been together one and a half days. It is delightful to get to know this girl. Watching my daughter get to know her, this young girl feeling her way around our family, is a little piece of heaven. How brave these young girls are! Our fresh air girl and my daughter! They don’t know it yet but this experience for whatever the outcome is etched  in their lives for ever.

My grandfather who was born in 1900 and emigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1904 was a Fresh Air child. Yes, I remember the story about him trying to learn to swim and being in a canoe but little else do I remember of the story. Except that my grandfather always sought to improve himself. He had a first edition of Dale Carnegie’s book Public Speaking and Influencing Men In Business on self-improvement. He was an articulate man who always did the best for his family. He was a community man being a Big Brother when he was in his late teens and early 20′s and as an adult a member of the Knights of Columbus-Forth Degree Knight. Was it this experience as a Fresh Air Child that made him so community minded?

As an early teen, I was a head start volunteer for three summers. It was my grandfather who drove me to this program each summer. In his quiet way, I knew he was proud and supportive of what I did. Was it his story, that prompted me to do this? Was it his stories that always kept me on a path to self-improvement, community service, being more?

My grandfather was a produce store manager when he was seriously shot during a hold up and robbery. I was the age of my daughter and fresh air child when this happened. It was 1965.

Miraculously my grandfather survived. That summer as he convalesced, I sat with him every summer evening. He was never bitter or revengeful. He forgave the young man who shot him who by the way was never found. It may have been part of something larger as a number of store managers were shot during the months to follow. One in the driveway of his home. The last contact my mother had with the detective was that my grandfather’s shooting may have been mistaken identity as the manager killed lived in the same community as my grandfather.

The priest in the parish where my grandfather donated goods from his store on a regular basis said “the devil was at work” on the evening my grandfather was shot. As a 10-year-old, comprehending the devil does indeed exist was impressionable. My grandfather’s healing and the way he lived his remaining life was also impressionable. It has shaped my being also.

Today as I host this child, I think of him, his life, my being and how this will trickle down into generations and the universe.

As I said, so far I’ve experienced a little piece (peace) of heaven. Thanks Gramps. Amen

IVF-Mothering and Avatar.

Science is amazing. We had our miracle child in 2000. Fitting for the beginning of a new century.

Yesterday we saw Avatar. The scene of the Avatar embroyos made me think about the child, our child sitting next to us. She was a “test tube baby”. Our little Avatar? Well she wasn’t part of the indegenous tribe of Pandora but she was a creation of science. She was not conceived to understand nor infiltrate the human race for our purposes. But she was conceived so our family grow and live on.

While not conceived in the same natural way, she is human. She is connected to all of humankind. Just as the tree of souls she possesses the hopes, instincts of humankind. She is a kindly child. Filled with wonder and deep sensitivities. Does her psyche hold different conceptual memories? Does she connect with the world and nature differently? Will these manifest in her life?

These are questions which will perhaps have answers far into the future. In the meantime, we parent her and love her and cultivate her interests and deep longings. My hope is that she has the fortitude and instincts portrayed by the Avatar. We see her.

Day 2-Better Mothering

OK! We are off to a full week of school.

My daughter got up and ready today fairly well. I kept my anxiety in check.  Yes, I did call the neighbor regarding my daughter singing on the bus. Hopefully, this is just kids being kids. BUT I HANDLED IT! I am not hiding.

I’m modeling behavior. That is how I’ll be a better mother. Not by talking but doing better with day-to-day stuff.

One thing not great so far is that I cancelled going to a book club tonight. I 10 10ed my decision and checked my acoustic energy vibrations, and came up with let this anxiety go. I’m new to this club and do feel like a fish out of water here. I’m working two nights this week and need  more structure with our family evening schedule. Am I rationalizing? Perhaps!

Let’s see where my day progresses!

So long for now.

Day 1-Road to better Mothering

So  here I am with a great idea! Blog about mothering every day for a year to see where I get. The hope is that I will have some insight and feel better in general.

I begin to feel passion about doing this and gather my new mini laptop for the project. But my password does not go through on WordPress. Following the steps to get a new password, I check email. There is an invitation to the school’s PTA open house. I respond and review to see who is also attending and that is when my stomach sinks.

Two moms from my neighborhood are going. I’ve never seen them at meetings before. One of the mothers called me on Friday to tell me that my child sang a song with “bad” words to her child and another child.

Are they going to complain about my daughter at the PTA meeting? The worry begins. I pack up the laptop and walk away from my project feeling rejected, worried already. Good feeling gone….bad feeling taking over.

Two hours later, I have not abandoned my project. I’m taking on this project to feel better about incidents described above. My goal is to NOT let my self  COWER AWAY.

My plan is to call both moms tomorrow. I’m going to suggest a little good neighbor meeting with the kids. No talk about bad words, just a cookie or two and learn about each other since they will be on the bus for a long time.

Wish me luck with following through!!!!

365 Days to Better Mothering

Today I’m beginning a new adventure. Perhaps I will be writing this into oblivion. Yet, that no longer matters. What matters is that I’m taking on a project to help me feel better as a mother.

I don’t know where I will be at the end of this adventure. More improved, more confident is the mission and yet I know I may be in exactly the same place as I am today.

That place is feeling isolated and estranged from feeling good as a mother! There I’ve said it.

The truth is I’m worried. I worry about everything. It is my nature, our family’s nature. I call it the worry gene.

I worry that my daughter does not have enough friends. I worry that we are older parents. Worry about my aging parents. The list is endless. I know worry is a useless feeling and it stops one from taking action to improve situations.

So back to my original idea of being a better mother…..By blogging, I hope to put my worries into action and improve my and our family’s well being.

I’m inviting you on this journey with me. Why? Because I don’t think I’m alone with these worries. So I invite you to share your thoughts, ideas and inspirations.

So here is to all worried MOMS….365 days to get better!

Love to all,

JF.

Help my AARP card arrived and my daughter is graduating from Nursery School!

“Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life” Mary Oliver

 

Sometimes I struggle with being an older mom and sometimes I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mom. It took me forever to become one. Yet, today I feel restless.

 

The AARP return address was a clue this would be an interesting day. I grabbed the mail quickly as I drove to pick up my daughter at nursery school. This will be the last time I will be picking her up from nursery school as tomorrow is her graduation.

 

It is the first of her many future milestones. I’m feeling somewhat sentimental about the year. I am acutely aware of every change and growth. It is all so fleeting. Six months in a 3 year old’s life heralds changes beyond comprehension.

 

I am so aware of time.

 

As I wait in the parking lot for dismissal I look through the mail. The AARP is the last opened. Inside I find the card for the right of passage. The beginning of Senior discounts. It is my AARP card. That means one thing, I am turning 50. And yes, I am picking up my 3 year old.

 

I hate to admit it but the first thing I feel is shame. I should feel pretty darn good that I can keep up fairly well with a young child but deep inside I’m frightened of being old.  I want to crawl into a cave and lick my wounds, share age stories with my friends, commiserate about it all and then get on with living again. Instead I feel alone and like hiding.

 

The accompanying AARP magazine spills with articles about people starting new adventures at 50. Life long dreams beckon them to higher senses of themselves; buying the house boat, going cross country or giving up the corporate world to join the peace corp. All of these people raised their families and have now plunged into another exciting aspect of life. The age “thing” is just a thing. It does not feel like a thing to me.

 

These AARP people are excited and free. I’m feeling envious and a longing for something stirs discomfort within me.  I remember feeling that freedom. Embarking on a new career in my 30s, or traveling to Ashville North Carolina to attend a Women Who Run With the Wolves retreat were just a few of the times I felt on top of the world. It was during this retreat that I was introduced to the work of Mary Oliver. I relished her poetry and love of nature. I never looked at a grasshopper in the same way after reading Mary Oliver’s work. I remember feeling energized, free and powerful in making my life work.

 

Today my excitement is quite different and feels as if it has little to do with me in actuality. My days of joy comes from watching my daughter, a miracle, grow every day. It is her growth, as only the rapid growth of a child can make one face the importance of a moment. She has given me the gift of living in the present moment.  Instead of the excitement, I notice the passage of time acutely. I am filled with sentimentality as I remember all of the firsts. A melancholy feeling emerges when I pass the playground we frequented when she was 2or hear the music from the show we watched together Jay Jay and the Jet Planes.

 

A world so many women experienced as I traveled to Kanuga to run with the wolves. I do not know how to blend my lives. The way I’ve lived my life is opposite from my peers.

 

I find myself standing on tip toes peering over the fence at these AARP people’s lives remembering. Ah, and yet I remember peering over this same fence at other women raising their families and longing.

 

How many times did friends or peers long for the quietness and freedom of my life without children? I did what these AARP are doing at 50. I jumped into the deep end and dove for my dream. And that dream was becoming a parent.

 

My restlessness does not come from envy but from missing out on telling my story. I’m happy to be an AARP person with a 3 year old. She is better than a house boat, at least most days.

 

And so with my one wild and precious life and God’s help, I became a mother.

 

Nicole at 41 has a girl-will she feel old?

Another older mother in celebrity land! Will she glamorize being an older mother or make it real? That is my question to be explored for the rest of my life.

I’m tired of saying it, focusing on it and yet I can’t help but wonder what it is really like for others who became mothers at an older age. It feels like the 50′s era when everyone thought that being like Donna Reed was the norm. Women who did not feel or act like Donna, ran screaming to the hills because they were doing something wrong. Are there any women out there who are ready to speak about the real deal in being an older mother?

A New Beginning « Boomer with a baby!

A New Beginning « Boomer with a baby!
« Hello world!A New Beginning
Hi Everyone,
This is a new beginning for me and one I hope many readers will enjoy. I am a mother of “a certain age”. Yes, by “certain age” I mean older!
I am thrilled by this challenging role and yet feel as if I have each leg in different world. I watch Marianne Williamson telling us to embrace middle age and I’m trying but yet it is difficult when I’m surrounded daily by other moms who are 30ish, 40ish!
So I set forth on these pages my experiences. Some funny, some poignant and some just plain old struggles.
I’ll welcome comments and will share all I know and have experienced being an older mom. Be on the look out for “Help my AARP card arrived and my daugher is graduating Nursery School”